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Theology for Healing the Nation
- Tikkun
- Duke University Press
- Volume 23, Number 2, March/April 2008
- pp. 44-45
- Article
- Additional Information
44 T I K K U N W W W. T I K K U N . O R G M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 8 AP PHOTO/JOHN BAZEMORE A strangethinghappenedto mewhen,onthefirstevening oftheNewBaptistCovenant meetinginAtlanta(seebox), The Greater Travelers Rest Baptist Church choir sang. I buried my headinmyhands,andsatthereweeping. Why? That choir had transported me back into Canaan Baptist Church of Christ on 116th Street in Harlem. My family and I joined Canaan the year I was on sabbatical leave at Union Theological Seminary. Something deep happened to me at Canaan, and I am still trying to understand it. Canaan was celebrating the thirty-fifth year of the ministry of its very thoughtful pastor, Wyatt Tee Walker. The church’s threechoirswerefantastic,Theyconnected us with something very deep. We were the only white family among 2,000 members. When Pastor Walker welcomed our new-members’ class into church membership one Sunday morning,hepointedtomyfamily,andsaid:“TheStassensmaylooklikesomefolkswhohave not treated you right. But they may be a little different from those folks. And in any case, the Stassens are now our members. You treat them like our members!” And the members of Canaandid.TheirwarmwelcomeeachSundaywasafardeeperexperiencethanthesewords cansay.SomekindofhealinghappenedformethatIamstilltryingtounderstand. It’snotlikeIwassomekindofsegregationistfinallygettingreconciledwithblackbrothers andsisters.Iwasdeeplyengagedinthecivilrightsmovement,andantiracistteachingsince. My father, sister, and I were part of the March on Washington where we witnessed Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech; I was not raised in a racist family. Maybe you wouldnotthinkIneededsuchhealingfromablackchurchfamily.Butsomethingdeephappened .Why? Theology for Healing the Nation by Glen Stassen Rethinking Religion Rev. Cal H.P. Merrell of Atlanta, reacts during a sermon during the last session of the New Baptist Covenant Meeting in Atlanta Friday, Feb. 1, 2008. 7.Religion_5.qxd:Politics rev. 2/10/08 3:54 PM Page 44 It wasn’t only about race. When the Canaan choir sang, they made contactwithsuffering ,andalsowithrejoicing.Theyreachedsomekindsofsuffering that are buried deep in me, and they brought me to reconciliation andthentorejoicing.OnEasterSundaythechoirwasabsolutelyphenomenal ; it was the best Easter worship I have ever experienced. My soul was touched,itwasdeeplymoved,anditwasresurrected,rejoicing.Iknowwhy that woman at the New Baptist Covenant meeting was crying out, “Hallelujah ” when the choir sang. I was too, silently. There are depths of unreconcileddisconnectioninmanyofusthatarenotallaboutrace —mostofus haveourowninnerwounds,shames,oralienations;toexperiencehospitality ,welcome,acceptance,andembracethattouchanethnicdivideinuscan alsobringanexperienceofhealingforotherunreconcileddisconnections. I believe many white Americans, consciously or unconsciously, feel a senseofshamewhenwethinkofourselvesaspartofanationthathasahistory of slavery, segregation, and discrimination. Many of us aren’t aware of it, but for too many, this shame partly blocks us from making the kind of openconnectionswithotherpeoplethatweneed.Ibelievethatmuchofthe religious right consists of people who have some hidden shame that they displace by insisting on an authoritarian righteousness. Once it was not smoking, not drinking, and not doing wrong sex. Now it is condemning abortion and homosexual sex. The leaders of the religious right opposed the Civil Rights movement, and many opposed a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday due to the self-righteous authoritarianism that has displaced their hiddenshame. This nation has deeply needed a leader who would reach out and say: “Thestruggleforcivilrightswashardformany.Itbroughtforthresistance, anger, shame, and resentment in some whites, and experience of pain and hope,mixedwithdisappointmentforsomeblacks.Butnowwerealizethat our nation would be in much greater trouble if we had not had the nonviolent accomplishments of that movement. Let us reach out to one another and give each other many warm welcomes, as we join together as a new, morereconciledfamily.” John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. could have led us in that healing, but they were all assassinated. Lyndon Johnson was disempoweredbytheVietnamWar.Tragically,wehavebeendeprivedofthe redemptive leader we have needed. Canaan Baptist Church of Christ, its pastor and choirs, its members who regularly saved a seat for us, and their warm welcome, brought about that healing for me. Maybe I am only projecting my own needs on others, but I think our nation deeply needs healing from our past shame and our presentpolarization. In Atlanta, I shared some of these thoughts with the Theological Education Steering Committee of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), and it immediately caught resonance . We decided that our next AAR annual meeting of 10,000 academics will have a session on “A Theology for Healing a Polarized Nation.” We will invite Cornel West, Michael Lerner,amongothers,toleadusinthinkingdeeplyaboutthekindofpublicrhetoricweneed...