For me, class, family, opportunity, or wealth did not bestow upon me “White Privilege.”  No, my “White privilege” came as a gift and blessing from God, my heavenly Father, whose guidance I followed throughout life.  I wear my “White Privilege” as a badge of honor!

“White Privilege,” a negative accusation against White Americans, is among the latest and perhaps most poignant and trendy of bywords to describe the Caucasian race.  Regardless of the fact it dismisses multitudes of impoverished Whites across the nation or even the globe, it is quite popularly used.  I’m certain they would hardly feel “privileged.”  For Christians though, privilege isn’t necessarily a status in life; it’s a blessing related to some of God’s precious gifts to us, and such gifts are given universally regardless of race.
One has to admit that, yes, many Whites have been and are privileged.  But isn’t that true of many in all races?  Isn’t privilege, according to the world’s definition, related to class, family, opportunity, and wealth?  I grew up in a low middle-class family.  We weren’t impoverished, but we were far from comfortable or on easy street.  My parents’ struggles were incredible at times.  However, I am compelled to think back on my life and recognize a “White Privilege” perspective that may not be appreciated or enjoyed by all.  As a White Christian, that “White Privilege” relates directly to people of other races.  Here is the story of my “White Privilege.”
As a child raised in Sunday school, I sang “Jesus loves the little children of the world.  Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.”  Despite my surrounding community, this six- or seven-year-old believed all colors were loved by God, and she should love them too.  Learning that song was my first “White Privilege.”  My church supported a Black orphanage.  Our youth group frequently went and played with the Black orphaned children.  That was my second “White Privilege.”
In high school, I belonged to a student group called Inter-Group Relations.  As White students, we met with a Black high school’s students to discuss racial issues amicably together.  Another “White Privilege.”
Attending a Christian college in Columbia, South Carolina, a Chinese student from Hong Kong asked me to be her roommate my sophomore year.  I accepted her invitation.  Ting Lan Lam was remarkably gifted musically, exceptionally intelligent, and highly disciplined.  I loved and admired her.  Another “White Privilege.”
While still attending college, I taught a Black children’s Bible club in a very poor Black woman’s home.  A single lightbulb hung from the ceiling to give light.  I loved those children.  Add another “White Privilege.”
As a junior in college, I taught Sunday school classes to both White and Black female inmates in the county jail.  In the mid-1960s, they were still segregated from one another.  Once, I went to visit a Black female inmate to speak with her alone at her request.  She wished to share with me her life.  As much as I taught them, I learned much and cared for them.  That too was an added “White Privilege.”
Eventually, I studied French and Arabic at Paul Valéry University in Montpellier, France while living with a French family.   My classmates were from around the world, especially Eastern Europe and the Middle East.  I entered into friendly relationships with those students and the French professor. Once again, a “White Privilege.”
While living and studying in France, my colleagues were from England, Austria, Australia, Germany, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, The Netherlands, and Zanzibar.  They were European, Middle Eastern, and African.  An added “White Privilege” for me.
I was sent to Tunis, Tunisia in North Africa to study Arabic and begin ministry among that population.  Besides Arab, Black, and Jewish Tunisians, I became friends with Black Africans from Togo and Senegal.  I invited them into my home for hospitality, a meal and games.  I also worshiped with them.  What a “White Privilege” for me that was.  Perhaps the most precious of “White Privileges” there was to be given the Arabic name Basma, which means “She who smiles” or “smiling face,” by Tunisian girls.  I treasure that name!
Being transferred to Marseille, France, I served at the École Radio Biblique (Radio School of the Bible) where Arabic radio programs, Arabic and French Bible correspondence courses, and Christian newspapers were produced.  We represented 17 different nationalities and diverse races—African, Asian, European, and Middle Eastern.  A tremendous “White Privilege,” indeed!
Returning to the States, my career of almost 24 years in a Black-majority school district provided and sealed many friendships with African Americans.  What I consider a culmination of “White Privilege.” 
My “White Privilege” guilt is definitely immense, but I don’t regret it.  I feel no shame!  In fact, I celebrate and rejoice in it feeling greatly blessed.  That “Privilege” allowed me to grow and learn, and to become close friends with so many beautiful people of all races.
For me, class, family, opportunity, or wealth did not bestow upon me “White Privilege.”  No, my “White privilege” came as a gift and blessing from God, my heavenly Father, whose guidance I followed throughout life.  I wear my “White Privilege” as a badge of honor!
Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa.
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True religion does consist in the religious affections, and music is a wonderful gift from God that helps to give expression to the affections created by the Spirit through his Word. But we must be careful to define spiritual affections biblically and put music in its proper place. Otherwise, we risk worshiping chords instead of Christ.

When Christ was asked about the great commandment in the Law, he answered without hesitation: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Mt 22:37). True worship of God is centered in our affections for him. As Jonathan Edwards rightly observed, “True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections.” Indeed, a purely intellectualized worship is no worship at all.
This is one reason God has commanded that his people sing in corporate worship. Singing, Paul explains, allows believers to express their hearts to God, particularly thanksgiving (Col 3:16, Eph 5:19). The inspired songs of Scripture are filled with heart expression such as lament, contrition, thanksgiving, love, and praise.
However, the role of emotion and music in worship today has departed considerably from biblical precept and example. In fact, I would suggest that the relationship of emotion and music to worship in contemporary Christianity has shifted to such a significant degree that it hardly resembles what Scripture models.
This reality is clearly evident with recent events like the faux revival at Asbury University, the global popularity of worship music of groups like Hillsong, or, frankly, the entire contemporary worship movement. It is almost impossible to engage in thoughtful, biblical conversation with contemporary Christians about worship, music, and emotion due to fundamental shifts that have come to characterize contemporary evangelicalism.
In each of these cases, intense emotional expression has come to define the essence of true relationship with God. “The students at Asbury are so passionate about God!” So we dare not question the validity of what’s happening. “I can feel God’s presence in that worship!” So why wouldn’t we promote that music? If the nature of true worship is love for God, why would we question whether these movements are biblical?
John MacArthur summarized the reason well in the recent Shepherd’s Conference Q&A session when he described what happened at Asbury as “chords over Christ.” “Shut off the music and see what happens,” he challenged.
MacArthur put his finger on the issue I have been identifying for many years: music has taken on an unprecedented and, indeed, unbiblical role in contemporary evangelical worship today, in which music is used to create what modern Christians assume to be “feelings of spirituality,” “the felt presence of God,” and “revival.” And because this function has become so intrenched in contemporary evangelicalism, to question the music, the feelings, or the experiences is to question the very work of God in many evangelicals’ minds.
No wonder I get so much hate mail.
Nothing More Than Feelings
Yet carefully defining the true nature of spiritual experience based upon the Word of God is critical. And, in particular, we need to recognize how modern notions of “emotion” are not the same thing as what the Bible calls praise, joy, or love.
The category of “emotion” is a relatively recent term, only entering common discourse about 200 years ago. Prior to that, people didn’t use the term, and consequently, they had a far more nuanced understanding of human sensibility.
Thomas Dixon traces the creation and evolution of this idea in his very helpful book, From Passions to Emotions. He demonstrates how the idea of emotion “is little more than a hundred years old. Darwin’s Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals (1872) and William James’ “What is an Emotion” (1884) are the first studies of the emotions using scientific methodology.”1
The category of emotion, shaped as it was by Enlightenment rationalism and Darwinian evolution, is defined primarily by effects upon the body, what we might call “feelings.” Then, with this more recent category firmly entrenched in modern thought, Christians read biblical descriptions of worship and relationship with God and define such realities also primarily in terms of feelings. Consequently, exhilaration, euphoria, and other merely chemical affects upon the body have come to define Christian worship and spirituality for most Christians today.
However, the biblical concept of affection was something entirely different. The fruit of the Spirit, for example, are by definition affections not inherently defined by physical feelings. Since God is a Spirit and does not have a body like man, affections like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are fundamentally spiritual. Though each of these affections certainly may affect the body, they are not defined by physical feelings.
Furthermore, even the nature of how spiritual affections affect the body or what kinds of feelings may accompany them differ from the nature of physical feelings typically associated with worship in contemporary evangelicalism.
For example, Michael Brown recently tweeted the following:

Immediately you can see his assumption that the modern category of emotion is inherently an essential part of worship. And so I responded to his tweet by listing many passages that do, indeed, caution against unbridled physical feelings:

Romans 12:3 – Think with sober judgment
Gal 5:23 – The fruit of the Spirit is self-control.
1 Thess 5:6, 8 – Be sober.
1 Tim 2:9 – women should be self-controlled.
1 Tim 3:2 – An overseer is to be sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable.

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During a special session in 2019, the UMC adopted a disaffiliation agreement allowing churches to leave the denomination through the end of 2023 “for reasons of conscience regarding a change in the requirements and provisions of the Book of Discipline related to the practice of homosexuality or the ordination or marriage of self-avowed practicing homosexuals as resolved and adopted by the 2019 General Conference, or the actions or inactions of its annual conference related to these issues which follow.”

Seventy churches in Georgia split from the United Methodist Church (UMC) last week largely over LGBTQ issues, marking the latest in a growing divide within the third-largest Protestant denomination in the United States.
The North Georgia Conference voted last Thursday to allow the churches, most of which were in rural areas, to disaffiliate from the UMC. The process for disaffiliation was laid out by the 2019 General Conference of The United Methodist Church through 2023, according to the North Georgia United Methodist Church Conference website.
In 2021, the Board of Trustees adopted a process and, along with District Superintendents, walked alongside the churches that requested to disaffiliate. The conference established ratification by the Annual Conference as the final step in that process.
During a special session in 2019, the UMC adopted a disaffiliation agreement allowing churches to leave the denomination through the end of 2023 “for reasons of conscience regarding a change in the requirements and provisions of the Book of Discipline related to the practice of homosexuality or the ordination or marriage of self-avowed practicing homosexuals as resolved and adopted by the 2019 General Conference, or the actions or inactions of its annual conference related to these issues which follow.”
The 70 churches that chose to disaffiliate represent 9% of the congregations in the Conference and 3% of the membership, according to the denomination. The date of disaffiliation will be effective June 30, 2022.
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