Racial Heresy is grounded in the deep history of the Christian faith – from the interracial friendship of Ruth and Naomi to the declaration of St. Paul that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. The incarnation of heresy in our life together began with the assignment of two seminary classmates to the same small prayer group and coalesced over the lunch-table arguments between apparent opposites – one experience-hardened angry-black-man single-father trying to make a way where none existed and one mostly-blind-to-his-privilege white-male-poster-child-of-the- establishment walking a well-worn path to success. Through the movement of the Holy Spirit, the support of friends and mentors, and despite the often wide-eyed-they-just-said-WHAT stares of classmates, we formed a fast, faithful, and drippingly sarcastic friendship that took seriously our differences while celebrating our shared calling to a prophetic life of ministry in God’s church. Over the next five years, we would discuss passionately, satirically, and quite loudly as many facets of racism, privilege, power, slavery, liturgy, theology, and politics as we could. Our conversations deepened and persisted until the more entrepreneurial of our partnership recognized the unique position we had come to inhabit and our need to share the gift we had been given. Rare enough it is to find two close friends of different races, it is even more rare to find those same friends sharing the vocation of ordained ministry in the church. God’s gifts are intended to be shared. Racial Heresy the show was born.

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