Not Optional

In the sixth chapter of John, Jesus proclaims a hard teaching to his followers and many of them desert him. But, when he turns to Peter and company and poses the question, "What about y'all?" (it's in the Greek, just trust me on that) the response he gets is, "Where else can we go? After all we have seen, after all we have experienced, what other way can we follow, but your way?"

I in no way seek to equalize myself with the apostles, but I find myself in this place frequently. I've now spent more than a decade living in this neighborhood here on the Northside of Jacksonville and while we have our challenges, I will stand against anyone who claims this place isn't full of beauty, wonder, and God's glory. I've long since passed the point where I feel more comfortable here than I do in more affluent environments. 

Being here has changed me. It has reframed the way that I see the world. Academic facts and figures about poverty or systemic injustice became personal. It was friends and neighbors, students and co-laborers rather than statistics and graphs. It is one thing to take a sociology course and another to watch your neighbor fill up a bucket with water from your hose because their utilities are disconnected. Similarly, it's one thing to read the story of the woman giving her last, small coins in Mark 12 and another to count the church offering one Sunday and see a person who lives on the street literally did the same, filling out an offering envelope proudly with her name and placing 7 cents inside.

Out of these lived experiences, my frame of reference has switched. With what I have seen, with what I know, I can't imagine a world where I'm not involved and deeply concerned about issues of justice and injustice. These causes aren't ancillary, tertiary, or optional. With what I have seen, where else can I go?

But akin to Paul's longing for his own ethnic group to turn to the reality of Christ's call in Romans, I find myself intensely desirous for my own people, white-American Christians, to answer the full counsel of God and follow him wholly. For all-too-often, I feel like the white American church misses the mark on these issues.

I seek not to paint with a brush too broadly. I understand that there are those in that tribe who daily follow Jesus in costly ways towards justice and I understand that I myself fall short and have certainly not attained to perfection in my discipleship.

But what I see in a generalized way is that for many white American Christians the following teaching is seen as, at best, optional and, at worst, an enemy of the Gospel. That teaching would be something along the lines of:

Where there is injustice of any type (systemic, interpersonal, racial, economic, etc) the children of God are called to declare that as wicked and to sacrificially invest their lives towards the abolition of it.

In my community, this teaching is not optional. Too many people are far too familiar with the costs of injustice to stand idly by. So they lend their hands, their voices, their votes, their dollars, their time, and their advocacy in love for the sake of those around them. 

But in much of the white American Christian community issues of justice and injustice are viewed along a continuum that runs from "problems for those special people called to that stuff" and "God-hating socialism". (And I'm not exaggerating, I saw a dear sister in Christ called a communist on Facebook yesterday).

Anecdotally, there are many clear pictures of this lack of concern or suspicion about issues of injustice, but there are also examples of how this plays out in the aggregate. For example, white American Christians display troubling attitudes about racial justice protests. The Public Religion Research Institute did a survey in 2020 and weighed public support for two similar statements:

It always makes our country better when Americans speak up and protest unfair treatment by the government.

It always makes our country better when Black Americans speak up and protest unfair treatment by the government.

Regardless of if one supports the general sentiment above about protests, we should be able to agree that in a just society the response should be consistent and identical, right? In this polling however white Americans of all types were more likely to affirm the first statement than the second statement, but the gap was more pronounced among white Christians (Catholics, mainline Protestants, and especially evangelical Protestants) than for the overall population. Clearly "Black" was an operative word in determining the response. 

In another example, social scientists use a measure called racial resentment to capture attitudes about race that a simple "Are you a racist y/n?" questionnaire is unlikely to reach. This methodology is viewed as sound and is widely used in sociology. When the nationwide data was analyzed by professor and pastor Ryan Burge one of the patterns that emerged is that religion impacts the results. And in fact, the groups most likely to hold racially resentful attitudes and views are (in order): white Evangelicals, Orthodox Christians, white Catholics, and mainline Protestants.

In light of this, it seems inescapable to me that something is amiss. So let me offer three theories of what might be causing folks to miss God's call to justice and even lead them to, wittingly or unwittingly, furthering the cause of injustice. And because I want to keep things positive, I'll also offer one way forward for each explanation as well.

There are explanations in the realm of theology, family, and discipleship.

In the theological, I recently heard it said that many American Christians know a very lot about a very little of the Bible. Many in our pews can pontificate about the atonement, the covenants, and eschatology, but perhaps have never heard a sermon from Amos or have not examined the modern implications of the Book of James' moral commands. I fear that we have been taught to take the Sermon on the Mount figuratively (perhaps not explicitly, but in a read-between-the-lines sort of way).

But more broadly, if one reads the entire narrative of Scripture it is clear that God cares deeply about justice. You could even argue He harps on the issue. It comes up again and again. God lays out very specific laws about justice and righteousness. He lays out very specific rules to assure that the poor are not taken advantage of. He shows deep love and care for the immigrant. And He paints a picture of an eternal future where the full rule and reign of God is marked by an end of injustice and the restoration of all things. To read past the justice narrative of the Bible is to read past the narrative of the Bible.

Or to put it another way, it would be like reading Harry Potter and replying, "Wait, there was magic?!"

In all ages and eras, the Church and groups within it have had blind spots, even at the highest levels. Augustine wrote terrible things about women, Calvin thought Anabaptists were worthy of execution, and Jonathan Edwards enslaved human image bearers. What in this era are our blind spots? What are we missing? One answer is that the white American church has failed to connect God's call for justice for the oppressed to our present moment and reality. Certainly, we could dive deeper into this and write many more words, but for the sake of brevity, let's look to how we can respond.

A way forward: White American Christians would do well to diversify their intake. Seek out Christians who look different and see differently from you and follow them on social media, listen to their sermons, read their books, and quote them to your congregations (Not just in February). Two very quick suggestions: you can't do wrong with anything from Charlie Dates or Esau McCaulley.

Next, in the area of family, I believe we have failed to identify one another the way the Scriptures tell us to. When asked "Because of Jesus, who is your brother or sister?" many would know the correct answer theologically, but if we drill down deep would fail the test. If we really believe that unity in Christ makes us siblings then there is no room for nationalism in our hearts. None. The majority of our siblings live in Africa and Asia, not North America. If we really believe these are our brothers and sisters because of Jesus then white Christians would have no choice but to believe their Black brothers and sisters and mourn with those who mourn after yet another police involved shooting rather than calling for "all the facts to come out". If it happened to your family, you would mourn, you wouldn't withhold your empathy until the investigation is complete. 

Further though, beyond our status as siblings in the Kingdom, we are called to a sense of unity as members of a common society. This is seen in the words of Dr. King who proclaimed, 

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

We would benefit to examine where we place our allegiances and group memberships. To ask ourselves who or what we consider to be our tribe and how that might limit our love for our brothers and sisters.

So how do we move forward? In a word, proximity. We care about that which we see as being close to us. Mixing up our proximity can be found in the choices we make about our social engagements, our children's schools, our church, our news media sources, or even the novels we read. 

Finally, I think our blind spots are impacted by our discipleship. Tim Keller gives an example where he states (my paraphrase), "Depending on how you measure it anywhere from 30% to 75% of Americans say they are followers of Jesus, but we all know that many American companies have business practices overseas that none of us would look upon and call 'Christlike'. Statistically, there must be Christians at the table in those boardrooms and meetings when those decisions are knowingly made, so why are those decisions made still?" He posits that it is because when we go into work we operate from a different value set rather than that of Jesus. 

This incongruence of values is exactly what discipleship is about. To be discipled is to have the character of Christ formed in us. It is to have our hearts, minds, and actions to become conformed to those of Jesus. In the specific boardroom example the businessperson may be valuing prestige, acceptance, wealth, or (company) unity more than they are valuing justice for those overseas. But, because the Fall has impacted every community, every city, every career field, and every institution, we must ask where injustice plays out in our fields and assess which values we will hold highest when those come into conflict.

A way forward: Make an honest list of your values (those things that are important and motivate our actions internally). Analyze how those values might potentially conflict with the Christlike call to justice and righteousness in your life, work, and family. And make a plan to intentionally choose the way of Jesus.

While the road forward will be long, the good news is that there is grace for all of us in this journey. Some of the challenges above are simple and some are very, very hard. Some take a few moments and others require a lifetime of stops and starts. But because I believe with all of my heart (where else can I go!?) that these things are close to Jesus, I also believe that He will walk with each of us in any step, great or small, that you take towards this call.

Let us be people who do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.