shakira bullen on christianity and culture
name | shakira bullen
describe this year in 3 words | bumpy, loving, discovery
on your must-read list | children of blood and bone by toni adeyemi
song currently fueling your soul | gonna be alright by mali music
your current inspiration | brittney jenneford
SPIRITUAL CARE
how has your race/cultural background played a role in your faith experience?
“it would be great if shakira could get with her, and ya know they can connect...”
every teenage black girl with an attitude was handed over to me to ‘connect with."‘ at the time, i saw no issue with it, but now looking back, imagine if i said i couldn’t connect with a white teen because of her whiteness. shock and horror, and 1 corinthians 9:22 would have been whipped out without hesitation. but back then, i was flattered! as if i was some sort of ‘black girl whisperer’ with the ability to make a black girl with an attitude quiet, pleasant, and of course, compliant.
i never realized how much pride i took in being able to adapt to every group in the church. i was in the full-time ministry, the only young, single, black woman working for the church. and it was an honor. i felt like a bridge between those in leadership and what was really happening in the church. i believed that God had called me to lead in this way, and i was grateful for it.
i knew how to connect with white disciples, the kind that wear check shirts, and gilets and desperately pray for english people to be baptized. the taste of being a minority too bitter for them to handle, and so they cried out shamelessly in their prayers for white people. but i also knew how to connect with the ‘black black sisters.’ who are the ‘black black sisters?’ they’re the ones who want and crave ‘real worship,’ they have strong views, often talk about the power of the Holy Spirit, and make enormous quantities of food for every gathering and dance at every opportunity. they are also the last to be asked on a date, and the first to be silenced. often viewed as loud, proud, and unspiritual - those are the ‘black black sisters.’
i didn’t know if they were aware of how people viewed them, but something in my heart told me they knew and simply didn’t care. i admired that. but not enough to imitate it. i knew that blackness within the church was fine as long as it wasn’t ‘in your face’ —a lot like the workplace. and so there i was, a black sister, yes, but ‘not too much’. i was palatable. i wore baby blue shirts, carried a longchamp bag, wore white trousers, and mint green cardigans and pearl earrings. at the time i don’t even remember consciously deciding to make myself acceptable to all, but it was a far cry from the bald-headed, bright pink lipstick-wearing 22-year-old i had been just a year or two prior. was this me growing up? or was there something more to it? somehow that 22-year-old seemed more authentic than the woman i had become.
and in this process of being black, but not too black, i lost myself, unsure that i was beautiful to God unless i was agreeable. finding more value in my skills in the kitchen and my card-writing abilities than i did in who i was before God. without realizing it, i had diluted myself to become pleasing to those whose affection i desired, and much of this meant leaving my culture behind me.
but that’s what we do, right? we leave our culture behind when we become disciples, right? wrong! are you a disciple first and foremost? of course, but God loves my blackness, that’s part of how he made me, and that was no mistake. God loves that i express love through food. he loves that i laugh loudly and enjoy shamelessly dancing when a car drives past and is playing my song.
it took a while to realize some of these things, reflecting on my faith and blackness during this time when my life mattering is being challenged so publicly.
i can honestly say that as i sit here, 29-years-young, i am the most myself i have ever been and more confident than ever before that my dad loves every bit of me—jeremiah 1:5.
*this conversation is about race and religion.
