Last year Alex and I wrote a letter thanking the church for recent efforts to address racial schisms, but also urging the church to understand that the problem we face isn’t just a matter of "cultural sensitivity" between people of different backgrounds. Instead, we wrote that we need to work on
“rooting out racism within our fellowship, which includes introspective work and uncomfortable conversations.”We were worried that our church's focus was solely on compassion and patience, and we weren’t addressing bigotry as sin.
That wasn’t the first time we raised our voices about this. We talked about the issue a few years ago, and that letter was a follow-up.
We didn’t hear back from the new letter, so months later we met with a trusted couple and expressed our concerns to them. We were worried that conditions in our fellowship were getting worse. The couple heard us out, and asked for patience. Later, in September I joined a spiritual committee created by the church to help with cultural and diversity issues in the church.
I share that to explain that my wife and I have been praying and talking about the harm that bigotry has caused in the church for a long time before writing this new letter. If you’re new to this conversation, we broke it into three parts:
When my wife and I raised the issue of bigotry in the church some people felt like it was just a matter of "cultural misunderstandings". However, other friends shared their own stories of navigating casual bigotry in the church for all of their spiritual lives.
In early 2020 the small Bible group my wife and I lead studied the book of Acts together. I was surprised to see that bigotry wasn't just a side issue in the first century church - it was the main sin that was holding back the gospel from spreading. Paul battled people in the world, Christians in the church, and even opposed Peter publicly for the sake of creating real unity amongst the body of believers.
We became inspired that not only did God's Word have the answers to our own hidden bigotry and the world's overt racism, but the church has heritage in being a model and voice for true unity. Dismantling racism and saving souls is what we do!
Sadly, our local church continued to treat bigotry as something “out there” that is troubling the unity we have “in here”. Last year We were taught that the real problem is that we're too focused on the news, and that it’s distracting us from God. Plus, we were told there's bad and good on both sides of every issue, and other people around the world have it worse than any of us in the United States. That diagnosis of the issue made it difficult to help my friends in our small Bible group work through their fear, pain, and grief. Or examine their own sin, and take it seriously in others.
Many of us believe that we’ve prioritized a superficial unity over speaking the truth in love. As Jeremiah 6 accuses:
They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.
Our local church generally believes these issues are recent misunderstandings that we need to patiently study and work through. However, we and some others have been raising the alarm that bigotry within the fellowship is a long standing sin that we need to urgently help our church repent from.
Because the diagnosis is off, Alex and I don’t believe the cure the church is currently working towards will create the loving family the Bible calls us to be.
And that is part of the reason why we no longer will participate in the local church, but will start fellowshipping on our own, and with anyone else who wants to create true unity.
Some in our church beleive that the pandemic isolated us and made it harder to collectively heal.
However, we have been trying to tell our friends that the pandemic and racial injustice protests didn't cause these issues. The protests dramatized our own bigotry problem, and made the need to address it more urgent. And the pandemic removed our crutch of tradition and religion that hid the hurt.
When the protests first started, our church urged members to have compassion on people who may be hurting and frustrated. Some of us again raised the issue that we have racism within the church, and the injustice we see on the news proves how pervasive it is everywhere in society. Sadly, when 2020 rang the bell, our church answered with a message of “don’t be distracted by the news”.
Alex and I are inspired by other churches in our national fellowship that confessed to not teaching against bigotry strong enough and doubled down on helping the most vulnerable in our community. For example, read the letter from the Baltimore Church of Christ where they confess to the having the same issues Alex and I see in our congregation. We hope that the new fellowship we're helping to form can model that humility and conviction and be a light to the world.
Our church’s ambivalence on bigotry has left a gap that the evil forces in the world are filling with false doctrine.
Some of us have noticed that brothers and sisters are welcoming false teachers into their heads and hearts. These “teachers” are introducing what 2 Peter 2 calls “destructive heresies”. Unfortunately, just like in the first century many have followed their “depraved conduct”. And sadly that has brought Jesus' way into disrepute, as the scripture says. We've seen these people twist scriptures to “promise them freedom while they themselves are slaves of depravity”.
Recently, I warned a brother who was posting multiple conspiracy theories on Facebook that he was throwing away his reputation. A sister told me her spouse in our church is deep into conspiracy theories. Another friend worries that brothers and sisters are retreating to private Facebook groups and alternative social media apps to discuss and amplify conspiracies amongst themselves.
I shared in the cultural unity group that I have fears that our church members are vulnerable to radicalization. That’s because conspiracy movements weaponize the deep concerns and passions of faithful Christians and then mix fact and fiction to fool us into pledging allegiance to a false cause.
A local newspaper wrote about a pastor in North Carolina who was alarmed by this creeping false doctrine and started preaching about it at his church. Christianity Today has also published features warning churches about the phrases, symbols, and false doctrine these conspiracy theories are based on. Our church is not immune from this threat, yet we haven’t been armed to fight it.
Peter’s letter did battle with the false teachers of his time, promising in 2 Peter that they will be paid back for the harm they have done. Paul also warned Christians in Colossians:
“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.”
The same Paul that commanded the church to bear with one another despite many cultural differences, told the believers to take a stand against false doctrine and deceptive philosophy.
That’s part of the reason my wife and I are making this decision - I believe we need to stand for Christ. Conspiracy theories have found a comfortable nesting home in our church. In our pursuit to be apolitical in our preaching, we've allowed lies to capture the hearts of some in the church. The world is mastering this brand of deceptive philosophy, and our collective congregation is unwilling to combat this danger.
Alex and I hope to fulfill Paul’s hope he expressed later in the Colossians letter:
“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.”
Alex and I wrote this letter to make it clear to our friends what we’ve seen for a long time, where it’s going, and why we can’t be part of it.
In our local church, if you harbor a casual bigotry and dabble in conspiracy theories we make a comfortable home for you. However, if you're being crushed by the corrupt systems of the world and experiencing a taste of that within the congregation, our best answer is to commit your plight to further study.
We believe that by unabashedly teaching and admonishing with the message of Christ we can achieve true unity and peace. The goal isn't cultural or political uniformity. The goal is to create a diverse family based on the common ground of the cross.
24 years ago I left atheism because the Bible showed me that Jesus is Lord and the ways of the world are bankrupt. Alex left the church she grew up in because the doctrine wasn’t sound and the church prioritized religion over collective repentance. We are grateful for the love and help of our friends in our current church, but we see that we’ve watered down Jesus' good news at a time when it needs to be more alive in our hearts and actions. Hopefully our convictions for starting over are consistent with our decisions to join our church in the first place.
We welcome all of our Christian friends to study these matters for themselves. Our hope is that together we can all learn to defeat old threats to the gospel that are dressed up in new names.
Anyone who would like to reach out please email me at hashimwarren@gmail.com.