by Jemar Tisby
Christian complicity with racism in the twenty-first century looks different than complicity with racism in the past. It looks like Christians responding to black lives matter with the phrase all lives matter. It looks like Christians consistently supporting a president whose racism has been on display for decades. It looks like Christians telling black people and their allies that their attempts to bring up racial concerns are “divisive.” It looks like conversations on race that focus on individual relationships and are unwilling to discuss systemic solutions. Perhaps Christian complicity in racism has not changed much after all. Although the characters and the specifics are new, many of the same rationalizations for racism remain.
Centuries of racism in the American church cannot be overcome by “pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities” that ignore the deep social, political, and cultural divides that persist across the color line.50 If the church hopes to see meaningful progress in race relations during the twenty-first century, then it must undertake bold, costly actions with an attitude of unprecedented urgency. The solutions are simple though not easy. They are, in many cases, obvious though unpopular. No matter their difficulty or distastefulness, however, they are necessary in order to change the narrative of the American church and race.
CHAPTER
11
THE FIERCE URGENCY OF NOW
Burdened by the brutality of racism in America, Martin Luther King Jr. stepped to the microphone near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC and delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Most people remember the line from his historic address where King expressed the desire for his children to be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Just as important, though, is the restlessness he displayed in the speech. “We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now,” King explained. “This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. . . . Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.”1
That was August 28, 1963. More than fifty years later, how far has the American church come in terms of race relations? The “Whites Only” and “No Negroes Allowed” signs have been taken down, but schools remain segregated. People of color are incarcerated at disproportionally high rates. Black unemployment remains double that of whites. Most poignantly, churches remain largely segregated. The reluctance to reckon with racism has led to a chasm between black and white Christians in theology, politics, and culture. This chasm only makes it harder to productively communicate and take effective action around racial issues. When it comes to opposing racism, have we as a nation overdosed on “the tranquilizing drug of gradualism”?2
In this book, I have provided a brief historical survey to illustrate the many ways the American church has been complicit in racism over several centuries. In some cases, they actively constructed ideological and structural impediments to equality. If the twenty-first century is to be different from the previous four centuries, then the American church must exercise even more creativity and effort to break down racial barriers than it took to erect them in the first place.
In spite of all the shortcomings highlighted in this examination of the American church, many of the solutions proposed, solutions that might actually prove effective in changing the status quo, are often dismissed as impractical. Effective remedies to the present state of racial injustice—a situation created by an unbending commitment to ideas of racial superiority and inferiority—are deemed too inconvenient to pursue. But studying the history of the American church’s compromise with racism should teach us that action is necessary and long overdue. Pioneering black historian John Hope Franklin said, “I think knowing one’s history leads one to act in a more enlightened fashion.” He went on to state, “I cannot imagine how knowing one’s history would not urge one to be an activist.” Those who have humbly submitted to the tutelage of history cannot help but exclaim, “I have to do something!”3
This chapter presents practical ways to address the current state of racial injustice in America. Most of the solutions focus on structural and institutional methods to combat inequality. I understand that this approach may provoke resistance in some readers since the default way of thinking for many conservative Christians is to focus on the relational aspects of race. To be clear, friendships and conversations are necessary, but they are not sufficient to change the racial status quo. Christians must also alter how impersonal systems operate so that they might create and extend racial equality.
Many of these suggestions have been or are being practiced by a small but committed number of people, but some Christians consider them too risky or impractical to seriously consider. My hope is that as people learn about how deep and far reaching the problem of racism is, these “radical” solutions will start to seem more reasonable. This list is far from exhaustive. It is an initial attempt to offer a few actions that I believe can actually impact race relations for the better. Perhaps my suggestions will inspire additional ideas. Many of the methods of addressing racism highlighted here pertain to white Christians, but people of all races and ethnicities play a role in bringing about racial justice.
THE ARC OF RACIAL JUSTICE
The most frequent question I get when presenting about racial justice is, What do we do? People who ask this agree that the American church has compromised with racism and that racism continues to be a problem. Their next impulse is to want to do something about the problem, so they ask me what they should do. After years of listing random action items, I have now grouped them into three broad categories.
The ARC (Awareness, Relationships, Commitment) of racial justice helps distinguish different types of antiracist actions. They are not formulaic; they can happen nonsequentially and simultaneously. Nor should this process ever be considered complete. Even the most seasoned racial justice activists constantly learn, question, and reform their own attitudes and actions. Though not the final word on antiracism, the ARC of racial justice provides a useful framework for taking decisive action against discrimination.
To increase your capacity to fight your own complicity in racism, you can start by increasing your awareness of the issues and the people involved. Although you can expand your awareness in many ways, one particularly fruitful place to start is by reading and learning more about the racial history of the United States. I am concerned that our knowledge about racial justice in this country tends to extend no further than one chapter in a high school social studies textbook. History is about context, so studying history remains vital. It teaches us how to place people, events, and movements within the broader scope of God’s work in the world.
Context is something Bible-believing Christians should understand better than anyone. In our passionate pursuit of biblical interpretation, we know that we must always look at the context. We want to know the historical-grammatical situation of the text so that we can accurately explain and apply it. It’s no different with racial justice. We have to develop an awareness of the context to properly exegete the times and apply biblical solutions.
Some action steps to increase your awareness include the following:
• Watch documentaries about the racial history of the United States.4
• Diversify your social media feed by following racial and ethnic minorities and those with different political outlooks than yours.
• Access websites and podcasts created by racial and ethnic minorities.
• Do an internet search about a particular topic instead of always asking your black friend to explain an issue to you.5
But awareness isn’t enough. No matter how aware you are, your knowledge will remain abstract and theoretical until you care about the people who face the negative consequences of racism. The problem is that it is hard to make friends with people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. A Public Religion Research Institute study revealed that in a one-hundred-friend
scenario, white people had just one black friend, one Latinx, and one Asian friend. In that same scenario, black people had eight white friends, two Latinx friends, and zero Asian friends.6 The long history of racial segregation in this country coupled with the tendency to associate with those most like ourselves has left all of us in mostly homogenous social networks.
Some action steps to develop interracial relationships include:
• Start with the people you know. Most of us know someone of a different race or ethnicity. Have you talked with them specifically about their experiences and perspectives of race and justice? These individuals cannot merely be projects or sources of information. They are real people with whom to pursue a meaningful friendship. Still, it takes intentionality to diversify our social networks, and we should start with those nearest us.
• Find new places to hang out. We are creatures of habit and convenience. We go to particular places simply because they are familiar. A purposeful effort to develop relationships with people from diverse backgrounds will carry you to different restaurants, grocery stores, and hangouts. If you strategically organize your spatial habits, the mundane places where you enact your regular routines can become the richest sites to encounter those who are different from you.
• Join a sport, club, or activity with people who are different. In my experience, other than people who have been involved with the military, those who have the most diverse networks of friends have participated in some sort of activity that brought them into frequent contact with people of other races and ethnicities. You may have to engineer these opportunities, but they can lead to organic friendships that cross traditional lines of social division.
Committing to concrete action may be the hardest part of pursuing racial justice. Commitment to the ARC model requires a total shift in disposition so that antiracist activity is a way of life, not simply a topic to which you give occasional and superficial attention. Developing awareness and relationships may create a burden for the struggles of others, but does that burden move you to act? Are you willing to set aside preferences and prestige to take the side of the marginalized and despised? More to the point, are you willing to address the systemic and institutional aspects of racism rather than solely work on an interpersonal level?
Action steps for developing a lifelong commitment to racial justice include:
• Create something. Write a blog post. Write a book. Write a sermon. Do a Sunday School class. Host a forum. Write a song or a poem. Create something that speaks to racial justice. As you do it, though, remember it always helps to get feedback from person from a different racial or ethnic background who is willing to help.7
• Join an organization that advocates for racial and social justice.
• Donate money to organizations that advocate for racial and social justice.
• Speak with candidates for elected office in your area and ask them about their views of racial justice and the policies they advocate.
• Vote.
The ARC of racial justice provides an entry point for anyone who may be new to the journey for racial equity. After a survey of the American church’s complicity in racism, though, Christians must undertake courageous and urgent action to correct historic wrongs and their ongoing ramifications. The following suggestions may seem extreme to some, but they are merely proportional to the effort and intentionality that many Christians in America lent to building racial divisions in the first place.
REPARATION(S)
Perhaps the only other “r-word” more controversial to American Christians than racism is reparations. The idea goes against politically conservative ideas of small government and low taxes. It raises all kinds of questions about practicality, such as how to determine which black people are actually descendants of slaves and who counts as black in a socially constructed paradigm? These and other concerns present valid obstacles to the implementation of reparations, but they should not halt the conversation altogether. The fact remains that enslaved black people labored for centuries without pay. They tilled the soil, picked crops until their fingers bled, raised other people’s children, and performed many other valuable forms of labor even as they endured abuse, rape, murder, and family separations. But reparations pertain not only to the problems that attended slavery. The opportunities lost due to legalized segregation during the Jim Crow era also demand redress. Segregation denied black people opportunities for education, employment, and asset accumulation, all of which contribute to the wealth gap between black and white citizens.
The wealth gap between black and white citizens is colossal, and there is no end in sight. A 2011 study revealed that a typical white household had sixteen times the wealth of a black one.8 According to a 2014 report, for every dollar in a white household, a black household has less than seven cents. Black people comprise about 13 percent of the population but hold less than 3 percent of the nation’s total wealth. Even among the richest people, the wealthiest 1 percent of black families have about $1.6 million compared to $12 million for the wealthiest 1 percent of white families.9 The reasons for these gaps include redlining in real estate, denying bank loans to people of color, and higher unemployment rates among black people, just to name a few. These gaps will persist unless a broad-based reform effort takes hold. One facet of these reforms could include reparations.
Presbyterian minister Duke Kwon distinguishes between reparation and reparations.10 The former refers to the principle, and the latter refers to the practice. In terms of the principle, reparation simply means repair. Injustice obligates reparation. Reparation is not a matter of vengeance or charity; it’s a matter of justice. The concept of reparation has biblical precedence. Under Old Testament law if a person wrongs another person, the wrongdoer should confess the sin. But saying “I’m sorry” is not enough. Expressing remorse may begin the process of healing, but somehow that which was damaged must be restored. The law goes on to state that the wrongdoer “must make full restitution for the wrong they have done, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the person they have wronged” (Num. 5:7). In the New Testament, when the Jewish tax collector Zacchaeus accepted Jesus as Lord, he gave away half his possessions and repaid those he had cheated “four times the amount” (Luke 19:8).
Some might object that the concept of reparation applies only to interactions among individuals, not societal or institutional issues. The prophet Daniel prayed for forgiveness not only for himself, not only for the people of Israel, but also for “our princes and our ancestors” who were “covered with shame” (Dan. 9:8). Daniel made the petition in light of both present injustice and that of his forebears. Within Christianity, then, is a sense of corporate and communal participation. The injustices of the past continue to affect the present, and it is up to the current generation to interrupt the cycle of racial compromise and confront it with courage.
Reparations, on the other hand, can take many forms. Kwon distinguishes between “civic reparations” and “ecclesiastical reparations.”11 Civic reparations come through the state. These reparations originate from government policies, laws, and institutions that can begin to repair the damages done. Germany has paid about $50 billion to Holocaust survivors and their families. Japanese-Americans confined to internment camps during World War II received an apology from the government and $20,000 per victim. Although far too few received far too little, some Native American nations received some recompense for the land stolen from them. But any conversation about reparations must necessarily include discussions about how to enact justice toward the original inhabitants of this land.12 For black people, no serious attempt at the civic level has ever been sustained, and the material and financial injustices remain.
According to Kwon, ecclesiastical reparations occur mainly from and within Christian churches. These pertain to the obligations that the faithful have to one another in light of historic injustices. Even apart from political attempts at reparations, the church should be willing to consider some talk abou
t reparations. Jesus taught his disciples that if they are at the altar and remember their brother or sister has something against them, they should leave their gift. “First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift” (Matt. 5:24). Black people have endured innumerable offenses at the hands of white people in the American church. Injuries to the church body, as Jesus teaches, are so important that one should interrupt worship to go address the problem. Much of the American church has not yet considered racism to be a serious enough sin to interrupt their regularly scheduled worship, at least not much beyond conversations and symbolic gestures, to repair the relationship.
Churches could lead society by independently declaring a literal or figurative “year of Jubilee” for black people. They could pool resources to fund a massive debt forgiveness plan for black families. Or they could invest large amounts into trust funds for black youth, who now experience disproportionate rates of poverty in America. These monies could fund educational opportunities or down payments on houses. Funds could be used for financial investments. Another way churches could also help immediately is by funding black-led church plants and religious nonprofit organizations. Black Christians have an abundance of innovative ideas for evangelism, apologetics, discipleship, media, and the arts. What they often lack is funding. In an attempt at reparations, churches could decide to funnel significant resources into promising Christian enterprises that have the talent and vision to be successful but lack financial stability. Further, countless pastors in the urban core and rural areas diligently labor in bivocational ministry. They attend to the spiritual needs of a congregation in a storefront or small building while attempting to make a living through some other occupation that pays more. Wealthier churches could fund a salary sufficient for a pastor to work full time in the church and exponentially increase the minister’s capacity to serve in the local community.13 Additionally, Christian churches and schools could partner to make sure black students pay no tuition to Christian colleges and grad schools. The tuition relief would directly address some of the damage caused by the racially discriminatory tactics that some Christian schools employed in the past. Churches could also invest money in local public schools that predominately serve black students so they have the books, technology, and teachers they need for an adequate education.
