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July 1 - September 9, 2020
Why was I so uncomfortable with hearing this? Underneath my shame and embarrassment, I felt ignorant.
If you’re White, if you come from the majority culture, you’ll need to bend low in a posture of humility. You may need to talk less and listen more, opening your heart to the voices of your non-White brothers and sisters. You’ll need to open your mind and study the hard truths of history without trying to explain them away. You’ll need to examine your own life and the lives of your ancestors so you can see whether you’ve participated in, perpetuated, or benefited from systems of racism.
“Love,” I said, “brings freedom, and slaves didn’t have freedom or choice. Family doesn’t leave family in bondage.”
The truth is that each ethnicity reflects a unique aspect of God’s image.
No one tribe or group of people can adequately display the fullness of God.
The Christian construct, though, dismantles this way of thinking and seeks to reunite us under a common banner of love and fellowship.
In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.3
In the love of the family of God, we must become color brave, color caring, color honoring, and not color blind. We have to recognize the image of God in one another. We have to love despite, and even because of, our differences.
Race, as we know it, is a political and social construct created by man for the purpose of asserting power and maintaining a hierarchy.
story. And as brothers and sisters in Christ, we must not only share our foundational memories and practices of faith but also share and understand our personal and ethnic histories.
So though many of the slaves were technically freed, they could be subjected again to debt slavery or be sentenced to slavery for minor crimes.
What’s more, many former members of the slave patrol had been recruited as law-enforcement officials.
lynching. Like Turner, Jesus was hung because he opposed the dominant authority.
She didn’t need to say anything or strive to find a related example. Her role was to listen and learn. By becoming aware of the realities of racial division, she could grow in empathy, and empathy is the first step toward racial solidarity.
“You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
Lamenting something horrific that has taken place allows a deep connection to form between the person lamenting and the harm that was done, and that emotional connection is the first step in creating a pathway for healing and hope.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
Lament seeks God as comforter, healer, restorer, and redeemer. Somehow the act of lament reconnects us with God and leads us to hope and redemption.
David’s lament meant sitting in sorrow for the pain he had caused, grieving his sin, seeking God’s forgiveness, and even asking him to change his mind.
His time of lament prepared his heart for reconnection with God.
Acknowledgment should lead us toward lament, toward seeking mercy, toward a collective conviction that we can and must do better.
What I didn’t think about at that time, though, was how the objective of avoiding shame and guilt had shaped the conversations of the week. Because of that, we weren’t able to make real strides in reconciling our history.
In the Bible, guilt and shame are often communal and point to the need for corporate repentance.
The church will not be a leading example in racial healing until we feel the weight of communal guilt and shame and then allow it to push us into the truth.
“It’s impossible to grow up in the sea of white supremacy without absorbing some of it,” she said, “whether that’s implicit bias or prejudiced beliefs or discriminatory actions that we don’t realize we’re engaging in or that we’ve convinced ourselves are okay.”
Though she’d never lynched anyone, though she’d never owned a slave, she recognized how she’d been afforded better educational opportunities, increased access to services, and increased earning power.
the belief that whoever had features closer to those of the White slaveholders (often the biracial children of raped slaves) was more valuable, was more beautiful, and as a result would be treated better.
truth. Concealing our sins robs us of true prosperity, which is not found in fattened bank accounts or an increase in our national gross domestic product. Concealing our sins robs us of the riches of God’s merciful forgiveness.
“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be
healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.”
forgiveness wasn’t a gift to those who’d hurt me; it was a gift to myself.
minds. In choosing bitterness and anger, we hand power back over to those who’ve harmed us.
C. S. Lewis wrote, “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
experience it. Sit in it. Feel it. But they don’t stay in that pain. They don’t allow those who’ve wounded them to control them or constantly drive them back to anger and resentment. Instead, they allow that pain to continually push them into forgiveness.
by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a permanent attitude.”
“It was harder to say than I thought it would be, probably because I am still fighting the internalized individualism and ‘innocence’ of whiteness. But I needed to say it, and it was freeing. I was able to forgive myself and others through this process.”
who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice;
season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
Awareness and confession of wrongdoing are vital steps in the reconciliation process.
“Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.”
Douglass knew that if those who claimed to be Christians finally saw God for who he was, if White people changed course and viewed African Americans as image bearers of the Almighty, God could wash away the sin of the country. God could lead the nation into a better, more just future, one not cursed with spiritual blindness.
White Awake: An Honest Look at What It Means to Be White.
So reparations and repentance are inextricably intertwined, and those who’ve inherited the power and benefits of past wrongs should work to make it right
Reparations require sacrifice.
Elizabeth understands that making wrongs right requires sacrifice. It requires rejecting upward mobility to level the playing field for others.
You can intentionally put yourself in the way of diversity by taking
a job where you know you’ll be in the minority. You can bring people of color into your home. You can place yourself under the authority of their organizations and learn from them. You can sacrifice your upward mobility and use your power for the good of others. You don’t have to do it all, of course.
When we realize we’ve settled for comfort instead of following conviction, we have to be willing to shake things up, even if stepping into our calling leads us into deep pain and discomfort.
