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A divine gift or enduring curse?
Warning: This may be offensive to Christians and Christian People of Color. I know awesome people who identify as Christian and I admire some Christian writers on this platform. Apologies in advance; this isn’t coming from hate and I mean no disrespect.
I was born in the US, and like most Americans, I was raised to have faith. Our religion isn’t something most of us were permitted to question as we were growing up, and my faith didn’t encourage thinking outside of what was explained in its teachings. Membership required absolute allegiance, and no exceptions were allowed. At some point, most of us become aware that there are people who hold other religious and spiritual beliefs, but most people seem to remain faithful to the religion that was assigned to them at birth, as though it was permanently stamped onto their being. Considering that colonization replaced Indigenous spiritual traditions with Christianity, I’m puzzled by how many people of color still choose to embrace the religion of those who brought pure evil to their ancestors. Instead of other faiths or their own Indigenous spiritual/religious traditions, the colonizer’s replacement religion is still the belief of choice for most POC. I struggle to understand this as a White/Indigenous person. Most of my Indigenous grandfather’s family was…
