How my personal relationship with Christianity made enjoying Chance's big Grammy night a challenge.
• Sunday night, Chance performed Coloring Book's "How Great" backed by a choir dressed in white, accompanied by two of gospel music's biggest stars, Kirk Franklin and Tamela Mann.
• It's the reason why artists who may be fully removed from the church or never physically in it still occasionally throw gospel elements into their music (Kanye West's "Jesus Walks," Drake's "Lord Knows" Talib Kweli's "Get By").
• These experiences changed for me as I entered my late teens and spent much of my Sunday mornings in church obsessing over the Book of Revelation, equally terrified and turned off by how chaotic the world was supposed to become for those who did not get it together in time for Jesus's return.
• My first year of college at Long Island University's Brooklyn campus was spent learning from people who practiced Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism—a gumbo of experiences that I didn't come across growing up in Baltimore.
• Practicing Christianity as a black person in 2017, where we are still subject to many of the injustices we've been experiencing since arriving in America, feels like screaming into an echo chamber, wishing for something to work when it hasn't proved to.
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