Hi beloveds,
On Friday, October 18, 2024, the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice and the National Museum of African American History and Culture invited members of the Durham community to gather at the Hayti Heritage Center for a screening of gOD-Talk (2023). This project, which began as an in depth study of the decline of millennial participation in mainline religious traditions, explores, and amplifies the stories and experiences of black millennial leaders who are questioning the relevance, mission, and meaning of organized religion in the everyday lives of emerging adults. While I will not reveal many details about the film because I do encourage you to find an opportunity to view it, I will say that central to the film were the voices of black queer folk, black women, and select black men who have moved beyond association with the black church as an institution or are wrestling within it. On the fringes of the film were the experiences of black folk who are navigating other faith traditions outside of black Protestantism such as Islam, Baha’i, Buddhism, and various African Traditional Religions.
After viewing the documentary, a panel of undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students from North Carolina Central, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Duke University, who all identify as Generation Z, sat with Dr. Teddy Reeves, Pastor Gloria Winston and myself to explore their points of connection with and points of departure from the ways black millennials in the film explore theology. NCCU student Taylor Stewart spoke to the intergenerational connections that she has been able to sustain with Black elders due to her investment in the Black church and Black spaces. Latifat Odetunde, our Anita Mcleod Intern and a doctoral student at UNC-Chapel Hill, spoke of her hope for more narratives that lift up the journeys of Black Muslim women and the continued need for Black communities to engage in interfaith dialogue in hopes that conversations across traditions will bring forth solidarity around our shared struggle for liberation. Justice Hill, a third-year seminarian at Duke Divinity, spoke to why it is necessary for him to seek to understand and empathize with the experiences of those who have been harmed by the institution that he has been called to work within. I was especially grateful for the presence and support of Rev. Gloria Winston on the panel. Rev. Gloria, who has been working with students on the campus of North Carolina Central University for well over a decade in addition to her work as a congregational pastor here in Durham, named that in our current climate we must find a way to sustain the spaces that allow emerging generations to engage matters of faith honestly. Sustaining the important work of faith formation that moves beyond the constructs of white evangelicalism and white Christian nationalism is particularly necessary in a moment where cultural centers are being downsized on college campuses and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts are being undermined, undervalued, and under-resourced.
What resonated with me most about the film was the sacred act of storytelling for those who have been pushed to the margins. I heard stories of black millennials engaging faith, and while some were hard to hear, all were holy to encounter. As I watched, the words of womanist theologian Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon who said, “When they call your truth a lie, tell it anyway,” echoed in my mind. I recalled my time as a student at Duke Divinity School in my early twenties a decade ago. I could not imagine that the truths we dared to wrestle with back then as black divinity students in a predominately white space would be studied, researched, and made visible by an institution like the Pew Research Center today. While I learned so much in the classroom from my professors, hearing the stories of the Black Millennials in the film reminded me that the community built with my fellow black seminarians was what truly transformed me. Conversations over hot wings and basketball and discussions on couches after a new episode of ABC’s Scandal pushed me to think critically about my own “God-Talk” or theology. Listening to colleagues who trusted me enough to hold their stories of religious harm and radical hope. Watching classmates who dared to live into the fullness of their authenticity even if it meant finding a way to live out their calling beyond the religious institutions that we loved. Debating with friends who believed I could be better, when my beliefs were harmful to marginalized communities. Talking for hours on the phone with former classmates who held me as a sister as I moved from tolerance, to acceptance, to celebration of what it means to be Black, to be woman, to be queer, and still to be a product of the Black church. My life has been transformed because of relationships with those who had the audacity to “tell their truth, anyway.” I left the film and panel discussion with the hope that these other voices might keep “telling it anyway” until the Black faith spaces that we love are ever transformed by the listening.
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