Photo courtesy of Jeff Tabet
"When church leaders preach reconciliation without having unequivocally committed themselves to struggle on the side of the oppressed for justice, they are caught straddling a pseudo-neutrality made of nothing but thin air. Neutrality in a situation of oppression always supports the status quo." -Walter Wink
Racial reconciliation and racial justice are two main frameworks for addressing racism within the church. Racial reconciliation emphasizes breaking down racial barriers through interpersonal relationships within congregations rather than emphasizing racial hierarchy as systemic. According to author Oyakawa (2019), racial reconciliation is the framework adopted by most multicultural evangelical churches. She criticizes this framework as avoiding politics in favor of prioritizing unity through a common faith, thereby upholding white supremacy and suppressing racial justice, even if unintentionally (p. 496-7). Oyakawa elaborates, “Pastors drawing on the racial reconciliation frame prioritize unity and discourage dialogue that calls into question whites’ resource accumulation or cultural dominance. Racial inequality cannot be addressed through ignoring racial issues or deploying individualistic interpretations of racial inequality” (p. 497). Oyakawa cites a collective church silence on racial justice during the Civil Rights Movement, the emergence of the Religious Right as a reaction to desegregation rather than to Roe v. Wade, and the extreme tardiness of the Southern Baptist Convention renouncement of slavery and segregation in 1995 (p. 498). This slow, retroactive movement toward racial justice sets the tone of the racial reconciliation frame, together with the misdiagnosis of individual racism as the key issue. “Wadsworth documents how, over time, racial reconciliation emerged as a “third way” outside of the polarized discussion that positioned the Civil Rights Movement (racial justice perspective) versus segregationists (openly racist perspective)” (Oyakawa, 2019, p. 498). Racial reconciliation by this description falls short of challenging unjust social systems.
Jemal, Bussey and Young (2019) define reconciliation as “the process of responding to the harm of racism experienced by the injured party. It is an approach that can address racial violations while simultaneously initiating the process of healing individuals, mending relationships, building community, and transforming institutions” (p. 37). They examine steps to actively pursue racial reconciliation within Christian social work, operating on the principle that racism affects people on multiple levels: interpersonal, community, and institutional; and within many systemic models such as within education and criminal justice. Although their paper focuses on interpersonal reconciliation, it lays the groundwork for understanding racism that manifests throughout human social structures. They surmise that sects of Christianity generate an individualism and color-blindness that prop up racism. Highlighted in their work are studies among Christians revealing beliefs that socioeconomic gaps are not a result of social structures that perpetuate inequality, rather that they are resultant from individual factors such as lack of responsibility, motivation, or family support. Beliefs such as these place the onus on individual change rather than on an overhaul of systemic racist social policies (p. 36). Furthermore, maintaining these beliefs undermines a chance at true reconciliation by ignoring the “systematic exploitation of Blacks who created American wealth yet have been excluded from full access to the very wealth they created” (Foster, 2020, p. 72). Oyakawa’s research highlights the concern of some evangelical leaders that a racial justice framework will cause a loss of membership, but that building relationships across race within the church addresses the issue. But she notes the dangers of this approach by quoting Alumkal, “whites can respond to their history as ‘oppressors’ by cathartic acts of repentance, as well as by assertions that Christian identity transcends race, while fully retaining the fruits of white privilege” (2019, p. 500).
A racial justice framework, in contrast, recognizes the fact that racial hierarchy within the church is institutionalized as it is in society, a crucial understanding in order to work towards racial justice systemically rather than through a singular and ineffective (in and of itself) approach emphasizing unity. A critical look at the systemic hold of racism will invite more authentic healing and unity based on the inclusive nature of the original Church, rather than glossing over work that brings real change. Foster (2020) makes a case for reclaiming racial reconciliation as a revised framework to fully incorporate a racial justice approach. He acknowledges that the racial reconciliation framework is problematic, but asserts that “reconciliation is at the heart of Christianity and cannot be separated from it, nor can it be from racial healing” (p. 64). He points to Walter Wink’s sentiments that “When church leaders preach reconciliation without having unequivocally committed themselves to struggle on the side of the oppressed for justice, they are caught straddling a pseudo-neutrality made of nothing but thin air. Neutrality in a situation of oppression always supports the status quo” (p. 68). Racial justice requires action to back up the authenticity and longevity of widespread change.
Essential to a reclamation of racial reconciliation within the Church lies the acknowledgment and ownership of a truth narrative about our racial past and present, as well as the need for reparations. Foster (2020) says “Truth and reparations together constitute the only path to racial reconciliation in the Christian theological sense” (p. 78). Mary Hess (2017) elaborates on the need to focus on a truth narrative: “Our identity as White Christians has been bound up with a deeply destructive narrowing of our imagination, which in turn has developed a profoundly distorted form of attention. Dismantling racism, indeed all that is involved in engaging race in religious education, is not a “technical” challenge: find the right diversity workshop, apply, and move forward. Instead it is a deeply adaptive challenge, and at the heart of that challenge is our need to change the way that we know, our epistemological commitments” (p. 50). In order to face the status of racism within the church, we need to center on humility and authenticity.
Reparations are a natural next step following a truthful narrative on racism. However, efforts can take myriad forms with various results, and still reparations can never make up for the loss experienced and injury inflicted. Discussion on the right way to manifest reparations can ignite a flurry of suggestions and objections regarding the right implementation, who should “pay” them and receive them, and finally what impact they might have (Foster, 2020, p. 72-3). We can see a glimpse of this in the discussion on reparations for Indigenous Australians. Foster is clear, however, about reparations that back up an authentic truth narrative: “Saying that you’re going to apologize by allowing African Americans to sign up for your universal child-care program, along with everyone else, trivializes one of the most monumental injustices in American history. Along the way, it also erodes the common bond that should entitle African- Americans to far more than they have ever gotten, simply because these are Americans…” (p. 74). He is unequivocal that reparations “[nourish] the flourishing of all people in every aspect of life” (p. 73). Foster (2020) provides an excellent history of meaningful American reparations efforts, and specifically highlights a profound current effort by the Equal Justice Initiative (founded by human rights lawyer and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson) that bears significant symbolic and honorific meaning to victims of violent atrocities and their descendants. This initiative entails the solemn and ceremonious placement of monuments where lynchings took place to commemorate the victims of these atrocities (p. 80). Foster points out that reparations in this case need not stop there, but rather legal restitution for ancestors is another pathway towards justice. The example of EJI’s efforts represent reparations that raise the profile of histories some might want to forget or erase, but participants called on the Genesis 4:10 passage: “And the Lord said, ‘What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!” (p. 80). Just as injustice cannot be forgotten and covered up, neither can honor, remembrance, nor contrition.
The above scholarship provides a grounding from which to approach reconciliation within the American church. Oyakawa criticizes a frame for racial reconciliation, citing side-stepping or ignorance of built-in racism that is perpetuated by a sole focus on church unity through common beliefs rather than focusing on systemic racial injustice. She warns against individualism as an inappropriate and ineffective approach to opposing racism, favoring a racial justice approach. Jemal, et al., confirms that reconciliation must be viewed from all levels: interpersonal, community, and institutional. This stance is important for remembering that bottom-up and top-down approaches are both necessary for combatting pernicious racism and upholding reconciliation efforts within the church. Foster seeks to maintain the central tenet of Christian reconciliation by reframing racial reconciliation with a racial justice strain: one with a repentant stance on the narrative of historic and contemporary American racism, which must be paired with the pursuit of reparations. These two elements are critical to reconciliation everywhere, as clearly seen in Rwanda’s Gacaca courts and Australia’s ongoing efforts.
"What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!"
-Genesis 4:10
EMPATHY LEADS TO ACTION
Jemal, Bussey and Young (2019) write, “Racism reduces a person’s human identity by stripping culture, ethnicity, language, and individuality to fit a person within a categorical box (e.g. Black, White). In so doing, racism incapacitates minds, attacks independent thought and individual evaluation, so that there is no benefit to nuanced assessment of people” (p. 34). While a lens through which to see racial injustice as systemic is critical, just as important is the vantage point from which individuals begin the work of racial justice for themselves. An appropriate and raw understanding of our country’s racial past needs to be centered in order to understand the problem. Just as crucial is to practice empathy, exercising the ability to see a situation or imagine an experience from someone else’s viewpoint. This may seem obvious but bears continued consideration. Jemal, et al., discuss how reconciliation through restorative justice is possible. Their model of transformative potential entails transformative consciousness and transformative action, measurable entities by which to track progress and “[indicate] with what capacity and how likely one is to engage in transformative change addressing inequity at one or more socio-ecosystemic levels…” (p. 39). The process and intricacy of their model for racial reconciliation based on restorative justice are beyond scope of this paper, however I wish to emphasize the deliberate and ongoing intention of authentic transformation implied through their model. Not only that, but citing the Centre for Justice & Reconciliation, they point out that “Active responsibility can be contrasted with passive responsibility in that active responsibility arises from within and passive responsibility is imposed by others” (p. 49). This active responsibility is the point where empathy leads to action.
While discussing the lessons mystics may have for Christian educators in dismantling racism, Hess (2017) draws from Bryan Stevenson’s practices for transformative change: getting proximate to the issue, changing the narrative, finding where your hope lies, and embracing discomfort (p. 46). Racism cannot be combatted from afar, impersonally, without really knowing the problem, or without investment. Reconciliation requires a leaning-in and seeing the mutual humanity in people. Hess discusses a class exercise she does with her students involving reading a passage from the Bible and having her students imagine being part of the story. In the story of the good Samaritan, for example, upon discussion she finds that her students often see themselves as the Samaritan rather than the people who ignored the victim attacked on the road, or the attackers themselves. “What could it mean, I wonder aloud, if we are the Levite passing by? Can we imagine ourselves to be the anonymous thieves who have robbed and beaten this man and left him to die by the roadside? Who is Jesus inviting us to recognize? From there it is not too difficult a step to ask ‘What if you are Philando Castile? Or Alton Sterling? Or Eric Garner?’” (p. 54-5). Allowing a safe space to engage one’s imagination and spark discussion can be a powerful way to tap into the empathy required for justice work.
Educator of Black Theology Anthony Reddie likewise uses a participative and performative approach to equip white theology students to lead their congregations through anti-racist practices in the United Kingdom. Of this approach he says, “In this context, [students] can explore and commit themselves to working for and becoming a part of the collective spiritual and psychological journey of the Christian church towards the “promised land” of racial justice – what, in effect, I would describe as the “reign of God,” or “God’s gracious economy” (2010, p. 104). He leads students through one particular exercize to discuss what it means to be human, using four concentric circles on a piece of paper. Starting with the innermost circle and moving outward, students write a word within the circle that defines them. These terms reveal central ideas about how they see themselves. Reddie has found that “those who define themselves in marginal terms will name aspects of their identities that speak to their sense of marginalization” (p. 100), such as gender, disability, and sexual orientation. Conversely Reddie notes that the normative aspects of our identities and those that we take for granted are overlooked when we consider what makes us human. “And yet these very tacit, unstated aspects of ourselves confer not only supposed normality, but often power, for those who can identify and use such terms” (p. 100). This confirms Oyakawa’s assertion that “for individuals whose religious identity is more salient than their racial identity, racial reconciliation is a compelling way to frame racial issues”, rather than through a racial justice lens (2019, p. 509). Reddie’s participative approach centers students’ 'affective domain’, housed within the emotional part of themselves in contrast to their intellectual center. Students then draw connections, through those feeling centers, between the brutalities of racism in the 1800s through to modern history with the more subtle and systemic racism of our present day (p. 98). They imagine how they can challenge racism in their ministries, under the tenet of equity and dignity of all God’s people. This is the kind of work that builds a transformative consciousness as in an example used by Jemal, et al., where people consider the error in the way people have been treated rather than what is wrong with them, or what wrong they committed, when faced with the reality of an overrepresentation of people of color in the justice system and the uneven effects of profiling. A reconfiguration of thought process undoes racism’s ability to, as they put it, “[incapacitate] minds, [attack] independent thought and individual evaluation. (p. 41)”
In Australia, and beyond the church realm, researchers Pedersen and Barlow (2008) analyzed successful reconciliation strategies to reduce racism within programs taught at the university level. These strategies included using inter-group emotion that moved emphasis away from collective guilt and toward empathy, and from self-focused emotion to other-focused emotion, utilizing a talking-with-versus-talking-at approach, and hearing from Aboriginals themselves. These successful strategies reflect the approaches used by Hess and Reddie. Back in the U.S., Mansfield and Jean-Marie (2015) present analysis into secondary schools that apply a “courageous conversations” framework (involving a cyclical pattern of passion, practice and persistence) to address educational inequalities. While this framework and study applies to the realm of secondary education rather than a religious entity, it represents an approach to education reminiscent of a racial justice framework within the church that may prove more effective than racial reconciliation. The authors note that, “A growing number of scholars argue that to address inequities for diverse student populations, educational leaders must have a heightened awareness of educational inequities in a field struggling to meet the needs of all children” (p. 822), and, quoting Shields, “When children feel they belong and find their realities reflected in the curriculum and conversations of schooling, research has demonstrated repeatedly that they are more engaged in learning and that they experience greater school success”(p. 822). To the extent that churches aim to meet the needs of their congregations (and equality should be construed as a need), these goals can be transposed onto church leadership. People who are aware of biases and injustices know that they affect those under their leadership. At stake in the church is the opportunity to be an agent of change, unity and healing as an entity of enormous social influence, in line with the mission of the church. Where there is concern with losing members who are put off by confronting racism directly, as Oyakawa points out, there is opportunity to welcome marginalized congregants and solidify a commitment to racial justice on a much larger scale.
I would suggest that true empathy engenders a deep longing to make right past wrongs and even the “playing field”, to truly and humbly come together surrounded by our collective brokenness and to endeavor to heal our wounds. Hess (2017), expounds on a Christian application for Stevenson’s practice of finding one’s hope: “Hope grows from communion. Hope grows from communities engaging each other with respect, finding and naming the difficult truths in their midst. Hope emerges from identifying oppression in ways that allow it to be confronted. We know this in Christian community, or at least we confess it when we invite confession, repentance, and reconciliation” (p. 52). If we can drop the barriers to communion by opening ourselves to empathy, understanding that change needs to come from all levels of social organization, we will be on the way towards reconciliation.
ACTION
Action is a natural outflowing from empathy. As previously touched on, Jemal et al, engage reconciliation through a strategy of restorative justice, much in the vein of the Gacaca tribunals, where injured parties and those who caused harm can address the injury, restore trust and participate in healing processes together (2019, p. 38). “Although the harmed parties hold power in the process as their input and participation is central to determining needs and outcomes, [“entity engaged in racist action”] EERAs are involved in remedying the harm as much as possible” (p. 38-9). Along with featuring as a major component in post-genocide Rwanda, this carries over to racial justice. Reddie’s work has not only centered on a transformative methodology for white people, he has significantly focused on “conscientizing and empowering ordinary Black people. Central to the development of Black Theology is the notion of Black self-determination.” He goes on to ask, “How can Black people be encouraged and enabled to draw on their own material cultures, experiences, and a critical rereading of their histories in order to unravel the psychological chains of mental slavery that have bedeviled them for five hundred years?” (2010 , p. 98-9). Enabling the participation of both parties and facilitating collaboration is key to community reintegration. This component was essential to Rwandan reconciliation, for there could not have been long-term peace without a community to build on.
Some groups within the church have begun pursuing racial justice in earnest since the most recent waves of protest against racial injustice and the murder of George Floyd in 2020. The Minnesota Council of Churches (MCC), which is comprised of 25 denominations, is in the midst of a 10-year truth and reparations initiative to seek justice for Black and Native Americans who have suffered violence and discrimination in that state. Central to this effort are spaces for truth-telling about policing, land, and racial equity in health, education, wealth, employment, housing; anti-racist education; and legislating for and delivering economic and land reparations (Minnesota Council of Churches, 2020). The Council has based this initiative on the call of responsibility to fight past and present injustice. But it is also tied to Biblical precedence of making reparations, for example: God’s law given to Moses regarding confession of wrongs and making full restitution plus one-fifth (Numbers 5), and chief tax collector Zacchaeus repenting of swindling people by donating half of his possessions to the poor and repaying his victims four times what he took fraudulently (Luke 19). According to PBS New Hour, the Episcopalian Church has committed to making reparations to the Black community as well. Other denominations that were active in the slave trade, such as the United Methodist Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, are engaging congregations to follow suit (Crary, 2020). Although the Christian church shares complicity in upholding slavery and unjust policies, it may yet emerge as a leader in racial justice and reparations now.
One key consideration especially in such a large entity as the American church, is that not everyone is ready or willing to engage reconciliation efforts at the same time, or necessarily agree on what it should entail. The Evangelical church, for example, is experiencing deep divisions and loss of membership centered around the influence and involvement with the political right, internal scandals, and contentious race relations again highlighted most starkly by the murder of George Floyd (Brooks, 2022). When research group Barna conducted a 2019 study in which it asked church members how the church should respond to our nation’s 400-year history of injustices against black people, 28% of respondents said that there is nothing it should do (Barna, 2019). This aspect draws out the ingrained, imperfect process that characterizes reconciliation. Conversely, in the case of Rwanda, Minami (2020) discusses the role forgiveness plays, and sometimes does not play, in the psychosocial reconciliation process as it often happens between survivors and perpetrators. He explores the immensely relevant impact of restorative justice particularly when a survivor simply could not forgive. Relieving a victim of the burden of extending forgiveness as contingent to reconciliation enabled victim-perpetrator dyads to proceed through the reparations process of action and interaction within the reconciliation pattern. Through his reparations work with dyads, Minami observed that the desire survivors had for reparations coupled with the chance of allowing perpetrators to express their remorse and sincere apology through action provided new experiences and potential opportunities for forgiveness and reconciliation (2020, p. 132). The church can look to a prominent passage from the Bible for a way to proceed when two parties are in different stages of reconciliation engagement:
19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,...(ESV, Colossians 1:19-21)
This passage emphasizes that Jesus has done all the work of reconciliation even though he was not at fault for a broken relationship. Reconciliation efforts between people can still proceed asynchronously, albeit with tailored expectations and incremental progress.
Reconciliation is central to Christianity, and as such, we should continue to examine a reframing of racial reconciliation rather than abandoning it completely. An individualist approach to reconciliation within the American church is flawed, and should be discarded in favor of both top-down and the bottom-up methods that entail elements of restorative justice on multiple levels of society, with an emphasis on truth-telling, empowerment and reparations. We see these elements featured throughout the Rwandan and Australian contexts of reconciliation. Reconciliation is necessarily a sustained effort; fostering deep empathy for others through cultivation of interpersonal, interracial relationships is imperative and feeds, and is fed by, the impetus to demand change on a societal level through activism, which may establish generational changes in both attitudes and social structure. Working for these changes should take their place at the forefront of the church’s mission.