Opinion: Confessions of a white anti-racist
by Sarah ShirkPrint Article Email to a Friend
I arrived at Pittsburgh 2011 (July 4-9) at the beginning of the week of convention, eager to take it all in. I couldn’t wait to run into old friends in the hallway, participate in thought-provoking seminars, and, close to the top of the list, add my voice to the community of voices as we sang familiar hymns.
I even announced (pre-emptively) in my Facebook status that “nothing says happy 4th [of July] like thousands of peace church members singing their theology together in four part harmony!”
However, when I arrived in the hall for the opening worship service on July 4, I was surprised to discover that hymns did not form the backbone of the singing. As the week progressed, it appeared that in fact hymns would take a backseat in the adult worship services for the duration.
I was disappointed, a little confused, and thrown off-balance. I didn’t know the songs the worship band led. I missed the hymns I had grown up singing and come to love.
Wasn’t this the Mennonite convention, after all? Weren’t hymns and four part harmony our bread and butter? I heard a similar sentiment echoed frequently throughout the week. Where had the hymns gone?
But one day during the adult worship, as the band from Calvary Community Church, Hampton, Va., led us in song, I noticed a middle-aged black woman standing a few rows ahead of me. She had her head tilted back, face raised, and was swaying and clapping along with the music.
I wondered how many conventions and how many church services she had previously sat through, feeling as I now did—disconnected and a bit out of my element. But today it was her turn to worship in a style familiar and nurturing to her. So this music is Mennonite music. The middle-aged woman, a Mennonite, sings and worships to music that feeds her.
It’s not familiar territory to me, but I do not have a monopoly on Mennonite culture. Being a multi-cultural church means, for white “ethnic” Mennonites, that sometimes we have to take a step back and be willing to hear and engage other expressions of worship. Sometimes the feeling of losing our balance is a gift that teaches us to walk more gently. And perhaps, after generations of hymns, one week of stepping outside our comfort zones in worship is not too much to ask.
Another moment of insight occurred during a seminar about a California Mennonite congregation embracing multiculturalism. A Latino brother from Virginia who pastors a Mennonite church there asked an important question—“Are we trying to make brothers and sisters in Christ, or are we trying to make traditional Mennonites?”
Are we big enough, do we trust God’s love and grace enough, to allow our corporate body to grow and embrace new traditions and styles of worship? Or do we make acceptance conditional, contingent upon adopting not simply Anabaptist theology but also Anglo culture?
The insidious thing about white privilege is that it’s so hard for white people to see. For me, this week, singing hymns all week long would have been a privilege. It was one that I expected to be granted. I assumed that my culture’s preference in worship styles would again be the norm. Had we sung hymns all week, I may not have even recognized it for the privilege it would have been.
But this week I was given another opportunity—the opportunity to see my own white privilege for what it was and learn more about what it feels like to be in less familiar territory.
Insight, as is so often the case, came gradually, and was aided by plenty of verbal processing with good friends. This is not to say that my understanding is now complete, only that I’m farther along on my journey as a white anti-racist than I was one week ago.
May the God of grace bless us as we continue to learn how to love each other.
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Thanks! My sentiments exactly. Wilma
To "be the church" as God's people of various cultures--worshiping, discerning God's Word, engaging side by side in transforming missional work--is truly a privilege of different kind. Thank you, Sarah, for your testimony.
I totally agree that this is a part of the multicultural church. However, I would have liked it to be some for us, some for them, some drumming and perhaps chanting from the First Peoples, more from the Latino community. In other words...more multicultural. I don't know what happened at the hymn sing because it was scheduled against the Peace and Justice dinner.
"...adopting not simply Anabaptist theology but also Anglo culture?"
Don't be silly, Sarah. The church's aggressive outreach initiatives over the past couple of decades have hardly been contingent upon new members and new congregations "adopting Anabaptist theology." Here in California, we have new congregations demanding that the church reject gay people, in direct contravention of the central Anabaptist principle of congregational polity.
To me, it all goes hand in hand. You don't walk into an Amish service and demand that they stop singing the way they sing, or that they start driving SUVs and watching satellite TV. You don't walk into a Catholic church and tell them to stop holding midnight mass or revering the saints. And you don't join the Mennonite church just to change the way we worship, change the way we sing, and ultimately transform us from a vital, unique peace church into just another bland vanilla-Christian nothingness.
If they want a pope, if they want mindless conservative thought, if they don't women to be pastors, if they don't want gay people in the church, if they want to send us all to the military...there are churches better suited to them. I would rather see the Mennonite church die off completely than see them take it over and twist it into something that our ancestors would be ashamed of.
I appreciate your comments Sarah. You rightly highlight the vulnerability inherent in being a welcoming church. May our vulnerability with one another provoke us to deeper charity and love.
Jono11 why don't you write a letter to the Executive Board and tell them if keep those immigrants and dark skinned people in line. That is what the Kingdom of God is about. It is about the why we want it, our traditions, and our heritage. How dare those unwashed heathens mess with our holy Mennonite traditions and music.
PhoenixRising, you seem to have something on the brain. Not only did I not mention anything about "immigrants and dark-skinned people," I didn't mention many issues that could even conceivably be tied solely to populations of color. I spoke about Anabaptist identity. I didn't even bring up German food. Look how sensitive I'm being, not bringing up German food, because I know how offensive and racist zweibach is.
So here's why I don't think what I said was racist: I don't think people of color are responsible for bland, shallow, guitar-based praise music. And I don't suspect many educated people think homophobia is an affliction that favors one demographic above another.
Perhaps it's time for you to ask yourself why everyone who wants to maintain the uniqueness of the Mennonite identity is automatically a racist. Cultural hegemony, Phoenix, is not when I express a desire for the preservation of the things which make my church worth being a part of. It's when I walk into your church and try to strip away what defines it and remake it in my own image. Now I don't think I'm the one doing that here.
Unless I am greatly misinformed, no one in this day and age has been forced to join the Mennonite Church. So what is it, precisely, that drives a person to join the church and then seek to demolish everything that made it unique in the first place?
Imagine what would happen if I, a white man, were to walk into, say, a Baptist church with a congregation comprised of predominantly black members. Let's imagine that, in this church, as is not uncommon in black Baptist churches, the congregation expresses its devotion in very emphatic, loud, emotional singing, as well as a somewhat interactive and conversational style of worship leading. I've been to such a church a handful of times, as you may have been, and if you have, I'm sure you'll agree it's a powerful thing to witness and be a part of. Now imagine that I, an outsider, not a part of the cultural context that created this worship style, not having been compelled to go to that church in any way, were to demand that they start worshipping differently, because as a Mennonite reared on a different kind of worship, it makes me uncomfortable, or doesn't "speak to me," or whatever the professionally religious crowd is saying these days. Do you think I'd get thrown out in a hurry? Of course I would. Because telling them to change their worship style for me would be unacceptable.
Now I can hear a response to this forming, and it is this: "You're white. You're not a minority. The situation is not the same." It's true, being a Mennonite isn't remotely the same minority experience as being black in America. But before you tell me I don't have any reason to want to preserve my culture and its theology, please remember that it was actually very recent when we were still getting assaulted in the streets for that theology. And that can still happen to people. I've seen it happen, and it's happened to me. The early Bush years weren't good ones for a brash, outspoken young pacifist.
I have no problem with a given congregation worshipping a certain way, or endorsing and espousing a given set of beliefs. That is fine. That's what congregational polity is all about, and I'm a congregational polity extremist. But stop forcing it on the rest of the church. That is what is unacceptable to me. We chose to preserve elements of this culture and theology for a reason. Please stop killing them off.
It used to be that when Anabaptists disagreed with the community on an issue, they left the community. That's what you did, if your disagreement was just too much to overcome. I don't think that's the way it has to be today. In 2011, within such a pluralistic society, there is no reason that any issue currently under discussion, even gay issues, should cause anyone to leave. But don't come to my house for my birthday party and eat my birthday cake and then tell me it's awful and demand that everyone eat a different kind of cake that you like better instead. Eat your birthday cake at your birthday party, and I'll have a slice with you. Try to force it on me at my birthday party, and we have a problem.
So whose house and whose party is convention?
Excellent reflection, Sarah.
@Jono11: Your comments reflect an ignorance regarding praise music: there are complex and compelling praise songs, and there are shallow and insipid praise songs, just as some 4-part hymns have great lyrics and harmonization and others are banal.
Your argument seems to be based on the assumption that traditional 4-part-singing helps to ensure the preservation of traditional Anabaptist values (pacifism, congregational polity), yet the history of the Mennonite church shows plenty of instances of authoritarian, centralized polity and straying from commitment to nonresistance/nonviolence, even as churches were faithfully singing four-part hymns. Furthermore, the majority of those four-part hymns have their origins in non-Mennonite churches, churches which don't share those Anabaptist values. So clearly signing four-part hymns doesn't magically preserve or protect specific theological commitments. To think that it would is to fail to grasp the fluid, constructed character of culture.
Great reflection Sarah, gets to the heart of what this convention was about for me too. Russ, your sentiments fit mine exactly, just who's house and who's party is the Mennonite convention? Jesus quoted Isaiah when clearing the temple, a climax of his prophetic ministry before the cross, the act that got them plotting to kill him (i.e. pay attention to this). He said, my house is to be a house of prayer for all nations. A very good read indeed! http://niv.scripturetext.com/isaiah/56.htm
The crazy thing Jono is that I thought the convention still had a bunch of hymns. I even went to the hymn sing. Just because every song was not 4-Part harmony it wasn't Mennonite? That is insane. Things change. I guess you should ride a horse to church like Menno Simons. Go back to Europe and give the Native Americans back their land. If you want to be a true Mennonite with all the history and tradition I guess you are on the wrong continent, right? Nothing is sacred but the kingdom of God. You aren't a racist. You are just small-minded and threatened by something that should bring you joy. Many people want to be Anabaptist Mennonites in spite of the cultural obstacles. I like some of the ethnic German traditions. They are fun and unique, but as part of this family I would hope you try some of my flavor to. I am not forcing you to eat my cake, but I hope you are open minded enough to try something different. The convention is for all Mennonites not just the ones with the cultural pedigree. You are right it would not be right for me to change your congregational style, but it is not right to say your stlyle speaks for the 7,000 people at convention. BTW they sing hymns at black churches too.
Well, Jono11, I agree. I'm really tired of white Mennonites decrying their "privilege" and insulting all of us with their bent-over backwards efforts to accommodate. But, it's okay. I, along with a lot of my generation, are gone, baby, gone. We only come on here to reminisce and have a good laugh or two. It ain't my daddy's Mennonite church anymore; in fact, I barely recognize it.
Phoenix - please reread Jono's post, because I think you totally misunderstood him.
It's hard to know which to be sadder about -- the loss of the hymn tradition at conventions, or the politically correct reality that has led us to a time where we glory in claiming to be "white antiracist." Actually, I don't. Some of the most hateful people within my experience as a lawyer for marginalized dissidents have been self-avowed "anti-racists," so I prefer to just be known as Christian. (I also happen to be white, but that is secondary, and please don't suggest that I can consider it secondary because I have never experienced persecution, ostracism and marginalization myself -- yes, I have, and it is not because of my skin color, it is simply because I have tried to function as a Christian in the legal profession). May I also suggest that the term "anti-racist" has been coined and urged on the Christian church by those who see "anti-semitic" bogeymen everywhere -- at least that is where I have seen the anti-racists spew the most hate, when they perceive anti-semitism, even among those who believe they are only being faithful Christians and/or social activists or historians. Forgive the slight digression, please.
Based on my experience as a long-time advocate for immigrants in the State of California, this business of culture is a bit trickier than what many of us educated in Mennonite colleges (I am one of them) have been led to believe. Culture is where faith -- or lack thereof -- puts on its work boots. And play clothes. Aspects of what we sometimes dismiss or disparage as "Anglo" culture may indeed have been formed and shaped by Christian values, teachings and principles -- and if you don't like that proposition, then at least allow for the possibility that "Mennonite" culture includes all kinds of nuances directly or indirectly attributable to Christian teaching. I for one am not ready to ready to dump either the baby or the bathwater, in exchange for sometimes superficial nods to the cultures of others less informed by my history and the faith that I claim to adhere to. This does not mean that I am not respectful and loving toward others and it does not mean that I am not critical of my own culture where it is warped or distorted or needs critique; every culture has those characteristics, too.
Mennonites, we cannot please everyone. The experience of Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference, once feted for its "multicultural" character but more recently troubled by lack of accountability and structure and identity, should be instructive to the whole church. Indeed, the church should embrace persons from all cultures, but I think it is quite OK that the center include not just Christ but those aspects of historic Mennonite culture that grow out of that relationship with Christ, and we should never let multiculturalism become a new false god.
Amen, Brother Bruce (a little private joke). You said it all and I couldn't have said it better.