When I was a kid, going to church on Sunday morning was a weekly routine for my family. In fact, I’m reasonably confident that you’d be hard-pressed to find a Black family for whom it wasn’t. Many of my peers and I share memories of waking up early, putting on our best clothes and getting in the car to go worship God and celebrate our present joy (or the joy that is to come). For a little more than a decade, my grandmother’s church in rural Oxford, North Carolina, was our preferred locale. As I got older, and my mother, sister and I moved to Durham after my parents’ divorce, we made the weekly pilgrimage to grandma’s church. Soon, that became a burden and we tried on several churches until my mother found the right fit. She eventually settled on World Overcomers in Durham, where I would come to distance myself from Christianity as a whole.
Generally, the church fascinated me, especially praise and worship. Mostly because a substantial piece of the congregation was over 60 years old. Many walked with canes or some other assistance, yet somehow found the strength to jump and dance when the spirit hit them. People were often moved to tears, and given to effusive, cathartic outbursts. That fascination turned to discomfort upon the start of the sermon. Pastor after pastor spoke of a loving God, the type of love that made people express themselves so powerfully; simultaneously, I learned that same God punished Eve and all women forever, flooded the world and destroyed cities that he deemed sinful. I was further unnerved by repudiation of the LGBT community, the treatment of women in the church, and the conflation of one's value with how much they accepted Jesus Christ. One is nothing without God. This dissonance barred me from feeling what other attendants were feeling. I wanted to jump. I wanted to dance. I wanted to cry; an undeserving recipient of an inscrutable love. And I wanted to love God, but I could not reconcile what I was being told about him (or her), with the contrary evidence I was presented from the Bible and the conduct of church folk.
Christianity and the Black experience are inextricably linked. The church has been a cornerstone of the Black American expierence for generations. It was invaluable in the quest for civil rights, and a place where Black people could find the inner strength to continue in the face of senseless violence and discrimination. I was always taught and shown that Black people are Christians. Period. As I distanced myself further and further from the church, I felt less connected to my own people. I was hesitant to talk about religion and God with my friends and family. I knew I would be shamed, possibly shunned. Not believing in the Christian notion of God, or any God at all, is often seen as something for white people.
We must take care not to put ourselves in a box. Admonishing people for not subscribing to our often narrow definitions of Blackness only serves to further divide us. Placing limits on the breadth of human beings does not allow us to be who we truly want to be. In a country that is becoming increasingly non-religious, it is vital that one does not immediately dismiss another for lacking the same belief system. Religion is only a small part of who we are. An understanding must be gained between pious Black people and those not so pious, so that we can all exist honestly, without fear of exile.