My Alexandria neighbor, Richard Spencer, and the alt-right have planned a Unite the Right rally near my alma mater, in Charlottesville, Va. It’s set for tomorrow to lament the loss of white culture and protest the removal of a confederate statue downtown. Various clergy collectives have counter-demonstrations planned that day, which I’d attend if I did not have a funeral to preside.
Below my man-crush and muse, Stanley Hauerwas, speaks Christian about race in a way I often find lacking in the public square and on social media.
“Standing up to evil” or “Resisting hate” or “Equality not hate” are laudable sentiments but, from a Christian perspective, they’re just that, sentiments. They are so because they are insufficiently Christian.
The word justice is unintelligible for Christians apart from the content named by Jesus Christ. Appeals to equality are likewise spurious for Christians, for Christians can rightly remember our nation’s history and we know the white men who wrote about equality at our founding were all slaveholders.
And hate and evil aren’t specific enough words for Christians to describe racism.
Sin is the word Christians must use first.
Our sin of racism is how the Power of Sin, and our bondage to it, manifests itself in the world.
If there’s a contribution Christians can make to the public square when it comes race, it’s speaking Christian.
Christians must resist racism as Christians not as Americans.
Keeping our lingo liturgical not political for the one to whom we offer our liturgy is a more compelling and powerful politics. For example, for Christians, particularly white progressive Christians, the first step in combating racism and privilege is acknowledging one’s own culpability and blindness; that is, confession.
A posture of confession can avoid perpetuating antagonisms such that everyone becomes ensconced in their positions; moreover, confession is a practice that produces empathy not only for the victims of racism but the victimizers as well. Empathy for only the former leads to self-righteousness that further inflames the latter. Empathy for the latter is the offense Paul calls ‘Gospel.’ Only such an empathy that sees, as Hauerwas puts it, “Slave holders were trapped too” approximates the love revealed to us through the God who died for the ungodly.
Stanley says:
…African Americans were persecuted and you have to give a reason for that. If you had black skin, it justified you not having the position that whites had. And this has become a self- fulfilling project. Blacks live the life that confirms the stereotypes and now part of the challenge for African Americans is not to let this happen… White liberals need black suffering for moral identity but it is very destructive to use white guilt to further your cause because the guilty get tired of being guilty.
Then there is the game of “I’ve been more victimized than you have been.” Some are given moral identity through the status of victimization but you need them for moral identity more than they need you and that does not underwrite the narrative of victimization.
[We get out we get out of the trap of history] through forgiveness and reconciliation. But we have to first be willing to be forgiven. Giving forgiveness puts us in a position of power. We must not let history be our fate but history must be one that aims at reconciliation. White slave holders were trapped too. They didn’t know any other way of being. Racists are trapped. Offer an alternative, another way of life is to offer reconciliation.
If I were an African American, I’m not sure I would trust a white person.
We have trouble imagining the everyday slights that are part and parcel of a racialized society. For example, a few years ago, they were having a debate as to whether or not there should be a black cultural center. White liberals thought, “No, that’s re-segregation.” African Americans have to live around whites that have very different styles and habits. You need to get away. Worship is a good work but we have to find a creative way of doing this… With the best of wills, we have a lot of trouble understanding white privilege. Power dulls the imagination.
The argument of whether or not slaves could be baptized- they were baptized and that was the signal that slavery was a clear contradiction… because you baptize human beings. Christians produce knowledge of its bad faith through the practice of worship.
