New and Upcoming Theology Resources on Race
Dear Friends in ECO,
What a year 2020 has been so far. As a theologian who wants to think and prepare what to say before speaking, it’s been difficult with the sheer speed of news! I have been caught off guard by some issues and questions, as I’m sure you have as well. And into the gaps of my own understanding and reasoning, the world has a quick-fire narrative to inject to try an get me on somebody’s side. I wonder if you have felt the same way? I don’t want to be on the side of anyone but Jesus!
I have long contemplated how ECO’s theology teams can respond to the widespread protests that started with the murder of George Floyd. First of all, I am uncomfortable with having to have theology “respond.” And I’m uncomfortable with voices that demand people speak, especially when there is a demand for a kind of allegiance or orthodox confession apart from “Jesus Christ is Lord.” It is a sad indication that we have to respond to events, that our theological lives have not met with the suffering of people in our time that we would be known for our love and unique perspective before protests begin.
Why isn’t the church being proactive in discussions about race? Why in my lifetime in the Presbyterian Church have I not learned a theologically robust account of race? Why, in 11 years of Christian higher learning have I barely had to engage with theologians of color or questions of race when it is a major defining experience for our brothers and sisters in Christ? To say I’ve not been prepared to respond, let alone engage in proactive discussions of race is to put it mildly! But, I think theology should always be leading the way, directing people toward the kingdom of God, showing them what it looks like, offering people a taste of it so that they can see that the “Lord is good” (Ps 34:8). Over the past month I’ve had to do a lot of reading, research, and hard thinking. Who should I be listening to? Which critiques of white people are valid? What does whiteness mean? Have I contributed to a system that silences the voices of other Jesus-followers? What does privilege mean, do I have it, and how? How might I have sinned, and what might be false accusations raised by the false accuser himself: Satan?
Secondly, I am always skeptical of attempts by power players in the wider society who use the church as a pawn (or bishop) in a game of political chess, usually by shaming the church into confessing another lord than Jesus Christ (i.e. political leaders) and confessing allegiance another kingdom than the Kingdom of God. I often wish part of seminary was a political science class so that we could better understand the machinations of power like Jesus did!
Finally, I think it is vital that ECO develop resources for its leaders to engage this issue from a different position than those offered by the world. There are a lot of resources out there at the moment, but how can our theology teams offer assistance to our pastors and leaders in a unique way? We acknowledge a different Lord, and so operate with different resources. Our theology teams are working on listening in the way we know how, by reading, and want to equip you to hear the voices of theologians of color in a way that might offer us correctives rooted in the Word of God, rather than in political pressure. We want to listen to our sisters and brothers in Christ rather than simply the loudest shouts coming through news media outlets.
Blog Posts
To that end we are preparing a series of blogs and other resources that look at theological issues surrounding current protests. These blogs will try to offer a liveable theology that gets to the roots of the issues involved. For example, why do people on the political right focus on personal moral merit, while people on the political left focus on systemic injustice? Christians have Christianized this language to talk about race as a sin problem for individual racists, or racism as systemic sin. How does the Word of God help us move beyond this false dichotomy invented by the politicization of the church?
Book Summaries
We are also creating a series of short book summaries of notable books by theologians of color. The first two are now available on our website. These book summaries are designed to help you get a quick grasp on what theologians of color have been saying for years through their books. Rather than a normal book review that offers a judgment or recommendation about the book, we want the authors’ voice to come through in a highly compressed format with further resources (like author videos). We want to help equip you to think for yourself while knowing you’re extremely busy! But we’d also like to see how this resource goes. If it proves helpful to you, perhaps it would be a worthy project to continue with other books and issues. There are so many books out there that it’s nearly impossible for any one person or pastor to continually be informed about what people are saying, and demanding we talk about! Our hope is that this is a way for you to feel more informed about Christian voices. I’d love to hear your feedback about the usefulness and format of these.
Larger Resources
Other resources are in the works as well that try to take on some of these issues from a different angle. I have produced a fairly lengthy study on hamartiology, or the study of sin in the Bible. Over the past decade of studying the Bible, I’ve come to realize that the theology of sin I learned is a vast oversimplification of the various categories the Bible has of wrongdoing. Understanding the Bible’s perspective on what is broken with us and the world helps us see that the categories the world is operating under right now are radically different to those of the Bible, and so not be forced into one side vs. another but stand with Jesus against the brokenness of the world. We need to reclaim biblical understandings of brokenness so that we can properly offer the gospels Jesus himself was announcing!
We hope you find these new resources of some benefit to you as you navigate troubled waters.
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Dr. GP Wagenfuhr
Theology Coordinator