Christians, The World Is Watching
Love, Accountability, and Dismantling White Privilege in the Church
Picking my children up from school is the highlight of my day.
When I pick up my daughter from pre-school my heart leaps. I feel delight as she calls out my name, shouting, “Hi Mommy!” from the schoolyard gate—a smiling face in a bright pink coat.
“Hi sweetie!” I say. I wrap her in a big hug, smelling the sweetness of her hair (which is also tangled with woodchips).
I imagine that God delights in us this way, too.
As Christians, God calls us to love each other as I have loved you and God cherishes us—messiness and all. (John 15:12)
If Americans—especially in this age of divisiveness—have forgotten what it feels like to love one another, then let us return to the Gospels and Jesus’s own ministry. And let us imagine the warmth that passes between ourselves and another human being in an act of service, a loving embrace, or a word of encouragement—all gestures that Jesus himself extended, and offers the whole world.
You know love because you can feel it, much in the same way we know the difference between sunlight in a meadow and the fluorescent lights of a doctor’s office. Sunlight is bright and warm and nourishing. Sunlight covers the whole earth and reaches everywhere. The second is superficial: it’s bright but lacks warmth or depth.
The love of God that we aspire to as Christians is a love so deep that “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)
We can read about God’s love in the Word, but we truly learn to love the way God does by means of lived experience, by trial-and-error. That is perhaps why we’re here on Earth in the first place—alive, together, and learning to love each other better!
“Divine love is, of course, the template and model for such human love, and yet human love is the necessary school for any encounter with divine love,” explains Father Richard Rohr. [0]
And because sin is part of the human story, we also learn about violence and death through relationship, too.
In this Christian season we call Epiphany, we celebrate the revelation, the manifestation, of Christ to the whole wide world, inclusive of all people.
When White Christian anger spilled over into violence at our nation’s Capitol a few days ago on January 6th, I had something of a revelation or epiphany myself; chiefly, that this was an embodiment of sin and not love, and that the Church as a collective must stand up against this growing evil.
White Christians fresh off a Trump rally chanted, “Jesus Saves!” and held crosses while assaulting police officers, destroying property, and killing people.
I bear witness to and name as racist the deplorable difference between security plans implemented during Black Lives Matter protests and the security plans ordered and implemented on Jan. 6, ahead of a rally by armed domestic terrorists, who were white. I call out that difference as an embodiment of white supremacy. That difference allowed the act of terrorism to happen.[1]
When Paul was in Corinth he said to his church:
“You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” (2 Cor 3:2-3 NLT)
Paul reminds the Body of Christ that what is in our hearts and how we conduct ourselves is very much how we share the Gospels. What we’re feeling inside our individual hearts, and how we choose to act—matters. And those around us learn about “the Spirit of the living God” by watching us.
And the world is watching.
Unfortunately, on January 6th, we witnessed a prime example of why so many non-believers in America have a bad impression of Christianity today and regard our faith with suspicion.
Our faith is getting a bad reputation not just because of the media, per se, but because of how we behave. Namely, we don’t take responsibility when we mess up.
Did you know that Christianity in America is on the decline?
The number of adults in the United States who identify as Protestant is down almost ten percent today over the span of the last decade, with 51% having identified with Protestantism back in 2009, while only 43% identify as such today.[2] Meanwhile, religious “nones” are growing faster among Democrats than Republicans, but their ranks are actually increasing in both parties.[3]
Most concerning is how young people are leaving the church. Millennials are not returning to the religious fold, and more young parents are now convinced that religious institutions are simply irrelevant. [4]
Evangelical pastor John Piper highlighted this startling disconnect between what Christians claim to believe and how we actually act, in a controversial article he published shortly before the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election:
“Christians communicate a falsehood to unbelievers (who are also baffled!) when we act as if policies and laws that protect life and freedom are more precious than being a certain kind of person. The church is paying dearly, and will continue to pay, for our communicating this falsehood year after year.”[5]
Our faith, which bases its teachings on repentance and the forgiveness of sins—has leaders at the highest levels sinning and then refusing to take responsibility for those sins. What kind of message does this send to our nation, Christian or otherwise? What kind of message does this send to our children? It sends a message of inauthenticity, and people don’t trust that. I don’t trust that.
Unfortunately, this is a trend.
Sweeping wrongdoing under the rug echoes the morals of Donald Trump himself, and fundamentalist Christian leaders continue to stand by him, picking up their own brooms and sweeping right alongside. Trump, like so many White, straight Christian leaders today—has yet to apologize for acts of aggression, including “warfare prayer,” that led to the violence at the Capitol.
In fact, the President’s order to “heal and move on” mere days after the attack on the Capitol reflects the same callousness and disconnect that got us here in the first place.
Healing does not happen overnight.
Healing is inconvenient, messy work. There’s nothing efficient about it. And we need to accept that, and commit to doing the patient, grueling work of unpacking pain because that is what leads to resurrection and abundant life.
Moreover, we need to knit our country back together, not only because there was an attack on America’s democracy—but because that attack points to a deep source of pain beneath the surface. The attack on our Capitol is the tip of the iceberg. Below sea level is America’s long history of erasing black people, native people, immigrants, women, disabled people, poor people, and minorities in general, and white rage that has not found a way to express its own hurt in a healthy way continues to simmer, too.
“Our only chance at dismantling racial injustice is being more curious about its origins than we are worried about our comfort,” says Austin Channing Brown, author of I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness.[6]
Indeed, healing will be a slow process.
But it’s a divine process, if we choose to engage it. It’s a process of unveiling—not magical, instantaneous change. It’s a process of looking honestly at ourselves and our situations. It’s a different approach to “fixing” things than we’ve tried before as a society, but I believe that it’s what is required to mend our nation—and what’s more, I believe it’s exactly what Jesus means by salvation.
“I am the Light of the World,” declares Christ. (John 8:12) “Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” (John 3:19-20)
Historically, when we do something wrong, something hurtful, we often don’t want it to be exposed because we fear the shame that so often follows exposure. It’s the shame that others place on us, but it’s also the shame we were taught to place on ourselves. But shame is not of God.
Jesus continues: “But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” (John 3:21).
In other words, the Light of the World—God—is here among us to unveil evil, but to do so with warmth. That is love—a constant process of unveiling and illumination so that we can see the truth, but so that we can see it in a space of gentleness and compassion. Heartbreak is the outcome God is looking for when he asks us to illuminate truth: to realize our own and others’ suffering and to change our ways.
Heartbreak, not shame, is how the light gets in.
And so I ask myself today, how does my heart need to break open?
What stories of suffering do I need to hear, that I have previously shut my ears to?
Have I wanted to stay comfortable, at the expense of others’ pain?
What am I going to do differently?
What I’m going to do differently is seek out the voices of the oppressed—to hear their stories.
What I’m going to do differently is speak out against injustices when I see them happening.
What I’m going to do differently is admit when I’m wrong, and apologize.
What I’m going to do differently is organize for change.
What I’m going to do differently is follow the lead of those who are oppressed.
As theologian N.T. Wright explains in Paul, A Biography, “For Paul and all the other early Christians, what mattered was not “saved souls” being rescued from the world and being taken to a distant “heaven,” but the coming together of heaven and earth themselves in a great act of cosmic renewal in which human bodies were likewise being renewed to take their place within that new world.[7]”
We can be a part of that heavenly renewal when we answer the call of Jesus who asks us not only to shine a light on truth, but to answer these questions, too:
“When I was hungry, did you feed me? When I was naked, did you clothe me? When I was a stranger—when I was an immigrant, when I was undocumented—did you care for me? [8]”
Today, I choose to recognize that the Kingdom of God belongs to the oppressed, and that until they have power that equals my own—until those who are suffering are treated and cared for equally—until my black and brown and immigrant and LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters have equal protections and equal opportunities—the Kingdom of God is not fully realized. Truly, it is not fully realized until then.
This calling extends beyond our nation, it extends to the whole world.
Over fifty years ago, the great Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., stood before a crowd at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. just a few miles from Capitol Hill. He cried out:
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today![9]
And I have a dream today, too—modest as it is.
I have a dream that I can be a part of building the Kingdom of God. I have a dream that my life matters in the great scope of love, in the great unfolding of this universe. That as a privileged white woman, I will do the work it takes to honestly dismantle my own sense of superiority and pride over other people.
I have a dream that I will go to pick up my daughter from school and that I will regard every one of her classmates – black, brown, immigrant, disabled, gay, transgender, with woodchips in their hair or otherwise— as the faces of God – equal and worthy in my eyes, as they already are in Christ’s.
I have a dream that I will have the courage to look inside myself and see what needs to change there, and that I will have the courage and discipline to do it, with God’s help.
And I have a dream that I—along with my white and privileged brothers and sisters in Christ, will be able to change, too.
I have a dream.
In the words of Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II, whose powerful sermons echo the sentiment of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “It is time we turn to our past in order to understand our present, and then turn forward together to build a better future.[10]”
[0] Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ. p. 71. Convergent Books.
[1] United Church of Christ. “UCC National Leaders Condemn Insurrection in Racist Takeover of the U.S. Capitol.” Website link: https://www.ucc.org/ucc-national-leaders-condemn-insurrection-in-racist-takeover-of-the-u-s-capitol/
[2]“In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace.” Page 2. Pew Research Center. October 17, 2019. Website link: https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/
[3] see footnote above, Page 6.
[4]“Millennials Are Leaving Religion And Not Coming Back.” Page 2. By Daniel Cox and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux. December 12, 2019. FiveThirtyEight. Website link: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/millennials-are-leaving-religion-and-not-coming-back/
[5] John Piper, Website link: “Policies, Persons, and Paths to Ruin.” Website link: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/policies-persons-and-paths-to-ruin.
[6] Austin Channing Brown. “I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made For Whiteness.” P. 117.
[7] N.T. Wright, “Paul, A Biography.” P. 8.
[8] Reverend William J. Barber III. “We Are Called to Be a Movement” p. 47, Gospel of Matthew 25: 35-36, Ezekiel 22:29.
[9] Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have A Dream” Speech. Lincoln Memorial. August 28, 1963. Transcript: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm
[10] Reverend William J. Barber III. “We Are Called to Be a Movement” pp. 88.
Really good distilling about what was so disturbing about that march. That version of the Christian religion I want no part of. Who Jesus really is, for everyone - yes! Your article makes me feel hopeful 🙂🙏.