A couple weeks ago, attended a workshop via Zoom that was led by a partnership between St. Mark's Cathedral and Dr. Christena Cleveland, in which the topic was the Black Madonna.

There's a lot to process, but something Dr. Cleveland said in her workshop has been sticking with me. She said there's this fixation with trying to repair broken things, institutions, systems, etc. rather then letting them die and building something new. Dr. attributes this to white patriarchy, and I wonder if this fear of death is connected to white patriarchy vis a vis  needing to perpetuate a feeling of invincibility and compulsion to dominate, or to put it a different way: the need to feel like God, through a superiority complex.

I thought of this especially this past week when bits of news about the SBC reached my social media feed. It seems they are up to their usual "own the libs" MAGA antics; this time, there was a resolution proposed to dismiss churches led by women from the SBC. Consider that this denomination has an abuse problem that rivals that of the Roman Catholic Church, but their headlined priority? maintaining white cishet male supremacy. Considering also that this denomination was formed as pro-chattel slavery, and barely acknowledged this grievous sin in the last 25 years while continuing to vocally support slaveholder theology, it is clear to me that the very foundation upon which this Baptist denomination was formed was crumbling with rot from the beginning.

Many other Christian denominations have similar stories of forming out of capitalist and supremacist interests, and are struggling to survive in the environment some call post- Christian. And we keep seeing strategies for revitalizing, repairing, attracting, rebuilding these communities of faith. But what if the best thing was to let these old institutions die? What if the best thing is to build something completely new? What's it going to take?