By Rev. Simone Oliver

I recently read somewhere that the business of faith is a “messy business” and, as quiet as it is kept, indeed it is. As a matter of fact, it can be pretty slapdash, slipshod and sloppy. In spite of its foils, we have the assurance that the gates of Hell will never prevail against us, and with all of its foibles, we can be certain that God’s grace in Christ yet abounds and that God still uses ordinary people. So this is not to belittle the church but to call the church into honest conversation and create a dialogue that has the potential to transform church culture with its changeless traditions and create space for repentance, renewal and restoration so that the church might once again be formed by Breath and Spirit.

It is back-to-school season. I have my classes set and all my books are on the way from Amazon. When I tell people that I’m pursuing an M.Div., they look at me like they’re confused. To be honest, I’m confused too! I don’t know how I got here, how I learned this was the path I wanted to explore, or why I left a full-time teaching job with benefits and brilliant children for part-time hustles and french toast dinners. And with two parents who are wonderful pastors, I find myself side-eyeing… myself. I knew better. I knew I was signing myself up for some difficult conversations with friends and angry early morning prayers with God. Yet here I am. A second year seminary student.

In the last week, six Black churches have been burned down in the south. Churches in Charlotte, NC, Knoxville, TN, Macon, GA, Warrenville, SC, Tallahassee, FL, and Gibson County, TN have been burned down at the tail end of a mass church shooting in Charleston, SC. There has been limited media coverage of possible connection of these church burnings. Investigators suspect arson in at least three of the cases.

The hashtag was created by Twitter user andie_walsh and has over 90,000 tweets. Thousands took to Twitter using the hashtag #WhoIsBurningBlackChurches demanding immediate media coverage.