Identity

A breeze thick with moisture rolls over my head as I watch a wall of rain drift slowly over Lake Tanganyika. The sun is setting behind dark clouds painting an array of deep tones across the sky and waves. The lake is narrow, but extends far beyond the eyes can see. A variety of birds begin their evening flights moving from the east shore to the west. Fisherman scattered down the shoreline have finished the days work and quickly gather their catch to head home to a warm meal and family. It’s the first time all week I’ve had the opportunity to step away from the Reconciliation Gathering I was attending in Bujumbura, Burundi. It’s a moment where some sense of true peace seen only in creation is felt, untainted and attainable. The Great Lakes Initiative of the Duke Center for Reconciliation had invited close to 100 representatives from the Christian communities surrounding the Great Lakes of Africa: Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo, Uganda, Sudan, and Kenya, were all represented. Days before I listened to stories of lament from brothers and sisters. Mothers dealing with the pain of their children abducted by the LRA in northern Uganda. The lament that still is heard from the 1994 Rwanda genocide. The hosts shared stories from the bloody conflict in Burundi. Kenyans, seemingly untouched by conflict for years exposed details of last year’s political and ethnic conflict that swept across the pride of East Africa. And the darkness and present realities that haunt DR Congo were felt strongly and met with tears. The gathering lead by leaders from the Center for Reconciliation took us through the avenues of lament, learning, and living out. The quote that would capture the distressing challenge presented was taken from the Cardinal Etchegaray of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace. When he visited Rwanda after the 1994 genocide he asked church leaders, “Are you saying that the blood of tribalism is deeper than the waters of baptism?” One leader openly answered, “Yes it is.” I listened closely throughout the gathering to questions, responses, and stories. Spending time specifically with representatives from Congo, but also attentive to the realities that exist in the surrounding neighbors. The hardest to swallow were the stories that expose incidents of Christians killing other Christians. A question that grew from this painful acknowledgement was, “What’s my primary identity?” Tribalism has characterized many of the continents conflicts and the issues that plague the Church in Africa. Where Christianity is seen as alive and well in this region, it has failed to meet the challenge of tribalism and the venom of corruption, poverty, oppression, and war. I’ve reflected since the gathering, trying to decipher through the emotions and faces of suffering etched in my mind from past experiences here…what has gone wrong? Is there room for me…a foreign, white American to truly understand the depth of the issues? How would I respond to the question, “what is my primary identity?” It is during these thoughts where I began to realize that the characteristics of tribalism extend farther than Africa, manifested differently in other contexts. The same divisive features are witnessed elsewhere, including the U.S. The recent presidential election succeeded to further divide the evangelical and conservative communities where separation in the Church has already prevented unity. American culture has molded the identity of the Christian and his or her community more so than the hands that created us. The Gospel no longer seems to hold a revolutionary and transforming power that it once held in its birth, let alone transcend divisive features often found in ethnicity, nationalism, politics, race, and economic status. As people may stand in horror or disbelief of the news and tragedies occurring in Africa, I find myself continuing to stand jaw dropped at the overall tragedy of a broken Church and Christian community. Any real depiction of a primary identity seems convoluted. This is not to say I’ve lost faith in the Church or Christians, but wish to merely acknowledge the thorns that remain deep inside the body. The beauty and power of the Gospel is still visible, here and elsewhere, as I witnessed at the recent gathering. The last day of the gathering we recognized initiatives and individuals raising their voices, saying “no” to the oppression and the identities that encourage it. The same women whose faces still show the pain of having a child abducted, also illuminate hope and courage through their coalition of concerned parents. I left lifted, recognizing there is a movement growing and the Gospel of Reconciliation behind it. A generation of renewal and hope is developing. The Christian community around the world needs to recognize the Church is not being the message it claims and rests on. And, that at times, it is a contributor to the fires of conflict and strife. If change does not occur, I fear cycles of oppression, suffering, segregation, and selfishness will continue to unfold before our eyes. We believe in the Gospel not for the sake of salvation alone (and that term in of itself is yet to be fully understood), but for the life it provides, the hope it brings, and the barriers it breaks. People ask me what can I do to help in Congo? Many are praying, some contributing, and for that I am deeply grateful. But, to respond with conviction, I encourage us to revisit the message and let it shape our identity…not with religiosity or for the sake of comfort and pride, but for the life and peace it brings here and now. The Gospel brings hope and transformation.  It builds, rather then destroy. Let it challenge the very grains of our existence and understanding that tell us otherwise. I plead for us to set aside whatever identities stand in our way and begin living as if we believe our primary identity rests in Christ and defines who we are not by label, but by way.

~ by hiddenrendition on February 18, 2009.