One of the dangers of Christian theology is that our frameworks we inherit will make us see life as an academic endeavor, neighbors as enemies to be conquer, and the life of faith as a battle to be won. Sadly, our journey with Jesus will be less about love and more about fear.

If our idea of love and unity is dependent upon my silence and my oppression, then our unity is built to protect your power not to make us more equal. And that’s not love, that’s hate.

Love is not code-word for minimal progress and unity is not performative gestures of charity. If love does not embrace my full humanity and unity not committed to my full equality, I don’t want it. It will make the powerful feel good but it will not change the world we live in.

Love means dismantling every harmful ideology, policy, practice, and belief that devalues, de-centers, disrespects, and destroy the humanity, liberation, and peace of another. Unity means protecting another’s humanity, not profiting off of it.

Love is repairing the harm that has been done to another and creating an environment where those who are harmed live in a place they feel seen, protected, and loved. Unity means committing to a collective story-telling that is honest and helpful in leading us to a just future.

Love is not denial, protection, evasion, or justification of toxic ideologies and unloving practices. Love means liberating us to listen, learn, and live in ways that tell our neighbors that we see them, love them, and stand with them. Unity comes after this, not before.

Black literature, Womanist, and Black theologies are not just an academic endeavor, a way of resisting whiteness, or reproductions of white theology. They are a way Black people show the deepest love, embrace God’s image on Black bodies, and say: the Black world is a real world.

Theologian James Cone said he didn’t discard white theology, "but black theology began with deconstruction—that is, dismantling the oppressive, white theologies I was taught.” These theologies not only ignored black people but “blinded me to the treasure in the black tradition."

Christians must take seriously the Black experience and make room for Black people to speak of and for God, and faith, and Jesus,and love, and hope out of our experience. Any theology that devalues, dismisses, or destroys the voice of Black people is not a theology of Jesus.

Christians, we have to liberate ourselves from the idea that those who are legitimate voices for faith and life are white Christian conservative men and that true Christian faith is simply about using their language and logic. These two realities have harmed us in so many ways.

Too many of us are thinking about faith and life as well as doing theology as ourselves but with language and histories and traditions that show that in practice we believe that orthodox = white Christian conservative man. We believe they are the final authority and goal.

Being Black and POC in white spaces do not simply form us to individualize our racial identity, not connected to our race while white people stay connected to theirs, but we take on the theological, political, and social commitments of white Christianity which re-enforces it.

Black people and people of color are told to give up their connection, all in the name of "unity" and the "gospel", and see symbols of their culture deeply steeped in whiteness while white Christians rarely give up anything. This is white supremacy. This is white Christianity.

Because of access to whiteness and connection to it, as social capital and meaning, Blacks and people of color become more distant, we learn to devalue our people, and decenter their stories, histories, and knowledge. It erases us. Literally. Erasure. Is that really good news?

Now, these churches appropriate non-white cultural practices and aesthetics while never centering the forms of knowledge, history, or concerns of non-whites. For example, Black culture is in the church but the church is doing nothing to change the world that Black people live.

I was reading in the gospels. Luke wrote about Jesus's and the women. Death has consumed him. Despair had consumed them. Yet, the women prepared spices. "On the sabbath," he writes, "they rested." The faith of the women teach us this: Hell is shaking. God is working. We can rest.

Their faith does not destroy death nor does their faith destroy despair. That is the paradox of faith: we don't have the right answers always nor can we always articulate what we know to be true and possible. We, like the women, can prepare and rest while Better is on the way.

Isn't it fitting that in a society where "men make the rules and rule the day" that Luke would dismantle the problematic patriarchy by pointing to women not simply as the embodiment of our faith but also as a witness to the power of our faith. They witness even in the worry.

He moves us from simply embracing the problematic patriarchy to embracing the women's prophetic performance. Though Word of God is not there, the word of God is still speaking. Even if the Lord is not present, in the women, the ways of the Lord are still powerful.

As many of you know, I was apart of the white evangelical tradition. I have talked about things I learned about being Black in white spaces. Now I want to say some things about what I learned about once being a Black evangelical returning back to the Black church.

A thread.

Spending years in white evangelical churches and schools, specifically from 2012-2018, shapes Black people in more ways than we would like to admit. It shapes us to diminish Blackness, devalue our people’s story, and always test what we have against the white logic and litmus.

This is particular reality for us Black men in that space. White Christians exploit our vulnerabilities, give us the room to speak, while simultaneously subverting and devaluing Black women and their struggles and their grievances. Opportunities abound for us and we take them.

We are invited into the meetings, we are given the mic, we are asked to lead groups on race, the Black church, etc. We are asked though often we actually haven’t read or thought deeply about each. We become a weapon. Profiting and policing/punishing those who get out of line.

All the while, white Christians feel good about themselves and other Black people are left to clean up the mess we’ve made, the ways we’ve made fools of Black folk, and the harmful ways we’ve learned to think, and to preach, and to be around us. It is profoundly depressing.

Ｇａｕ Ｍａｔａ Ｉｎ Ｖｅｄｉｃ
Ｃｕｌｔｕｒｅ

It is said that the one who bears the dust thrown from the hoof of Gaumata on his head, as if taking a bath in the water of the teerth sthalam and getting rid of all sins.

Ved and all other Hindu scriptures venerate the cow. The Vedic dictionary, Nighantu, gives amongst other synonyms of 'Gau' [ or cow] the words 'Aghnya', 'Ahi', and 'Aditi'.

Yaska the vedic decoder and commentator on Nighantu, defines these as-

Aghnya —— the one that ought not to be killed
Ahi —— the one that must not be slaughtered.
Aditi —— the one that ought not to be cut into pieces.

These three names of cow signify that this is an animal which should not to be put to tortures. These words appear frequently throughout the Veda in context of the cow.

But in due course the falsehood of killing cows spread far and wide and they became even more deep rooted when western scholars with their half baked knowledge of Sanskrit transliterated these interpretations of commentaries of Sayanacharya ,

'Treasure Gods' - Sangha Nidhi' and 'Padma Nidhi', Tirumala, Tirupati.

------------------------------------

These are the two guards guarding the Wealth and Treasure of Lord Sri Venkateswara.

They are representatives of two treasures of Kubera, the God of Wealth.

One guard who is holding shangam (conch) on both the hands is known as Shanka Nidhi ('nidhi' means wealth).

On the other side, the guard who is holding Lotus flowers on both the hands is known as Padma nidhi.

Shangu is from the ocean which includes all types of wealth like pearls and corals.

Why shagam in his hand? Because shangam only gives the sound of 'omkaram'.

'Padmam' is the symbol of water sources in land like river, lakes, tanks etc. which is very important for all living beings.

As per the tradition, these guards are installed at the third entrance of the temple.

One enters the holy shrine after saluting the first protection threshold - Sankha Nidhi and Padma Nidhi.

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Personal Prayer Walk Chronicles, 11th March, 2023...

I REALLY HAVE A ?? this mornin

Anyways, Woke up this mornin with so much energy(glory to God), at a time, I was considering walking from ABEOKUTA- Ibadan just to show that my frenemy, Pst. @Abel2goupOla that I was fitter.. 😂

Anyways, I set out early praying in tongues, which is my usual practice, but, midway, I decided to listen to one of the audio messages on my phone. The lot fell on Pst. E.A. Adeboye's message, titled, "THE CREATIVE POWER OF GOD'S WORD"

His Word can CREATE, CALL FORTH, CANCEL,

OBTAIN etc. It can serve in every capacity and can do all things, even d imagined stuffs can b brought to manifestation.
📌
Making time to study His Word is really underrated. Many today just glance thru & rush off. This will not help. We must make time in d midst of no time.
📌

Now, indulge me to ask you these simple questions.
📍
When was the last time you came to the altar of Prayer, just to guage your relationship with God?

Have you noticed or observed that, We monitor almost everything in our lives?

From the petrol in our car to that in our generators.

We monitor the money in our banks as well as that in our pocket....

#We monitor our performances at work and those of our subordinates...

#We monitor our health,