Holy Irrepressibility: A lesson from the Black Gay Rights Movement

Last Saturday, March 10, on behalf of the IPC, I traveled to the National Black Justice Coalition’s (NBJC) 2nd Annual Black Church Summit in Philadelphia. The NBJC is a black gay right group.  Being in a room of spirit filled LGBT black people was intense.  The praise choirs were on point and the speaking was inspiring to say the least.  The array of people present from the movement for black gay liberation was impressive.    As I boarded the train back to Washington I asked myself the question, what are the lessons for all movements of justice that could be gleaned from some of the conversations at this conference.  What does the black gay rights movement, in the state and especially in the church, have to teach all justice movements?    One thing that definitely comes to mind that is applicable to all groups fighting for justice is a sense of holy irrepressibility.  Bishop Yvette Flunder stated in her discussion with conservative black pastor Bishop Harry Jackson that the horizon of new theology begins when we say, “Before I’d be a slave, I’d be buried in my grave.”  This quote is a line that appears in several Negro Spirituals.  The lesson I find here is that when we are able to articulate that we simply will not continue to live in the conditions we find ourselves in and would rather be dead if forced to continue to stay in such conditions we are on the threshold of establishing a new baseline for human interaction.  (To be clear, I believe there is a difference between being willing to die –which I am advocating- and being willing to kill –which I am not advocating) Think through in your own life how many things you are so against being complicit in that you would rather die than collaborate with forces or actions you deem to be evil.  Would you rather die than renounce your faith? Perhaps you would rather die than betray your family or your country? Perhaps you would rather die than be imprisoned unjustly?  Perhaps you would rather die than stay in an abusive relationship?   But what if we took it a step further? What if I would rather die that see you living in extreme poverty?  What if I would rather die than see my country attack other nations without just cause? What if I would rather die than see the majority of our children receive a substandard education?  What if I am not willing to accept unjust conditions not just in my own life but in the lives of others? It is when this happens that the far away horizon of the Kingdom of God breaks into time and space and is close, as Jesus says, “The Kingdom of God is at hand.”  (Of course we can take it even one step further and ask in what ways are will willing to die that do not result in the end of our lives but something different like: higher taxes, lower energy consumption, higher giving rates to charity, greater offerings of time, willingness to place ourselves in socially annoying or distressing situations.  Perhaps these “sacrifices” are the ones that really count and thus are the hardest to consistently make?)   And how do we get there? We get there by educating ourselves what we are worth as individual and what we are worth collectively.  As a black man I know, I KNOW, that is am born free. I know that I deserve the full right and enjoyment of my own labor. I truly would rather be dead than be a slave.  But that personal baseline is sustained by an affirmative spiritual knowledge of my worth, my value.  In the context of gay rights, the IPC’s paper, The Kingdom of God and the Witness of Gay Marriage does in fact offer that spiritual affirmation of gay people, which sustains them in reducing their tolerance for injustice in their own circumstances.  However, this same work must be done in other contexts and the IPC is committed to contributing to that task.  Have we assimilated the lessons of the peacemaking theologies that teach us that we are far too valuable to allow ourselves to participate in violent conflict but still be willing to give our lives for our just causes? Do we understand ourselves as too valuable to participate in the economic subordination of other members of the human family?    When we see ourselves and other members of the human family as too valuable to be treated in unjust ways then and only then will we be willing to be “buried in our grave” before we allow any more injustice to continue.  Gay black folks are learning this lesson all over again in the context of gay rights that they already knew in the context of race.  On both accounts, this lesson about personal spiritual worth and the need for a intensifying desire for justice such that unjust conditions are considered unlivable is something that everyone in all their struggles for a better world need to appropriate into their own lives.   Otis Gaddis III, Co-Director of IPC Academic Review Panel