by Max Hunter

On 26 June 1988, I landed in Washington State carrying two gym bags, the bible, a catholic priest’s book on Rastafarianism and a baptized imagination. Oddly enough, reggae music had inspired me to read the bible and embrace Christianity. I was a walking enigma—half Rastafarian, half Pentecostal—who had left “Babylon” with $300 U.S. in his pocket, and a peace surpassing human understanding in his heart.

When I arrived at Seattle’s Amtrak Station, my primary mission was to remain free from the things that I had become caught up in during the raucous eighties. The final scene in the movie Sid andNancy captured my youthful attitude perfectly: I had done it “My Way.” Back then, while living in a much more affordable Wallingford, I began to experience what would become a number of rebirths that allowed me to leave behind an anti-intellectual ghetto, with its material and spiritual poverty.

Ten years later , after much counseling and having just plain grown up, the Lord trusted me with a beautiful bride: Risako Tanaka. Within three years, Risako gave me the first of three priceless gifts: our oldest daughter Smith R. Hunter. A few months later, after graduating from the UW, the Lord answered another ridiculous prayer and took us all to Harvard University. During our sojourn near the Charles River, August and Keith Hunter soon followed their sister Smith into the world.

While studying religion, history of science, and urban education, I began to evolve into an academic, of sorts. Meanwhile, teaching in private and public schools exposed me to the vast material and cultural chasm that separates the affluent and the poor in our nation. Even as I taught at a school where parents paid $40k for tuition, we supplemented our income with babysitting, moving jobs and bringing food home from the free cafeteria.

Since then, I’ve stated time and time again, “I didn’t know how underprivileged I was until I saw privilege up close.” In the end, life as an academic tourist allowed me to pursue my love of ideas and epistemology, as well as provoking me to ponder about the ability of truth, knowledge, and the imagination to improve our world.

Twenty years after my new birth, I returned to Seattle with the Hunter four. Having lived in elitist New England, we could have never imagined the overwhelming amount of love that our family has received since we’ve made the first steps towards joining Bethany. Smith and August became smitten with the children’s ministry during vacation bible school. Based on their recommendations, and the witness that accompanies watching your children grow spiritually thanks to Dianne Ross, we’ve thrown in our lot with Bethany.

These days, having made progress on emotional challenges and developing my mind under the tutelage of first-rate intellectuals, I still have challenges—including finances. But after being forced to endure and conquer other challenges—as a consequence of poor schooling, enduring urban poverty, and what sociologists would call “family disorganization”—I am committed to nourishing our children’s minds, bodies, and souls.

My work at the John Perkins Center at SPU has allowed me to connect my personal narrative to the larger problem confronting the urban poor. Because my academic training has created a heightened awareness of how race shapes medical disparities, my role in education allows me to see that our nation’s educational outcomes mirror these bleak medical realities.

As a Christian, the enduring and unintended racial divisions that continue to segregate our churches and neighborhoods are the biggest challenge for me to get my head around. After much thought, I’ve concluded that we are suffering from a profound lack of imagination. We could all benefit from what Wordsworth refers to as the “baptized imagination.”

In other words, we should seek out metaphors about ourselves and the kingdom that will baptize our imaginations—pierce our consciences and renew our minds—in order to re-imagine race relations. Stated differently, the church, writ large, must examine its ideologies—beliefs about the role that human interactions and institutions play in mediating relationships—so that we re-imagine both the church and the world.

Max Hunter is a new member at Bethany. He is the Assistant Director and Teaching Fellow at the John Perkins Center at SPU. ( Picture from SPU's John Perkins Center.)