RECOGNIZE THE CHURCH’S SCANDAL
For Christians to respond to the reality of racism in our lives and in our congregations, we must first move beyond denial. In classic Christian terminology, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” But such confession is done in hope. “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” A congregation that desires to overcome the sin of racism that bogs down and distorts their experience of the faith must begin with confession. Such a confession can be seen as a positive step. It is a significant step towards the healing of a major division among humanity.
GET OUT OF PRISON
Of course, just because you confess, forgiveness by the victimized humans is not inevitable. Desmond Tutu relates a story of the cost to the victim that will not forgive. “A recent issue of the journal Spirituality and Health had on its front cover a picture of three U.S. ex-servicemen standing in front of the Vietnam memorial in Washington, D.C. One asks, ‘Have you forgiven those who held you prisoner of war?’ ‘I will never forgive them,’ replies the other. His mate says: ‘Then it seems they still have you in prison, don’t they?’”
LISTENING TO THE STORY
Tutu continues, “In forgiving, people are not being asked to forget. On the contrary, it is important to remember, so that we should not let such atrocities happen again. Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done. It means taking what happened seriously and not minimizing it; drawing out the sting in the memory that threatens to poison our entire existence.” One of the powerful discoveries in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa was the power of truth-telling. There was healing in the victims finally having someone listen to their story of suffering and honoring their pain. Desmond Tutu notes, “It may be, for instance, that race relations in the United States will not improve significantly until Native Americans and African Americans get the opportunity to tell their stories and reveal the pain that sits in the pit of their stomachs as a baneful legacy of dispossession and slavery.”
RECOVERING RACISTS
For a White congregation to move to the step of confessing that they are racist is neither an easy step nor does it, in itself, solve the problem of racism. To draw upon the truth discovered in Alcoholics Anonymous, White people and White congregations are always “recovering racists.” That is as much a given of our context as being an alcoholic is a given of their constitution. We did not create the history that shaped us, but we cannot escape it either. A critical step in our healing, however, is acknowledgment of the problem.
SAVED TO COMMUNITY
In God’s economy, we are saved to community. We not only need to confess, but we need someone to listen to our confession. Picture the power of members of a White congregation taking the sin of racism so seriously that they are willing to sit before a Black congregation and speak of their own complicity in the sin of racism as well as listen intensely to the pain that their African-American neighbors experience in their lives. “True forgiveness deals with the past, all of the past, to make the future possible.”
Such confession is not a single act but a process. We continue to need the dialogue made available through community. While individual congregations may be of predominantly one race, the Body of Christ is diverse. Thus, God’s gift of the church to humanity is to provide humanity with that community of faith that transcends human divisions and provides it a context for such a dialogue.
OWN OUR HELPLESSNESS
Continuing with the model provided for us by Alcoholics Anonymous, the second step of the process is to admit our helplessness to control this disease and our dependence on a higher power. While education is important, we cannot educate ourselves out of racism. While laws to protect the community are important, we cannot legislate the end of racism. The history of racism makes it clear that racism will not be defeated by human agency alone.
Our hope lies in the redemptive power of God that has been revealed in the cross. The cross revealed that God is not defeated by evil and can use the experience of evil redemptively. Not even racism can defeat God’s reconciling purpose for humanity. If racism is our cross, the rebellious act by which we defy the intention of God, our hope is that God can use this cross as part of God’s redemptive purpose.
It is important to emphasize that this is not an attempt to justify the evil of racism or to suggest that it is good in disguise. Evil is evil, but God is neither restrained nor defeated by it. As Christians have learned through the ages, however, we must turn and face the cross if we are to experience its redemptive power. “Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon you? It is my treason, Lord that has undone you. ‘Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied you; I crucified you.” We not only do not need to deny the corporate history of racism in our nation and in our church and the ways that we have benefited from it, but it is important that we turn and acknowledge it for our own salvation.
RECOGNIZING WHITE PRIVILEGE
By identifying the types of privileges that have come to us by virtue of our being white, we can share in the search for the signs of God working redemptively in those very areas. It is not the pattern of God’s saving work only to speak through the pure in heart; frequently, the opposite is the case. Jesus followers held clear prejudices. “The disciples rebuked those who brought the children for Jesus’ blessing (Matt.19:13). They were surprised to see Jesus speaking to a Samaritan woman (John 4:27). These same twelve beseeched Jesus to send the woman of Canaan away when she sought healing (Matt. 15:23). Prejudice toward children, Samaritans, and Canaanites influenced the disciples’ response in each instance.” Yet Jesus worked through them to heal the oppression of prejudice. It is easy to demonstrate, through the history of the church, that we continue to be filled with prejudice. When Jesus is quoted in Luke as saying, “For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost,” it is important for the church not to shy away from the truth that Jesus is referring to us.
If the process of confession and forgiveness between Black and White congregations takes place, God can then liberate them to seek signs of God’s redemptive power at work in the whole Body of Christ. Economic benefits and societal acceptance, for example, are strengths that can be utilized for the good of the whole. Could not such economic privileges, political power, managerial abilities, and shared theological truths contribute to a strategy by which the structures of racism in the larger society might be confronted?
THE SUFFERING SERVANT MODEL
Of course trying to address the demonic power of racism in the society is not an easy task. This is where it is important that the believers be joined together in community and be well-grounded in the faith. God’s story, as revealed in the cross, is an invitation to the privilege of sacrifice and will likely include both great effort and not a little measure of suffering. It was not pleasant for Jesus to go to the cross. His invitation to his followers to take up the cross and follow him was not meant to be an invitation to luxurious comfort. Jesus deliberately chose the path of the suffering servant and invites us to participate in this path by which God is glorified.
However, it was not an invitation to suffering for suffering’s sake. What lifts this type of suffering beyond mere pain is that it is a suffering for a greater purpose. Many people in the course of their lives have experienced the nobility of suffering for a greater purpose. Athletes strain their body in order to achieve a team victory. Soldiers sacrifice their lives for their country. Scientists spend long hours seeking to make a discovery that will benefit others. Jesus offers us the opportunity to devote ourselves to the greatest purpose of all. We are invited to participate in the life of the suffering servant and share in the reconciliation of the world.
