Racism and Christian witness
Widening our understanding of sin
Widening our understanding of sin.
The horrific murder of six Asian women, a white woman, and a white man in Atlanta in March of this year has shocked many of us, raising awareness of anti-Asian racism. Tragically, the event has precipitated rising expressions of anti-Asian racism and hate crimes in America and Canada.
This has hit close to home for Regent College Vancouver, where I work, in the form of further violence. A Korean woman, who is a student at the University of British Columbia, was physically assaulted less than 100 metres from the college earlier this year. She was working at H-Mart, a Korean supermarket.
Some of us likely have made the mistake of assuming such abhorrently violent racism only happens elsewhere. Often such thinking has led white Canadians (including white Evangelicals, of which I am one) to make addressing racism a low priority.
And yet for Regent College – indeed, for all of us – it is literally next door. A recent study from York University found 70 per cent of Black Canadians report experiencing racism on a regular or occasional basis, while roughly half of Indigenous people and other racialized people said the same.
Without a doubt, we rightly deplore the grotesque racism of altright protests and physical abuse. Yet we should consider whether racism runs deeper than this.
We should be asking: How does racism operate at the level of societal norms and cultural meaning?
Sin wider than individuals
How we understand sin, theologically, is relevant. If Scripture described sin solely as the corruption of individuals, then there would be room to conclude racism is only expressed by radicalized individuals. Yet we must consider passages that describe the whole creation as distorted by sin, a good world that is yet enthralled to evil (Matthew 4:8–9), including the devil and a host of evil forces (Ephesians 6:12).
Scripture speaks of humanity following the “course of this world” (Ephesians 2:2) and of evil embedded in legal systems (Isaiah 10:1–2). The biblical story insists the problem of evil is as wide as creation, a cosmic evil that animates an intricate network of cultural systems. Does this not include racism? While some of us default to an overly individualistic conception of racism, even despite our best intentions, Black scholar Drew Hart (who recently appeared in a Regent webinar) commends a definition of racism that “comes from
the sociology department.”
Sociologists ask deeper, structural questions of a society, Hart explains in his book Trouble I’ve Seen (Herald, 2016). They ask, “What is the meaning of race in culture?” “How is society structured racially and what are the origins of these structures?” And so they define racism as “a racialized systemic and structural system that organizes our society,” Hart writes.
In one of my Regent classes this year, BIPOC students (Black, Indigenous, people of colour) shared personal experiences of race and racism in Canadian society to help the class develop a theological and practical vision for the Church. The examples helped us see how subtle and relentless racism can be.
A female student who immigrated from Korea to Canada with her family in Grade 3 experienced feeling inferior in Canada throughout her childhood and teenage years. “You intuitively know when someone is giving you that racist sentiment, feeling or comment,” she said.
A male student from a Chinese minority culture in Malaysia also shared. He has experienced racial discrimination in both Canada and Malaysia, but in Canada he feels physically unsafe. In Malaysia he could be attacked for money, he said. But here he could be attacked because of his race.
White folks in Canada tend to define racism in individualistic terms, focusing on intentionally racist speech and outrageous violent acts. Yet when calling out explicitly racist behaviour (as we should), we can still ignore the racist water that we ourselves are swimming in. Even if we join the outcry against racist statements, policies and violence, it’s easy for white people like me to overlook our own complicity in racialized systems.
How Genesis can shape Christian witness
Scripture displays a pressing need for Christian witness around race and racism. The origin stories in the book of Genesis, for example, underline the created value of every people group and every person. All of humanity bears the image of God, is blessed and charged with the task of image bearing (Genesis 1:27–28).
Or consider the genealogies. A most unusual aspect of Genesis’ genealogies, compared to other ancient genealogies, is that they encompass the nations of the whole world. Following the flood narrative, the whole world is depicted as descending from Noah (Genesis 10). In this way Genesis portrays an essential familial unity among humankind.
In describing the various people groupings, Genesis doesn’t characterize peoples by skin colour or other divergences. Rather the common descent of humanity is emphasized. This universal emphasis highlights God’s ongoing care for every nation, locating Israel as a people whom God chose for a particular calling within a larger community of nations.
And yet too often white Evangelicals have accepted racism in society and even been among the worst offenders by creating and leading racist institutions and policies. To gain authenticity and plausibility in our speech – indeed, to be the witness – the Church must instead work to increasingly embody the unity and love of the Kingdom of God.
An encouraging sign of the work of the Spirit in Canada and the U.S. are the many dialogues on racism in local churches, often across political divides. These conversations are rarely easy and non-white participants often do heavy emotional labour in engaging these important conversations. Some churches are talking about First Nations-settler relations and others are welcoming refugees. These two issues hinge on racism.
There are other strategies too. In the Regent class I mentioned, a student noted the value of sharing cultural food with one another, nourishing mutual understanding and respect.
Another student emphasized the value for multiethnic churches to maintain diverse cultural distinctives in worship and community life, not funnelling diverse and cherished traditions all into one style. Related strategies include representing a variety of languages in worship and having cultural diversity represented on church staff teams.
“Can white folk learn to follow?” Black New Testament scholar Dennis Edwards challenged my class. And can we continue to read the biblical story in all its richness as it intersects anew with pressing cultural issues such as racism?
Mark Glanville (www.MarkGlanville.org) is associate professor of pastoral theology at Regent College and an Old Testament scholar. He also coauthored Refuge Reimagined: Biblical Kinship in Global Politics, a book reviewed in Faith Today in May/Jun 2021. A longer version of this article was published on the Regent College website.
Genesis doesn’t characterize peoples by skin colour or other divergences. Rather the common descent of humanity is emphasized.