A section from the book titled "A Rhythm of Prayer" featured Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes' prayer as a colored person to want to "hate white people" instead of trying to understand and be reconciled with them got mixed reactions after it proliferated online.
Christian Headlines' contributor Michael Foust highlights Virginia Pastor Ryan McAllister's reaction on the "help me to hate White people" bit from one of Walker-Barnes' prayers in the book.
Through a Twitter post, McAllister, who is the lead pastor of Life Community Church in Alexandria, VA, shared pictures of the devotional chapter which he said was sent by a church member on Saturday.
"This kind of thinking is a direct result of CRT and is completely anti-biblical," McAllister noted in his caption. CRT stands for critical race theory.
On Saturday, one of the members of my church sent me these images of a "devotional" she found in Target. This kind of thinking is a direct result of CRT and is completely anti-biblical. I shared the first page on Saturday but let me now share the whole thing for context: pic.twitter.com/oiRxHQXY53
"” Ryan McAllister ? (@RyanTMcAllister) April 5, 2021
The tweet became a debate thread from the more than 200 comments with some defending Walker-Barnes intent in her prayer. One commented that it was "deeply honest & right in line with the imprecatory psalms."
One particular comment, however, pointed out just how familiar the words are, as if they're echoes of someone else's narrative, particularly from those who are "woke":
"She doesn't speak her heart. She's just parroting people like Robin DeAngelo. People are being programmed."
The prayer in question starts with the following lines:
"Dear God, Please help me to hate White people. Or at least to want to hate them. At least, I want to stop caring about them individually and collectively. I want to stop caring about their misguided, racist souls, to stop believing that they can be better, and they can stop being racist."
As the chapter approaches its end, the words seem like the writer is laying her case down and trusting God to take care of it as He sees fit.
"... But I will trust in you, my Lord, You have kept my love and my hope steadfast even when they have trampled on it. You have rescued me from the monster of racism when it sought to devour me," she said.
Author Sarah Bessey, who edited the devotional-prayer book, also spoke in defense of Walker-Barnes. She clarified that the people for whom Walker-Barnes wants to direct her 'hate' are the "Fox News-loving, Trump-supporting voters who 'don't see color' but who make thinly veiled racist comments about 'those people.' The people who are happy to have me over for dinner but alert the neighborhood watch anytime an unrecognized person of color passes their house. The people who welcome Black people in their churches and small groups but brand us as heretics if we suggest that Christianity is concerned with the poor and the oppressed."
Also through a tweet, Walker-Barnes responded that her prayer was modeled after the imprecatory Psalms. She said that she was just getting real to God about her rage and that she's owning it.
"I was truthful to God about what I was struggling with. And I prayed for God not to let anger and hatred overwhelm me," she wrote. The prayer doesn't sound like she did ask for God "not to let anger and hatred overwhelm" her, however.
Interesting points
It's worth noting that the "prayer" doesn't ask God for help forgiving or reconciling with the "White" people who support Fox News and the 45th President of the United States. It doesn't ask for healing and closing of the wounds the "white" people allegedly caused. It also doesn't ask for help to not let her anger and hatred get the best of her, as its writer said.
Rather, Walker-Barnes' prayer asks the curiously unnamed "Lord" for help to "stop seeing them as members of the same body," that the unnamed "Lord" would "let me be like Jonah, unwilling for my enemies to change, or like Lot, able to walk away from them and their sinfulness without trying to call them to repentance."
Even more interestingly, for a top-selling book in the Christian Meditation category, the prayer doesn't mention the Lord Jesus Christ anywhere. Walker-Barnes ends her supposed prayer "in the spirits of Fannie and Ida and Pauli and Ella and Septima and Coretta" without talking about who these are.
Warnings
McAllister, the lead pastor at Life Community Church, noted how "CRT ideology promotes this as a good, moral thing." He indicated, however, that he has some "criticism" for the prayer, particularly what was written in the first few paragraphs.
"Some are overcome by the rhetoric and can't shake it. I have some sympathy...but I don't want this racist ideology to spread unopposed," he said of the entire chapter.
He then cautioned people to focus on the ideas presented in the prayer instead of the person who wrote it, and reminded Christians to "let "whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus..." (Col 3:17) & "let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts..." (Col 3:15) & "Put on then... compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience..." (Col 3:12)."
"I encourage continued discussion of this prayer, but I implore you to keep it focused on the ideas," wrote the pastor. "Attacking the person will not bring about anything other than resentment. We are, as followers of King Jesus, 'ministers of reconciliation."
"A Rhythm of Prayer" is now Target's best seller book and also no. 1 in Amazon's Christian Meditation & Devotion Section. The prayers were contributions from different self-described Christian authors.
