The great evangelical weakness, pt. 1

I wrote in an earlier post about how difficult it is to work constructively against race problems since we live in racially segregated worlds. Here are a few more thoughts…

In Divided by Faith, a book on how evangelical religion interacts with the race problems in America, Divided by FaithMichael Emerson and Christian Smith did extensive interviews with evangelical Christians to get their opinions on issues of race. Emerson and Smith came away concluding that the vast majority of evangelicals want racism to be solved. Much to the chagrin of the popular press I’m sure, we’re not bigots.

But we are too simplistic in our thinking.

In interview after interview, the only thing white evangelical Christians can think to do about race problems is to make friends across racial lines and treat everyone well. These are undeniably positive actions, but they reveal shallow thinking. Indeed, Divided by Faith points out that this same approach - just treat others well - was taught as the Christian response to slavery and Jim Crow. In hindsight, we can see the enormous structural changes that needed to take place in those times. Kindness is better than hatred and violence, but you can see that to advocate nothing more than kindness in the Jim Crow era would have been entirely inadequate and even insulting.

Today, the obvious structures (slavery, Jim Crow laws) have changed. But (as I tried to show in the earlier post) all is not well. Yet we keep pulling the same tool out of our tool kit - “Let’s all just get along” or “If people will repent, society will change, and race problems will go away”. Is there something at the heart of our evangelical type of faith that keeps us from seeing problems beyond the individual level?

I have come to believe that there is. My hope and plan is to write about it here as a recurring theme for the next several weeks, interspersed with other stuff. I’d be glad to hear what you think.

February 8, 2007 · Filed Under Books, Discipleship, Poverty, Race, Tough Issues

Comments

3 Responses to “The great evangelical weakness, pt. 1”

  1. John on February 9th, 2007 12:59 pm

    Good stuff. So what are we going to do about it here in Kingston? I’m game!

  2. jhill on February 12th, 2007 3:49 pm

    Do we have a racial barrier in Kingston?

  3. bgunter on February 24th, 2007 10:28 am

    Sure we have racial barriers in Kingston. Why else would there be two black churches in this small town? Many years ago some from the church attended a racial reconciliation event at the old courthouse. It went well and we even had a joint trip with one of the churches mentioned to a Promise Keepers event but nothing much materialized from there. Yet, I have no answers. Also, having family members from another race opens your eyes to a little more than the average person.

Leave a Reply