Notes of Rest Inaugural Class & Sinners Part 2
Hybrid course online in July 2025, A meditation on Sinners as a cautionary tale about evangelism
What’s good everyone,
This year is a year of firsts for Notes of Rest. It is the first Notes of Rest retreat (happening next weekend, registration closed) and also the first Notes of Rest class, happening virtually and in-person through Vancouver School of Theology, July 14-18, 2025. The course will walk through the contemplative practices from Scripture (e.g., sabbath, sleep, sanctuary) and Black music that I have braided together in this ministry over the last four years. It’ll meet 2-5p both in-person and livestreamed.
Notes of Rest to date has always been an offering where reading was minimal if not non-existent, but there’s always been so much more I’ve wanted to share through discussions over texts. Short of a book (which I’m working on too), the class will open up unique space to dive more rigorously into each note. You can sign-up to audit the course online here.
As promised a few weeks ago, I wanted to continue my conversation about the excellent movie Sinners, Ryan Coogler’s vampire horror film. I wrote a few weeks ago about why I love the movie as it relates to Chicago and Black music, but today I wanted to muse on how the movie brilliantly depicts the thorny topic of evangelism.
A quick sketch of the term ‘evangelism’
Evangelism is the spreading of good news. Coming from Christian tradition, the term typically describes spreading the good news of Jesus Christ: that God has come to save, restore, heal, redeem, liberate, recreate all of creation through Jesus Christ. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere!
But even thought that’s definition most familiar to Christians, the linking of evangelism to Jesus is an appropriation of a preexisting concept. Prior to Jesus’ arrival, the good news would have been about Rome conquering a town. Spreading the “good news” meant telling the captors that they had a new ruler, the emperor of Rome. When Jesus came on the scene, his version of kingship and the good news thereof countered imperial Rome’s. This tension between Jesus’ kingdom and Rome’s would be one of the reasons the King of the Jews would be crucified.
Sinners
This tension between different forms of evangelism is relevant for the story of Sinners because, whether Coogler intended it, I saw the movie as about competing forms of evangelism too. One form of evangelism was Sammie’s dad, the intolerant, yet prescient, preacher, who refused to accept Sammie’s love of the blues guitar and instead wanted him to stay firmly rooted within the life of the church. Another form came from the gangsters Smoke and Stack (hereafter SmokeStack) who were sharing the good news with the Black working class folk of Clarksdale, Mississippi that Club Juke was now open. And the third form came from Remmick, the Celtic vampire at the center of the bourgeoning, post-racial religious cult driven by bloodlust. The preacher, the club owner, the vampire - all sharing a form of good news that they wanted Sammie to hear.
A quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Christian martyr in WWII, rang in my head while watching the film: “When Christ calls a [person], he bids him come and die.” All three figures were sharing their good news that required entering some kind of death. For the preacher, it was Sammie’s death to his instrument and the way of life associated with the music he loved. For SmokeStack, it was the death of civility, one that Black poor folk knew well already living in racist Clarksdale. (Club Juke sold stolen beer from Irish and Italian gangsters and enshrined a life of sex and pleasure that the “proper” worlds of church and society spurned). And for Remmick, it was death by vampire bite.
But, as Jesus made clear in his life, death and resurrection, the point of death was to find new life. This too was taken up in Coogler’s work of art. For Sammie’s preaching dad, it was new life within the communion of the saints. (Notably, at the end of the movie, Sammie walks into church with a limp having wrestled with Remmick the devil. The church folk are all dressed in white, seated comfortably before the pastor, like the whole town had not just been turned into vampires and then burned alive by the rising sun.) For the gangsters, the new life on the other side of Black death was the sensual celebration in Club Juke. Folks were so broke some were trying to pay for drinks in plantation currency (as opposed to US currency), but at least they were free in that club. And for Remmick, after you died by vampire bite, you then almost instantaneously (were?) resurrected to new life as part of the undead vampire cult, loyal to Remmick’s post-racial vision of life together.
I was particularly fascinated by Remmick’s vision of evangelism, as I found it the freshest cautionary tale for the church. (The intolerant preacher and the club owners are also important to note, but I’ve seen those more often in my life.) What was disturbing about Remmick’s vision was that he was a White man drawn to the Club Juke because of Sammie’s sound. He wanted to baptize Sammie into his flock so that Sammie could live forever and Remmick could benefit from Sammie’s ability to conjure up connections to past ancestors who had died. (There is a beautiful, brilliant, spectacular scene halfway through where Sammie’s playing conjures up ancient and future forms of Black music and other musical art forms, from African drums and traditional Chinese dancers to rock’n roll guitarists and rappers. That was what Remmick wanted for himself but that Sammie would not give him.)
And not only did Remmick want Sammie as a vampire, he wanted him to join his ranks now. Part of what was chilling about the movie was that the vampires had instantaneous conversion rates (a dream for many Christians and for capitalist marketers). One did not discern whether to become a vampire, one just just became one as soon as bit. That power to instantly change someone, to instantly fix someone, is the chilling parallel I saw with many Christian paradigms, where we yearn for people to just get it and become Christian overnight. If only we could change our children, our president, our gangbangers, our billionaires. Just believe!
But Remmick’s capacity for instant conversion is not just a desire of the church. The marketplace has picked up on this vision of evangelism narrative full-tilt. Be it Nike, Apple, United Airlines, Google, Disney, McDonald’s - they all want your undying loyalty, and they want it now. Buy, consume, binge, and tell others to do the same.
Whether the church or marketplace, in this country we are awash in narratives of fast conversion. But it was telling that Remmick forcefully converted all of his followers only to have them burn up as the sun rose. That’s what made Sinners a cautionary tale for me. As a Christian who loves telling folk about Jesus, the movie invited me to think about what does it mean when conversion is fast and forced.
A song on the slow life with God from my recent release Notes of Rest Hymns, Vol. 1.
The demise of everyone forced into Remmick’s cult led me to think about what happens when we participate in the slow work of God. It is not a question of whether we change each other; we invariably do. It is, rather, a question of whether that change is mutually, genuinely life-giving. That’s what Jesus offered, and that’s what all three forms of evangelism in the movie lacked.
What happens when we open our lives to each other slowly and share in mutual vulnerability and invitation? With my friends who follow Jesus and those who don’t, I’m thankful that my relationships are built on a mutual desire to transform. That was not Remmick’s desire, nor SmokeStack’s or the pastor’s. But it can be ours. That is not my overture to Christian supremacy, but to the joy of sharing the good news of what Jesus has done for me and my eagerness to hear what God is doing in your life just the same.
I’m thankful Jesus, Mary’s baby, invites us to come die and live again in an eternal communion where we get to see the beauty of the sun all the more. I wonder how the Church would be received in society if more of us were desirous of sharing in that slow, non-coercive work. It is not a Christian’s mission to save anyone. It is instead our call to bear witness to the beautiful sun shining over the horizon.
abundantly,
Julian
What’s Next
May 30-31 Notes of Rest Inaugural Retreat (Oregon, Illinois) Registration closed!
June 1 w/Ethan Philion; Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Green Mill (Chicago)
June 10 Notes of Rest at Pastors, Priests and Guides (Greater Chicago)
Jun 17 w/Kenneth Whalum at The Promontory
Jun 18 Notes of Rest & Circle of Trust at Chicago State
Jun 18 Circle of Trust at Dorian’s (Chicago)
Jun 20-1 Notes of Rest at Renovaré ReGathering (LaGrange, Georgia)
Jun 22 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust Inspired by You Fest
Jun 23 Notes of Rest Fellowship Working Group (Virtual for Paid Subscribers only)
July 14-18 Notes of Rest Hybrid Class at Vancouver School of Theology (registration closes Jun 13)
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BUST (Music Inspired by the Original Play from Zora Howard) (April 2025)