No, Megyn Kelly, Jesus and Santa Weren't White

by Rev. Laura Barclay

A few days ago, conservative talk show host Megyn Kelly claimed on her Fox News show that "For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white...just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean it has to change, you know, I mean, Jesus was a white man, too...that's a verifiable fact, I just want kids to know that."

This statement was in response to a Slate piece by Aisha Harris entitled, "Santa Should Not Be a White Man Anymore", wherein she notes her confusion between seeing a black Santa figurine in her home while white Santas were popularized elsewhere at the mall and her school. Because the real history of St. Nicholas is so far removed from his present iteration as Santa Claus, she argues that it would be easier and less culturally problematic to change him into a penguin. This avoids questions of race and culture and makes him accessible to all. While I see her point about wanting to avoid cultural problems, it might be a good idea to confront the underlying issue of racism in America rather than continue to ignore it.

On that note, I would like to confront the factually incorrect statements made by Kelly in response to Harris.

Image pulled from "Image Foundry Studios"

1) "Santa just is white." -- First, Santa isn't real. So, I'm assuming she's talking about the person upon which his legend is based, St. Nicolas.  According to The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, St. Nicholas was born in the fourth century and became the bishop of Myra. Myra is located in present day Turkey. Supposedly, he provided three different girls each with a sack of gold to serve as dowries and rescue them from a life of prostitution. Over time, the legend grew and meshed with Norse legends. Immigrants brought these legends to North America, and the modern Santa Claus was pretty much manufactured by Norman Rockwell, Coca Cola, and other manufacturers of goods that wanted to ramp up Christmas sales.

So what did the the ancient Turkish gift-giver look like? A composite, made from forensic anthropologists who reconstructed his skeleton from his crypt in Bari, Italy, shows that he looked very much like modern day Turkish men. I think we can agree that he doesn't look like a typical white American male, though that categorical racial box is very problematic and fraught with ambiguity. It might be more accurate to say that he would not experience the privileges of being a white male in American society.

2) "Jesus was a white man, too." -- Wrong again. Jesus was a Palestinian Jew in first century Nazareth. This was a poor village in the shadow of the large city of Sepphoris. He, his father and his brothers, while stylized as artistic carpenters in the Christmas story, are actually more akin to day laborers who would have walked miles everyday to find work and survive in the shadow of the powerful Roman rulers who controlled the land. When he grew up, he heard about numerous uprisings to throw off the Roman yoke and started speaking out against the political powers and the religious leaders who collaborated with them. Speaking out too much and being referred to as "The King of the Jews" caused him to be executed for sedition.

Image from the BBC Photo Library

The United States is arguably the Rome of the modern world. We are the most powerful nation on Earth. Jesus would not identify with the privilege of being an average United States citizen. He did not live in abundant opulence like we do, when 50% of the world lives on less than $2.50 a day (80% on less than $10 a day). If Jesus were an American, he would more likely identify as an undocumented immigrant or other poor, oppressed class, given his historical social standing and statement regarding wealth and poverty.

Regarding Jesus's appearance, he most certainly would be flagged for a security check and racially profiled by TSA. According to forensic anthropologists who examined countless remains from that time period to find the most likely image, he looked like a Middle-Eastern male of Arabic descent.

So, what should we do with this information? We should ask ourselves about the images we hold in our minds of important historical or cultural figures. Are they constructed based on fact or to remake someone in our image for our comfort? Does holding on to historically inaccurate images keep us from becoming a more unified society, where we can appreciate and value one another's diversity? Perhaps most importantly, do they keep us from seeing people of all races as precious children of God? If so, we may want to smash these false images as idols and dig deeper for the sake of Jesus's call to love one another as we love ourselves.

On Finding Comrades: The 2nd Annual Faith & Immigration Summit

 The 2nd Annual Faith & Immigration Summit was sponsored by the North Carolina Council of Churches and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina.



Professional interpreters make sure everyone
can follow along in both English and Spanish.



story by Scott Schomburg and photos by Justin Hubbard, Duke Divinity School Interns for the North Carolina Council of Churches

I was new to the scene, a newcomer at the 2nd annual Faith & Immigration Statewide Summit. Just weeks ago I started my internship with NC Council of Churches.

Before the room could come into focus, I found myself in conversation with pastors, organizers, and advocacy groups, recognizing both a patience and an urgency that seems to come with this work. Our day together unfolded a compelling narrative of faith leaders in North Carolina moving forward in solidarity to make communities better for immigrants.* Not everyone shares this vision however, as some politicians continue to push a restrictionist agenda, infusing local communities with anti-immigration rhetoric. This story of challenge and hope, of conflicting conceptions of justice, and of faith leaders forming a public voice, captured my attention early.

The fellowship hall at United Church of Chapel Hill was filled with faith leaders looking for comrades, searching for creative ways to tell the truth about immigration in North Carolina. Rev. Ismael Ruiz-Millán, director of the Hispanic House of Studies at Duke Divinity School, weaved accounts of immigrant struggle together with a lively scriptural imagination in his keynote address. For Rev. Ruiz-Millán, to stand with his friends to make communities better for immigrants is a way of practicing resurrection. That is, the very act of solidarity is in itself the account of the hope that is within us.

Mauricio Castro from the NC Latino Coalition leads a
workshop on North Carolina Legislation and Lobbying

Transitioning from Ruiz-Millán’s keynote address to a series of workshops, participants were able to focus the conversation in specific tracks covering the different modes of response available to faith community. From introductory sessions on immigration policy, to pastoral care, to the specific strategies of effective community organizing, seminar leaders offered their expertise and interacted with the many questions and testimonies of faith leaders in the room. I attended the advocacy workshop led by Mauricio Castro of the NC Latino Coalition.

Castro began by evoking the late Archbishop of San Salvador, Óscar Romero, whose prophetic witness against social injustice exemplified Castro’s greatest hopes of organizing for immigration reform in his home state. Unveiling the forces in North Carolina that prevent people from flourishing, Castro pointed back to the painful effects of two anti-immigration bills passed in June 2011. In addition, he described the anti-immigration aims of the Select Committee on the State’s Role in Immigration Policy, and the upcoming legislative session that may well see consideration of new measures to make undocumented workers and immigrant families unwelcome in North Carolina.

Castro then pointed forward, calling for a mobilization of faith leaders with specific strategies to bend North Carolina legislation toward justice, making all communities better for immigrants. He urged leaders to take power analysis seriously, to know how strong are the forces against immigration reform. Yet, far from painting a paralyzing picture of insurmountable challenge, Castro and other seminar leaders evoked a desire for something better. The conversations reminded us that not even the most ardent of opponents to immigration reform are outside the possibilities of conversion. Indeed, even Romero’s courage to speak against social injustice came after his own unexpected conversion.

It was a day marked by a powerful underlying story: faith leaders are active, and congregations will not stand idly by while immigrant communities suffer. And in these months following the Faith and Immigration Statewide Summit, I imagine it will be a springboard for more conversations to be had and meals to be shared. Indeed, I am tempted to say, that the spirit of Romero is alive in North Carolina.

*I am borrowing the phrase “make communities better for immigrants” from the Latino Migration Project, which takes this to be its mission.


Did you miss the Summit but want to hear some of the workshops? You can listen to the recordings here as podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/nc-council-of-churches/id571816854. You can find additional resources addressing immigration on the CBFNC website: http://www.cbfnc.org/Missions/Immigration.aspx. This blog post originally appeared on the North Carolina Council of Churches' blog.

FBC and the BBC

 By Dr. Dennis Atwood

It’s been an interesting week here in Mount Olive. The BBC (as in British Broadcasting Corporation) was in town—and in our church—last Sunday to do a story on the Haitian immigration to Mount Olive. The BBC broadcasts its news stories to over 100 countries throughout the world. The link to our story is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17039167.

Here's how it started. On January 22, 2012, the Raleigh News & Observer published a front page feature on Haitian immigrants settling in Mount Olive. Last Thursday afternoon I received a call from a reporter with the BBC. At first I thought it was a marketing salesman trying to sign me up for a subscription to the BBC! As an outside observer, the British reporter thought our community was a fascinating story of four cultures (Anglo, African-American, Hispanic, and Haitian) converging in a small southern town. Obviously this happens frequently in large cities and urban settings, but when it happens in a small southern town—given the south’s history of segregation and racism as its backdrop—then it becomes much more pronounced. It becomes a “story.”

It has been a year and a half since the first Haitians stepped through the doors of our sanctuary on a September Sunday morning. Many things have happened over these 18 months. Relationships have been established; needs have been met; many worship services and prayers have been shared. I’m proud of the fact that our church has been willing to open our doors and our hearts to these people of vibrant faith. They are brothers and sisters in Christ. They do have great needs, but they also have great hopes and dreams for a better life.

In Mount Olive we are learning to live, worship, and work together and we do have a long way to go. But it is my hope, and the hope of the gospel, that with God’s help we might become a tiny model of how to live as a community of one. In fact, we also provide worship space for a Hispanic congregation which meets between the Haitian’s two worship services each Sunday. So on any given Sunday you will find two English worship services, one Spanish worship service, and two Creole worship services in our First Baptist facilities. That’s a small town Pentecost!

Of course, there are those in the community who say they would prefer the Haitians “go back home.” They don’t like the new people. If a Haitian is rude or commits a crime then suddenly all Haitians are portrayed as rude criminals. Immigration is clearly an emotional and divisive issue for many people in our society. But the way I see it, in America, we are all sons and daughters of immigrants. Hopefully those who are not so optimistic about the new immigrants in Mount Olive will be won over in time with love and kindness. But even if they are not, the call of Christ compels those of us who are listening to embrace the outcast and the immigrant. This is a vital part of the fabric of the gospel that cannot be torn away or altered by human hands.

Our story in Mount Olive is really one about paying attention to God and what God is doing around us—and sometimes right in front of us! Then it simply becomes a matter of being courageous enough to do something nobody else may be doing… because it’s the right thing to do.

Dennis Atwood is the pastor of FBC Mount Olive. This article originally appeared on his blog.

Separate but Equal

by. Rev. Darryl Aaron

Traveling abroad really does take one out of his or her comfort zone. Early on during my recent travel abroad it was clear that I was stepping into unfamiliar territory. The mission of the trip was titled, “Going into Hard Places: Trips That Make a Difference.” Actually, I welcome the opportunity to enter hard places. However, all too often some who enter hard places enthusiastically come away from these tough territories highlighting the differences between “them and us” and thereby increasing, rather than decreasing, the chasm between God’s people. Traveling to Moldova and Bucharest took me more than a few miles away from home, but the distance covered could not erase the eternal imprint which I made upon each different person that I met. Throughout our journey I encountered experience after experience that validates this truth.

When my traveling partners and I arrived at our destination, our host and his young son met us. Later on that evening at their house both miles and mores were linked by the simple act of a father shoving his kid in the right direction. Specifically, the dad asked the son to play the piano for us but the boy wasn’t interested; he didn’t like to play the piano even though he had excellent skills. After a little coaxing (and eye-balling) from his dad, the boy eventually did what all young kids do when parents have made positive investments into their lives. The reluctant adolescent slowly meandered over to the piano and artfully displayed his gifts through song after song. His music alleviated the fatigue which resulted from our long excursion and reminded us that God’s gifts in each of us sometimes need a little push. The dad of this young boy has done what parents all over the world have always been doing: sacrificing so that the rooms for their kids will always have high ceilings. The father’s persistent insistence reminds us of the wedding at Cana where Jesus’ mother had to ignore her son’s reluctance to exercise his gifts so that the guests could discover that joy was available and burdens could be lifted. Sometimes many years and many miles separate us, yet we still find ourselves on the same plane—separate but equal.

Various experiences in Bucharest and Moldova underscored the truth that we are separate but equal. These experiences ranged from discerning that pastors everywhere want to be successful at what they do, to realizing that ministry everywhere is ebb and flow, to understanding that marriages are both rewarding and regretful, to seeing that universally people really are trying to be good witnesses, even while stumbling and falling. However, there is one incident that provided the strongest impetus for my putting these thoughts on paper.

One morning we visited a college in Moldova where we met and worshiped with a group of students. During lunch the professors were discussing the students’ curriculum and the discussion proved to be lively and stimulating. Noting that there are more than 12 nationalities represented in the college, the professors shared how specific missionary methods were given to exclusive students for “hard places. “ The professors said that because many of the diverse cultural mores and folkways of their pupils do not overlap, students are separated into groups where individual needs can best be addressed. Hearing this, I immediately thought, “Separate but equal!” In fact, as soon as I heard this concept of separating students in an academic setting voiced, history erupted from a soft spot within me and spilled out of my mouth in these words, “To me this sounds like separate but equal.” Right away, all of the Americans at the table knew the connotations of my remark. Sadly, although I had lost my luggage and my claim check somewhere along the trip, I was still carrying some “baggage.”

The College is sending young Christian missionaries back into Islamic regions with a thorough knowledge of both Christianity and Islam, and yet I was afraid that their backpacks might also be filled with the old burdens of racism and prejudice. If there is ever going to be authentic reconciliation among people, then all walls must be torn down. Dilemmas and controversies are best resolved when we all sit at the table and reason together. Differences are more readily recognized and celebrated when partitions are eliminated. Miles and mores can easily separate us but we can never be equal unless we believe that each of us must learn from one another. I can never really love my neighbor unless I sit at his table and eat his food. The professors learned of the baggage inherent in “separate but equal” because we were at the table together. There we exchanged disappointments and dreams—we touched each other’s marks of Christ.

I am grateful for the chance to have gone to another hard place and to have had God reveal himself one more time in the hard and soft spots. It is my hope that all missional efforts provide opportunities for God’s people to come to the table to simultaneously acknowledge our separation and affirm our equality in the kingdom of God. Amen!

Rev. Darryl Aaron is the pastor of First Baptist Church East Winston on Highland Avenue in Winston-Salem, NC. He wrote this reflection after a trip to visit CBF field personnel in Bucharest and Moldova, led by Rob Nash of CBF National and Pat Anderson of CBF Florida. Rev. Aaron was also a featured preacher during Dr. Charles Bugg's "Preaching the Missional Journey" workshops at the 2010 CBF General Assembly in Charlotte.

The Beloved Community - A Review and Proposal

by Rev. Laura Barclay

Dr. Charles Marsh, director of the Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia and son of a Southern minister, brings us this scholarly, yet practical analysis of the Civil Rights Movement and the concept of The Beloved Community in bringing about the kingdom of God on earth. Marsh profiles Dr. King’s early ministry and calling into civil rights work in Mobile, AL, with the community involvement that ensued and led King out of his pastorate and into the struggle. He follows Charles Sherrod and the rise of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee as a religious fellowship that embodied kingdom work, only to abandon its vision to infighting and radicalism. He follows former pastor Clarence Jordan’s work with the interracial, intentional farm of Koinonia Community in Americus, GA. Marsh then tells the story of John Perkins, whose brother’s murder at the hands of local police led him to flee to California and outside the church, only to come back to and through the church toward intentional community in Jackson, MI, and out into the world as one of the most respected faith-based organizers and religious leaders in America.

These men all had their grounding in Christ. They were open and accepting of people of other faiths and no faiths in their organizing, but they always identified their reason for doing the hard work of justice with their organizations as the historical event of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection made real in the church. They believed that we could not allow our brothers and sisters to be beaten, killed or excluded because of the witness of the Christ. If Christ is in us, then we cannote be separate from our neighbors. This underlying message of love made the leaders of the religious movement of the civil rights struggle committed to non-violence against even those that cursed them (37). The intentional relationships they made as King listened to the imprisoned African Americans sharing his jail cell, or that Jordan made in the black church in Louisville during his seminary days, or that Charles Sherrod formed during his work with fellow members at SNCC meetings, or that Perkins made working on intentional community in Jackson transformed these men into dynamic disciples for Christ. They listened with their hearts open and reflected the concerns of their harassed and broken neighbors. Their firm belief that all are created in the image of God matched with their seminary training helped them to focus these relationships through the lens of the body of Christ.

Marsh shares these stories to make a point—the church is not necessarily the beloved community, the kingdom of God, though it has been that during certain times in the past. The church can foster and encourage the kingdom, but it can also fail to be on mission in the world. It can submit itself to the concerns of the state and one’s selfish desires—slavery, war, oppression, economic inequality, discrimination, etc. The church can and has in the past forgotten its prophetic voice and the call to nurture the kingdom of God. However, the church is globally an incredibly diverse body that points us toward right ways of being, lifting us out of our single ethnicity congregations into a universal Christ-moment that allows us to be open to the communion of all creation (215). Marsh notes that we must be cognizant of where God is breaking through in the world and to go follow that Spirit. This can and should lead us out of the church doors and into the community to build relationships and participate in the world as Jesus’ disciples, but it should also leave us connected with the church, as King, Sherrod, Perkins, and Jordan were. If we believe God created all in the image of God and that God reigns everywhere, not just behind the walls of church, this should not be a radical proposal (214).

Near the end of the book, Marsh shares examples of intentional religious communities that have organized for better neighborhoods from Jackson to Philly, and encourages readers to join their efforts. He notes that the students coming into our university system today who hear his stories of the beloved communities that occurred during the Civil Rights Movement--the hymns sung at the SNCC meetings and the glory given to God during the marches for the victory in the Montgomery Bus Boycott--become inspired and commit themselves to Habitat builds, organize multiracial prayer groups, advocate and empower single mothers and undocumented immigrants, and many other endeavors. Let us foster their zeal and excitement to help their brothers and sisters, and let the light of God shine in the darkest of places. May those students in the past and present who commit to loving and empowering their neighbor inspire us to let our light shine as well, and show the people of God to be “a light among nations” (Is 60:1-3).

If you are interested in learning more about racial reconciliation, check out upcoming Racial Reconciliation Workshops in Charlotte, NC, (July 13) and Wilmington, NC, (July 29) at the following website: http://www.cbfnc.org/Congregations/UpcomingEvents/RacialReconciliationWorkshops.aspx

Institute for Dismantling Racism: "Racism diminishes human existence"

by Rev. Laura Barclay

Recently, I attended a weekend-long Institute for Dismantling Racism (IDR) Training, conducted by the groups Crossroads and IDR. It began with introductions and a retelling of American history from the perspective of People of Color. From the beginning of the European invasion through the genocide of American Indians and slavery to the fight for Civil Rights, listening to a fact-filled narrative of American history from this perspective was incredibly powerful in thwarting many shadowy American myths still hiding in the corners of my mind. Perhaps one of the most jolting pieces of information was that the first slave ship to the New World was called “Jesus”. I could not help but remember one high school teacher of mine defending the idea of Manifest Destiny, which is a glorified way of saying that one believes God ordained European settlers to conquer the New World and that the death of millions of American Indians was just tragic collateral damage. This idea is still very much alive in the psyche of many Americans.

The next day we discussed the importance of a unified definition of racism, which is the misuse of power plus prejudice, so that we may more successfully confront racism and become anti-racists ourselves. We addressed low-income neighborhoods and the consequences of external government, corporate, and non-profit decisions: poor roads, less grocery stores, more government placed liquor stores, substandard education, less access to medical care, and social services whose leadership lives and makes decisions outside that community. We discussed white privilege, which is what a white person gets just for being white (read: white affirmative action). For instance, white persons do not have to worry about racial profiling, unfair treatment in the justice system, discriminatory hiring practices, etc. People of Color have to worry about all of these things and receive statistically higher interest rates on loans when compared to whites with the same credit history, along with higher infant mortality rates and higher stress levels. These discussions made me think about the everyday things about which I am blind, simply because I was born with lighter skin. I felt fortunate that I could enter into a safe and honest dialogue with other people about institutional disparities with regard to race.

The final day we covered racism in our own institutions. One of the most obvious and troubling observations about where the attendees’ institutions fell on the continuum of racism (racist institutions on the left and multicultural anti-racist institutions on the right) was that churches were the farthest behind. This is not surprising when you think about Martin Luther King’s observation that 11:00am on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America, or that the Southern Baptist Convention was created because preachers in the South wanted to defend slavery from a biblical standpoint. Most of our institutions were created in a pre-Civil Rights era, and we need to think creatively about how to confront racism and transform these institutions. We cannot do it alone and we cannot do it overnight. Organizations like Crossroads and IDR are here to train as many people as they can across America to give them resources to discover how racism infects their institutions. IDR encourages several people from every institution to attend and form an anti-racist group so that one person is not trying to change the organization alone. Contact Willard Bass, Executive Director of IDR, for information about tailoring a workshop for your organization or attending the full 3 day training. His email address is revwillard.bass@gmail.com.