Have you ever attended a Black Baptist church in rural Alabama for Resurrection Sunday (Easter) before? Since I was a little boy, my mother and I would travel from the Birmingham suburbia and go “back home,” where my grandparents live, joining relatives at a little country church for Resurrection Sunday. Home sits along Alabama’s Black […]
I’ve been wrestling with something that I wish I would have done better a few years ago. I was in a season where I was trying to find a church after suffering through racial trauma and spiritual abuse in a white evangelical church. The problem is that I was searching for a new church without […]
EPISODE DESCRIPTION: The stories continue…After Jemar Tisby and Tyler Burns shared powerful episodes of their #LeaveLOUD experiences, it’s time to hear from our very own Ally Henny. How is the Black Christian experience different in rural settings? Are multiethnic churches truly safe spaces for Black women? What happens when Black women #LeaveLoud? Ally had to […]
“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…” Isaiah 53:4 For the second straight year, my Holy Week began with driving by church to pick up our palms for Palm Sunday and receiving communion that was pre-packaged and pre-blessed. We will, Lord willing, get to worship in our church building on Easter (socially […]
In her national bestseller Salvation: Black People and Love, author bell hooks says, “We can not effectively resist domination if our efforts to create meaningful, lasting personal and social change are not grounded in a love ethic.” Effectively resist domination… not grounded in a love ethic. When I read these words, I stumbled, seeing the […]
Black women and Black girls are not valued in American society. Our voices are marginalized. We are often invisible. Even as we make strides in the political arena and fight for democracy, our contributions threaten to go unseen. When injustice threatens the Black community as a whole, the injustice committed against Black women is often […]
You learn a lot by feeding a child. They are creatures of habit with sensitive yet non-discriminatory palates. Yesterday’s breakfast is easily today’s breakfast . . . and lunch . . . and dinner—if the temperature is right. A young child has little control over what they are fed. Even more true is that a […]
The stories continue…After Jemar Tisby and Tyler Burns shared powerful episodes of their #LeaveLOUD experiences, it’s time to hear from our very own Ally Henny. How is the Black Christian experience different in rural settings? Are multiethnic churches truly safe spaces for Black women? What happens when Black women #LeaveLoud? Ally had to courageously confront […]
I know that Tessica’s story is fading from the headlines and that there isn’t as much discussion about her as there was a month ago, but the story of how Black women are treated in society isn’t new. The inability to treat warmly, show regard for, or show tenderness to the very Black women who […]
The division caused by racism in American Christianity reminds me of the plot of the novel Lord of the Flies. The story goes like this (spoiler alert – seriously, you’ve had 67 years): Marooned on an island without adult guidance, a group of prim and proper British boys turns nearly-feral. They create a tribalistic civilization […]
Another one…After Jemar Tisby’s courageous #LeaveLOUD story last week, Tyler Burns is up next to share his own journey. How do you overcome years of Christian Education that makes you question your Black identity? What can our lives look like when we embrace a vision for what it means to be Christ-following and Black-centered? For […]
Editor’s Note: We sometimes receive submissions from our audience that are unique, creative, or are otherwise “out of the box” for The Witness BCC blog. From time to time, we hope to bring you some of these submissions. In 2016, author Kisha Mitchell asked, “Brown girl, Brown girl, what do you see?” In 2017, poet […]
Imagine beating a brown-skinned man beyond recognition, hanging the mutilated body from a tree on a Saturday, and then going to church on Sunday to worship Jesus Christ–a man who the Bible says had skin like bronze, was beaten beyond recognition, and then hung from a tree. Lynchings in America were often (and still) conducted […]
Whew! Listen, family…this is the one. 10 years ago, Jemar Tisby founded this organization with the hope of achieving racial reconciliation in white evangelical spaces. Eventually, after a barrage of attacks, smears, and racial trauma, the organization changed its name, and Jemar left the place that he thought was his home. What happened? What changed? […]
I’m a daughter of Virginia. Most of my ancestors migrated to Virginia from the Carolinas during the late 1800s and early 1900s to escape what they referred to as “country life,” which entailed sharecropping. In other words: economic slavery. They came to port cities like Norfolk to seek a better life than what they had. […]
We’re back with another episode! Tyler has a conversation with Witness BCC Vice President and Coming The Roots podcast host Ally Henny about their shared Pentecostal roots. What can we learn from our spiritual heritage? What may be missing underneath the surface that others cannot see? How can we use what we have experienced to […]
God of Sorrows, We cry holy for a God who is moved to tears when met with the conditions of this world. We are grateful that You are not a God who drags us out of our pain before we are ready— one who is not threatened by our tears but beholds them as holy. […]
I wish I had taken the chance to learn more about my parents’ parents. In many ways, they shaped the woman that I am today. Growing up, I didn’t appreciate the moments I got to have with my grandmother and grandfather. After losing my grandfather, I wish that I had not taken those moments for […]
God of the Desert, We are grateful that You are a God who does not lead us into a wilderness that you yourself have not met. That we belong to a God who knows what it means to be without is not lost on us. We confess that our patterns of consumption are marked by […]
“I knew who I was this morning, but I’ve changed a few times since then.” Alice, “Through the Looking Glass” Amidst the sound of ice falling as it hit my window sill and the chilly breeze from a not-so-sealed front door, I took a sip of my once piping hot coffee, which had reached room […]
