Having finished what I thought were my ethnographic observations in front of the Apollo Theatre on 25th Street in Harlem, myself, along with Ben and Bonnie, headed back the way we had come. We hadn’t gone far when Bonnie noticed a small group of black men standing on the other side of the street. They looked like they were setting up for some kind of event, possibly a band preparing to play, so we headed across the street to see what the commotion was about.
We walked up on the men and quickly realized they were street preachers. They were dressed in what I can only describe as camouflage tunics. The material flowed like a dress from the men’s shoulders to their feet. Each had on a camouflage hat shaped like that of Malcolm X to match the tunic. Many of the men had well-groomed beards, making them look more Middle Eastern than they would have without facial hair. The man preaching would dictate various scripture references to his peers, and they would frantically flip to the passages and read them aloud. The preacher would then stop them after almost every phrase to interject either his own re-wording of the passage, or a word-for-word hyper-inflected mimic of what his friend had just said.
After just a few minutes, our efforts of hiding behind all the blacks and remaining unnoticed came to an abrupt halt. The preacher pulled out the infamous picture of Jesus (the headshot) which we have all seen a million times and thus recognize as a depiction of Christ. This version, however, had drawn-in horns and the number 666 written on his forehead. The man held up the picture passionately. Looking at me he spoke:
“Step forward my brother. Who were you taught that this is a picture of?”
“Jesus,” I replied assertively.
“Exactly,” the man continued, “this is what is being taught—that this man is Jesus.”
I was confused as to his point. After all, I didn’t believe Jesus really looked like the picture. Actually, I was offended by the picture as well! The man continued, making me into the bad guy with every thrust of his argument. He quickly shouted to his readers, “Revelation chapta 1, versus 12 through 15.”
A shorter man shouted from the King James Version, “And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man.”
“A son like who? Who is this son of man?” The preacher asked me.
I replied, “Jesus.”
The reader continued, “Clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool as white as snow.”
“Hair like what?” The preacher questioned the crowd.
“Wool!” They responded.
“Now, who has hair like wool?” He asked me. I hesitated.
“Is this hair like wool?” He asked as he indicated the hair in the picture of Jesus.
“No,” I replied as I smirked and laughed nervously.
“That hair is wooly!” The preacher remarked, pointing to a black man standing beside me. “Your brother has wooly hair!”
The reader yelled again, “And his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass.”
“What color is brass?” He questioned, looking me in the eyes.
”It’s like gold,” I replied nervously.
The crowd burst into laughter. Smirking, one man told me that he works in a printing factory and that brass is 3 shades lighter than dark brown.
“So, brass is brown,” the preacher concluded.
At this point I realized that the men were making an argument for a black Jesus, but I did not realize the implications of that theological distinction. Their agenda would not remain hidden for long.
The men pulled out pictures of lynchings in the 1950’s. They pointed to the smiling white men in the background and made statements about how my people had oppressed their people. They were right. I told them that I agreed; it was sickening and wrong for whites to oppress blacks. The preacher went into a rage of passion.
“Don’t you think you should pay for that? Should whites not be oppressed for what they did to us?”
A man who had walked up behind me just minutes before voiced his opinion loud enough for it to be heard: “Hell yes they should.”
“When are they gonna pay?” The preacher asked.
“I’ll make ‘em pay right now,” The man behind me prodded. “String ‘em up right here.”
I realized then what was happening—racism in the name of religion. After the men had vented their hatred, they began to make demands: “If you’re sorry, kiss my boots,” one man told me.
I told the leader that I believed Christianity to be about love and not hatred. Looking him in the eyes, I told him that I loved him and asked him if he loved me. He stared into the whites of my eyes and said sternly, “No I don’t love you, I hate you.” He communicated clearly; his Christianity was not about loving me. In fact, he was only out to make me pay for what my people had done to his people (and other oppressed people groups) in the past.
The discussion continued in an organized manner, hinging mostly on random verses from the Bible all of which were about God’s love for Israel. The men insisted continuously that they were the true Israel. They brought out a chart of all the 12 lost tribes of Israel. On it were many oppressed people groups ranging from Africans to Dominicans.
They insisted I get out my Bible and the scripture wars were on. I brought up Acts 10 where Peter is praying on his rooftop and has a vision from the Lord that he should eat of animals that the Jews consider to be unclean. The preacher tried to focus on verses 11 and 12 which talk about the actual sheet being lowered. I urged the people to keep reading. I read from verse 34: “Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.”
I thought I had stifled them. The preacher quickly assigned a few new verses (never passages, just verses) to his readers. They wanted to return to verses about Israel the nation. At what was perhaps the pinnacle of the conversation we began to talk about hope and salvation. The preacher asked me what the power of God was. I responded that the power of God is Christ which I have inside of me through faith. He continued to look me straight in the eye (which he did throughout the debate) and I sensed a rage I had not sensed before: “You don’t have the spirit of God in you! You don’t have Jesus. Jesus called you a dog!” I couldn’t believe it. No one had ever made such heretical statements to me before. I was more sad for my brother than I was hurt. How could he say these things in the name of Christianity?
After that point, I decided that I needed to try and make an exit at the next opportunity I could. I now noticed many different people than the ones who had been around at the beginning of the debate. A middle-aged woman stood close and to my left. She got excited about what the preacher said, but did not show me any form of hate. In fact, I sensed a bit of compassion in her demeanor. An older man to my right fought desperately against my points and was one of the readers at times. He also looked directly in my eyes and spoke very politely to me. At one point, I put my hand on his arm, and he didn’t seem to mind. One of the few who remained from the beginning was an older gentleman sitting on a folding chair. He had been hidden from my view by the small crowd of people at times, but I noticed his composed manner once again. If anyone had a reason to hate whites, I knew it was him. I imagined the past degradation he must have received in the 50’s.
Our argument moved to a debate over Galatians. The preacher quoted a verse from chapter 2 and refused to admit that Christianity was for Gentiles. He told some elaborate history of how Galatians isn’t really about salvation for Gentiles, but rather Paul was actually a missionary to Israelites who weren’t worshiping in spirit and truth. Since this nation wasn’t a Christian nation, Paul had to disguise his writing as not to expose his underlying purpose. Thus Galatians is really about the news that salvation is for Israel only coming to a people who were not living in the truth of that reality.
I got very frustrated with trying to argue scripture with the men and told them I really needed to go (I had done this various times throughout the debate). An older man stepped up to the front and asked them to let him say something. He looked me in the eyes and spouted off a Hebrew sentence that sounded something like, “Ahem dofu alec tubaw shada.” At that point, I saw a window of opportunity and I backtracked out of the circle that had gathered around me. Ben, Bonnie, and I turned our backs on the men and women as they arose in victory claps and taunts.
