Jesus belongs with the oppressed. To hear what I’m saying, you have to put yourself in a paradigm where belonging doesn’t mean ownership. When I say Jesus belongs, I don’t mean that in the sense of possession. I mean it in the language of belonging—familiarity, community, home.
My father was born under British colonial rule in the then-colony of Nigeria at the half-turn of the century—a decade before independence. My mother was born in a township in Apartheid South Africa (her mother went into labor in the outhouse, but luckily was close enough for my great-grandmother to hear her). I was born at the turn of the century in a sterile, metropolitan, mid-Atlantic hospital.
This is to say: my whole life has been translating—across generations, across continents, across cultures, across identities.
In this constant act of translation I’ve learned that at the end of the day, we are all working with the same tools but calling them by different names. I try not to get so fixated by the name of something that I miss the meaning. I feel my way through the ideas, concepts, and people I encounter—seeking understanding patterns, (in)consistency, and familiarity hiding in foreign places.
This experience, living in the space between old world and new world, Africa and America, race and gender– undoubtedly shapes my relationship to faith. As someone who tries to live her life in the ways of Christ, I’m also the daughter of colonized people—people who were kept in order with a Bible in one hand and a gun in the other. Yet, I’m able to find familiarity, truth— in the ethos of Jesus: a person who radically accepted the humanity of those around him, who sought to liberate himself and others from shame. I’m often met with confusion for this stance. But isn’t ruach this very act of breathing life into dead things—resurrecting dead words and breathing liberation, truth, and justice into them—the very story, ethos, and ethic of Jesus? For me, practicing my faith isn’t cemented in a customary visit I make to a physical space once a week.
The truth is that I often find church (communities of faith that embody christ consciousness) in people who would never call themselves Christian or describe their actions in the image of Christ. And there are some people who call themselves Christians with their words but, in action, feel like strangers to my soul.
I find church standing in the kitchen with my roommate, in the passion of her voice I see a blueprint to a new world unfurling.
I find church sitting on the ice cold grass at a demonstration, hearing people who are on the daily onslaught of being harassed and doxxed —urge us to do more, to speak up, to free Palestine, to show up for their people daily.
Being in community with these people, who live and breathe a radical love ethic feels closest to the liberatory tradition that both raised me and surrounds me– to breathe life into places where it does not exist.
For me, my faith is intrinsically linked to my culture, my people, my lineage. It is a liberatory tradition passed down from generation to generation– a sacred knowledge we have always known. Before the ship, before the gun, before the dictionary or the Bible– it was there: the understanding of life as sacred and an ethic shaped by that.
I cannot conceptualize my faith—my day-to-day life ethic—-without calling upon the spirit of my ancestors. My people have survived occupation, colonization, enslavement, famine, drought, genocide– armed with one simple adage: let no one thing go to waste. Give us scraps and we make soul food—give us rags, we make quilts— give us hollow words meant to subjugate our minds– we fill it with our own life giving energy and make a liberation ethic out of it. This tradition of breathing life into dead places, rising despite this worldly death— whether you call it Botho or إِحْسَان Ishan or תִּיקּוּן עוֹלָם Tikkun Olam or मेत्ता Metta or Ubuntu or Christ Consciousness— this is my inheritance— my belonging.
And for that, I am grateful.
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