God's Call To Become An Anti-Racist Church

Response 1

Rene John

“Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us;

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun. Let us march on till victory is won.”(LEVAS)

From days of old singing was not just a way to past time, it was a way to share what was on our minds. Our ancestors sang songs which expressed their hope for the future. One such song continues to be Lift Every Voice and Sing.

In this spiritual is expressed our past, present and future. Joseph Barndt stated that  “in shaping an anti-racist church the first and most important task is to give birth to an anti-racist Christian identity.” He continued “as with any birth, this includes a long period of pregnancy and gestation that is risked-filled, often painful, and has many potentially dangerous complications. And likewise, as in any other birthing process, when it is completed, the exciting and joyful celebration of the newborn will far outweigh the agony of the delivery.”

The Rev. Canon Petero Sabune at the African evensong for Sudan Darfur on October 30, 2011 reminded us that the birth is just the beginning. Much work remains to be done, and we cannot even dream of abandoning what we have worked so hard to bring to fruition.

The Rt. Rev. George Councell reminded us at the beginning of the 2011 Anti-Racism conference “we are just becoming.” Using as a reference Luther’s Understanding of Becoming Christians. Our history is long and our story can be told from so many different perspectives. Ruth Councell and Corinne Peters tell the story on canvas, in their wonderful exhibit ‘Overcoming Racism.’ It is the story of Jews, Hispanics, American Indians, Blacks, and Asians. The story of Delores Huerta, Thurgood Marshall, Jackie Robinson, Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks, migrant farm workers and many more.

Joseph Barndt reminds us that “the pathway we have been following to ending racism leads directly to the doors of our home churches, to face our congregations at their segregated Sunday morning worship services.” He also reminded us that it is not just about “outreach” but rather it begins with “inreach” into the center of our sanctuaries.”

How can we be about the business of building the beloved community? Anti-racism is also however not about doing, but about being. At Trinity Cathedral where I serve as Dean we are working hard at being the beloved community. The congregation is comprised of a healthy representation mixed races and nationalities, living in communion with God and each other.

Barndt has prescribed six steps to achieve identity change and becoming an Anti-Racist Church:

“Building a common analysis: Programs of anti-racism training are instituted throughout the church, resulting in  a common analysis of systemic racism and a growing understanding of racism as a barrier of effective diversity.

Undoing internalized socialization: A consciousness of internalized racial oppression and white power and privilege emerges within the church, along with an increasing commitment to eliminate inherent white advantage.

Learning accountability to communities of color: Cross-racial relationships are deepened and white people begin to develop accountability to communities of color.

Auditing and evaluation: The analysis is applied to all levels of the church through auditing and evaluation.

Reaching a critical mass: A critical mass of old and new church leadership and membership claims an anti-racist identity and a vision of an anti-racist institution.

Institutionalizing the anti-racist identity: A transition to stage five is initiated by a formal decision to institutionalize an anti-racist identity within the institution’s identity documents and throughout the structures and culture of the institution.”

I would like to end with another popular spiritual.

“We shall overcome,

we shall overcome,

we shall overcome some day

Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,

We shall overcome some day.” (LEVAS)

We shall overcome some day and live in peace because God is on our side and we are not afraid. Or are we?

Cultural Racism & The Multicultural Church

Response 1

Rev. Valerie L. Balling

“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28

Barndt uses Paul’s appeal to the church in Galatia as the basis of his argument of how to overcome “cultural racism” through the radical unity and inclusion offered to us through Jesus Christ.  Earlier in the chapter, he warns again the dangers of the “melting pot” mentality that has dominated our American secular culture through the 1980s. (As a Gen Xer, I clearly remember a School House Rock episode about “The Great American Melting Pot.”)  There is an unspoken similarity between these two positions since they both appeal to the ideal of unity, through either discounting or ignoring differences or subjugating them with the more dominant culture.

While obviously Paul’s argument is more appealing, the rub is that I experience life as a white American woman, which is something I cannot change. In fact, it is beneficially for all of us to understand how we experience the incarnation rather than deny it.  It is how we live and move and have our being, and it allows us the opportunity to recognize when there is injustice based on such factors AND TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

There is nothing wrong with me being a white American woman.  Nor is there anything wrong with my counterpart being a black Caribbean woman.  Both of our experiences are authentic and should be valued equally.  However, we are part of a church organization that was (and for the most part still is) shaped by its ethnically white, English roots.  So how do function within an inherently racist system and honor cultural diversity with integrity?

First, I think we need to accept that we cannot be something we are not.  As much as I love gospel spirituals, I will never be an African American whose ancestors were slaves.  I will never be able to sing those hymns with the same depth of feeling and authenticity, but I rejoice when we use them in our liturgy, allowing the Spirit to move us to a place beyond guilt to reconciliation.

Second, I use my authentic experience as a white woman to recognize the privileges that I have and use it to the benefit of others to express their authentic selves.  I do not believe that we are called to adopt practices that are inauthentic to our experience. That can have the tragic effect of making the practice a mockery.  I can, however, get out of the way and experience an authentic practice, such as presenting the offering in a celebration of dance or even having someone shout “Amen” during a sermon (wouldn’t that be awesome!).

Perhaps I do not have enough imagination to picture what Barndt’s “Multicultural Church” will look like.  I love the Episcopal Church, and I love it so much that I don’t want it to get in its own way of becoming obsolete in a diverse world.  However, cultural diversity needs to be authentic and not an assumed a mantel of practices because it is the “right” thing to do.   That does not mean holding on to tradition just for the sake of tradition, nor does it mean getting rid of a practice just because it is from the dominant culture.  With integrity, the guidance of the Holy Spirit, dedication and time, we can and should develop a tradition that bears witness to all of our diversity and unity within Jesus Christ.

Institutionalized Racism In The Church

Rev. Elizabeth Eddy

Barndt has planted a seed in my mind, and it ‘s growing a clear example of the truism that we all affect each other.  Barndt believes that as Christian churches developed, despite creating unique internal structures, the people who created the institutions were themselves unconsciously shaped by cultural values of those times, and created churches which institutionalized those values. 

In the West, political power was exercised largely by men, who increasingly identified themselves as “white”, with the intent to perpetuate their power. The Christian ideal of Love, exercised on behalf of everyone, was distorted.   Unconsciously Christian churches became power-based institutions with  a “white male Mediterranean/European” identity.  (“Might makes right” contended Thrasymachus in Plato’s “Republic”.)

Barndt wants to dismantle racism,  among the many other abuses created by power-based institutionalization. He suggests that our nation’s progress toward this goal may be stagnating, and he believes that the goal cannot be reached until the attitudes which foster institutional racism are transformed.

However politely, gently and logically one may try to state the case – as Barndt certainly does – the core transformation now needed in the church is to become consciously aware of this identity which has developed, “white-male-European-power” organization, and consciously choose to become instead a multi-racial multi-cultural love-based entity which exists to serve all needy people.  When the church no longer serves unconsciously according to the interests of power, its organizational structure will have a different “feel” to it.  It may create new structures of governance, to express Christian values more clearly.

Brandt emphasizes that transformation of the church is necessary in order to complete the transformation of society as a whole into anti-racism.  Transformation of the church is also necessary to live our call and commitment as Christians.    

In the human mind and heart, conscience and self-consciousness are subtle energies, and in them false perceptions struggle to perpetuate themselves, instead of allowing Truth and Love to grow.  When individuals release themselves from bondage to power-conceived ideals, the church can transform. Then, institutions in society can also be transformed, and racism (sexism, genderism, ageism and the like) will no longer rule, because Love and Truth suffice to Serve.

Captive Christians In A Captive Church (2 Responses)

Response 1

Rev. Renee McKenzie-Hayward

While Saint Paul may rejoice in his captivity to the gospel of Jesus Christ, Joseph Barndt in the chapter Captive Christians in a Captive Church claims that the captivity experienced by the contemporary church is nothing about which to rejoice.  To the extent we emulate Paul as captives to the gospel we live out this captivity imprisoned inside the towering walls of captivity to racism.  Captivity to the gospel is perfect freedom.  Captivity to racism is perfect sin.  One gives us a choice.  The other does not. 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.  Luke 4:18-19

Liberation theologians often read these words from Jesus as is they were a clarion call to action to reclaim the transformative power of the gospel to shape society and the church.  This scripture is used by us to critique them.  Barndt in this powerful chapter effectively argues that the church because of racism operates not from a place of strength but from super- and self-imposed blindness that allows us to be complicit in our own captivity.  Barndt’s message while addressed to white people will certainly finds resonance among people of color (POC).

Most POC, especially Black people, live everyday knowing the cost of racism and experiencing the impact of its power to imprison.  We feel and know the power of racism in the church and blindness to it is not just a commodity of white people.   It is easier to be a Black person in the institutionalized church that is beset by individual acts of racism as opposed to being a black in the church in which racism is collectively or corporately endorsed.  In the first I must contend with the odd individual who is opposed to my presence; in the other I must contend with the entire system which stands in opposition to me.  The first gives room for hope while the second seems virtually insurmountable.  Barndt’s comparative discussion of sin as intentional rebellion and sin as captivity is right on the mark.  Black people will find it much easier to be Black in a church of individual white racists than in a church that is itself racist.  It is easier for us if we are blind to this truth.  It is also easier for the church.  The great lie of racism is the theological assumption that we have to choose between understanding racism as intentional rebellion or captivity to sin.  Barndt correctly suggests that this is a both/and rather than an either/or.

It would seem that the Anglican ethos of via media would situate The Episcopal Church to easily move outside of the constraints of binary either/or thinking.  Via media is itself being held captive in racisms prison.  Freedom of choice becomes an illusion.  And justice struggles to find a foothold in our reality.  Yet we march forward into the brave new world as if we really have choice regarding whether or not racism shapes and informs our personal and corporate Christian identity.    The only choice we have is the choice or ignoring or addressing; a choice of blindness or of sight.  But then again, maybe this is also not a choice.  If we can lift the veil of racism to see and hear the gospel unfiltered and unfettered even this illusion of choice disappears.

Response 2

Heath Pearson

As an aspiring liberation theologian I am tempted to wax poetic about one of Barndt’s numerous insights. However, it may be more helpful to tell a story.

A few years back, I watched a documentary done by a group of social scientists that radically altered my conception of our racialized system. A study was conducted using thousands of children, ages 5-7. The researchers were exploring race through/in persons in the early stages of identity formation.

The children were given a piece of paper with six realistic-cartoon faces—the face with the “lightest” skin on the left, getting progressively darker with each face, finally, to the face with the “darkest” skin on the right. The children were then asked a series of questions: Which child is smartest? Which child is most beautiful? Which child does the teacher like best? Which child do you want to be friends with? Which child misbehaves in class? Which child do you want to look like?

These represent only a handful of the many questions asked. By the end, though, watching a beautiful little girl of color pointing to the face with the “lightest” skin as what/who she wants to look like, who she thinks is most beautiful, and who the teacher likes best, you are struck with the somber reality of our racialized system. And this response (lightness is beautiful, smart, and preferred while darkness is dumb, ugly, and despised), among thousands of children, did not deviate across the gender/racial board.

As Barndt says in the opening pages of this chapter: through a complex multi-generational identity-shaping socialization process, we were assigned at birth to a collective racial group and were taught to participate in society according to our particular racial identity and role. Some experienced the socializing process of “internalization of inferiority,” while others experienced the “internalization of superiority.”

These inviolable systems have imprisoned us, as Barndt rightly claims.