Posted on 04/11/2021 11:07:22 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Contributors to a devotional book featuring a prayer that asks God for help to "hate white people" have come to the author's defense, saying people are missing the full context of the piece.
Screenshots of the devotional book A Rhythm of Prayer: A Collection of Meditations for Renewal were posted online last week by users who objected to the inclusion of a prayer titled "Prayer of a Weary Black Woman" by Chanequa Walker-Barnes, a professor of practical theology at Mercer University.
"Dear God, Please help me to hate White people. Or at least to want to hate them. At least, I want to stop caring about them, individually and collectively. I want to stop caring about their misguided, racist souls, to stop believing that they can be better, that they can stop being racist," the passage read.
Walker-Barnes is described in her bio as "a clinical psychologist, public theologian, and ecumenical minister whose work focuses upon healing the legacies of racial and gender oppression."
The genesis of much of the pushback against the book appears to have started with a Twitter post by Ryan McAllister, an evangelical pastor from Alexandria, Virginia, who shared images of passages from the book that one of his parishioners had taken at Target, where the book is being sold. The prayers, he said, are "completely anti-biblical" and a direct influence of critical race theory.
Ariel Gonzalez Bovat, who describes herself on Twitter as a counselor and theologian, added: "It’s a travesty this kind of writing comes from a former clinical psychologist turned 'ordained minister.' Under no context should these words be an acceptable method of expression for professing Christians."
Upon discovering that excerpts of her book were circulating online, Walker-Barnes defended her writing.
"I took my rage to God in prayer. I owned it. I was truthful to God about what I was struggling with. And I prayed for God not to let anger and hatred overwhelm me," she said in an April 5 tweet.
"I prayed to be true to the biblical mandate for peace, justice, & reconciliation even though I don't think it's possible."
She further explained in a subsequent blog post that she had been relentlessly harassed, that conservatives were targeting her and those who criticized her words were misrepresenting her and others who do "intersectional justice work."
"In all truth, my familial and personal experiences of racism have given me thousands, maybe even millions, of reasons to hate White people. It could easily be seen as justified. And I could find biblical precedent for it," she wrote.
Contributors to the devotional book, edited by progressive author Sarah Bessey, also defended the prayer in a statement released Thursday.
While some might consider the request to God for help to hate white people "to be a provocative start to a prayer, its intentional extraction from the rest of the prayer obscures its context and the biblical model it is based on," the statement said.
Walker-Barnes was "bringing her weariness and her anger over the real sin of racism to God. In what is a clear moment of deep grief, she is talking intimately with her God about her exhaustion, her longing to simply not care anymore. We are given a vulnerable glimpse of her lament, her suffering, her weariness at the call to love her neighbours even when they oppress and marginalize her as a Black woman," they added.
In her Twitter thread, Walker-Barnes stated that she is "one generation removed from sharecropping" and wrote that prayer "after a White person ... dropped the N-word in a casual conversation."
"When my grandfather was 7, he & his dad escaped from their SC sharecropping farm in the middle of the night. They ran away to FL. In the 1900s, y’all, they had to escape under the cover of darkness!" she wrote. "These are the stories I’ve grown up with my whole life."
Who is granting PhD’s to these obviously intellectual frauds?
Now hate is a virtue. Do Democrats really not see the insanity?
We understand the "full context" quite well.
Anti-White racism is racism.
Why doesn’t anyone ask her about the black ancestors who sold er ancestors into slavery, as they had slaves themselves?
“In all truth, my familial and personal experiences of racism have given me thousands, maybe even millions, of reasons to hate White people. It could easily be seen as justified. And I could find biblical precedent for it,” she wrote.
All racists consider their racism justified. Justified racism is just racism.
A good number of them are reprobate
Their support of things warned in Romans 1:24-28 proves that
Impossible to reach them
Let her hate; it goes both ways.
would they defend the “prayer” if it was about hating black people?
LOL! I always wondered how the folks on the boards that grant phds are appointed? Seems like a whole lot of dumbassery going on. I’ve known quite a few in my days and pretty much the majority are well versed in the above mentioned dumbassery. Ergo, having a phd means you used up a lot time and money for not much visible results. To the point of your question. Who the ........................
Am I supposed to pretend that writing such a prayer is NOT racist?
Hyphenated last name chick. Her husband must be some ball-less incel cuck.
Yes, that’s what Jesus said. But did he mean WHITE PEOPLE? /sarc
It is the spiritual fraud that is really serious.
Repentance leads people to agree with the Lord, to seek help forgiving and to pray to love for the Father has, in Christ, shown His love for us and His forgiveness while we were unholy and utterly offensive to Him.
The Holy Spirit will lead the repentant to forgive and to love. It may take time but that’s where He will lead.
There are fallen spirits that are full of hate and unforgiveness ... if anyone does their work they should expect their recompense.
It’s kinda hard to defend hate.
Funny, all I prayed for was that blacks would throttle back the violence a smidge and for that I was called rayciss...
By their works ye shall know them.
As to degrees granted — most any university to which most if not all of the so-called student debt is owed. Unis created worthless programs, jacked up costs, handed out degrees like participation trophies.
As to hating whitey. If you hate any race/ethni—whatever on the basis of experiences or rumors of just some, you are attributing characteristics (i.e., deserving hate) to all. That is the defin of racism. This is just another racist like all the others that push critical race theory, patriarchy, etc.
20 years ago this TWOT would have written a “ground-breaking” diet book.
These people don’t need any help in hating Whitey. They have all the hate one could muster already.
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