The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

by Jemar Tisby

The Bible reveals David’s adultery, Jonah’s selfishness, and Peter’s failure of faith. Just as we can’t take out the parts of the Bible that we don’t like or that make us uncomfortable, we can’t celebrate the shining moments of the American church’s history and then ignore the shameful aspects of that history.

We either fully acknowledge the entire history or dismiss it all.

The truth about humanity’s heritage turns a mirror on our souls and pushes us to recognize who we ...

Through reading this book, we realize that if we built the walls on purpose, we need to tear down the walls on purpose.

Morgan recognized that no matter who had physically planted the dynamite, all the city’s white residents were complicit in allowing an environment of hatred and racism to persist. The acts that reinforced racism happened in countless common ways. Morgan explained, “The ‘who’ is every little individual who talks about the ‘niggers’ and spreads the seeds of his hate to his neighbor and his son. The jokester, the crude oaf whose racial jokes rock the party with laughter.”

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

History and Scripture teaches us that there can be no reconciliation without repentance. There can be no repentance without confession. And there can be no confession without truth.

“Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light,” he wrote, “injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”9 King’s words apply to racism in the church.

The festering wound of racism in the American church must be exposed to the oxygen of truth in order to be healed.

It seems like most Christians in America don’t know how bad racism really is, so they don’t respond with the necessary urgency.

What do we mean when we talk about racism? Beverly Daniel Tatum provides a shorthand definition: racism is a system of oppression based on race.

Another definition explains racism as prejudice plus power. It is not only personal bigotry toward someone of a different race that constitutes racism; rather, racism includes the imposition of bigoted ideas on groups of people.

Although there have been notable exceptions, and racial progress in this country could not have happened without allies across the color line, white people have historically had the power to construct a social caste system based on skin color, a system that placed people of African descent at the bottom.

White men and women have used tools like money, politics, and terrorism to consolidate their power and protect their comfort at the expense of black people.

White complicity with racism isn’t a matter of melanin, it’s a matter of power. Other nations have different dynamics. Whether society is stratified according to class, gender, religion, or tribe, communities tend to put power in the hands of a few to the detriment of many. In the United States, power runs along color lines, and white people have the most influence.

As historian Carolyn DuPont describes it, “Not only did white Christians fail to fight for black equality, they often labored mightily against

Every book is an introduction, an invitation to further study.

At the same time, a survey focuses on breadth instead of depth. A high degree of selectivity goes into a historical survey, and more gets left out than put in.

Of course, there are many other intractable conflicts along racial and ethnic lines. These various schisms have their own unique stories and dynamics.

Yet justice for one group can open pathways for equality to other groups.14 The principles outlined in this book, when applied to other racial and ethnic conflicts, can help lead to greater understanding and positive change.

Although the missed opportunities are heartbreaking, the fact that people can choose is also empowering.

Another theme this survey reveals is that racism changes over time. Skin color is simply a physical trait. It is a feature that has no bearing on one’s intrinsic dignity. As the following chapters show, people invented racial categories.

Race and racism are social constructs.

Martin Luther King Jr. said, “There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.”15 This study is not about discrediting the church or Christians. I love the church. My concern for the church and for the well-being of its people motivates my exploration of Christian complicity in racism.

The goal is to build up the body of Christ by “speaking the truth in love,” even if that truth comes at the price of pain.

American Christians have never had trouble celebrating their victories, but honestly recognizing their failures and inconsistencies, especially when it comes to racism, remains an issue.

All too often, Christians name a few individuals who stood against the racism of their day and claim them as heroes. They fail to recognize how rarely believers made public and persistent commitments to racial equality against the culture of their churches and denominations.

Jumping ahead to the victories means skipping the hard but necessary work of examining what went wr...

The notion that racism has colored the character of the American church for the past four hundred years will seem incomprehensible to some. As a result, they will voice strenuous and, typically, very public opposition to the claims that racism, especially in its systemic and institutional manifestations, has shaped the church.

They will assert that the historical facts are wrong or have been misinterpreted. They will charge that this discussion of race is somehow “abandoning the gospel” and replacing it with problematic calls for “social justice.” After reading just a few chapters, these arguments will sound familiar. These arguments have been used throughout the American church’s history to deny or defend racism.

No matter your level of education about race and the church, you may need to pause from reading to reflect or recover emotionally.

Although the truth cuts like a scalpel and may leave a scar, it offers healing and health. The pain is worth the progress.

What readers like this may find difficult about The Color of Compromise is that very rarely do historical figures fit neatly into the category of “villain.” Many individuals throughout American church history exhibited blatant racism, yet they also built orphanages and schools.

Christianity has been an engine for black progress even as others co-opted the faith to buttress white supremacy.

Even though the purpose of this work is not to call out any particular racial group, these words may cause some grief, but grief can be good. In 2 Corinthians 7:10, Paul says, “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret”

created. Our skin color will no longer be a source of pain or arrogant pride but will serve as a multihued reflection of God’s image.

We will no longer be alienated by our earthly economic or social position. We will not clamor for power over one another. Our single focus will be worshiping God for eternity in sublime fellowship with each other and our Creator.

By contrast, courageous Christianity embraces racial and ethnic diversity.

It had been longstanding custom in England that Christians, being spiritual brothers and sisters, could not enslave one another.

Missionaries, ministers, and slaveowners encouraged African Christians in America to be content with their spiritual liberation and to obey their earthly masters.

Looking at the history of colonial Virginia uncovers the reality that racism in the church has been a problem from the very first moments of European contact in North America.

There was a period, from about 1500 to 1700, when race did not predetermine one’s station and worth in society. This is not to say that racism did not exist; it surely did. But during the initial stages of European settlement in North America, the colonists had not yet cemented skin color as an essential feature of life in their communities. Race was still being made.

Over the next 300 years, the transatlantic slave trade transported more than ten million Africans to the Americas in a forced migration of epic scale. About two million people perished on the voyage. The human cost in terms of suffering, indignity, and death caused by this commerce can never be fully comprehended, but the experience is often misunderstood or downplayed in the present day.

There, the Europeans would either barter with local African tribes for slaves captured in war—a common practice at the time—or kidnap their own slaves.6

By the time he wrote his autobiography, Equiano had converted to Christianity. As he reflected on his life, he viewed his experiences through the lens of his faith and commented on the hypocrisy of slave traders who claimed to be Christian.

Black people immediately detected the hypocrisy of American-style slavery. They knew the inconsistencies of the faith from the rank odors, the chains, the blood, and the misery that accompanied their life of bondage.

Instead of abandoning Christianity, though, black people went directly to teachings of Jesus and challenged white people to demonstrate integrity.

“I hope it will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was, once, an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders,” he wrote.12 Newton, a celebrated example today, stands out because he eventually repudiated slavery.

Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807 and outlawed slavery in Britain and its colonies in 1833. Much of the momentum for these changes came from Christians. For example, William Wilberforce was influenced by John Newton, who encouraged the young Parliamentarian to remain in his post and fight to end slavery.

The shift toward slavery over indentured servitude happened gradually over the last few decades of the seventeenth century.