Denying The Existence Of Elephants In The Room

Sho Baraka (click here for a bio) wrote about a non-incident in his church that seems most appropriate to mention today. He talked about how the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin was ignored in his church despite the racism that exists in our nation. This angered Baraka greatly. I am, in anger, anticipating a similar non-response in my church to the separating of children from the parents who have tried to enter our nation illegally. And, despite the fact that some of our nation's foreign policies are responsible for the impetus of many to try to enter our nation illegally, I have already seen too many conservative defenses for the separation policy to not be livid over the situation.

Baraka's article (click here for the article) strongly states that churches must address the racism elephant in the room. Otherwise both a strong anger by some and an absence of reconciliation between others in our churches will result. However, Baraka provides some guidelines for how racism should be dealt with in our churches. His guidelines preclude claims of being colorblind by some in an effort to show that they have no racism. Such claims also fail to recognize the presence of people of different races.  His guidelines preclude ignoring racism in our nation's history. And his guideline wisely preclude the use of labels on one another pending on what we say and believe. And his guidelines, so far, are simple and yet necessary to mention.

In addition, Baraka's guidelines have a stated purpose in mind: racial reconciliation within our churches. What Baraka wants to accomplish does not include playing the same old game while reversing the positions of the 1st and last place teams. He wants us to play a new game where teams aren't competing to be superior to one another. Baraka wants the house of God to live by a different set of rules than the world does. So Baraka wants problems like racism in society to be addressed and dealt with in the churches to help people in the churches deal with it and, at the same time, for people in the churches to live in a state of reconciliation and forgiveness. And for that to happen, Baraka correctly believes that our churches have to address the issue of racism in society head on.

And so far, everything in Baraka's article is good. But what is wrong with his article is what is missing from it. For what is missing from his article are the insights of Martin Luther King Jr. on racism. A good summation of King's views on racism can be seen in the quote below (click here for the source):

 I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

 Now we should note in the above quote that King would substitute 'economic exploitation' for the word 'materalism' when talking about racism at other times. Other than that, his above quote should be examined word by word. And when we do that, what we find is that racism is among 3 problematic elephants that exist in the world. And when one listens to King talk about these 3 evils, he explicitly states that we cannot eliminate just one of these problems, we must eliminate all of them together. Thus those who say that they want to eliminate racism but don't also mention exploitation and militarism, are doomed to failure.

Another part of King's quote we must pay attention to is that the cause for these three problems is found in society's valuing of gadgets, profits, and property rights more than its valuing of people. And thus, the solution to racism and the other 3 problems at least includes the changing society's values.

Why didn't Baraka mention what King said? We could venture a guess that Baraka was just writing about racial reconciliation in the Church. But how can racial reconciliation occur in our churches when our churches don't acknowledge the other problematic elephants that are inseparable from racism?

Here, perhaps we find the elephant that many conservative churches are most reluctant to mention. Lately, conservative churches have been acknowledging their role in maintaining or promoting racism in the past. Many conservative churches have acknowledged that elephant in the room. But church history shows that the elephant that is least likely to be mentioned in conservative churches is that of economic classism and exploitation. That is because, many conservative churches have sided with wealth and power. 

That siding by the predominant branch of the Church with wealth and power was true in the pre-revoutionary times of France, Russia, and Spain. In France and Spain, the predominant branch of the church was the Roman Church while in Russia, it was the Orthodox Church. And the results of that siding with wealth and power after the respective revolutions took place was unnecessary persecution of the Church and a tarnishing of the reputation of the Gospel.

Certainly while King talked about the problem of racism in society,  Baraka's concern is about racism in churches. But if being thing-oriented contributes to racism, then there can be no racial reconciliation inside or outside of our churches without acknowledging one of the causes of racism.

In the end, what Baraka wrote was good. But we need to go beyond our concerns for what happens in our churches to what also exists in our society if we are going to tackle racism in either place. That is especially true if King's views on racism and how it is inseparably tied to economic exploitation and militarism and how is caused by society valuing things more than people are true.

Where Can We Find Racial Reconciliation?

Samuel Sey (click here for his bio) has good intentions as he writes about racial reconciliation from religiously conservative Christian point of view. His point is that if reconciliation was humanly possible, then we would have seen it by now after legislation such as in the Emancipation Proclamation, after the Civil Rights Movement, and after Obama's Presidency. But since we don't see that reconciliation, then he reasons that racial reconciliation can only exist in Christ and what He did on the cross. That racial reconciliation was solved theologically in that believers are reconciled to each other and God through what Christ did for us. We just have to "remember" and "live like" that is true (click here for the article).

His intentions are good, but we might want to ask about what follows his premise. For example, if racial reconciliation can only be accomplished theologically, does it follow that we should pass no laws that protect the equality of all regardless of race? If racial reconciliation can only be accomplished theologically, should we expel from our natoinall who do not believe in Christ? If racial reconciliation can only be accomplished theologically, can we expect the absence of racism in a nation filled with Christians?

Before answering those questions, we need to ask ourselves what we mean by racial reconciliation? Do we mean a state of being where there is equality for everyone regardless of race including peace and harmony between the races? Are we expecting the age of Aquarius here? Or is racial reconciliation a process that we will always be working for until the end of time?

To define racial reconciliation in ideal terms is to condemn it to failure even among Christians. We should note that when America could be consider more of a Christian nation, we saw a Christianity that was based on white supremacy. European Christian settlers and later American Christians  took land from Native Americans because they assumed that, because of their religion and race, the land was theirs to take. In addition, American Christians owned slaves in a race-based slavery system and they used the Bible to defend Jim Crow and other forms of discrimination. Why doesn't that cause Sey to conclude then that there has been no theological racial reconciliation just as he used history to show that neither legislation nor activism to accomplish racial reconciliation? Why does his theological reconciliation get a bye here when other ways of achieving racial reconciliation did not?

The racial reconciliation of which Sey speaks shows a confusion of racial reconciliation that is defined as a state of being and that which is defined as a process. And the same kind of difference between those two definitions is similar to the difference between the justification of a Christian their sanctification. We who believe have been reconciled to God in Christ and have been justified because Jesus Christ's righteousness has been credited to us and He has taken away our sins. But such does not imply that we are always living that way. And we will never reach a perfect sinless state in living for God this side of the grave. Our attempts to resist sin and live lives more pleasing to God is called sanctification. While justification can be considered complete in the here and now, sanctification cannot. And this is why it is important that we determine whether racial reconciliation is a state of being that we have accomplished or not or whether it is a process for which we should always participate this side of the grave. For if we define racial reconciliation as a state of being, then it is like justification in that it is either complete or incomplete. However, if racial reconciliation is a process, then, like sanctification, it is something that we should always be working toward knowing that we will never fully achieve it.

What Sey has done in his analysis is to judge racial reconciliation as a state of being as it can be completed either politically or through activism. But he is inconsistent in terms of applying the same standards when speaking about racial reconciliation occurring through theological events. For though the state of racial reconciliation has not been completed in the lives of Christians, he counts it as being completed anyway because of how Christ has reconciled those of us who believe. In addition, though he says that all we have to do is live like Christ has accomplished far more than racial reconciliation for us, that we don't live like it enough shows, according to how he judged political and activist attempts at achieving racial reconciliation, that he is not applying the same standards to theological attempts at reaching racial reconciliation as he did with its non-theological means.

Also, in light of the fact that once we call ourselves Christians, all that we do and not do becomes associated with the Gospel, how should Christians approach racial reconciliation in society? This is an important question because we share society with unbelievers. Should we make no effort to support political and/or activist means of achieving racial reconciliation? And we might ask if just because we don't see a complete racial reconciliation in society through political and activist means, does that mean that no degree of racial reconciliation in society has occurred? And if some has occurred, then should we consider political and activist means at attempting racial reconciliation as having some value?

One final issue needs to be resolved here. Sey accuses Black Lives Matter as preaching Black Supremacy. The reason for his accusation is that some individual leaders have espoused Black Supremacy; but it is questionable as to whether they have done so as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. Thus, it seems that Sey has much more work to do  in order to make his accusation stick.