The Third Option: Hope for a Racially Divided Nation - Hardcover

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Miles McPherson is the Senior Pastor of the Rock Church and Academy in San Diego, California. He attended the University of New Haven, where he majored in engineering. McPherson was the university’s first player to achieve All-American honors in football and be drafted into the NFL, and he played in the league for four years. After his life spiraled out of control, he gave his heart to the Lord. He graduated from Azusa Pacific School of Theology with a Master of Divinity in 1991. He founded The Rock Church 2000, and currently more than 14,000 people attend its five weekly services. The church has five campuses throughout San Diego County and over 200 volunteer-led outreach ministries that donate over $4 million of volunteer service every year. He and his wife Debbie have three children and reside in San Diego.

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The Third Option

INTRODUCTION

The Third Option

N* or White Boy?

Did they just call me the N-word? School was out, and I rode my bike as fast as I could through the white neighborhood that stood between me and the safety of home.

My heart pounded as I approached an intersection and faced a red light. Please turn green, please turn green, I repeated in my head. Just in the nick of time, it did. Thank you, God! I crossed the street that served as the gateway into my neighborhood, and zoomed down the hill. I was ten blocks from home.

But I couldn’t slow down yet. In fact, entering my Black neighborhood only meant that I’d exited one potential danger zone and entered another.

“Hey, White boy!” someone called. These words shot through my body like adrenaline, making me feel fearful and anxious all over again. I flew through the streets I knew so well, trying to outpace the name-calling, threats, and insults. I didn’t slow down until I was two blocks from my house.

I grew up in a predominantly Black neighborhood called Lake-view, in Long Island, New York. But from first through eighth grade, I went to school in an all-White neighborhood called Malverne.

At the time, according to my uncle, the one and only black family who moved to Malverne was welcomed warmly—with a burning cross on their front lawn. So it is easy to understand why I never felt comfortable there.

Ocean Avenue ran between Lakeview and Malverne. Each time I pedaled across Ocean Avenue, I experienced anxiety. On this particular day, I had a legitimate reason to: some White kids from Malverne were chasing me out of their neighborhood. I was pedaling as fast as I could to outrun their threats of violence.

So imagine my devastation when—just as I entered the apparent safe haven of my own neighborhood—I heard the words Hey, White boy! As a multiracial kid, I felt like a ping-pong ball bouncing between two worlds, never feeling like I completely belonged to either.

I’m what Black people call a “high yella brother with good hair.” To some, that meant I wasn’t “black enough.” White boy was the not-so-affectionate term by which some Black kids in the neighborhood called me. The White kids used even less endearing terms to describe me.

Growing up, I felt like a perpetual outsider. Aside from my parents’ home, where diversity was embraced and celebrated, it seemed like there was nowhere I could go to fit in. And though it’s been decades since my school days in Lakeview, I still experience the same feelings today from time to time that I did back then.

You may be feeling like I did that day, wondering how you can escape the devastating impacts of racism. Maybe you’ve experienced racism personally, or know someone else who has. Maybe you feel like you’ve been wrongly blamed for racist events that happened long before you were born. Maybe you want to learn how to have a conversation about race but you’re afraid of saying the wrong thing. Maybe you’re trying to recover from the shame of being the target or a perpetrator of racism. Or maybe you’re searching for a way to deal with the race-based hate, resentment, and fear you cling to in your heart.

Whatever your reasons for picking up this book, I commend you for your courage and commitment to tackling racism head-on. I have struggled with most of the issues listed above, too, and look forward to sharing what I’ve learned with you.

Above all, I want to offer you hope. Racial unity is God’s idea, and He promises that if we ask Him for help, He will be faithful to answer us. Let’s approach God with confidence and vulnerability while we trust him to guide us in tackling this issue together.

About Me

My name is Miles McPherson, and I am the senior pastor of the Rock Church, located in “America’s Finest City”: San Diego, California.

I am the proud offspring of two Black grandfathers, a half-Chinese and half-Black grandmother, and a White grandmother. I am of mixed race, but I identify myself as Black. Consequently, the stories and feelings I share in this book are shared through the lens of a Black man.

I’m also a former NFL player. My love affair with football started when I was a kid. Every Sunday during football season, my dad, uncles, and neighbors played pickup games in the park. Even as a child, when I had the ball in my hands, no one, not even the adults, could catch me. At least, that’s how I remember it.

Football came naturally, and I loved every minute that I played, whether in the neighborhood or under stadium lights. In my youth I played in Pop Warner leagues, on my high school team, and at the University of New Haven, where I was the school’s first all-American and its first player to be drafted by and to play in the NFL.

Playing football helped me cultivate a strong sense of unity with others from an early age. I’ve always played with guys who represented all ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds. Going to battle with my teammates created a bond between us that bridged our differences. Football is a great tool for teaching us that what is most powerful and valuable about a person is what’s on the inside, not the outside.

Ultimately, it was also football that led me to Jesus. Having attended Catholic school all my life, I learned about God at an early age but walked away from religion after the eighth grade. One night when I was nineteen years old, while I was standing in a department store waiting for my girlfriend to get off work, two hippies who looked like Charles Manson shared the gospel with me. Learning that I was created to have a personal relationship with Jesus rocked my world, and I prayed to receive Christ as my Savior on the spot. For about ten days or so, I was in “spiritual shock.” I did not get high on drugs, I stopped having sex, and spent all day wondering what God wanted to do with my life.

The “high” I felt from my newfound relationship with Jesus eventually went away. Since I didn’t know anyone who could guide me in the growth of my faith, I returned to my old ways: partying, sleeping around, and living a wild and out-of-control lifestyle. When I joined the San Diego Chargers, I dialed it up even further.

During my first two years in the NFL, I was a “guy gone wild.” I smoked a lot of marijuana, used cocaine, and chased women. But all the while, I watched two of my teammates, Sherman Smith and Ray Preston, from afar. Those two Christian men modeled the heart of God and started challenging me to grow in my faith.

On April 12, 1984, at 5:00 a.m., I was lying on a couch in my apartment, my heart pounding in my chest. I’d been using cocaine all night. I was thinking about what those Jesus-loving hippies and my teammates, Sherman and Ray, had said and modeled for me. That morning I recommitted my life to Jesus and never touched cocaine or marijuana again. I reunited with my old girlfriend later that afternoon, and we were married five months later. I played two more years with the Chargers and became known as “the Jesus guy.”

When my four-year career with the Chargers ended, I felt the call of God on my heart to serve in ministry. I served as a youth pastor for eight years, and launched Miles Ahead Youth Crusades. Tens of thousands of kids, representing all different...