Does Racism Still Live In The Reformed Church

Jemar Tisby (click here for a bio) recently gave a talk about racism in the Reformed Church in America. The Reformed Church consists of a collection of denominations that rely heavily on Reformers like John Calvin and theological standards like the Westminster Standards. The talk took place at Covenant College and it was about both the past and the present racism. And the talk is as necessary to hear as it is sad to listen to. A link to the talk can be found at the website The Witness: A Black Christian Collective (click here for a link to the talk).

In his talk, Tisby talks about current racism that caused the name of his current website to be changed from The Reformed African American Network. Tisby felt forced that his website was forced out of the Reformed community into a broader community. Here lists some of the horrible racist acts that occurred recently in America. In addition, Tisby felt harsh criticism of and push back to his efforts to call the Church to repentance from even Reformed Christian believers.

Then Tisby mentions American Reformed Christians who promoted racism in several ways. Those ways include owning slaves or supporting slavery, promoting white supremacy, and practicing and defending Jim Crow.

Christian support of racism should be deemed as unconscionable, and yet it occurs. Often we don't care to be honest about the racism because it was practiced by our some of our Reformed heroes. That is because acknowledging that racism makes us feel uncomfortable when celebrating and following those heroes.

Tisby links racism to the violation of the 6th Commandment prohibiting murder. And considering how Jesus interpreted that commandment and how the Westminster Catechism defines murder, he makes a very valid point. For the scriptural prohibition against murder can include anger or not doing what one to preserve life including having adequate healthcare. Tisby goes on to say that we have failed to legitimately use the Catechism to oppose racism. And because racism is a violation of the Commandment, it is a Gospel issue.

Despite racism being such a violation, some of America's great Reformed heroes, like Jonathan Edwards, practiced and promoted racism. He also referred to Robert Lewis Dabney and his defense of slavery and white supremacy. Later on, Tisby gets around to mentioning the racism that was part of the PCA. Before making these points, Tisby could have gone one step better. He could have mentioned Martin Luther's anti-Semitism which went way beyond opposition to the Jewish religion's rejection of Christ. Martin Luther's anti-Semitism was clearly a form of racism.

Tisby notes that many American Reformed heroes from the past were more interested in sanitizing slavery than calling for repentance from it, and thus they were also more interested in sanitizing racism instead of opposing it. And then Tisby makes an excellent point that is not often made by Christians from a Reformed tradition. He notes that much Reformed preaching and theology addresses individual sins while ignoring institutional or corporate sins alone. Those latter sins are sins committed by groups rather than individuals. Here we should note that Reformed Christians who hold to Two Kingdom Theology often reject the existence of institutional or corporate sins because their definition of sin is so focused on the individual.

 Finally, Tisby mentions how current racism in the PCA still exists today, it still exists especially in the form of apathy. Then Tisby talks about the lack of representation of Blacks in PCA leadership.

The talk being reviewed here is the first part of a 3 part message. And care was taken here not to give too much of a detailed analysis because Tisby's message should be listened to more than read about. We should note that when racism, or other forms of tribalism, make their way into the Church, not only do those in the Church become more vulnerable to committing murder as Tisby described, it makes the worship of God in the Church more about one's own groups than about God. And all too often, that has become our worship services have become. Though we invoke God's name in those services, what we are really worshiping is ourselves.







 

 


references

• https://thewitnessbcc.com/the-long-history-of-racism-and-reformed-theology-jemar-tisby-at-covenant-college/
• https://jemartisby.com/about/

What Are The Ties That Bind White Evangelicals To Republicans

Why do so many Evangelicals vote for Republicans, even for Republicans like Donald Trump and Roy Moore despite their checkered pasts or the allegations made against them? This is a question that Jemar Tisby (clich here for a bio), who is from The Witness: A Black Christian Collective, attempted asked in a recent article.

Tisby ends up giving a partial answer to the question in a blogpost from The Witness (click here for the article). Citing the book Divided By Faith, by Michael Emerson And Christian Smith, he identifies 3 'cultural tools' from a 'religio-cultural tookit' that seem to draw Evangelicals to the Republican Party and its candidates. Those tools or ideas are 'accountable freewill individualism, relationalism, and anti-structuralism.' What we will find when reflecting on the definitions of those terms is that the third term naturally follows the combination of the first two terms. In addition, evangelicals are not totally consistent in their thought here. And what else we discover is that while Tisby's article provides some very useful information, it does give an exhaustive list of reasons why Evangelicals tend to vote for Republican candidates.

What is accountable freewill individualism? According to the book Tisby cites, it is that each person is totally accountable for their actions because the reasons for one's actions can be reduced solely to the exercise of one's own freewill. Thus, neither institutions nor society's structures for our choices and thus can control what we choose to do. Every choice we make is due solely to how we exercise our free will. That idea is rooted in the belief that we are totally accountable for our sins and thus answerable to God for what we have either done or not done.

So when it comes to explaining why people commit the sins they do, all the blame goes to the individual and that there is no context that helps explain why we choose what we do. Thus, the person who has lived in deprivation and has been exploited their whole life is as free from a past that includes the impact of institutions and societal structures when it comes to choosing what and what not to do as a person who has lived in privilege and has enjoyed a comfortable life.

If we stopped right there, we would fail to notice that evangelicals do not regard family life as having no or a minimal effect on the decisions we make. That is why evangelicals invest a lot in learning about the impact that different parenting styles and kinds of families can have on children. And since the family is considered a social structure, this shows an inconsistency in this belief by Evangelicalst. In fact, one of the objections of Christians to things from the legalization of same-sex marriage to a Bolshevik (a.k.a., Communist) state is that things interfere with the kind of family life which Evangelicals believe God intended each person to have.

There is an out for this inconsistency that allows for an appreciation of the effect that families and other relationships can have on our lives. That is what the second term addresses. Relationalism identifies people's basic problem as coming from 'broken interpersonal relationships, especially one's relationship with God. These broken relationships cause a separation from God. And separation from God and others are the root cause for all of our social problems.' And thus, restoring these relationships, starting with our relationship to God by faith in Christ, is the only solution to our problems.

Once we sufficiently understand the first two terms, we see that the third term, anti-structuralism, logically follows the ideas from the first two terms. In anti-structuralism, there is the fear that our decisions and problems are, in any degree, the fault of our institutions and societal structures. For assigning any blame to them is seen as  rationalizing or excusing our bad choices by blaming someone or something else besides ourselves Thus, those who have been victims of racial injustice, as Tisby points out, or we could also include economic exploitation, have only one explanation for the wrongs they have committed: personal choice. Here, institutions and societal structures cannot share the blame in any way shape or form.

Perhaps for different reasons that White Evangelicals have, the Republican Party has traditionally and most strongly stood against expanding institutions and social structures that would help those who are neglected or exploited by what maintains the status quo.And Tisby asks why White Evangelicals have embraced a set of religious beliefs that keeps them so loyal to the Republican Party while other Christians groups, who share the same basic beliefs, have shown that they are independent of the Republican Party.

Tisby does well in noting the 3 tools of accountable freewill individualism, relationalism, and anti-structuralism and partly describing what they are. But we should note that he is unclear as to whether other Christian groups besides White Evangelicals share the same cultural toolkit. And we should also note that the 1st and 3rd belief or tool is not necessarily Christian or religious. How our nation reacted to the 9/11 terrorist attacks demonstrated that. Much of the nation didn't want to hear that those attacks could have been a result of blowback from U.S. foreign policies. Thus, regardless of what those attackers had witnessed or experienced from U.S. foreign policy, to blame U.S. foreign policy for the attacks is to make an excuse for their atrocities. 

And what is being asked here is whether these 3 cultural tools or ideas are syncretisms, rather than expressions of religious faith only, that result from many White Evangelicals trying to merge some social/political ideologies or group identifications with their Christianity. And thus most White Evangelicals have embraced a political party whose platforms best reflect those tools. That is a question, whether or not we believe in those 3 tools or ideas,  that all Christians, not just White Evangelicals, must ask ourselves lest we too have created syncretisms from attempting to merge our own pet ideologies and group identifications with our faith.