Lillian C. Smith - Im Black. Im Christian. Im Methodist.

IM
BLACK

EDITED BY

RUDY RASMUS

Im Christian.Im Methodist.

IM BLACK. IM CHRISTIAN. IM METHODIST.

Copyright 2020 by Abingdon Press

All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 9781791017095

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020947701

Scripture quotations unless noted otherwise are from the Common English Bible. Copyright 2011 by the Common English Bible. All rights reserved. Used by permission. www.CommonEnglishBible.com.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org/

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MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

One: Im (Really) Black. Im (Amazingly) Christian.
Im Methodist (For Now).
RUDY RASMUS

Two: Im Black. Im Young. Im a Woman. And Im Grieved.
TORI C. BUTLER

Three: Im Black. Im Kneeling to Stand.
RODNEY L. GRAVES

Four: Im Black. Ive Seen. I Remain.
LILLIAN C. SMITH

Five: Im Black. Im Methodist.
Im Fighting for Racial Reconciliation.
ERIN BEASLEY

Six: Im Black. Im Pastor of a White Methodist Church.
JUSTIN COLEMAN

Seven: Im Black. I Stutter. I Teach in a White Church.
JEVON A. CALDWELL-GROSS

Eight: Im Black. Im Queer Lesbian. Im Methodist.
Im Thriving, Irregardless.
PAMELA R. LIGHTSEY

Nine: Im Black. Im Conscious. Im Your Conscience.
F. WILLIS JOHNSON

Ten: Im Black. Im Methodist. Im Challenging (To What End)?
VANCE P. ROSS

Gregory Palmer

Resident Bishop, West Ohio
Annual Conference

In 1971 Marvin Gayes Whats Going On was released by Tamla Records. It was and is to this day a towering piece of social commentary. Every song on the album is about a world of chaos and an uneven social playing field. Gayes riffs are global in scope, but there is an unmistakable emphasis on the tragic racialized history of America. The song Inner City Blues carries the subtitle Make Me Wanna Holler. As I read through the essays in Im Black. Im Christian. Im Methodist, I heard the lament of Marvin Gaye:

Oh, make you wanna holler

the way they do my life.

Make me wanna holler

the way they do my life.

Oh, make me wanna holler

and throw up both my hands.

Yeah, it makes me wanna holler

and throw up both my hands.

These lyrics from the early 1970s carry with them the mournful cry of the African American Spiritual tradition, such as Nobody Knows the Trouble Ive Seen. The confluence of the everyday indignities of being Black in America; the outrageous, egregious, legalized lynching of George Floyd; and the unforgivable disparities exposed once again by COVID19 have conspired together to create a seminal moment in America and in The United Methodist Churchin which we must find the courage to say unambiguously Black Lives Matter. Black Life Matters. To stumble or choke on those words is beneath the gospel. To play them off against a litany of what I call matter phrases is avoidance. To dismiss the phrase and its truth because it has intentionally, unfairly, and disingenuously been painted with a brush whose only purpose is to smear it and hope it will go away is a colossal failure of nerve.

These essays weave together autobiography and spiritual formation. They represent, individually and collectively, a huge contribution to the genre of biography as theology. As well the writers confront each and all of us with the pain of their societal and institutional experiences when it comes to race. The intersectionality of the isms that bedevil the human family, America, and the Methodist tradition are not left in the margins but moved to a prominent place on the stage. Every writer in her or his own way says: see me, hear me, deal with me, becauseno matter whatI am not going away even if my institutional affiliation changes. And that should not be expected.

What then shall we say to all these things? I hope as you read these narratives of hurt and hope you will think and pray deeply about our future together in the world, in America, and in the church. Reading Im Black. Im Christian. Im Methodist is not intended to be an exercise in feeling only. While it is not in the technical sense a manifesto, it is a clarion call to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly (Acts 6:8). I began with a song and I close with another, the refrain from Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes, in their timeless Wake Up Everybody:

The world wont get no better if we just let it be.

The world wont get no better; we gotta change it yeah, just you and me.

Rudy Rasmus

Senior Pastor, St. Johns United Methodist Church, Houston, Texas

My life journey began in Houston, Texas, on June 9, 1956, in the colored section of Hermann Hospital. My only documented proof of that moment came in the form of a hospital memento stamped with the inked bottoms of my tiny feet on day one of life. I held on to that certificate of birth for years as confirmation that I was actually somebody special. Im the only child of Rudolph Valentino Rasmus, a Black college-educated hustler, and Mildred Thomas Rasmus, a farm girl raised on the former plantation of her White great-grandparents in the central Texas town of Caldwell, which was inherited by her biracial grandmother and still farmed today by her brothers. My mother and father were from two separate worlds. My mothers family owned land and cattle, and were a fiercely independent people. They were the enslaved decendents of Major Hugo Oldham, a wealthy White plantation owner with two families: a White wife and children and a Black wife and children. When Major Oldham died, his last will and testament named his Black decendents as heirs. A court battle immediately followed when Major Oldhams White family petitioned the court to remove his Black family from the land, but, amazingly, Major Oldhams Black wife and her children prevailed in court, and a large portion of the estate was conveyed to his Black decendents. My mother is one of those decendents.