When We Belong: Reclaiming Christianity on the Margins

By Rohadi Nagassar and Kaitlin Curtice

Calgary, Alberta, T3C 3W2, Canada

• Language: English
• Publisher: Herald Press
• Release date: Jun 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781513810379

Rohadi Nagassar

Rohadi Nagassar is a writer, entrepreneur, non-profit developer, and pastor. He lives on Treaty 7 Land in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He currently writes in the areas of anti-racist discipleship, diversity and inclusion, deconstruction, and decolonizing the church. He has previously contributed in the areas of church planting, missional thinking, and church revitalization. He is both a practitioner and thought leader, having planted two churches including an inner-city multiethnic expression called Cypher Church. You can find his articles on mission and decolonizing the church at Sojourners, V3, New Leaf Network, Mosaic Ministries, and more. His previous books include Soul Coats: Bible Themed Adult Coloring, Thrive. Ideas to Lead the Church in Post-Christendom, and #changethestory: A Short Resource on Dismantling Racism in the Church. Visit him at rohadi.com for more, including his podcast, "Faith in a Fresh Vibe.”

Book preview

Prologue

Lockdown. Social distancing. Anti-maskers. Antiracism. Some of the prominent words and phrases we learned as COVID-19 proliferated across the globe in 2020. Like churning seas that expose a lost shipwreck, the global pandemic has revealed hidden features in society too. Realities lying dormant for decades and even centuries. It reveals the skeletons of full-blown inequality rooted in the foundations of society. Features like inherited power and authority in cherished institutions. Economic systems based on land theft, slavery, and exploitation. Racialized hierarchies where white skin is right skin. Gender differences that operate under the commands of patriarchy. These power structures form the foundations of society, but as they become exposed, we discover a facade built on sand. The ground is shifting to reveal cultures and systems bent on constraining people on the margins from reaching their full potential. Do you feel it too?

We begin our journey here because it provides a rare moment in history when nearly every person on the globe can situate themselves on a similar playing field. We all faced varying degrees of loss as death entered our lives. Loss. Now there’s a word we’re too familiar with. We lost time together with friends and family. We lost a sense of security, and some lost their jobs. Some lost their health, and others lost someone they love. Throughout this unfolding chaos I kept repeating one specific phrase over and over as the days turned into months and then into years: It’s not supposed to be this way.

The world was falling apart in more ways than one. As the severity of COVID-19 quickly became apparent, adopting precautions and implementing widespread public health recommendations was inconsistent at best. Governments at all levels struggled to provide clear and effective communication on best practices. Although an initial lockdown happened early in March 2020, it didn’t last. Then widespread adoption of mask-wearing was slow to roll out, and was met with confusing mandates and coupled with defiant opposition. White supremacists, science deniers, and conspiracy theorists chucked severity aside and banded together to catalyze the exponential and unmitigated spread of the virus. The impact? The death toll attributed to COVID-19 before this book went to press: over 38,000 in Canada; 980,000 in the United States; 166,000 in the United Kingdom; 6.15 million worldwide and counting. (It was a sobering exercise to update these totals during every round of book edits.) These were never the effects of just another flu.

But the toll doesn’t stop there. We don’t know the lasting impact of pandemic life. Tallies of suicides, the deterioration of mental health, deaths resulting from inadequate care when hospitals overflowed, and permanent injuries suffered by Long-COVID survivors are currently unknown. It was also the least among us, including people who are poor or disabled, the elderly in care homes, and visible minorities, who took the brunt of the devastation. The term visible minority is often used in Canada to describe Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC). Although acronyms are imperfect, I will employ two throughout this book: BIPOC, as already described, and LGBTQIA (to include lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual people.)

Wherever you live, whatever your job, however much money you have, we all share some form of longing to be liberated from the pandemic. But that’s where the similarities end. We all long for liberation, but liberation is not available to all in the same way. The often quoted phrase We’re all in the same storm, but not in the same boat acknowledges that catastrophes magnify disparities. That’s why it bothers me to hear someone say, I can’t wait to return to normal. The old normal is broken and people on the margins of society have no interest in returning to it. The pandemic may have heightened awareness of systemic inequalities, but it turns out that where you’re from, what you do, and how much money you have matters a great deal.

Where you live determines access to healthcare. Your job dictates whether you can work from home, set your own hours to care for children, or rush out to get a vaccine at a moment’s notice. Your bank account determines how many jobs you need, whether you ride transit to get groceries, or if you have to continue working even when sick. The pandemic exposed more inequalities, pulling them into the light and leaving society at a crossroads. Do we contend with all that ain’t right? Or do we aimlessly return to pre-pandemic norms by burying all the exposed wounds for a little while longer?

June 2020 pulled our attention as reverberating calls for justice rose from the streets. The catalyst was three crushing words: I . . . can’t . . . breathe . . . The murder of George Floyd came on the heels of the similarly high-profile murders of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. Sadly, a much longer list of Black trans lives lost during the same time period never garnered national attention. In Canada, a tenth of the population of the United States, police killed six Indigenous people during the same time frame. A renewed movement sprang up. An emerging generation of voices, led by Black Lives Matter leaders across the globe, made initial demands: dismantle systems that perpetuate anti-Blackness and defund the police. As the reach and size of protests grew, the message sounded familiar. It’s a call that’s been echoing in the background of society for generations. The civil rights movement in the 1960s was the climactic event of the last century. In this one, new voices oppose the same entrenched systems of injustice and white supremacy. Social media, along with pent-up pandemic angst, mobilized Black voices, only this time joined by Indigenous, Latino, Asian, and a contingent of white people, demanding change. The lingering message is this: It doesn’t have to be this way.

This raises a necessary follow-up question: Where can we find liberation? This is where I situate this book. When We Belong describes new language and pathways that point to a more beautiful way for all people. It provides permission to voice all that ain’t right in the world while we embrace new rhythms for life worth living. This journey will take us from individual experiences to questioning cultural systems and church institutions that seek to make those on the margins less whole. Contained herein is a guide to locate a renewed way of being with new possibilities toward wholeness. Here, you will find a reclamation of a dream where the new normal employs a reorientation where the last shall be first, and the first last.

Part I

On Belonging

1

The Search

for Belonging

There’s a peculiar thing about belonging: we all need it but it’s just so hard to find.

Do you resonate with the struggle to find true belonging? As if only shreds of belonging are accessible, requiring secret passcodes or special fees for entry? Have you noticed that when you happen to acquire a taste of belonging, it dissipates into a mere temporary occasion of just fitting in? Is that enough to fill the emptiness? Or do we need deeper ways to belong despite a world designed to consistently exclude?

Rather than ensuring that belonging is available to all, our society is rooted in foundational barriers. Divisions that determine who’s in and who will be pushed to the margins. People like me, who aren’t white, understand that one of the primary divisions is race. Visible minorities share a deep connection generated from a common suffering and subjugation under the structures of white supremacy. We are reminded daily, and know the feeling in our bones, that finding true belonging will always be elusive.

Ironically, encountering barriers to belonging is a revelation of sorts that would otherwise go unnoticed. Previously disguised features in a world specifically built to marginalized select bodies become known as we encounter them. When we name these hidden pieces, the systems, the cultures, and the beliefs that seek to make us less whole, we begin to tear down the dividing wall. Naming divisions, questioning old ways, and embarking on new paths also has a name: deconstruction. In this way, deconstruction is a pathway unto liberation from all that ain’t right in the world. It’s a process of finding a more beautiful way to belong and live in the fullness of who we are made to be.

Where to find true belonging is the big question. It can feel too big at times and too daunting to even start. So let’s add some framework and bring it closer to home, or closer to faith as it were. You are most likely here because some aspect, or perhaps the whole, of your faith has impinged on your ability to grasp belonging and wholeness in full. In other words, Christianity has become an impediment to finding true belonging. That’s a bold claim, but I know some readers are nodding their head in immediate agreement. People pushed to the margins know. We don’t need an explanation to describe the harm and trouble we’ve encountered in the church, both within the institution and with the people. Just as we name features hidden in society preventing our full belonging, so we must do the same for the church.

What are the impediments?

Is it a particular denomination or church? Just a tradition or two? A particular theology? Or is it the whole thing?

For churches located in the West, and the traditions they come from, the answer is more pieces than we care to admit.

It’s difficult to lump all churches into a single monolith, although we often try when we use the term the church. It generally evokes a picture of the dominant variety. There are of course many different traditions, but the differences are only known to insiders. Therefore, to begin, when I refer to the church, I will maintain the norm. I’m thinking of a body that includes most of what we would consider mainstream Christianity. The major denominations like Roman Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Baptist, some Orthodox churches, traditions like evangelicalism, some Pentecostalism, and any others with European roots. Within this grouping there are enough similarities to warrant lumping them together. So, what do they have in common?

Church impediments

Churches create a finely tuned orchestration of belonging. Assimilation to dominant ways of being and thinking are an expectation. Are you familiar with the struggle? When I asked whether you’ve ever struggled with belonging, chances are you can pinpoint a situation or two, or three, or six hundred. It happens when our bodies and souls can no longer endure destructive messages and incongruent beliefs. For many, receiving blows to our convictions and personhood accumulates to the point that only one healthy choice remains—leave.

I get it. Some of us are just hanging on. I see you. In the midst of our experience one thing should remain consistent: we ought to trust what we feel in our body and spirit. As someone who’s grown up in and been shaped and formed by white evangelicalism, and who even went to seminary, I know there’s not a lot of life available without assimilation. This is not the way things ought to be.

When you don’t fit, you’re pushed to the margins. How does this happen? The primary separation between the margins and the center is the standard of whiteness. Marginalized bodies are dictated by the characteristics determined by the white heteronormative gaze. When you don’t adhere to the constantly shifting demands of whiteness you wind up steps behind. This is not because of a lack of effort or any decision of your own, but rather because one of those hidden obstructions to belonging is being unearthed. The primary structural and interpersonal intersections contributing to marginalization are race and gender. We will focus on race predominantly in this book, but there are other important divisions, including sexuality, disability, neurodiversity, ethnicity, class, nationality, and so on.

The idea that Christianity is an impediment to living out your whole being sounds like the opposite of what it should be. In theory the Christian faith is a grand narrative, from Genesis to Revelation, about God on a mission to bring the world into right relationship. It’s a dream designed to liberate us from all that ain’t right in the world. From all the despair of a pandemic, all the way down to how we belong to ourselves. It may be expressed through a community practicing radical hospitality, inclusivity, unity in diversity, justice, and the pursuit of wholeness in mind, body, and spirit. Sound good so far?

Sure, it’s hard to reflect every one of these attributes. After all, the church is full of people and we are a flawed bunch. I am, however, dismayed by how many churches define themselves by the barriers they preserve over the freedom they should announce. It is not a freedom tainted by the aspirations of Western individualism. Rather, it is a promised dream where we can live out our whole and authentic selves. Yet true belonging in churches seems out of reach even for the insiders.

That’s the other reason why you’re here. You’ve grown up in, or have otherwise been shaped and formed by, a particular way of believing and understanding the world. And then something went awry. Beliefs, ideas, opinions called into question as they became obstacles preventing full belonging and human flourishing. A version of faith that leaves a gnawing feeling that there’s more to life than what’s on the inside. What we lack to make sense of our search and move forward is the language to name the problem and ultimately locate a life-giving alternative.

Finding the right words

I remember a conversation with my friend Lis¹ on the subject of patriarchy in the Bible. She had recently read The Making of Biblical Womanhood by professor Beth Allison Barr. That book finally gave me the language to describe the problems with ‘biblical womanhood,’ that what I knew deep down inside wasn’t right, Lis said. When we lack the right vocabulary to name what we’re feeling, we often get stuck. Sometimes for a long time. Without the right words, we may struggle to identify why we feel at odds with ourselves. An unidentifiable piece of our being strikes a dissonant chord filled with wrong notes we can’t shake. If we ignore it, we stagnate, burying a voice within ourselves longing to be free. To fill in the blanks we need a renewed hope to confirm the nagging sensation—call it belief—that better is out there. If you wish, you can even call it promptings from the Spirit of God trying to set the captive part of you free.

New vocabulary helps imagine new ways of being and belonging. It offers form to shape a faith that exists beyond the baggage of institutions and their boundaries of belonging. This is not to say we throw away all history and tradition. But it does mean permission to conduct a deep introspection of core beliefs, including where they come from. Some of us need permission to do this work because we’ve learned that the wrong question can push us to the margins. But you may already know that. You are already questioning the ways you were formed to believe. You are asking why your brand of Christianity struggles with compassion, justice, radical inclusion, and the love for the other and the enemy. Why is preserving traditions or appointing gatekeepers to determine who is worthy enough to enter community a paramount concern? I’m with you. I don’t want this brand of Christianity either, because if the right version of Christianity is a religion built to associate with the powers of Western thought and empire, then the entire faith from cross, resurrection, and ultimate restoration lacks power and meaning. To quote pastor Mika Edmondson, "When society has its knee on your neck, you need a God who will deliver souls and bodies."² We need more than salvation for privileged souls disconnected from the plight of the world, a salvation that escapes this world for heaven in the clouds. No, we need a redemptive story for all of creation in the here and now.

Thankfully, this hope exists, and it specifically includes those on the margins. We have a unique and intimate connection with Jesus and his hope of good news now. I see this relationship emerge