Real White Christian Guilt

Rod Dreher has caused a real stir by strongly suggesting that, in the light of today's lost culture war, Christians should look to St  Benedict (click here), a monastic, for learning how to live in more tight knit communities. The reason for doing this is so that we don't lose our values and traditions to an increasingly hostile, secular and modernistic culture. 

We've lost the culture war to secularism and modernity, Dreher says, and so now it is our turn to be marginalized. Here we should note the first funny, not ha ha funny, thing about Dreher's view of our situation. That because Christianity has lost control over culture, its enemies stand poised to marginalize us. But never does Dreher say anything about whether Christians had marginalized unbelievers when Christianity ruled culture. We do know that many Christians definitely worked to marginalize people of color and the LGBT community, but as long as unbelievers followed Christian inspired civil laws, such as the Blue Laws. Thus, it seems that Christianity coexisted to some extent with parts of secularism and modernity. But now that secularists and modernists are in control via  the sexual revolution, we can anticipate being persecuted to varying degrees with the result that we will be marginalized in society (click here for Dreher''s Christianity Today article describing his Benedict Option).

So Dreher has proposed that Christianity, in several senses, circle the wagons because of our anticipated torment. And here is the next funny thing. For while Dreher is adamant about denying that we are to withdraw from society, he sees a strong need for us to become more insular because culture has gone too far for us work with it.

Dreher has received both positive and negative reactions from a number of Christians. This blog has rejected Dreher's proposal starting with his analysis of the problem and finishing with his solution.  This blog has stated that Dreher's analysis is flawed because it seems to assume that Christians and unbelievers cannot or should not share society as equals. And this blog has rejected Dreher's solution because it is similar to what was known as 'White Flight.' That was when Whites moved to the suburbs from urban neighborhoods in order to get away from neighborhoods where Blacks were beginning to move into. Other Christians who have rejected Dreher's Benedict Option do so because they see other Christian examples, such as that set by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, of dealing with anticipated marginalization. Certainly, no one could argue against following Bonhoeffer's examples of how to deal with hostility and persecution.

But along comes Jemar Tisby (click here for bio) from the Reformed African American Network to throw an altogether different challenge at Dreher's Benedict Option. For Tisby sees racism in Dreher's approach. How could he possibly see racism in an issue where race has no bearing on the issue at hand? It is actually quite simple. For Tisby asks why, if Dreher is looking for examples on how to handle marginalization, has he not looked to the African American Church for examples of those who handled marginalization? After all, the vast majority of those from African American Church have been marginalized for most of America's history if not all of it.

In an article on the Reformed African American Network (click here for the article), Tisby answers that question. The answer is that White Christians do not go to Black Christians to be taught. In Dreher's case, it was because Dreher looked for help from examples that came from a completely different continent. It might not have occurred to him to look for examples from America because those examples were from those of a different skin color and race. And Tisby does share a couple of examples of Blacks who, because of their graceful responses to some of the most difficult hardships, could become sources of inspiration and enlightenment on how to handle being marginalized.

Tisby's point is rather simple and so obvious. Yet, neither Dreher nor his critics nor his supporters, at least the ones I have read, have considered looking to the African American Church as a resource for how to handle being marginalized in society. And all those who ignored the many African American  examples of how to handle marginalization and worse included me. Yes, I thought that Dreher, despite his denial, proposes a significant withdraw to society. But never once did I think of looking the to African American Church for examples of and wisdom on how to handle marginalization in society. I am as guilty of overlooking the wisdom of the African American Church in this matter as Dreher is and this is despite my having read Martin Luther King Jr. and James Cone.

Before we consider how to handle the changing times in our culture, especially regarding how to endure potential marginalization and persecution, perhaps all of us should put the Benedict Option on hold while we research how the African American Christians endured all of the hardships that White Americans, including White Christians, threw their way.

Balancing The Gospel With Social Concerns

In terms of Christians being involved with social movements or political causes, I've seen Christians try approaches that range from reducing the Gospel to that of merely helping people, which loses the Gospel, to eliminating all such worldly concerns from one's faith, which is a denial of what Jesus tells us to do and how God treated us in Christ. If we put a continuous line between these two polar opposite positions, then we would have all the different variations of Christianity.

Unfortunately, I've seen Christians leave the faith because they have come to believe that helping people is all that is required for living the Christian life. Such is a works righteousness if one still believes in life after death and God's judging us. But what is more common among religiously conservative American Christians is the belief that we must help people through oppression, rather than teaching them on how to challenge abuse, by teaching them how to persevere in their faith so that they live forever in God's Kingdom. As they do that, however, they have either deliberately or negligently associated the Gospel with  social injustice as they fail to speak out against the exploitation and oppression of the vulnerable. What is often missing in the approaches of many who take the latter approach and of some who take the former approach is what the Bible tells us to preach to those who oppress. An article posted in the Reformed African American Network partially addresses this concern. The article is written by Celucien Joseph (click here for a bio). The article is entitled The Message Of Jesus Vs. Political-Bourgeois American Christianity. And though the article has some flaws, it makes some excellent points most other articles fail to address (click here for the article).

One of the most important statements in the article addresses the just mentioned overlooked point. Here, Joseph says the following:

We need to de-center political Christianity, not Jesus Christ. The Biblical Jesus is a different figure than the cultural, political, and Western Jesus. He is certainly not the Jesus of the colonizer, slave master, oppressor, and capitalist. He is certainly not the white savior.

What follows in saying that our savior is not the Jesus of those who exploit and oppress others is the need to preach repentance to those who exploit and oppress others. For if Christ is not the Jesus of those who exploit and oppress, then it is the Church's obligation and duty to tell those who exploit and oppress to stop in order to become followers of Jesus. 

In addition, Joseph uses several passages to point to the need for helping those who are vulnerable. One such passage is Proverbs 14:1:

Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him.

The importance of this verse cannot be overemphasized. When we hurt those who are who live in poverty, we are attacking the one who created not just our victims but all of us as well. But what should we say about those who neglect the poor and vulnerable? This article states that the a religion that ignores the vulnerable is not a worthwhile religion. There is much truth here but also a concern. So instead, we could resort to one of Jesus's parables to answer the question. For in his parable about the sheep and the goats, Jesus warns us about the judgment that will fall on those who neglected to help those who are suffering and are vulnerable (click here for the Scripture passage).

 However, there is a concern with some of what is written here as well. That concern is with the quotes below:

If the Gospel of Jesus Christ is Good News for all, this means it is Good News for all refugees and for all people in the world, not just for Christian refugees and the Christian poor. The message of the Gospel transcends religion, ethnicity, class, race, and gender. American bourgeois Christianity is a dead and soul-less religion; it is the antithesis of true and biblical Christianity. Lifeless Christianity (American political-bourgeois Christianity) is not sacrificial, loving, empathetic, compassionate, relational, or Jesus-centered.

And

A Christianity that chooses to close its eyes to the most crucial problems of the modern world — global poverty, immigration crisis, refugees crisis, women’s rights, labor exploitation, political corruption, local and global oppression, local and global racism, hunger, etc. — is a religion that is not worth practicing and saving. If it ignores the message and Gospel of Jesus Christ, it is an anti-Christ faith. A Christianity that evangelizes strategically in order to (neo) colonize, rule, and exploit the weak betrays the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

We should note that Christianity revolves around the forgiveness of sins that comes only through believing in Christ. For if we help those in need but fail to address the forgiveness of sins that comes in Christ, we have no Christianity. In addition, we should note that this helping the vulnerable and challenging a Christianity that either turns a blind eye to or supports any oppression of the vulnerable must be a reflection of how God has treated us in Christ rather than a way of salvation. Certainly helping the vulnerable and challenging oppression is an important part of our Christian faith, but unless it is a reflection of how God has treated us, this helping and challenging becomes a way of salvation where the Gospel is reduced to good works while eliminating the need to believe in Christ.

There is much to like in this article. But one point has yet to be made. By challenging Bourgeois Christianity in America, what we should note is that the version of Christianity we are most likely to hear in our our own pews is often determined by the social status of the congregation we worship with. Where many, if not most, of the members of a congregation are vulnerable to the oppression of others, then preaching about the need to help the poor and challenge oppression is most likely to be heard. This was Dietrich Bonhoeffer's experience when he came to America and attended a Black Church in New York. However, when most of the congregation does not make up part of the oppressed but are part of or ride in on the coattails of the ruling class, then a Christian faith that emphasizes 'personal peace and prosperity,' to use Francis Schaeffer's terminology, and is reluctant to challenge the system is most often heard. What this article does is to challenge the version of Christianity heard by the latter congregations.


 

What Is Needed To Redeem The Evangelical Movement

Jarvis Williams (click here for a bio) has just written a short but meaningful blogpost on the Evangelical movement in America and its ties to White Supremacy (click here for the article). It is one of those articles that I wish people would read for themselves rather than the review here.

Williams wants to save the Evangelical movement from White Supremacy. But he starts by defining what that supremacy is and listing where it shows in society.

In this piece, white supremacy means the prioritizing of whiteness (i.e. the values, experiences, agendas, and privileges of those socially constructed as white) and the devaluing of or the dehumanizing of black and brown people (i.e. non-white people). This prioritizing empowers and advances the agendas and ideologies of the white majority for the purpose of benefiting the white majority and those who assimilate within the white majority culture.

But white supremacy manifests itself in many ordinary and less explicit ways in society everyday, via economic, educational, housing, and judicial inequality. White supremacy is also apparent by the various implicit biases and micro-aggressions that black and brown people experience in a society that prioritizes whiteness, assumes whiteness as normal, and considers non-whiteness as an abnormality.

If we stopped at this point, we would have plenty to think about. That is because many of us like to define negative traits in ways that exclude our possessing them. For what morally sane person wants to be identified as a White Supremacist. But if we grew up in a nation that claims to be the best nation in history and in a culture that celebrates its ties to that history, supremacy, especially that of one's own group, is assumed. And we should note that from the beginning, America started as a White Supremacist nation. Thus, any pride shown in nation is bound to carry at least some traces of White Supremacy.

So Williams is basically saying that White Supremacy is deeply embedded in our society. And thus it is a problem for any religious movement that has, for a long time, played an important part in defining the status quo of our society--this is despite the fact that Evangelicalism is currently in the process of losing its privileged position in American society. It is also a problem for any group that points with pride to its links to America's past. And this is what the Evangelical movement does especially because of its ties to political conservatism.

Thus, Williams offers 11 obsergesstions--some of the 11 are observations, some of the 11 are suggestions, and some of the 11 are both--designed to help separate the Evangelical Movement from White Supremacy.  His points are as follows:

1. White and minority Christians should not limit the reconciliation discussion to the black versus white divide.
   
2. Minority Christians need white allies in the work of reconciliation, not white saviors.
   
3. Christian leaders should enlarge their ethnic circles to include more black and brown people.
   
4. More minorities should partner with majority culture churches to help lead them in the work of multi-ethnic ministry.
   
5. Many evangelical conferences desperately need to become more ethnically inclusive.
   
6. The kingdom of God does not revolve around white evangelicals or minority evangelicals.
   
7. White and minority Christians must resist the idea that whiteness is normal and everything else abnormal.
   
8. White and minority Christians must stop insisting that color-blindness is a possibility.
   
9. Neither white nor minority Christians should play the race card only when it serves their political agenda.
   
   
10. If white Christians want to gain credibility in black and brown contexts, they must be-friend black and brown people without celebrity status.
    
11. Minority brothers and sisters are not off of the hook. We have a BIG role to play in liberating the evangelical movement from white supremacy.

Now I could comment on each of these observations/suggestions, but such would serve as a distraction from what Williams wrote. So rather than commenting on each point, I suggest that all readers reads the article for themselves (again, click here for the article).

Is The PCA Apology Better Late Or Never?

In their most recent General Assembly meeting, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) did something that might have been unprecedented at the time for a religiously conservative Christian denomination: they apologized. They apologized to Blacks in America for the denomination's practicing of segregation and its support for white supremacy during the days of the Civil Rights movement. The PCA overture that addressed this made mention of something that many of something that my fine fellow flaming fundamentalist friends and family frequently forget to refer to: corporate sin. We should note that corporate sins are those practiced by groups, which in this case the PCA denominations. But the sins that the PCA was repenting from were not just the sins of individual Christians in the denomination, they were repenting of the sins practiced by the denomination as an institution in the past.

Jemar Tisby (click here for the bio) wrote a blogpost reaction to the PCA's apology for the Reformed African American Network website (click here for the article). His remarks were very reasonable and balanced. And instead of commenting on what he wrote, I strongly suggest that you click the link to the article and read it for yourself.

What I would like to point out is something that Tisby misses in reacting to the PCA apology. That something missing is a perspective on racism held by Martin Luther King Jr. The perspective I am referring to is expressed below in a speech he made to voice opposition to the Vietnam War (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.

We should note two points made by King here as the PCA and some other religiously conservative churches have become sensitive to past sins and oppressions. We want to draw attention to these things not as an attempt to take away attention from the positive steps that the denomination is taking. Rather, it hoped that the corrections made here will further enhance the PCA's attempts at racial reconciliation.

What were King's points? The first point is that racism is not a problem that stands by itself. It is inextricably connected to other sins. The result is that if we try to significantly reduce or even eliminate racism from the Church, we cannot accomplish that by addressing racism alone. 

What must we also focus on when trying to combat racism in our ranks? King notes that the driving force for the evils of racism, poverty, and militarism has to do with materialism and our society's inclination to value things over people. And here, what King is referring to by things consists of gadgets, profits, and property rights.

Yes, we must apply a concerted focus on racism. But for as long as things are more important than people, we will be inclined to compromise moral values that promote division amongst us and one of those divisions will be race. And note that if we address what King saw as the root cause for problems like racism, we would be killing more than two birds with one stone.

Thus, the PCA must not only apologize for racism. It must start addressing its corporate participation in other sins such as supporting an exploitive economic system that invisibly leads people to embracing racism, materialism, and militarism. Yes, we should be very grateful that the PCA is apologizing for its institutional support of racism in the past. But if King is right, to focus on racism without addressing our tendencies to value things more than people is rather self-sabotaging. For as long as things are more important than people, our own practices and state policies will reflect those priorities. And for as long as we hold to those priorities, we will be clinging to racism regardless of what we claim to be doing.

A Biblical View Is The Best View

Should only Black lives matter or should all lives matter? That is the question. And the answer is it depends. It depends on what we are referring to when discussing what matters. Are we referring to the movement or the opinion when saying 'Black Lives Matter'? The same applies to saying 'All Lives Matter.'

In his article on the Biblical view of Black Lives Matter (click here for the article), Jeremy Williams (click here for a very short bio) responds to the opinion with a resounding 'YES!' But it wouldn't be wrong if he was responded to the movement in the same way either. Why? Because the movement is there to address the disproportionate number of Blacks who are the victims of police shootings and abuse, mass incarceration, and youth unemployment. We could also throw in here the stagnant, if not worsening, disparity in wealth between Blacks and Whites. So saying 'All Lives Matter,' though being what we should say and believe, undercuts the attention society needs to pay to the plight of Blacks and other minoirities in our society.

Williams' article here is both simple and important. While focusing on the opinion that Black lives matter, he notes the obstacles that that are put in the way of those in the Black community: the mass incarceration, the overwhelming presence of drugs, the closing of schools, the presence of businesses that financially exploit people, and the placing of liquor stores, there is a sense that the Black community is being targeted. And here is the problem for those of us who are not Black, none of the above seems to pose a threat to those of us who are moral and law abiding. Thus, some of us tend to believe that Blacks are bringing problems on themselves by not exercising self-discipline. And because we can deduce such a conclusion, we feel no urgency to experience in person or ask for first hand accounts of what it is like to live in Black neighborhoods. 

This reminds me reminds me of my visit to the 4th birthday celebration of Occupy Wall Street. As I was talking to some Blacks who live in New York City, I was trying to tell them that many of my suburban friends find their experiences with the police as being as incredulous as they find our experience to be as I was discussing how many of the suburban police I've seen treat protesters, even the ones they are arresting, with respect. The issue is that us Whites who live in safe neighborhoods must take an investigative journalist approach to learning about life in Black communities rather than using our own neighborhoods to assume what life there is like.

Williams then gives an all too brief account of how the plight of immigrants is not all that easier from the plight of many Blacks.

Williams then proceeds to answer the question whether Jesus would say 'all lives matter' or 'black lives matter.' Here, Williams answers with the latter. Why? Because Jesus cared for those who needed to be cared for. He sided with the marginalized and those who had no leader. This is also why Jesus would reach out to welcome and help the immigrants if He were here today. On what does Williams base his opinions? He bases them on Jesus' earthly ministry. He bases his answers on how Jesus talked to the Samaritan women by the well or on when He told His disciples that He pursues His lost sheep. We could throw in Jesus' parable of the sheep and the goats.

Finally, Williams notes how the Evangelical Church does not follow Jesus' example in how they treat the vulnerable. While Jesus would look to minister to them, many of today's evangelicals are 'annoyed' with Black Lives Matter and afraid of what immigrants are doing to our nation.  Thus, those evangelicals who are also part of the marginalized sometimes feel like they have to "sell out" in order to fit in.

In one sense, based on how Williams described Jesus, Jesus would fit in in the May Day celebrations because it is the vulnerable whom those who organize such celebrations focus on. Only, instead of relying on ideology to save those in need, He would offer Himself. And indeed, He both already has in His first coming and he continues to through the preaching of the Gospel and the sending of the Spirit. While those who have the biggest ideological hangups might just be those whose ideology has trumped their understanding of God so that they do not respond to the vulnerable as Jesus did.

A Tale Of Two Conservative Church Types

Writing for the Reformed African American Network, Dylan Justus (no bio available) writes a short piece designed to identify and then unite two kinds of conservative churches: Fundamental and Missional (click here for the article). We should immediately note that a Fundamental church is not a Fundamentalist church. While the former church is defined by how it relates to the world, the latter concerns itself with basic tenets of the Christian faith.

A Fundamental church is one that waits for the world to come to it for it to share the Gospel. In contrast to that, a Missional church goes out to meet sinners where they are. The crux of the difference, Justus correctly asserts is not in the content of what they preach, but in how each church believes one should interact with culture while sharing the Gospel with others. While a Fundamental church believes in as much separation as possible from the current culture in order to be pure by being as different from it as possible, a Missional church seeks to use culture to bring the Gospel to people. 

Justus' concern is to show that both kinds of churches preach the same gospel and he does an adequate job at doing that. However, Justus stops there and that is like having the stereotypical experience of eating a Chinese meal: one is hungry an hour later.

Being a Missional person who worships in a Fundamental church, I would like to complete one side of the comparison between these church types. And the focus of my comments will be on both structural in nature and how the risk each kind of church faces is addressed by Jesus' parables.

We will start with the Fundamental churches. Here we should note that Fundamental churches , in order to avoid being contaminated by the surrounding culture, wait for sinners to come to them. And in waiting for sinners to come to them, the memberships of these churches tend to be socially and politically homogeneous and thus the growth of these churches will be limited not by any offense found in the Gospel, but by demographics and the social and political standards held by the established members of the church. Such churches not only becomes places of worship, they become social and political club for its members as they provide a safe place to meet. 

But the above is not the biggest threat that Fundamental churches face. By waiting for people in society to come to the church, these churches, in essence, turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to many in society who are either crying out for help and/or being oppressed. In particular, these churches ignore those who are victims of groups and systems. At this point, the parable of the Good Samaritan should come to mind (click here for the parable). Why? It is because they have, unlike the Good Samaritan himself, ignored those individuals or groups who are left robbed and beaten by groups and the systems that maintain the status quo. And Fundamental churches do this by refusing to interact with society's structures. Here we should note that is not that  Fundmental churches never teach the Good Samaritan parable. It is that their applications of the parable are always based on the individual who has been hurt by other individuals, it never applies to those hurt by groups or systems.

The unwillingness of some conservative churches to speak out against slavery and Jim Crow in the past shows how Fundamental churches can act as the priest or the Levite did from the parable. Each had religious reasons for not helping the man beaten and robbed. Likewise, members of Fundamental churches have their religious reasons for why they do not help those who have been beaten and robbed because of the status quo. These religious reasons include not finding specific commands or examples in the New Testament telling us to help such victims and because needs caused by such suffering are physical needs, not spiritual/salvation ones. Because they fail to ask Martin Luther King's question of what will happen to the individuals or groups of people who have been beaten and robbed by the rulers of society and its systems if the Church does not help them, they fail to be the neighbor to these people and thus fail to love their neighbor as they should.

Though the days slavery and Jim Crow are over, racism still rears its ugly head especially amongst the ranks of some law enforcement officers. Have the Fundamental churches spoken out against the continued racism? In addition, we have abuses committed by the the upper economic classes on the rest of society as partially documented by Occupy Wall Street's Declaration Of The Occupation Of New York City (click here for the declaration). Have the Fundamental churches both spoken out against those abuses and ministered to the victims? See, by limiting the implementation of the Good Samaritan parable to individuals helping individuals, these churches, as corporate bodies, have told their members to do something they are unwilling to do themselves: that is help those they find by the wayside who have been victimized. Rather than helping, the Fundamental churches are waiting for such victims to attend church services with hopes that these attendees will join. Such is a very serious indictment on the Fundamental churches. It is serious because such can cause the religiosity of Fundamental churches to be similar to that of the scribes and pharisees of Jesus' day. And just like those scribes and pharisees, they have religious excuses for withdrawing from society. They don't wish to be corrupted by helping those in need.

On the other hand, the Missional churches sometimes live out the fears that the Fundamental churches harbor. That is, Missional churches can be so involved putting out society's fires that instead of using firefighting as a way of introducing and living the Gospel, they replace the preaching of the Gospel with putting out of these fires. The parable of the four soils illustrates this problem (click here for the parable). In particular, Missional churches run the risk of becoming the seeds that fall among the thorns (vs 14). For the people these seeds represent lose faith because of their concerns with their earthly lives.

I've seen more than one follower of Christ fall to the structural risk faced by the Missional churches. And what is most tragic is that the actual physical good these former believers do blinds them from the dangers of self-righteousness and the belief that they no longer need to believe in Christ for salvation.

So what we have in the end is something we can add to what Justus saw should unify the Fundamental and Missional churches. For not only are they united by the Gospel they preach, they are united by their need for one another. For as the Fundamental churches can remind the Missional churches not to lose its focus on faith in Christ for for the forgiveness of sins, the Missional churches can help the Fundamental churches to better fulfill the command to love their neighbors in society and thus avoid settling for the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees.