The views expressed in this article are of the author only and do not necessarily represent those of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
The following represents my interpretative summary of a handful of major points within the presentations of some of the speakers at the CPT Conference on Confronting Racial Injustice, October 18-20, 2021. Each one of these points merits much more discussion, some of which can be found or linked to in the authors’ various works and social media pages listed below. The interpretive summaries reflect my own recollections and are not the views of the Center for Pastor Theologians. Each of my thoughts I have reviewed with my colleague, Prof. Riley Steffey, Instructor of Theology, Moody Bible Institute, who also was in attendance and also has provided kind and insightful emendations where my initial thoughts needed clarification.
I invite conference attendees to make comments and add reflections from the main sessions or other workshops as a means of reflective dialog. May Christ be exalted by our musings and familial engagement.
From Charlie Dates’ sermon: A church may exhibit signs of life outwardly even though it is dead spiritually in the sight of God due to its lack of concern for justice. Righteousness without justice or justice without righteousness is an anemic gospel.
From Charlie Dates’ Q&A: African American churches have the resources young African Americans need both to address racial injustice in society and to navigate life in white spaces. Therefore, young African American Christians in white spaces should be intentional about finding a home in the Black Church rather than in predominantly white churches for the sake of their wellbeing and formation.
From Raymond Chang: Philosophical whiteness’ privileged pattern of pushback against any talk of liberation or racial injustice by ethnic minorities is old, common, and the same, regardless of the ethnic minority community in focus. It invalidates the victimization and detours to what is tertiary rather than central. In doing so, believers are missing a key component in the sanctification process—the part about not being conformed to the world.
From Vincent Bacote: We have theological resources to address questions of racial injustice, but we need to reframe the questions and discussion so that the well-meaning opposition sees their own dismissals for the impoverished theological anthropology that they are. Just as any account of Jesus Christ that does not honor his cultural, ethnic, and human particularities is docetic, a theological anthropology that neglects these same dimensions by necessity follows suit. Both are to the detriment of Christian orthodoxy and orthopraxy.
From Esau McCaulley: The whiteness version of American history is the one we all know but it is incorrect, incomplete, and insufficient. McCaulley presents a re-telling of history, and particularly evangelical history, that includes the stories of African Americans, Indigenous Peoples, other ethnic minorities in America, and one that demonstrates that the Black Church rightly read Scripture in its approach to matters of justice. Not only was the Black Church a beacon of faithfulness in this way but even saved an orthodox account of theological anthropology claiming, “I am a man”.
From Love Sechrest: The activities of Paul in Acts show that he was against racial passing and wrongful racial-cultural accommodation. Paul would no more make an African American redo a hairstyle to fit into a whiteness institutional standard than he would have Titus circumcised. But he would call out someone trying to pass racially as much as he had Timothy circumcised.
From Gregory Thompson: The 6000+ statues and memorials in this country, largely to honor white men (many of which are of Confederates), reinforce a collective memory of whiteness that serves to erase the contributions of African Americans and Indigenous Peoples’ from American history. We need to be intentional, creative, and collaborative if we are going to rightly remember the story of injustice in this nation. We need to have and express righteous anger when the discursive rhetoric that reinforces the narrative of a US history divorced from the sins of whiteness and absent of the positive contributions of African Americans and other ethnic minorities is the dominant story.
From Charlie Dates + Raymond Chang + Esau McCaulley: Money makes all the difference between whether Evangelicals will be people of truth or people of accommodation. (This was a point made by each of these speakers.) We must be willing to tell the truth on matters of race regardless of constituents and donor concerns. It means that our churches (and academies) will need to prepare to become smaller institutions when the money supporting racial injustice walks away from our coffers. It is our Christian obligation to tell the truth instead of perpetuating the status quo in which ethnic minorities and their allies are repeatedly silenced. The point remains that this dismissal is often not on theological or exegetical grounds but born out of the fear that donors who unrepentantly support whiteness will pull their funding.
From Deb Gorton’s lecture: Racial trauma due to injustice is documented and it’s no wonder so many African Americans suffer from bad health when racial injustice is so prevalent.
Eric C. Redmond is Professor of Bible, Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, and Associate Pastor of Preaching, Teaching, and Care, Calvary Memorial Church, Oak Park, IL. Most recently he edited Say It! Celebrating Expository Preaching in the African American Tradition (Moody), the Preaching Magazine 2020 Book of the Year. He is a member of the St. Augustine Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.bb88i
