Xola Skosana
Photo by Ryan Miller
Is it not possible that the story of black people is contained in the story of the cross?
At Way of Life, we believe the cross of Jesus is big enough to include the story of black people, so we ask the question, “Who is Jesus to black people?” Unless black people ask themselves this question, theology may have a disabling influence in their lives. Too often, we ask the right questions of the wrong audience. We depend on white people for our theology. If you want to address racism, you are going to have to ask black people, “What are you experiencing?”
As a congregation, we have started redefining our theology, and “Black Easter” is part of the process. For the past seven years, beginning with Good Friday, we set aside the whole weekend. We parallel the gruesomeness of Jesus’ death to the horrors of black history. Black Easter attempts to mirror the horrors of being black in a world fascinated with whiteness. We examine anything that black people in South Africa are struggling with, and see if the cross speaks at all to it. We look at the relationship between black culture and Christianity.
In this process, we’ve found that black people must have a three-dimensional relationship with Jesus. We need to move beyond a single dimension and fully explore our relationship with God, enter into it, and probe its depths.
The broken Jesus
Our relationship with Jesus is, first and foremost, one of identification. It’s a relationship that identifies with the story of blackness, the story of brokenness, the story of exploitation, the story of homelessness, the story of all those things that black people have experienced. Jesus understands and relates to that. Jesus lives comfortably in a black skin. That’s the first relationship, but it’s not the only one, because that just makes it liberation theology. It has to go further than that.
The universal Jesus
Jesus is also a universal Jesus. He is the one to whom all knees must bow and all tongues confess. That’s why it’s possible for me, as a black person, to step out of Way of Life, having experienced Jesus as one who identifies with my brokenness, and walk into Leon Oosthuizen’s church with white people and worship the same Jesus. There, I tap into the universal Jesus who loves everybody, who welcomes everybody, who died for everybody.
I’m comfortable in that environment. I don’t ask the question, “Why do these white people lift their hands to Jesus, then turn around and exploit others?” I understand that they need the same Jesus that we need. It’s been a process, for sure, but I have learned that an oppressor who looks for Jesus will find him.
The personal Jesus
Then, there is the personal Jesus, who relates to me as a person. When everything else falls apart, I can go to Jesus. This relationship sustains me.
Jesus talks about salt and light. These are expressions of grace. Jesus doesn’t mean to cover the earth with salt. We need just enough salt to season the food, just enough light to lead a person out of darkness when they are ready. Christians aren’t here to create a utopia, but to do the little that makes God visible.
This is not a theology of absolutes. It’s a theology of tension that allows the sovereignty of God to reign, even in a broken world. When we call for justice and human rights, we are not expecting the world to suddenly turn around and become perfect. We enter into the tension. We embrace it.
It’s a beautiful thing to know that we are going to experience wholeness in the midst of brokenness. We will be touched by wholeness.
Xola Skosana wrote Disband the White Church after developing the idea during the congregation’s 2004 Easter conference. Leon Oosthuizen, lead pastor of Vredelust Dutch Reformed Church, was one of the few white people open to Skosana’s prophetic words and to taking up their challenge. Since 2007, Way of Life, a black congregation, and Vredelust, a white congregation, have been building a partnership. For a conversation between Skosana and Oosthuizen, see-- “Can I trust you?” A book that Skosana and Oosthuizen coauthored, A Journey of Hope, will be published this year. It describes their experience in crossing the racial divides that have fragmented South Africa.