Unless I have bad intentions today, I shouldn't have to pay for the church's racist past.
I wasn't even alive during the slavery and Jim Crow eras, so what do I personally have to do with racial reconciliation today?
If everyone would repent of their sins and stop acting racist, we would see racial reconciliation.
Racism is a heart issue - so why should the church force racial reconciliation?
I often hear these thoughts expressed about racism. Many white U.S. Christians see racism only as an individual moral failure, but it's also a social failure, for which we all share responsibility.
A common definition of racism is limited to racial slurs or white supremecy. This article illustrates many white people's definition of "racist." A professor asks her white students to raise their hands if they're racists. An awkward silence follows, and no one moves. However, when she reframes the question as, "You've never had a negative thought based on racial bias?" hands slowly rise.
If we're all honest, no one would continue to insist she or he is free from negative racial thoughts. But even if we all had perfect attitudes, racism persists in the church without purposefully racist individuals. Though our intent is no longer racist, the effects still are.
You personally do not have to be racist. Our system works so that, if you participate in the system, it will be racist on your behalf.
Racism is not only a heart issue. Individual repentance isn't the last and only step - it's the first step. Using the Southern Baptist Convention as an example, publicly apologizing for racist acts and electing a person of color as vice president of your denomination are great first steps. However, it doesn't mean racism is no longer an issue in your institution.
Systemic racism, without intentional individual action, is highlighted in Efrem Smith's review of John Piper's book, Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian. I'm not reviewing a book I haven't read, but wanted to share Smith's portrayal of Calvinism as Eurocentric. Although Smith applauds this well-known evangelical for tackling racism, he takes issue with Piper's solutions:
Dr. Piper presents Calvinism as the theological framework for living into racial reconciliation biblically. I must respectfully disagree with him. He states in the book that Jesus deals with ethnocentrism, but then presents a theology rooted in Eurocentric ethnocentrism as the solution. In Dr. Piper’s commitment to racial reconciliation he can’t just have great love for theologies developed by European men. By presenting Calvinism this way, he actually goes against what he is writing about. Structural racism exists in the church in the United States because theology is dominated by White theology.
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Piper also only offers politically conservative and Republican solutions to dealing with structural racism.
Smith's critique teaches us that theology is not race-neutral. Theology is rooted in a specific context, which includes race. Whites may not think our views about church have a racial influence; rather, we consider them race-neutral. Imposing what we consider harmless, raceless ideas on people of color at the foot of the cross, then, is problematic.
Reformed theology has not been race-neutral in the U.S. Many Calvinist missionaries paved the way for white settlers and the U.S. government to take lands from its indigenous inhabitants. (Here's an example out of Hawaii.)
Of course, most Calvinists today are not white supremacists and do not intentionally use their theology to oppress people of color. Smith notes some people of color are Reformed.
The problem arises when Calvinism is viewed as race-neutral and the only proper form of Christianity. Calvinism is inherently individualistic, so it's understandable that Piper and others omit structural reconciliation. But, racism is too complex for solutions to come only from a homogeneous subculture like white Calvinists, who gravitate toward well-meaning but one-dimensional solutions.
Soong-Chan Rah has discussed white evangelicals' individualistic view of racism. Again, no one considers themselves racist, so Rah frames racism as one ethnicity having hegemony over another. Thus, in racial reconciliation contexts, elevating white theology is itself racist, albeit unintentional.
Rah and Smith's critiques remind us we cannot frame racism solely as a heart issue. It is not enough for individual Christians to repent of their sins and expect marginalization of people of color to stop. Even after repentance, if white Christians go with the flow, sticking with what's natural and comfortable, racial reconciliation will not occur.
Networking is another example of structural racism. In the gender context, I see prominent evangelical men conversing with, linking to, and promoting only other men, even if they self-identify as egalitarian. (Although Scot McKnight provides space on his widely-read blog to women, which is nice.)
Similarly, many white Christians promote and network exclusively with other whites. It does not occur to them to reach outside their comfort zones to connect with people of color. To extinguish systemic racism, it takes intentional, structural-level, often uncomfortable efforts.
European theology has made incredible contributions to North American evangelicalism, but omitting non-white theology is a form of racism, even if unintentional. Institutional apologies help reconciliation, but it takes continual efforts to fight racism. And, while repenting of racism in your heart is humbling, it's only the first step. If white Christians are not willing to recognize structural racism and to listen to people of color, we might as well display Jim Crow-era "whites only" signs over our churches.
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