In order to nurture respect for all persons in a racist world, Christian discipleship requires powerful resistance. Drawing on the work of Victor Turner, this paper proposes that the communal connectivity of ritual process enhances hegemonic resistance. Rite of passage provides a three-stage process of separation, marginality, and reincorporation that produces communal connectivity in the margin or liminal stage. Andrew Apter indicates that liminality also produces political dynamism. Muslim pilgrimage and church retreats follow the rite of passage structure. On a Muslim pilgrimage, Malcolm X was connected to pilgrims across racial lines and imagined the reformation of society. The phenomenon and the religious and historical foundation of the Irving Park Free Methodist Church (Chicago, Illinois) retreat is examined beginning with Jesus' dramatic participation in pilgrimage. In the powerful center of ritual liminality, communal connectivity may affect both political reconfiguration and social habit reformation toward resisting hegemonic racism and promoting respect for all persons.
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