White Supremacy at Church?
“When this country gonna love us?” he asked. “I don’t know, bro,” I said.
– Danté Stewart
We don’t like talking about this subject: white supremacy at church.
As a white person, we don’t usually see white supremacy.
Because we’re white.
If we really want to know if it’s there, we need to ask a Black person instead.
If you don’t know a Black person to ask (or you’re not comfortable doing so), read Danté Stewart’s new book, Shoutin’ in the Fire: An American Epistle.
Stewart was a rising Black preacher in a predominantly white space. Until he no longer wanted to be there.
“As I looked around the church, it wasn’t just that I didn’t see people who looked like me. It was that I didn’t see the sadness, the anger, the rage that was crying out in my body. I didn’t see us, I didn’t feel us, I didn’t hear us. We were invisible.”
How can we do better than this? What can we do differently? How can we bring the invisible people out of the shadows?
The first step is to come clean. Get out of denial.
Stewart writes,
“The message became clearer: White supremacy was still our greatest sin and our deepest delusion.”
Another author, Robert P. Jones, shares 7 things white Christians can do to recognize white supremacy at church.
If you want somewhere to start, choose one of these 7 things. (Read Jones’ whole article here. He’s also written a book, White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity; I have not read it yet.)
1. Examine your church building and grounds for ways it communicates whiteness (white Jesus? white Advent characters? only white groups meeting there during the week?)
2. Look at your church website and social media. Does it convey solidarity with Black and Brown people in your community, or just whites?
3. Look at the children’s curriculum. Are the pictures of only white people who lived in Bible times even though they were from the Middle East and Africa?
4. Read your church’s history. Ask questions about why and how it formed.
5. Examine the words of the songs sung during worship. Do they associate white with good and black with bad?
6. Listen to the sermons. Are they silent about issues of racial justice?
7. Look at the church budget. The money follows the heart.
Jones concludes his article with this:
“One sure sign of the continued presence of white supremacy is the outright resistance you will inevitably encounter from some and the protests of discomfort from others. But this is also evidence of the importance of the work.”
I don’t have the answers to solve this problem. But I recognize the importance of the work.
Let’s keep learning. Let’s keep changing.
* * *
Share your thoughts in the comments.
My thanks to NetGalley + Convergent Books
for the review copy of Shoutin’ in the Fire
Why doesn’t your article mention other minorities such as American Indian, Chinese, etc?
Great question, Karen. The premise definitely applies to all minorities. The author Danté Stewart of this book Shoutin’ in the Fire was writing from his own personal perspective as a Black man.
This sounds like a very thought-provoking read. One of the things I love about our family’s new church is that it’s very multi-cultural (much more so than our old church). It’s always good to keep these issues in mind and examine our faith and church. It’s easy to let “white” be my default without thinking about it.
That’s great about your new church, Nicole. I remember when we first switched to a multi-cultural church and how refreshing it felt! I totally agree with you that it’s easy to let “white” be the default for so many things without a second thought. 🙁
I appreciate the way you have pushed into some really uncomfortable but important topics in this year of uncertainty.
Thanks, Michele. It’s been uncanny how many directions God has taken that word. I look forward to the day when we’ll untangle some of these uncertainties (especially in the church).
I am so glad Lisa that you are brave enough to talk about this…because listening is the first step to change.
Humans being segregate and box each other into groups as hard as we may try to do otherwise.
Thanks for your encouraging comment, Jan. Subjects like these can be difficult to talk about because they make people uncomfortable, but nonetheless, we do need to talk about them so we can make change.