The Carters and the Importance of Disrupting Old Narratives

From Christ and Pop Culture:

“Similarly, the Church must upend the narrative that Christianity is a “white man’s religion,” by including Christians of color in both our stories of the origins of Christianity and our current cultural framework. Christianity told as the tale of a blond haired, blue-eyed savior whose teachings were only developed by white Europeans leads to the dismissal of Christianity by men and women looking for a faith of their own. In the Church, its urban apologists spend time defending against claims that “Christianity is a white man’s religion.” Its Bible study leaders, pastors, Sunday school teachers look for the stories of faithful Christians, theologians, and Bible scholars because some cultural references do not translate, such as repeated references to being sent to Africa as one of God’s hardest callings.

Beyond the missiological consequences, this narrow view of Christian history and orthodoxy is simply inaccurate. Many of the places in the Bible are located in the present day Middle East, so our pictures of those characters should reflect their brown skin. We should speak about Philip the eunuch as one of the first missionaries to Ethiopia and Simon of Cyrene, as a biblical hero who takes up Jesus’ cross while others stood by. Seminaries must stop teaching Church history as if it jumps from the apostles in the New Testament to Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, with nothing significant in between.”

Read the full piece here.