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Chicago church ‘fasting from whiteness’ for Lent

April 6, 2022 | | Print Article

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(Video Credit: Turning Points USA)

The First United Church of Oak Park in Chicago went fully woke for Lent this year, announcing it will be “fasting from whiteness” and will not allow the singing of hymns that are written by white musicians but will instead draw on “African American spirituals tradition.”

The church asserted that it will do a combination of “giving something up” and “taking something on” for Lent by divisively abstaining from white composers in favor of minority ones.

“In our worship services throughout Lent, we will not be using any music or liturgy written or composed by white people. Our music will be drawn from the African American spirituals tradition, from South African freedom songs, from Native American traditions, and many, many more,” the church’s website states.

“For Lent, it is our prayer that in our spiritual disciplines we may grow as Christians, united in the body of Christ with people of all ages, nations, races, and origins,” the church added.

Turning Point USA reported on the church’s racial declaration, blasting the move as taking America “back to segregation times.”

The church put up an outdoor sign promoting the 40-day religious observance. Ironically, the church’s pastor is Rev. John Edgerton who is white and a radical leftist.

He is known for virtue-signaling and boasting about being arrested while confronting former Utah Senator Orrin Hatch in 2017 over the proposed repeal of former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. He posted a picture of himself at the time on Facebook being led away in handcuffs by police.

“Thank you for your prayers. I’ve been released and everyone involved is safe. We confronted Senator Orrin Hatch earlier in the day, sharing personal stories of what a repeal of the Affordable Care Act would mean, and asking that he share his plan for replacing the Affordable Care Act,” he wrote at the time.

“He ignored us in the hallway, pretending as if we weren’t there. He ignored a woman named Jamie as she asked him how her three children, now covered under the ACA, will be able to see a doctor,” the pastor added. “He tried to ignore us, and so we sat in front of his office and refused to leave. We were non-violent and loving and absolutely unashamed.”

This same church hypocritically claims that it is intent on “valuing people of all races, ethnicities, cultural identities, gender identities, sexual orientations, and abilities in every aspect of our congregational life.”

The fast was further promoted in the church’s March 29 Evotional newsletter, claiming the church will proceed “to honor our fast from whiteness this Lent by prioritizing the voice of Bruce Reyes-Chow” and by sharing a chapter of his book, In “Defense of Kindness.”

“For many of us, being uncomfortable about public protests or what we perceive as aggressive expressions of frustration simply identifies our privilege and our ability to shield ourselves from the struggles that others are facing. May our call to civil discourse be more about listening to the genuine struggles of our human sisters, brothers, siblings, neighbors, and strangers than about protecting our own spaces of security. Most people do not engage in public protest or in expressing anger that may put risk on their life, work, or status. So when groups of people are pushed to their boiling point, the least helpful thing to do is to silence them,” his book contends, according to Turning Point USA.

Reyes-Chow is a leftist Presbyterian elder from California who enthusiastically supports Black Lives Matter and rails against white privilege.

“While I understand the desire to be more compassionate and to have more thoughtful engagement around disagreements, we must be careful that such a desire does not turn into a modern-day manifestation of ‘civilizing’ those who do not fit into our understanding of normative behavior. Sometimes our norms oppress and marginalize others,” he remarked via the newsletter.

“In this fast from whiteness, of course, I cannot change the color of my skin or the way that allows me to move through the world but I can change what I listen to, whose voice I prioritize,” Rev. Lydia Mulkey, the congregation’s associate pastor of education, states in a video explaining the fast. “And so that is kind of the place for our worship services, through Lent, that we would fast for a time from prioritizing white voices.”

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