Once upon a time…

At the beginning of the 1990s I was asked to write an article for the inaugural issue of a new student newspaper at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Having little journalistic experience, I tried to avoid this invitation to writing an editorial. My fellow seminarian was persistent and coaxed me to take the dive, and with trepidation (and perhaps perfectionistic expectations) I wrote my initial contribution. The title: “The Results of a Theological Failure.”

Writing for a seminary publication, “theological failure” could have referred to any number of topics, but what I wrote about was the rise of the Nation of Islam. At that time I was very concerned about what I perceived to be the increasing influence of Louis Farrakhan; I knew of not only the fact that some Christians found him to be a kind of prophetic voice but also that a central tenet of Nation of Islam belief is that their religion was the true faith of black people and that Christianity was a “the white man’s religion.” This article was one way I chose to express my concern about the specter of Farrakhan’s influence. As my article title reveals, I connected the emergence of the Nation of Islam with a theological failure: the lamentable history of white Bible-believing Christians on the question of race in the United States.

This was my argument: though one might be able to identify white Christians of historically orthodox stripe here and there who opposed a racist society, a great majority were complicit in their support of (or apathy regarding) an expression of Christianity that mutually advocated for the complete authority of Scripture and the subjugation of African-Americans (first by slavery and then by Jim Crow, the latter well in place by the time the Nation of Islam emerged). While there were African-American denominations of Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal and Catholic tradition, a nagging question remained about whether the Christian religion was one sponsor of a society that antagonized the flourishing of non-whites in general and African-Americans in particular (of course, one must include Native Americans here, though they somehow are often off the radar in these conversations).

In the midst of this state of affairs, the Nation of Islam emerged in the 1930s, initially promoted by W.D. Fard but largely developed by Elijah Poole (who became Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the movement). The Nation of Islam presented a religion that was for black people (and which referred to whites as devils), and had significant growth during the time Malcolm X was a prominent spokesperson. However one regards its influence in the 1970s and early 1980s, it became prominent again once Louis Farrakhan is the leader of the movement. Farrakhan was then (and still remains) a charismatic speaker criticized for many incendiary claims but who gained a hearing among many because of his identification and critique of the problems of race in society.

My sense was that this religion emerged and had some level of success because evangelicals (and others) had a deficient approach to engaging issues of public concern, particularly on matters of race. I wondered whether there would be any attraction to something like the Nation of Islam if Bible-believing white Christians had done a better job attending to questions of race. The theological failure, as noted above, was the possession of a strong commitment to orthodoxy (dare I say, the “fundamentals” of Biblical truth) without producing theology and ethics that formed and oriented the lives of Christians toward discipleship that included clear opposition to racism; indeed in some cases the Bible was used to rationalize racial hierarchy and segregation.

I wish this story was a fable (or at least a real story with a neat “happily ever after” conclusion), that there was never any reason to write the article. This is not possible, and the theological failures did not abruptly end at some point in mid-20th century. A little more biography, this time about my own experiences in evangelical circles.

To this day of writing, I am willing to use the word “evangelical” when understood its best sense as a way to describe those committed to the truth of Christianity and eager to embrace and convey the good news that has come in Jesus Christ. Though I remain in the fold, it has not been without experiences of vexation on questions of race. I grew up in a Bible-believing African-American Baptist church and did not know of the evangelical movement (or of the term as an identity marker) until I was in college and a participant in the Navigators, a discipleship-oriented parachurch ministry. It was during those years when I became acquainted with strategies of inductive Bible study and preacher-authors like Chuck Swindoll and Charles Stanley. Without exaggeration I can say that in my first experiences within evangelicalism as a college student brought me tremendous benefit from my Navigators Bible study, the church I attended and other settings of evangelical Christian fellowship.

The first glimmer of dissonance connected to race came in the years immediately after I graduated, when I lived in Memphis between 1987-90 and began listening daily to the Christian radio station that played programs with preachers, Focus on the Family, and a couple of talk shows that had guests a few times a week. At first I enjoyed these without reservation, and I appreciated what I learned when political issues like abortion or cultural issues like secularization were discussed. Eventually I began to wonder why questions about race were rarely discussed while many other sociopolitical matters were discussed frequently. I also began to notice that some of my African-American Christian friends would express frustration at the conservative political stance often on display in evangelical media.

At first I was not sure what to make of this state of affairs, but I was soon unable to avoid the fact that addressing race was not a priority. I kept looking and listening in vain to see or hear prominent evangelical leaders making any kind of case about racism as sinful and as something larger than matters of personal prejudice. At that time I wondered how it might even be possible to make a case that racism was a sin explicitly condemned in the Bible, not having encountered examples or models to show me the way (I was sure it was a sin, but not sure how to prove it). To be fair, I am not saying no white evangelicals had concern about racism; rather I am saying it was not a notable priority among prominent white evangelical leaders (in pulpit or academy).

When I went off to Trinity in 1990, I was still wondering how this important issue could be addressed by evangelical Christians, especially because I was not always pleased with some of the ways I heard race addressed by prominent black leaders. I wanted to see an evangelical approach to this big problem. For certain, the 1990s saw books about racial reconciliation by teams of black/white authors (most prominently Raleigh Washington/Glen Kehrein and Spencer Perkins/Chris Rice), the rise of Promise Keepers (with an eventual emphasis on racial reconciliation), and in the last two decades there have been more books written to make efforts to address the challenges of race.

While there has been more attention to these issues and arguably more Bible-believing white Christians who are trying to face questions of race in integrity and an unblinking gaze, the concerns remain. Indeed, I would argue the theological-ethical failure has not been overcome. Try this exercise: survey 40-50 Christian ethics volumes written in the last 2-40 years and see how many have something related to race as a topic (warning: it will not turn out well).

While a figure like Farrakhan does not have the same level of prominence or public influence, what we now observe is a generation of African-Americans in evangelical spaces who are frustrated, or exhausted, or angry, or discouraged by their sense that the majority of Bible-believing white Christians do not take the ongoing challenge of race seriously.

Put another way, what we can observe is that while there have been more African-Americans who have had some level of prominence in evangelical-type circles in the last couple decades, a number of them have arrived the same place as Tom Skinner in the early 1970s when he began to mention race on his radio program, or the same place as Bill Pannell when he wrote My Friend, The Enemy in 1968. They are disaffected and some have stepped away from their evangelical (or Reformed, etc.) settings and headed for other communities or just decided to sit on the sidelines for a while (note: the 2016 election is not the largest catalyst for this in my view; this experience of great dissonance and discouragement happens to many minorities at some point in their sojourn amid predominantly white Bible-believing Christian environments. For one example see Ed Gilbreath’s Reconciliation Blues).

At this point readers may ask whether I think matters are exactly as they were back then. My response: I think there has definitely been elements of progress since then (e.g. I’m a tenured theology professor at Wheaton College), but it would be a tremendous mistake to confuse the beginning of progress with arrival at the finish line. One way to put it: while there was landmark civil rights legislation passed in 1964 and 1965, no revival or spiritual transformation occurs in the church by the stroke of a pen. We have yet to see waves of renewal within the United States church on questions of race. Yes, more books, conferences, and denominational statements about race have occurred but within the larger populace lots of frustration remains for many minorities, with some feeling little has changed.

Here’s where the title of this conversation comes in. To truly move forward on the challenge of race requires a reckoning with the theological failures that impede Christian unity and which are part of the reason for not only a movement like the Nation of Islam but also the existence of what we call “the black church.” A reckoning of any kind takes a strong dose of courage. The reckoning in this case means a willingness to truly look at elements that are key to a church that struggles to truly provide a foretaste of the vision in Revelation 7:9.

A few years ago we had Bryan Stevenson at Wheaton, and he said then (and elsewhere) that a big part of our problem is our relationship to history. Sometimes what happens in conversations about race is that people say “why do we need to keep looking back at that history?” Stevenson’s point is that many people have not truly begun to look at the history of race in this country. And I admit that in part I can’t blame anyone who doesn’t want to look at a history that includes racial antagonism toward African-Americans. It is extremely hard to actually think about what occurred in slavery, what occurred during the Jim Crow era, and ways that the effects of that history remain with us. It is facing true horror to look at the history of lynching or of events like the 1921 Tulsa race riots, particularly when Christians were involved.

Or to be even more precise, it is sobering and distressing to acknowledge the explicit racism of one’s heroes of biblical orthodoxy like my dissertation figure Abraham Kuyper (this was a major crisis for me, but also how I became a critical thinker) or someone like J. Gresham Machen (of course one could also list the Southern Presbyterians like Dabney and Thornwell). Yet, the way forward to a quality of Christian fellowship and mission in pursuit of the common good requires being willing to see the ways that deeply committed white Christians have had levels of complicity in racism that is part of our past and present.

The goal of reckoning is far from stoking a new round of white guilt. While facing the truth will likely lead to sadness and guilt, the more important aspect is the cultivation of a willingness to cultivate and craft approaches to theology and church life that facilitate genuine community and mission among Bible-believing Christians of different ethnic backgrounds in general and between whites and African-Americans in particular. To do this in the current climate is a tremendous challenge when there is a significant contingent of Christians who regard attention to these matters as distractions from the gospel and the intrusion of a purported cultural Marxism.

I admit a tremendous frustration every time I see someone use the language of cultural Marxism as a reason to be wary of efforts to engage questions of race and life in the church. As I look back over the last 30 years and think about the different reasons some Bible-believing Christians have avoided, neglected or resisted questions of race, I find it peculiar that this campaign against cultural Marxism has emerged fairly recently (maybe as early as 2001) as a central reason to have hesitation about pursuits of justice.

In all honestly, if the people who express these concerns about cultural Marxism had lots of examples of congregations that have an allergy to critical race theory but are leading the way in cultivating and practicing a faith that addresses the past and present challenges of race, I would be more inclined to take their warnings seriously. As far as I can tell, these people are not leading the way toward cultivating a gospel unity. Instead, I see the act of using the label “cultural Marxism” as a smokescreen or diversionary tactic that forestalls both the reckoning required to contend with theological-ethical failures on race and the subsequent work to pursue new paths of Christian discipleship. These are paths taken where life together means truly living out the implications of a gospel that compels us to love our neighbors as ourselves in ways interpersonal and public/political. This does not mean loyalty to any political party but a true submission to the Lordship of Christ. This Lordship means we are seeking to have our various commitments always subject to examination by the Holy Spirit, and a willingness to respond to what is exposed.

One of the greatest things in need of exposure is the ways extra-biblical commitments function in the world and life view of Christians hesitant to acknowledge the ongoing challenges of race (or even among those who acknowledge it but do not see much that can be done besides have heated disagreements – hence an unfortunate conspiracy of silence in these cases). A former student of mine named David Swanson is a white pastor of a multi-ethnic church in Chicago (You can see his blog here). As you can see on his blog, this year he has a book coming out that addresses what he calls the need for re-discipling white Christians out of their commitments to segregation to genuine solidarity with those who are non-white. The important dimension I wish to note here is that Swanson is highlighting what many minorities have observed in their years among predominantly white churches and institutions: they see that while there is a genuine commitment to the complete truth of Scripture, along with it there are cultural beliefs, norms and assumptions about matters of race and society that are unquestioned/taken-for-granted.

At some point, what happens is that a minority person will have an uncomfortable conversation with a person who may be a dear friend, but he discovers that he sees the world very differently when it comes to the way race factors into society (and church, ministry, theology, etc.). In many cases these conversations are not very fruitful. Part of the reason for this, I believe, is that there is little discussion about how each person is seeing not only the Bible but also the cultural assumptions at work in looking at how life operates in society. Here, I believe is where a lot of work needs to be done. It is not easy work, because it is essentially like asking fish to discern the quality of water in which they swim. When the water is fine for your type of fish, who would notice whether there is anything that could be problematic for other fish?

The modern West (a culture and world constructed largely by those of European descent) constructs something called “whiteness” and regards that as the standard by which other humans are to be measured and judged. The extent to which this operates as a cultural norm among white Christians plays a sometimes hidden (more so these days, less so when racial discrimination was the law of the land) role when theology is constructed and ethical practices emerge out of faith commitments. When this unspoken factor has been at work, it helped set the stage for a segregated society, hence the emergence of African-American versions of denominations, and also the emergence of a theodicy problem for blacks who try to make sense of a Christian faith that has not often compelled their white brothers and sisters to seek their flourishing.

I began this reflection with the words “Once upon a time…” While at the present we are far from a happy ending, I think it is possible for Christians to work together across races and cultivate theology and practice that leads to a public witness that provides a bit of glimpse of the unity that we will share when Christ returns and brings us complete Shalom. If we are to pursue the cultivation of a life that is a coming attraction of the true happy ending, it will require white Bible-believing Christians to begin asking something besides “Why are they bringing up those questions of race again?” and instead ask God “Would you interrogate my heart, mind and especially my understanding of Christian life, so that I may be among those who are witnesses to a gospel that is better news than I have imagined, especially because of our pursuit of a better unity?” I know many who are less than sanguine about this possibility. I dare to imagine that it can happen. Please, Lord, make it so.

Dr. Vincent Bacote is Associate Professor of Theology and the Director of the Center for Applied Christian Ethics, Wheaton College. He will be speaking on the topic of race and the church at the upcoming Nevin Lectures.