I watched the video of George Floyd’s murder from the comfort of my cozy living room. I cried as he went from begging, to saying he couldn’t breathe, to crying, to calling for his mother. To gasping for air. To silence. For a few weeks, the outrage over his murder became the loudest noise, even in my evangelical community, where vocalized compassion is oftentimes reserved for babies in the womb. But over time that compassion dwindled, as compassion usually does. At first, white people like me were shocked, grieved, and motivated. Soon, however, those emotions faded into the background, and we returned to the way we lived before. 

This is how our hearts typically respond when we witness injustice or oppression. It is like climbing up the descending steps of an escalator. One of the first escalators I encountered was in a secluded corner of an enormous mall. I spent ten minutes trying to conquer those moving metal slats. I ran and ran, stuck midway up the staircase, until I finally grew tired and sat down, letting the steps carry me back to the bottom where I started. When we encounter other people’s pain, we start running. We run out of love. But after a while, we begin to feel the strain of emotional exhaustion, and midway up that staircase, we stall. It’s too hard. And it’s not our fight anyway, right? It is so much easier to survive our own days if we forget, ignore, or discredit the suffering of those around us. So eventually, we sit back down and coast away from the weight of other people’s sorrow. This has been my experience, at least. Especially as it relates to racism. My compassion may burn brightly at the start, but it never lingers long term if I am simply drifting along on a wave of emotion. That drift will always bring me back to my own cares and concerns — never to the cares and concerns of others.

About a year after George Floyd’s murder, I read an article that recommended documenting one’s interactions with people of other races. The author talked about how we often cannot even see our own prejudice until we make the intentional effort to look. I didn’t think I’d see anything new, really. I wasn’t racist. I cared about everyone, equally. But I wanted to be open. So, I labeled the top of a blank page in my journal “RACISM IN ME?” And I waited. 

A couple days later, I was standing in front of the hot dog display at my local grocery store, trying to remember which brand was my favorite. An elderly black man walked up beside me. I turned to him and smiled. He smiled back. He browsed the hot dog selection for a second, then stepped past me to grab a pack. I immediately felt a flash of annoyance. What was that? I put the hot dog search on hold and looked at the man as he walked away. Why was I annoyed? Two white people had reached in front of me before him and I hadn’t given them a second thought. I replayed the moment in my mind, trying to get to the bottom of my own feelings. In shock, I realized that my first thought had been, How dare he? 

I almost burst into tears in the middle of the meats aisle, overwhelmed by shame and disbelief. But maybe it wasn’t about race? I pictured a different scenario where that sweet elderly man came up beside me and said, “Excuse me,” before walking into the space between me and the processed meat. I would have gladly let him go first. I stopped. I would have “let him” go first? I looked around. I was standing at least four feet back from the display, specifically so other people could get what they needed without me being in the way. The two white people before him hadn’t excused themselves. I hadn’t wanted to give them permission to step in front of my indecisive self. I had barely even noticed them. But for some reason, I felt this teetering old man with brown skin owed me his deference. I was horrified. 

Another year has gone by since that day in the grocery store. I am certain that had I not been intentionally documenting my responses to people of other races, I would have dismissed that flash of frustration as random impatience or a generalized bad mood. And yet, despite a handful of similar experiences, I stopped keeping that journal. Despite a conviction to be more like the Christ I claim to follow and the sense that the most rotten parts of me would only change if I could see them, I stopped looking. I stopped because it was upsetting, and it was hard. I stopped because my comfort and convenience were a higher priority for me than that man in the grocery store. I really did care. Just not enough to do the work to change.

We all have work to do, in the space around us and in ourselves. Even our subconscious thoughts need sanctification. We cannot change the whole world, but we can listen. We can look. And we can love. We can climb that escalator with humility and intention and let the pain of those around us break away at the edges of our hearts, over and over again. 

On Saturday, May 14, 2022 a young man entered a grocery store in predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York and opened fire.

By the time he surrendered a short time later, he had shot a total of 13 people, most of them Black, and left 10 of them dead. They were senior citizens, retired law enforcement, churchgoers, grandparents, brothers, and sisters.

Prior to the crime, the shooter wrote a 180-page manifesto and posted it online. He left no doubt that he intended to target Black people and that his murderous act was a hate crime. He even painted the word n***er on the assault rifle he used.

Commentators rightly identified this perpetrator as a white supremacist. He wrote in his manifesto about the “great replacement” theory—”the false idea that a cabal is attempting to replace white Americans with nonwhite people through immigration, interracial marriage and, eventually, violence.”

But heed this word of caution as the phrase “white supremacist” becomes the topic of national conversation once again.

To identify someone who targets, plans, and homicidally attacks Black people and other religious and ethnic groups as a white supremacist, while accurate, can obscure the ways many others are complicit with white supremacy.

In my first book, The Color of Compromise, I spoke of the “complicity” of white Christians in the racism that has plagued the United States for centuries.

It is convenient to point to slave traders, plantation owners, and Klan members as the “real racists.” We tend to think that only the most severe examples of prejudice constitute racism. But even if only a small number of people actually commit acts of violence in the name of racism, the ideas that lead to such acts are often co-signed by the masses.

As I wrote in the book,

“The most egregious acts of racism…occur within a context of compromise. The failure of many Christians in the South and across the nation to decisively oppose the racism in their families, communities, and even in their own churches provided fertile soil for the seeds of hatred to grow.”

What was true in the past is true in the present—the most horrific violence done in the name of white supremacy happens within a context of compromise and complicity.

Major news media outlets such as Fox News have favorably cited the great replacement theory on their programs. Right-wing activists are waging a crusade against what they label “Critical Race Theory” in an effort to prevent education about racism and white supremacy. Many churches and Christian institutions are actively suppressing efforts to promote racial progress in the name of opposing CRT and promoting “the gospel.”

If we look at shooters like the one in Buffalo as the only type of people to whom the phrase “white supremacist” applies, then we miss all the daily and common ways that countless others endorse the same ideas that undergirded his murderous actions.

SIGN: RED LETTER CHRISTIAN PLEDGE 

Passivity in the face of white supremacist diatribes—whether on social media, in person, or even in the pulpit—permits the spread of these evil ideas.

Tuning in to podcasters, YouTubers, pastors, pundits and others who play on racist fears to get clicks and build a platform allows white supremacy to remain an influential narrative in this land.

We can look in horror at the actions of a white supremacist terrorist in Buffalo. But he is simply the extreme version and the logical end of what many other people believe and support in other ways.

You don’t have to pull the trigger on an assault rifle to support white supremacy. All you have to do is nothing at all.

As I put it in The Color of Compromise…

“The refusal to act in the midst of injustice is itself an act of injustice. Indifference to oppression perpetuates oppression.”

This article originally appeared in Footnotes by Jemar Tisby. 

These important questions should not be easily dismissed as imposter syndrome but instead good checks of caution before proceeding. While I am ever learning, here’s what my 30 years in the work of racial justice as a white woman have taught me:  People of color should be leading this discussion and white voices, can help support the conversation, if we remember some of these important elements:

1) You cannot fix a problem you don’t understand.

Leaning in and learning from those impacted by racial injustice is the most important first step to the work of restoration. Getting to know people impacted by issues and not simply learning about issues, enables natural next steps to join them in what can become your shared efforts toward justice and restoration. In this shared restorative justice work, always center the voices that are closest to the pain and follow their leadership. We are there to serve the movement, to follow with humility.

As a long-standing justice advocate, I appreciate the prophet Micah’s powerful words forthtelling the truth of God’s heart for justice. In 6:8 of the book, the often-referenced passage in the work of justice is laid out so simply, “He has shown you O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you, to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God.”

While I am grateful for this easy-to-understand mandate, I often wish he started his list with humility. Humility allows the enormity of injustice to move through our entire selves. It allows grief and lament to grip us. It provides us with a lens to recognize that all we think we are (good people) and all we think we have (good societies and systems) is often a result of exclusive efforts and greed. 

When we choose a posture of humility, we follow the example of Christ, emptying ourselves of our power and established place to join the people on the margins, always loving mercy, ready to do the long work of justice. True service requires the bravery to be humble, to recognize the racial justice movement has not been waiting for us to show up to demand attention. The movement needs our body, our solidarity, and our service. Intentionally choosing a humble place of service will result in a place of true honor and effective work.

2) Be honest and stay curious.  

The Bible may say that the truth will set you free, but that doesn’t mean it comes without a cost. The truth is always confronting. From the time of Adam and Eve’s original sin to today, when confronted with the truth, our natural human reaction is to avoid and blame. Learning the truth of America’s racist past and how systemic racism continues to perpetuate oppression is grievous. It can evoke feelings of guilt and shame, causing us to want to run from the truth. Yet, we cannot heal without the truth.

Internationally established, truth commissions began to formalize as early as the 1970’s when Argentina wanted to uncover actions by dictators and military juntas. These types of commissions, to address internal conflicts and bring together divided countries, have taken place in over 46 countries. The most well-known was South Africa’s Truth & Reconciliation Commission. It took place over 7 years, collecting testimonies from over 21,000 victims.

The framework for the process was to afford victims voice to share their testimony, their truth under the apartheid regime. They were given an opportunity to be heard, to share the deeply personal impacts of their suffering and for them to receive restitution. While the commission was not without some criticism, it is credited with moving a segregated and violent country toward a more reconciled path. 

USAID, the US principal agency to support these types of efforts, has supported nearly 330 peacebuilding projects in 42 countries and awarded more than $230 million in grants for “people-to-people” reconciliation programs and activities worldwide. They have however, never given any money toward supporting truth telling or reconciliation here at home, in the US.

We need to be willing to listen to the truth, no matter how hard it may be to hear. We also need to deal with our guilt and shame so that we can build paths of empathy to each other. 

In her book, Dare to Lead, Brene Brown speaks to the connection of shame and empathy. In the work of racial justice, empathy (connecting to someone’s emotions as a result of their experience) is the primary way people from different racial backgrounds can share a connection to each other’s experiences. Brown shares, “Where shame exists, empathy is almost always absent.”

She warns about assuming we can understand someone else. “One of the signature mistakes with empathy is that we believe we can take our lenses off and look through the lenses of someone else. We can’t. Our lenses are soldered to who we are. What we can do, however, is honor people’s perspectives as truth even when they’re different from ours.”  

She goes to on state, “We have blind spots. We need to learn from each other. “We cannot practice empathy if we need to be knowers; if we can’t be learners, we cannot be empathetic. And, to be clear (and kind), if we need to be knowers empathy isn’t the only loss. Because curiosity is the key.” 

3) Work toward repair

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the leader of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission has said, “We are not responsible for what breaks us but we can be responsible for what puts us back together again.”

In our racially divided and unjust world, we are crying out in our brokenness. We long for restoration, for peace on every side. As people of Christian faith, we have reason to hope because of the restorative work of Christ. He is our peace (Eph. 2:14), our reconciler of all things (Col. 1:19 & 20). This reconciliation moves from God to people and includes the kind of people to people and people groups to people groups healing we need. His reconciling work of ALL things moves beyond personal restoration and includes the restoration of societies and systems. As agents of his light and peace in the world, we should not settle for a restoration that falls short of this level of repair.

Today the status quo of injustice, oppression, and complacency flow downstream with ease. If we are to capture the prophetic imagination of the prophet Amos whose metaphor of justice rolling down like a river and righteousness like a never-ending stream, we must grow deeper roots of commitment to the work of repair, to the work of resistance.

Recently I answered the call of Faithful America and local clergy to go to Batavia, New York, where white Christian nationalists were gathering for the ReAwaken America tour, headlined by Michael Flynn. 

What struck me first were multiple signs lining the driveway that read: “No Guns, No Knives.” Never in all my life have I seen any church that needed such a prominent reminder. The speakers at this Christian nationalist revival event used apocalyptic language to stoke the fears of thousands who had gathered there. The speeches touted anti-Semitic, racist, sexist and homophobic beliefs in the name of Christianity and were full of violent predictions of God’s vengeance befalling a wide range of political opponents. 

Soon after I went to Arizona to settle my son into college and I joined some friends in the area to deliver supplies to migrants crossing the border in a remote region. Everywhere I went I found border communities and migrants harassed by QAnon and militia conspiracists. A local restaurant we visited for lunch had even posted a sign that read:

UNWANTED: Members of any vigilante or Border militia group | Do Not Enter our establishment | The management

In both of these encounters, I was demoralized at seeing firsthand the threats of violence against our communities, but then heartened to find faith leaders mounting a vigorous response. 

In Batavia, local leaders held a well-covered press conference and rallied their people to counter the apocalyptic, hateful rhetoric spewing from white Christian nationalists.

In Arizona, faith-based volunteers on both sides of the border risked their own safety to deliver much needed support to migrant families in danger, even in the face of militia and QAnon threats.

What we are up against is part of an old, even ancient struggle.

Throughout American and European history, Christian scripture and traditions have been used to justify domination systems. White enslavers removed half of the Old Testament to create the Slave Bible in order to justify their sin by suppressing the story of God freeing Hebrew slaves in Egypt. A Lost Cause history and theology developed after the Civil War to justify slavery, restore white southern pride and justify segregationist policies. You can read more about this in Robert P. Jones’ book, White Too Long. Throughout the twentieth century, white Christians burned crosses on lawns to violently intimidate and threaten their Black and Jewish neighbors.

Despite this legacy of white Christian nationalism, faith based movements have always risen up to counter these heretical systems of domination. From Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and so many more, faith communities were critical to countering and dismantling this ungodly worldview and working toward a true vision of multi-faith, multiracial democracy.

What does this teach us? 

1. Tyrants must hijack faith in order to succeed in their goals. 
2. Overcoming tyranny requires the reclamation of faith and our sacred text.

Most white Christians have not been taught that the entire Bible is a handbook for resisting tyranny. 

For example, the creation story is a moral indictment of the creation myths of the ancient Near East which portrayed the gods as tyrants who created humans to be slaves. The Jewish creation story radically taught that God loved all of creation and made human beings in God’s own image–not to be slaves. This Jewish story laid the foundation for human rights and democracy, the best system for supporting our core value of human dignity (imago dei) for all. 

Many white Christians have gotten caught up in demanding that the story is an accurate, scientific account of how the earth was made, rather than marvel at the moral vision conveyed by this story. Our Christian faith teaches that all of us are created in God’s image and are worthy of dignity and respect. Therefore, we must advocate for a multi-faith, multiracial democracy that protects human dignity and ensures everyone can thrive. 

Today our faith and our dream of democracy are at stake, and both struggles are intertwined.

Our project of democracy is gravely threatened by white Christian nationalism deeply rooted in our nation’s history of slavery and segregation and Lost Cause Theology. Many candidates and elected leaders are embracing this ideology. Former White House officials are touring the country fanning the flames of violence and laying groundwork for a civil war in the name of an apocalyptic and violent version of Christianity, the very antithesis of what the faith stands for.

This heretical, anti-democratic movement may be gaining political prominence, but when we look at the numbers, those of us who believe in a multi-faith, multiracial democracy are in the majority. 

We must continue to organize to ensure that our faith and our democracy are not hijacked by white Christian nationalists.

When I see the threat white Christian nationalism poses to our elections, our communities and our freedoms, I’m reminded of the words of the prophet Habakkuk. 

“O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrong-doing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous– therefore judgment comes forth perverted.” (Habakkuk 1:2-4) 

How do we respond to violence and injustice around us? Habakkuk’s answer comes in the next chapter. 

“I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint. Then the LORD answered me and said: ‘Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.’” (Habakkuk 2:1-4)

Write the vision. Make it plain. Send it forth with a runner.

It is time we reclaim Scripture as a handbook for resisting tyranny. 

All social change starts with the imagination. Scripture gives us a vision and enables us to imagine a different world and thus make it so. It connects us to biblical heroes who confronted the Pharaohs and Caesars of their day and prevailed against all odds.

Scripture is also a powerful communication tool to reclaim the public narrative of who we should strive to be as a nation, a nation that upholds dignity and freedom for all God’s children, regardless of creed, race, faith tradition, sexuality or gender.

The separation of church and state does not preclude our speaking out, it instead urges us to enter debates to make our case even as we urge respect for all faiths and those of moral courage.

On November 8, we have an opportunity to make our vision plain. As people of faith, we must vote for candidates who are committed to create a world where everyone can thrive. We can take a step towards building a true multi-faith and multiracial democracy. 

We can also make our vision plain by keeping our elections free and fair. Report any voting challenges you witness at your polling place to the national election protection hotline by calling or texting 1-866-OUR-VOTE. Join Faith in Public Life in committing to uphold and expand our democracy in this election and beyond. 

We cannot cede the language of faith to anti-democratic and heretical forces to sway the vulnerable and capture the public imagination. It’s time to pray with our feet and our vote. 

This is our moment to reclaim our faith for justice; to write the vision, make it plain and send it forth into our communities. Our democracy depends on it.

Seemingly encouraged to continue, he followed up in an even more aggressive tone and asked, “Are you Muslim?”

Not understanding his intention, I stopped to think about this interaction and where it could be headed before I responded. “Sorry, that is none of your business.”

He took a deep breath and then in an even more aggressive and louder voice announced, “I’m a Christian. All Muslims hate Christians!”

Keeping my tone as polite as I could, I responded by noting that he does not represent all Christians — and just like there are many different types of Christians, there are many types of Muslims.

Despite being in a crowded room and others being able to hear this man harass me, no one intervened. In his loudest voice yet, he rambled something about the Quran being evil while the Bible is the Word of God. Fortunately, by this point my ticket was called and I was able to remove myself from the situation. After finishing my renewal, I privately spoke with a supervisor at the agency about the harassment I experienced — in what should have been a safe space open to everyone.

As I reflect on that experience, I’m saddened to think of what could have happened if he set his sights on a Muslim woman wearing a hijab instead of me. Racism, bigotry, Islamophobia and antisemitism run rampant in our country. People of marginalized identities frequently experience hurtful and harmful situations when we’re merely trying to live our everyday lives. I was just trying to renew my driver’s license.

I wholeheartedly understand why some Muslims prefer to not be in public alone because of fear of how they’ll be treated.

This specific incident was challenging, as the hatred that fuels Islamophobia impacts people like me, who are perceived to be Muslim even when we’re not. As a Sikh who wears a turban in public, I am well aware of the prejudice hurled at anyone who might look like a Muslim. I have had my fair share of being flashed half a peace sign, especially since 9/11.

When I was asked “Are you Muslim?” in such a harsh tone, I could have responded that I am not a Muslim but a Sikh. I could have used it as a teaching moment to engage the questioner if the tone had been more cordial. But I’ve learned from experience that teaching with facts to a strongly biased person in the moment of confrontation does not work.

And what about the question “Are you from India?” Are white immigrants from Europe also asked this question on the basis of their looks? No, they are not.

After living in Central Ohio for over 30 years, will I ever become American enough?

Or because of my turban, beard and dark skin color, will I always remain a foreigner? This is a question I often ask myself. Having lived in the U.S. for so long, I view myself as a Sikh American who once lived in South Asia. Home for me is in Dublin, Ohio. By living in this community, I have changed as a person, but the community around me has been changed by my presence as well.

And although I feel deeply connected to my community, I still worry that my DMV experience happened in public and around dozens of people. No one intervened, no one comforted me, no one confronted the aggressor who was screaming at me. I know these situations can be uncomfortable and, in the moment, sometimes people don’t know how to respond.

But what can you do when you encounter someone being harassed?

First, the person under attack needs solidarity. You can stand up and, instead of confronting the bigot, go to the person under duress, face them and block the sight of the bigot spewing hate. You can also offer words of support and ask if there’s anything you can do that would help them in the moment. None of this happened in my case.

Even after I completed my license renewal and walked across the waiting room to the door, not one person stepped up to say “I am sorry for what you went through.” That doesn’t mean folks in the room necessarily agreed with the screaming man. They just didn’t know what to do and how to react. Unfortunately, inaction is one major reason bigots feel empowered to harm others. Next time you see this happen before you, step up and be an ally of the victim. The world runs because goodness exceeds evil.

Silence is complicity and feeds the normalization of hate. As is commonly said, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good people do nothing.” So please don’t be a part of the silent majority — instead, stand up, speak up and be an ally for those marginalized in our communities.

This opinion was originally published by Religion News Service and is shared with permission.

By the time he surrendered a short time later, he had shot a total of 13 people, most of them Black, and left 10 of them dead. They were senior citizens, retired law enforcement, churchgoers, grandparents, brothers, and sisters.

Prior to the crime, the shooter wrote a 180-page manifesto and posted it online. He left no doubt that he intended to target Black people and that his murderous act was a hate crime. He even painted the word n***er on the assault rifle he used.

Commentators rightly identified this perpetrator as a white supremacist. He wrote in his manifesto about the “great replacement” theory—”the false idea that a cabal is attempting to replace white Americans with nonwhite people through immigration, interracial marriage and, eventually, violence.”

But heed this word of caution as the phrase “white supremacist” becomes the topic of national conversation once again.

To identify someone who targets, plans, and homicidally attacks Black people and other religious and ethnic groups as a white supremacist, while accurate, can obscure the ways many others are complicit with white supremacy.

In my first book, The Color of Compromise, I spoke of the “complicity” of white Christians in the racism that has plagued the United States for centuries.

It is convenient to point to slave traders, plantation owners, and Klan members as the “real racists.” We tend to think that only the most severe examples of prejudice constitute racism. But even if only a small number of people actually commit acts of violence in the name of racism, the ideas that lead to such acts are often co-signed by the masses.

As I wrote in the book,

“The most egregious acts of racism…occur within a context of compromise. The failure of many Christians in the South and across the nation to decisively oppose the racism in their families, communities, and even in their own churches provided fertile soil for the seeds of hatred to grow.”

What was true in the past is true in the present—the most horrific violence done in the name of white supremacy happens within a context of compromise and complicity.

Major news media outlets such as Fox News have favorably cited the great replacement theory on their programs. Right-wing activists are waging a crusade against what they label “Critical Race Theory” in an effort to prevent education about racism and white supremacy. Many churches and Christian institutions are actively suppressing efforts to promote racial progress in the name of opposing CRT and promoting “the gospel.”

If we look at shooters like the one in Buffalo as the only type of people to whom the phrase “white supremacist” applies, then we miss all the daily and common ways that countless others endorse the same ideas that undergirded his murderous actions.

SIGN: RED LETTER CHRISTIAN PLEDGE 

Passivity in the face of white supremacist diatribes—whether on social media, in person, or even in the pulpit—permits the spread of these evil ideas.

Tuning in to podcasters, YouTubers, pastors, pundits and others who play on racist fears to get clicks and build a platform allows white supremacy to remain an influential narrative in this land.

We can look in horror at the actions of a white supremacist terrorist in Buffalo. But he is simply the extreme version and the logical end of what many other people believe and support in other ways.

You don’t have to pull the trigger on an assault rifle to support white supremacy. All you have to do is nothing at all.

As I put it in The Color of Compromise…

“The refusal to act in the midst of injustice is itself an act of injustice. Indifference to oppression perpetuates oppression.”

This article originally appeared in Footnotes by Jemar Tisby. 

I am in recovery from the racist ideas that shaped my consciousness from the very moment I was conceived, amid one of the most racist social and political stories in history. I was born in South Africa, as an Afrikaner woman, during apartheid.

Apartheid literally means “separateness,” and it was an intricate system of laws that separated people based on the color of their skin from 1948 to 1994. It was a political system, a human-invented system that deeply divided society. The system of apartheid and the more than three hundred years of colonized rule leading up to it robbed Black, Indigenous, and People of Color of land, resources, and education. It tried to rob people of dignity, strength, and even language.

Apartheid had done its work in such a deep way that when I left South Africa at the age of twenty-three—for work, for adventure, and to find a more loving and inclusive world—I did not have any friends who were Black, Indigenous, or People of Color.

I am now forty-eight years old. I have lived on three continents, and when I started this journey of recovering from apartheid, I believed that what we had done in South Africa was one of the worst things in the world. In fact, the General Assembly of the United Nations had labeled apartheid a crime against humanity. As terrible as it was, I began learning that apartheid was not just a South African thing, or even an Afrikaner thing. I learned that the evil we needed to address, what had been around a lot longer, what took on different forms on different continents and in different periods in history, is racism.

I am in recovery from a system and a consciousness that had created a human hierarchy based on the color of someone’s skin. These were all personal ideas first, which then became political ideas, which then became policies and laws, which then became embedded into structures of injustice. Racist ideas also became embedded into our bodies and into our consciousness. I will most likely be in recovery for the rest of my life.

I hate racism and what it has done. I hate the pain it has caused, the structural inequality it has literally built into the land, and the economic inequality it has created and perpetuated. I hate it for the pain it causes Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. I hate how it has killed and harmed and still kills and harms Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. I hate that we, white people, have done this. I also hate racism for how it has robbed white people of our humanity.

While I had been walking this journey out of apartheid for a long time, there was still something missing. I was running away from being called a racist, wanting to prove to the world I was not one of “those” people. Then I learned a more beautiful and liberating way: acknowledging my racism.

It was very early on a Friday morning in April 2016. The Reverend Kelly Brown Douglas, Episcopal priest and author of Stand Your Ground, stood at the podium in a room full of mostly white people in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The United States was in the throes of a presidential election campaign between the first-ever female presidential candidate and a former reality TV star. I was listening intently, furiously writing notes, when she said, “The only thing white people can ever be are recovering racists.”

Thud.

Did I hear correctly? I nudged my friend Kelley next to me. She nodded.

“The only thing white people can ever be are recovering racists.” As Reverend Douglas’s words landed in my heart, my body simply responded “Yes.” It felt like my body acknowledged the truth of it before my mind did. I came to a state of quiet acknowledgment, feeling that a long restlessness had finally ended.

I had been on a quest for years to prove to the world how not racist I was. Sitting in that room, facing the ugliest of truths about myself and my story, I finally stopped hiding. I no longer needed to hide or to prove to the world that I was a good white person. I wasn’t.

I was a recovering racist.

The Bible tells us that truth sets us free, although, if I am really honest, I was hoping for a different kind of truth. Not an ugly truth. Not this kind of truth.

Racial sobriety is that moment of hitting rock bottom, seeing our place in the human story clearly—no running, no hiding, no justification, no denial, no defensiveness. Only quiet, sober acknowledgment and acceptance of this very ugly truth. And right there, something else too: the beginning of liberation.

As I faced my ugliest self, I was also able to embrace my most whole self. I stopped scrambling for belonging. In that moment, I no longer had anything to prove—I couldn’t. I was as human, as broken, and as beautiful as every other human being on this planet. I exhaled.

Only two years earlier, at a dinner party in our home, it was the thing I least wanted to admit. Being a racist was, for me, the most shameful thing I could ever be accused of. When somebody said the word racist at the table, jokingly indicting me and a handful of other white people at the table, I burst into tears. I was as fragile as white could be. The word racist carried deep shame for me because it was interconnected with my culture, my identity, and the story of my people. I felt like I had something to prove to the world.

I was born in South Africa in 1972, on the white side of the hospital. October is already spring in South Africa, but my mom says that day was so cold and miserable that she had to buy a new winter robe for her hospital stay. It was a cold and miserable season in the history of South Africa.

In 1948 the National Party, an ethnic, nationalist party that promoted Afrikaner interests in South Africa, gained political power and won elections based on their policy of racial segregation. Only white people had voting rights at that time, and after winning, the National Party began implementing a comprehensive set of laws to segregate people based on race. Afrikaner people made up only about 5 percent of South Africa’s population, and apartheid was how a white-minority government dealt with its presence in a majority Black country.

I was unaware of this political drama when I was born, and for the most part I grew up in a white bubble. Apartheid had achieved exactly what it had set out to do: separate people. It had created a “whites only” story for any white person who wanted to cling to that. I grew up steeped in Afrikaner nationalism, Afrikaner symbolism, and Afrikaner history. I was raised to be proud of Afrikaner culture and accomplishments.

Perhaps it would help to clarify that there are two quite distinct cultural groups of white people in South Africa—those who are white and speak English and those who are white and speak Afrikaans. Only white South Africans who speak Afrikaans are called Afrikaners. Afrikaans, my mother tongue, is a Creole language consisting of Dutch mixed with Malay, Portuguese, Indonesian, and the Indigenous Khoekhoe and San languages. In spite of its rich and diverse origin story, Afrikaans was implemented as a weapon to strengthen Afrikaner nationalism.

For the first eighteen years of my life, I grew up in an almost exclusively white, Afrikaans-speaking environment. Our house was in an all-white neighborhood. For twelve years of my life, I went to an all-white school with all instruction in Afrikaans (other than for our English classes, of course). Every Sunday we sat in an all-white, Afrikaans-speaking church. These white environments had been intentionally created by the racist laws of apartheid. My personhood was formed in one of the most extreme racist political systems in history.

In some sense, I had been not to the mountaintop of humanity but to the bleakest valley of whiteness. I imagine that the creators of apartheid had intended for me, as a daughter of apartheid, to reap only its privileges and its benefits. But how can you commit—and benefit from—a crime against humanity and not bear its weight?

Years later, sitting in that cold lecture hall in Grand Rapids, I was still struggling for clarity, healing, and freedom from what I had learned and internalized during those first decades of my life. I was looking for any and every crumb of liberation in order to reclaim and recalibrate my humanity. I wanted to make the world better. I wanted to pay for that crime against humanity. I didn’t know how, but I was desperate to find a way. I knew I was not responsible for all of it, but I was responsible for my part.

“I am a recovering racist,” I told Kelley later that evening. It was the first time I had said those words out loud, and it felt important to do so.

She nodded. She knew.

Content taken from Recovering Racists by Idelette McVicker, ©2022. Used by permission of Brazos Press.

“Grove City College has not changed,” a committee composed largely of Grove City board members said in the report released last week. “It remains a Christ-centered, conservative institution.”

The report, a product of the committee’s assignment to ascertain any “mission drift” at the college, recommends re-adding the word “conservative” to the school’s mission statement after it was removed in 2021 and lists “remedial actions” to curb the promotion of critical race theory at the school. These actions include replacing an education course accused of promoting “pop-CRT,” rebranding the school’s Office of Multicultural Education and Initiatives and exercising increased scrutiny of guest speakers and student trainings.

Tisby, The New York Times bestselling author of “The Color of Compromise” and “How to Fight Racism,” told Religion News Service the report uses CRT as “a junk drawer for anything about race or justice that makes a certain type of person feel uncomfortable.” Because of the rhetoric around CRT, he said, “much needed conversations about racial justice are being muted in the environments where they are needed most, such as Christian colleges and universities.”

Others found the report encouraging. Megan Basham, an author at conservative news outlet The Daily Wire, tweeted that it offered a “straight-forward, honest assessment,” and said she appreciated its clarifying description of how CRT is incompatible with the school’s mission. “Well worth reading the entire report. Bravo!”

Matt Kennedy, rector at an Anglican church in Binghamton, New York, and his wife Anne Carlson Kennedy praised the report on their podcast.

“The best part of it is the description of critical race theory upfront, which is just one of the best short summaries of the problems of critical race theory I’ve ever read,” said Matt Kennedy.

LISTEN to the RLC Podcast with Jemar Tisby on White Supremacy, Christian Nationalism, and Racism

The report says critical race theory is incompatible with the school’s vision, mission and values because it evaluates people based on their race and antiracist works, can’t be separated from political activism, “uncharitably detects aggression where none is intended” and sometimes “demeans rational argument as itself racist and oppressive.”

The school, which has just 2,400 full-time students, was first accused of promoting critical race theory, an academic framework that sees racism as embedded in institutions and policies, in a November petition authored by Grove City parents and alumni. The petition alleged that this “destructive and profoundly unbiblical worldview” was asserted at the college in a fall 2020 chapel presentation by Tisby.

The petition also called into question the chapel screening of a pre-recorded TED talk by Bryan Stevenson, an Equal Justice Initiative founder and criminal justice reform advocate; as well as a Resident Assistant training that invoked the concepts of white privilege and white guilt. Additionally, the petition decried several books used in an education studies class and in focus groups, including Ibram X. Kendi’s “How To Be an Antiracist” and Wheaton professor Esau McCaulley’s “Reading While Black.”

That initial petition triggered a flood of follow-up petitions, articles and open letters debating whether the school had forsaken its traditional values. In February, the college’s board of trustees categorically rejected critical race theory and introduced a committee to investigate the allegations of mission-drift. Grove City College did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The report notes that Tisby’s October 2020 chapel presentation is the chapel service that has “drawn the most attention from critics.” According to the report, most Grove City leaders interviewed said inviting Tisby to speak in chapel was a “mistake” due to what they described as his evolution.

“Most of those in GCC leadership with whom we spoke observed that ‘the Jemar Tisby that we thought we invited in 2019 is not the Jemar Tisby that we heard in 2020 or that we now read about,’” the report stated, citing Tisby’s short stint as assistant director of narrative and advocacy at Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research and the “progressive policies” he advocates in his latest book as evidence of his transformation.

Tisby told RNS that his convictions did not change between 2019 and 2020 — what changed was the socio-political climate.

The chapel in question, called “The Urgency of Now,” was a 21-minute sermon that drew parallels between the biblical story of Esther and the modern-day movement for racial justice. Tisby quoted Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and letter from Birmingham Jail and called on those in attendance to engage in racial justice work.

“Many of you, unfortunately, are in the target demographic whom King called the ‘white moderate,’” Tisby said in the chapel. Tisby asked the listeners to “fill your minds with an awareness of racial justice so that five, 10, 20 years from now, you don’t have to say ‘I never knew.’”

Tisby told RNS the allegations that his sermon promoted CRT are “ludicrous.” While the November petition charged Tisby with being an “outspoken apologist for CRT,” Tisby said he has never been trained in critical race theory.

“What most people, including compilers of this report, are calling critical race theory is not critical race theory,” he said. “My work is influenced by the study of history. It doesn’t take a specific training in critical race theory to understand that racism is not simply a matter of personal prejudice but a matter of policy.”

WATCH the RLC Faith Forum on Race and Justice

The report also found that an educational course called “Cultural Diversity and Advocacy” “effectively promoted pop-CRT” because it offered readings such as Kendi’s “How To Be an Antiracist,” Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility” and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me” without “a critical or opposing perspective.” It found that the director of Multicultural Education and Initiatives promoted “‘woke’ concepts” in a book club and parroted “CRT concepts” in a training for Resident Assistants that criticized the “concept of race neutrality.”

Warren Throckmorton, a professor of psychology at Grove City, said he doesn’t have a lot of confidence in the report’s findings because it offers a faulty definition of CRT. According to Throckmorton, the report says CRT embraces biological distinctions — however, he said, CRT rejects biological distinctions because it sees race as socially constructed. He also pointed to a footnote that says: “Our references to CRT include popular ‘CRT-adjacent’ advocacy cloaked in the secular or religious language of social justice.’”

“That could be anything, couldn’t it?” asked Throckmorton. “So when they say they found CRT, what did they really find?”

While the report promises not to ban books, Throckmorton said that promise has done little to reassure professors who are questioning if and how to teach on topics like health disparities or social justice in the classroom. Natalie Kahler, a Grove City alumna (’94) who authored a March 8 petition asking the school not to inhibit discussions about racism on campus, told RNS she’s worried the report’s findings could lead to “indoctrinating and not educating,” especially given the fact that Grove City professors don’t receive tenure and are given one-year contracts.

“If you create an environment where people are constantly afraid for their job, and are afraid something they might say could be interpreted as CRT because everybody is interpreting CRT in very different ways, they’re creating a culture where people aren’t going to be able to have hard conversations,” said Khaler.

In March, Jon Fea, professor of American history at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, wrote an article showing Grove City’s board chair, Edward D. Breen, has advocated for diversity, equity and inclusion as CEO of the chemicals company DuPont. “(I)s the Edward Breen who led the Grove City College Board’s condemnation of critical race theory the same guy working for racial justice at DuPont?” Fea asks.

Another board member, David Forney, is pastor of a Charlottesville church and has offered a list of racial justice resources to his congregation on the church website, including TED Talks by Bryan Stevenson and the books “How To Be an Antiracist” and “Between the World and Me,” both of which the report characterized as promoting “pop-CRT.”

“I am puzzled that these resources are considered fine and helpful for a board member to recommend to his congregation but are considered off-mission for our faculty to assign as study resources for a college course,” Throckmorton said in an email to RNS. Neither Breen nor Forney could be reached for comment.

Tisby said that the CRT debate at Grove City points to a broader “sorting” in Christian higher education between schools working to be more racially and ethnically inclusive and those doubling down on appealing to “a very small but loyal constituency that does not want to meaningfully engage with vital conversations around racism.”

On his podcast, Kennedy suggested that Grove City is exemplifying how other Christian organizations ought to approach CRT. “Congregations, denominations, need to start seeing wokeness as a heresy,” said Kennedy. He added that “the language employed by especially Christian ‘wokesters’ is very, very gospel-like. And so the unwary can be pulled-in and you have compassion on them. But the leaders of this thing, those people need to be driven out of the church.”

Tisby said Grove City’s response to CRT should be taken as a warning.

“(A)nyone, regardless of race or ethnicity, who speaks up for racial justice could be a victim of these kinds of attacks,” Tisby said. “And, I would say, these actions are all the more lamentable because they come out of Christian institutions. We follow a savior who said, ‘you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.’ But we have people who profess to be followers of Christ, who seem to be running from the truth about racism.”

This piece first appeared at Religious News Services.

For more from Jemar Tisby, you can listen to the RLC Book Club from January 2021, the MLK event at Riverside, and the RLC Book Club Kids Edition from January 2022.

NEW YORK – LIVE FREE USA joins The Quincy Institute and Red Letter Christians to host: “55 Years Later: Can the Church Study War No More?”

The event comes amid a harrowing war in Ukraine, violent crime spikes in US cities and continued economic distress in communities of color across the country.  This FREE forum will invite people of faith and good will to reflect and commemorate the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Beyond Vietnam speech where he calls on all people to defeat the “triplets of evil: militarism, racism and poverty.” National leaders will gather to re-read the historic speech, followed by a panel conversation featuring Rev. Dr. Bernice A. King. Special musical guests Brian Courtney Wilson, Aaron Niequist, and Common Hymnal will perform.

“Violence abroad and violence at home require the active engagement of the church if we are to be agents of peace and justice in these times. We cannot allow our tax dollars to be a slush fund for military contractors abroad or militarization in US cities.” says Pastor Mike McBride.

Adds Shane Claiborne “the prophets call people of God to study war no more! We intend to amplify this call among faith leaders and congregations with an aim to resurrect a faith driven anti-war movement which encompasses the foreign and domestic expressions of state violence: international military actions in Ukraine, Yemen, Somalia and Israel/Palestine; police and state violence including the death penalty; and community gun violence in black and brown communities”.

Executive Director of Quincy Institute Lora Lumps says, “The importance of the faith community, in partnership with bi-partisan policymakers, advocating for peaceful resolutions to violent conflicts at home and abroad has never been more critical. As the Biden administration and this Congress adds close to $100B to already bloated military budgets and private contracts, poor people in the United States and underdeveloped countries around the world are met with death and needless suffering. We cannot not be so committed to funding violence and strength through might.”

This event is April 2 from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Riverside Church, the location where Dr. King gave this historic speech. The event is free and open to the press.

Proof of vaccination or negative PCR test (within 72 hours of event) and masks are required for entry to Riverside Church. 

WHO: Rev. Dr. Bernice A. King, and RLC Leaders, Shane Claiborne, Rev. Michael McBride, Rev. Traci Blackmon, Rev. Todd Yeary (RLC Board Chair), Lisa Sharon Harper (RLC Board Member), Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, Jemar Tisby, Sharon Risher,  Michael W. Waters, Erich Kussman, Carlos Rodriguez, Diana Oestreich, Common Hymnal, and Aaron Niequist.

WHAT: MLK Beyond Vietnam 55 Years Later: Can the Church Study War No More

WHEN: Doors open at 3:30 ET on Saturday, April 2; the event will run from (approx.) 4-6 ET.

WHERE: The Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Dr, New York, NY. Live stream can also be viewed on RLC’s Facebook, YouTube, or website.

RSVP: bit.ly/mlkvietnamspeech2022

CONTACT: Katie Kirkpatrick, sc@redletterchristians.org, (856) 477-3277

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One of the most common questions I get — once people have moved past denial — is, “What do we do now?”

Often this question is understandably accompanied by a great amount of anguish, stress and a sense of being overwhelmed — feelings I myself encountered while researching and writing the book.

The recognition of the longevity and enormity of the problem in white Christianity can often lead to a kind of paralysis that inhibits meaningful action.

In “White Too Long,” I shared a powerful exchange that occurred in a meeting between the two First Baptist Churches in Macon, Georgia — one predominately white and one predominately Black — who had begun a journey together to talk openly about racism for the first time in their shared histories:

If we get past denial, if we get past the magical thinking that time will settle our moral obligations for us, the next challenge for white Christians today is to deal with the paralyzing notion that the weight of this history is so enormous that meaningful action is impossible.

At one early meeting between the white and black members of the two First Baptist Churches in Macon, a white member confessed that she was simply overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do. After a painful pause, an African American woman responded calmly, “Of course you are.” This reply was a palpable moment of compassion and accountability. While giving the white woman permission to feel overwhelmed, the African American woman’s response also gently affirmed that this discomfort was not an excuse for inaction.

I recently wrote that the first step toward recovery from the distortions of white supremacy is “to separate being white from being Christian.” This is the heart of the matter. But given how long the assumption that white lives matter more than others has been with us, and how deeply it is embedded in our architecture, histories, liturgy, hymnody and theology, this is no simple task.

Faced with this formidable past, I’m convinced that the most important thing white Christians can do is to simply start somewhere. And to start somewhere local. The following suggestions are intended to be prompts to generate thinking. There is no boilerplate 10-step program or magic formula, just the courageous work to begin where we are, to see what we have been unable to see and to change what we have been unwilling to change.

WATCH the Faith Forum on White Discomfort

Here are seven places to start.

1. Take a walk around the church building and grounds. In what ways does the physical embodiment of your church communicate whiteness? If you have stained-glass windows, do they depict a white Jesus or other biblical characters who are presented as white? During Advent and Christmas celebrations that include a nativity scene, are Mary, Joseph and Jesus white? What about the paintings and bulletin boards that adorn the walls — are the images of people all white? And who uses the church facilities during the week? If only predominately white groups meet there, why is that?
2. Examine the church website and social media sites. These days, potential new members are as likely to see the digital footprint of the church long before they encounter the sign out in the front lawn. On shoestring budgets, it’s easy to grab unreflectively stock images featuring white people for landing pages and events. Do these images reflect the body of Christ? And is there anything communicating a commitment to be in solidarity with Black and Brown congregations and people in your community?
3. Review the children’s educational materials. One reader recently wrote to me that she was appalled to find how many 1950s-era materials that depicted only white people were still on the preschool library and classroom shelves. And what about those pictorial children’s Bibles, with all the characters depicted as white?
   One way not to pass along white supremacist assumptions (and to communicate a more accurate history of what characters from the Middle East and Africa would look like!) is to correct the materials we use to teach the next generation about our faith.
4. Tell a truer history of ourselves. Most churches that have been around for more than a generation have commissioned an official history that tells the story of the founding and early growth of the church. But these glossy accounts sitting in the church library or on tables in the foyer are typically incomplete at best. They, by design, are like a resume, usually written with a commitment to telling the most flattering, impressive story of the congregation.
   Here’s one practical proposal. Pull together a group to write a more honest church history that begins with this simple question: Why is our church physically located where it is? Why is it in this part of our community and not another one? In nearly all cases this question will quickly lead to issues of racially segregated neighborhoods, white flight from cities to suburbs and land grabs from Native Americans, to name just a few. And other questions will flow from this beginning: Has the church ever had a policy or practice of prohibiting non-white members? Where was the voice of the church during past and present movements for civil rights? How different would a history of your church be if it were written by non-white members of your community?
5. Evaluate the hymns and other songs being sung in worship. The imagery — associated whiteness with purity and goodness and blackness with sin and evil — performs powerful moral and theology work, often below the level of consciousness. Are we still unreflectively singing 19th-century hymns with lyrics like, “Whiter than snow, yes, whiter than snow/Now wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow”? Or the militant, Crusade-invoking “Onward, Christian Soldiers, Marching as to War”?
6. Assess what’s being addressed from the pulpit and other church-wide educational events. To give just one example from the Roman Catholic context: After 25 years of regular proclamations from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on the importance of addressing racial justice, a 2004 survey found that 64% of Catholics had not heard a single sermon on racism or racial justice during the entire three-year cycle of the lectionary. Even in the midst of the effervescence last fall, following months of nationwide Black Lives Matter protests, a recent Pew study found that only 40% of congregations heard sermons that even mentioned race or racism. Was this widespread silence from the pulpit the witness of your church? Historically, white pastors have heard a loud cacophony of voices warning them from speaking out against white supremacy. Does your pastor know there are congregants longing for leadership on issues of racial justice?
7. Read your church budget as a document expressing its moral and spiritual priorities. This one is straightforward but vital if white congregations are going to move authentically from confession and truth-telling to the work of repentance and repair. We have it on good authority that “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Given the history and complicity of white Christian churches with white supremacy, every white Christian church should make a commitment to support a predominately non-white church or nonprofit that primarily serves non-white people in their community, with three stipulations: a) The support should be significant, an expression of confession and repair; b) The support should not just consist of a one-time offering but be incorporated as a multi-year commitment reflected in a regular line in the church budget; and c) The support should be in the form of “no strings attached” general operating funds rather than to a specific project. Relinquishing control is an important spiritual practice for white Christians.

READ: The Sacred Work of White Discomfort

Starting somewhere and starting local will mean you may perhaps be the first person to voice these issues in your congregation, but you are likely not the only person on this spiritual and moral journey of transformation. And there are other churches engaged in this work who have found it enlivening and life-giving.

One sure sign of the continued presence of white supremacy is the outright resistance you will inevitably encounter from some and the protests of discomfort from others. But this is also evidence of the importance of the work.

This piece first appeared at Religion News Services.

For more from Robert P. Jones, watch RLC’s Faith Forum on White Discomfort on YouTube.