Addressing our Racist and White Supremacist Ideologies: Christian Leadership in Turbulent Times
This is the transcript of my remarks given at the Stone-Campbell Journal Conference in Knoxville, Tennessee as a part of the Leadership Track on September 11th, 2020. The title of the presentation was: “Where the Scriptures Speak, We Speak. Where the Scriptures are Silent. . . : Christian Leadership in Turbulent Times.”
Thank you Dr. Beard and Dr. Crumpton.
I am a PhD Candidate at Johnson University, researching the intersection of historical racial narratives within the officer involved shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
I am also a church planter and a pastor, living in Seattle. A city that has been in the news quite a bit recently for their protests, sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The protests in Seattle are ongoing; occurring every day in the streets, in the parks, at city hall, all in an effort to prick the moral conscious of our city’s leadership. Pleading with them to address the Department of Justice investigation against our own police department from 2012 that has been left largely unaddressed. An investigation that was sparked by the officer-involved shooting of John T. Williams.
My research and context intersect in this cultural moment begging the question: How should the church respond? How should the church lead in these turbulent and divisive times?
W. E. B. Du Bois wrote that “the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line” [1]. However, it could be said for the church in the United States, ‘the problem of the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st century is the problem of the color line.’
In order for us to respond, and lead in these turbulent and divisive times, we must begin by uncovering our own past complicities and bring them to light.
We have long struggled with racism and white supremacist ideologies within the Church, and the Stone-Campbell movement has not been immune. Our movement has a complex relationship with racism and white supremacist ideologies.
While Barton Stone unequivocally called slavery a sin in the Christian Messenger [2], of which every white person benefited from economically, a sin for which everyone was guilty—slaveholder or not; he called all to repentance and reform, going so far as to emancipate his own slaves out of a moral rightness before demanding the same of all [3]. For Stone, slavery was both a political and moral wrong. He lent his voice and his energies to the abolitionist movement publicly denouncing Christians who participated in the buying and selling slaves [4]. Stone stood for this truth.
He was not without complexity in how he approached the abolitionist movement, however. Stone was also an advocate of the American Colonization Society which sought to take slaves and remove them from the United States and give them a colony of their own, either in Central America—Panama was the most popular choice—or to ship slaves back across the Middle Passage to Africa. Interestingly enough Abraham Lincoln was an early advocate of this position, believing that the only way the Union could be saved was the removal of the slaves, whom he viewed as the problem that needed solving [5]. Stone used the Christian Messenger in 1831 to appeal to all Christians to give their lives over to this Colonizing Society “now” [6].
Alexander Campbell on the other hand was more complex and complicated. Campbell perpetually staked a middle ground on slavery, elevating unity as his guiding force. Alexander Campbell never denounced slavery, always working to find a middle ground that would help advance his restoration movement. Yet, in the words of Doug Foster, his “white supremacist ideology” got the best of him [7], and in 1840 began to directly attack the premise of the abolitionists and Stone, that slavery was a sin. He rejected the view that “holding a person as a slave (or in a state of involuntary servitude is always a sin” and if it were a sin, then it would be the requirement of all Christians to repent and immediately emancipate their slaves, pay them wages, and let them go seek employment elsewhere. This was a ludicrous idea for Campbell, and therefore it simply could not be a sin. For Campbell to admit this as a sin would put a barrier in the middle of his belief that the United States was a “divinely favored” country [8].
Campbell continued his attack on what he considered “abolitionist fanaticism” [9] through the Millennial Harbinger calling instead for an abolition of fear among slave owners. “It is masters I wish to emancipate. . . . The fear of your slaves in many instances is master over you,” he wrote. “You are in this view the slaves of slaves, while your slaves are only the servants of masters.” Campbell was more concerned about the effects of slavery on white peoples and society than upon the slaves themselves. [10] And in 1851 he pledged his support for the Fugitive Slave Law, which preserved slavery even in freed states.
Even though Campbell attempted to stake out a moderate position on slavery, a sort of non-position, position whereby he could toe the line politically and appease all by neither supporting nor condemning slavery, he therefore became “an enemy of truth and virtue” [11].
Campbell’s eyes were fixed squarely upon the principle of unity to the detriment of truth. For Campbell, the humanity of black people was not an essential worth creating division over. And I wonder, for us, in this cultural moment, has anything changed?
In the decades leading up to the Civil War, as denominations split over the question of slavery Campbell fought to maintain a fraught and tenuous unity at the expense of our black brothers and sisters; those men, women and children who were relegated to the balcony at Cane Ridge. A place confirming their societal position, yet resembling nothing of what Scripture speaks regarding their humanity, a people endowed with the Imago Dei in their very being. An appropriate picture of unity over truth.
In the 1830s and 1840s, the church was a force. The Second Great Awakening was in full swing and the church was on the verge of accomplishing its stated goal of converting America. But then this great awakening fizzled. As the country continued to divide itself over the issue of slavery and ultimately the humanity of the Black people, everyone waited for the Church to speak with a unified voice and answer the question: “What does the Bible say?” [12]
Deeply enmeshed in its own cultural differences, the Church read those differences into Scripture, failing to agree on what the Bible actually said about slavery and Black humanity. According to Mark Noll, because the church couldn’t figure it out, because the church couldn’t work out its differences, because the church couldn’t come to the Bible and say, “here’s the answer” the country had to go to war [12].
As people looked to the Church for answers, we equivocated. We moderated. We sacrificed the truth of Black humanity for a perceived and fleeting unity. And I wonder, for us, in this cultural moment, has anything changed?
“Where the scriptures speak, we speak. Where the scriptures are silent, we are silent.” This is one of the bedrock principles of our movement, and also the greatest crutch we lean upon for abdicating our moral responsibility to speak the truth in love, to see ‘thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’
The United States of America is currently engaged in what Charles Kesler calls a “Cold Civil War” [13]. An era of deep division and strife where each side has further entrenched themselves, creating an ever widening gulf of separation that tears society in two along lines of race, among other things. And yet the Christian Church, in the tradition and image of Alexander Campbell, still tries with all of our might to straddle the line of moderacy; to seek unity over truth, as an enemy of truth and virtue.
Black lives matter.
Do you believe it? Yes?
Then why can’t you say it?
Is it because you have ascribed a purity test to the organization that you are unwillling to apply elsewhere?
Is it because you don’t want to upset people within your congregation? Is it because you don’t want to upset donors to your institution or university or school?
All an attempt to seek unity over truth. An echo of our past unwillingness to unequivocally affirm the humanity of the black body. This is what our black and brown, Indigenous, brothers and sisters of color are asking of us right now. They are asking for the church to unequivocally stand with them in the struggle.
It is said that history doesn’t repeat, it rhymes. This is the legacy of Alexander Campbell visited upon us today, the DNA of our movement. Is it any wonder that the Church in the United States is 6 times more segregated than the public schools? [14] In this present moment our churches in the United States look more like the Jim Crow South than they do the kingdom of God.
The problem of the 21st century is the problem of the color line, the echoes of our history ringing loud in our ears. As the culture around us continues to eviscerate each other, devolving further and further, entrenching deeper and deeper into this Cold Civil War, how will the church respond? What does Christian Leadership look like in these turbulent times?
This cultural moment, this Cold Civil War, is crying for the church to respond. Our black and brown, Indigenous, brothers and sisters of color in their deep lament are crying for the church to respond. This is not a moment for moderation. This is not a moment to repeat the mistakes of our past, but rather an opportunity, as Barton Stone suggested, to “repent and reform.”
This is foundational to Christian leadership: repentance and reform. And this cultural moment requires a collective repentance. To acknowledge and turn away from our complicity in this system of segregation.
Lifeway Research found that more than 80% of churches remain racially segregated, with more than 53% of churchgoers disagreeing that their church needs to become more ethnically diverse. Yet 33%, a third of churchgoers, strongly disagree that the church needs to become more diverse [15]. We have long lost the battle for unity, for what we experience now in our churches is a faux unity, a milquetoast unity, a unity in name only.
The lines of segregation and separation have already been drawn in our churches. We can acquiesce, we can continue to moderate, continuing to repeat the mistakes of our past, echoing the sounds of our history, and digging deeper the trenches of racial segregation; or we can rise up for truth and recenter ourselves around Jesus as our guiding force.
We have long been engaged in our own Cold Civil War, fighting amongst one another, entrenching ourselves in our own political eisegesis of Scripture, interpreting the world through lenses of Red and Blue. Christian leadership requires repentance and reform. To eschew these lenses of interpretation and instead do the work of interpreting the world through the lens of Jesus and his Gospel—a Gospel that affirms the humanity of all—including the immigrant, the undocumented, all people of color—a Jesus who unequivocally proclaimed Samaritan lives matter, a Gospel that stood for truth over unity, that calls for repentance and reform.
Christian leadership is different than all other realms of leadership. Our engagement comes through a unique lens. It is through the lens of Jesus that we must interpret everything else. It is through the lens of Jesus and his Gospels that we view the world around us. And it is through that lens that we stand for truth, not moderation.
[1] Du Bois. (1903). The Souls of Black Folk, p. 5
[2] "slavery is a sin of which all the people of this country are more or less guilty, and ought immediately to repent and reform." Barton Stone, Christian Messenger 9 June 1835, pp. 124-126.
[3] Stone had emancipated his own slaves "from a sense of right" and that slavery was both "politically and morally wrong" Barton Stone, Christian Messenger 3, June 1829, p. 198-199.
[4] Stone became an abolitionist and publicly denounced Christians buying and selling slaves: "Let all christians, indignantly frown upon the practice of men buying up droves of negroes for marking, and chaining them together, and driving them like brutes, regardless of their tears, which flow at the constant recollection of being torn forever from the loving embraces of parents, or children, or wives, or husbands. Can a Christian do this? In the former days of ignorance and darkness, it is possible-but in this day of light, we must doubt." Christian Messenger 7, February 1833, pp. 64-65
[5] http://www.abraham-lincoln-history.org/colonization/
[6] Barton Stone, Christian Messenger 5, Jan 1831, pp 10-11).
[7] Doug Foster, 2020. A Life of Alexander Campbell. p. 198.
[8] Alexander Campbell, 1852. Address to the Philo-Literary Society of Canonsburg College, PA.
[9] Doug Foster, 2020. A Life of Alexander Campbell. p. 193.
[10] Alexander Campbell, 1830, March. Millennial Harbinger.
[11] Doug Foster, 2020. A Life of Alexander Campbell, p. 194.
[12] Mark Noll, 2005. America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln.
[13] Charles R. Kesler, 2018. America’s Cold Civil War. Imprimis 47(10). https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/americas-cold-civil-war/
[14] Soong-Chan Rah, 2016. Presentation on Lament. Praxis Conference. Philadelphia, PA.
A reflection on the Capitol Insurrection of January 6, 2021 that was delivered for United Church. It was written as a diagnosis of what plagues the white Evangelical Church and a prescription for healing and change.