鈥楥onfess these sins鈥�: white Evangelical churches reflect on racism
By early June, Taylor Rutland was certain God wanted him to preach about racism. What he didn鈥檛 know is how his congregation would react.聽
Mr. Rutland pastors First Baptist Church of Dothan, Alabama 鈥� a Bible belt town just above the Florida border. Like many white Evangelical churches, he says, First Baptist almost never discusses racism. And like many such churches in the South, he says, First Baptist has racism in its past. In 1961, the church Southern Baptist Theological Seminary after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. visited campus.聽
So on June 7, after delivering his first sermon on racism as sin, Mr. Rutland says he felt comforted to hear congregants tell him they wish he鈥檇 addressed it sooner.
Why We Wrote This
In this wave of awareness on racism in America, the discussion is moving into Evangelical churches. Black religious leaders call for a recognition of the past and sustained effort into the future.
鈥淲e have a history of this,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd so we鈥檝e got to go before the Lord and confess these sins and repent of them in order to move forward.鈥�
But moving forward may be a long, narrow road. First Baptist, like many white, evangelical churches nationwide, is now addressing issues related to race for the first time. Motivated by the Black Lives Matter movement, faith groups from the Southern Baptist Convention to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have acknowledged that systemic racism remains today, and that churches can鈥檛 ignore it. Their challenge now, experts say, is that they鈥檝e historically done just that.
The church has long been one of the country鈥檚 most racially divisive institutions, historians say 鈥� so much so that denominations remain largely segregated. (It has also been a for racially motivated violence.) As many white congregations now call for reform, many Black church leaders say real change demands much more than a sermon, statement, or conference.聽
鈥淓ven as 海角大神 leaders and institutions make statements and make commitments to racial justice in the future, very few are taking a critical look at their own history,鈥� says Jemar Tisby, a historian and president of The Witness, a Black 海角大神 collective. 鈥淔or us, racial justice is an ongoing pursuit. It鈥檚 not seasonal according to events or headlines of the day.鈥�
When the past is silence
To build a lasting commitment to faith-based racial justice, white churches need to understand their past. That past is one of silence, segregation, and complicity, says Mr. Tisby.聽
In early America, racism existed in the church just as it did in the rest of society, says Michael Emerson, head of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a leading expert on race and religion. For a long time, white Americans debated whether Black Americans could even be 海角大神. Even after the Civil War, says Professor Emerson, white churches still refused to integrate 鈥� entrenching a spiritual divide that remains today.聽
鈥淲e鈥檝e had 160-plus years of separate cultures forming, with different authors people read, different interpretations of the Bible, different music that鈥檚 listened to, and I think most fundamentally completely different lived realities.鈥�
Such a long rupture has made it so that integration now requires more than mixing white and Black congregants, experts say; it requires bridging institutions, whose differences saturate to their very theology.聽
鈥満＝谴笊駃ty in the United States has been coded as white, which means that any attempt to identify whiteness and white supremacy in it is taken as an attack on the faith,鈥� says Mr. Tisby. America鈥檚 distinct blend of white supremacy and 海角大神ity, he says, has evolved with the times. It existed when white churches used the Bible to defend slavery, when the Ku Klux Klan burned crosses during Jim Crow, when pastors remained silent during the civil rights era, and now, when many white churches avoid addressing racism today.
Consistency of activism聽
Mr. Rutland says he understands why many pastors 鈥� particularly those in the South 鈥� are so reluctant to preach on issues of racial justice. No congregant wants to be called a racist, he says, and no one wants sermons to get too political.聽
Yet the common evangelical refrain that politics should be kept from the pulpit can be rather hypocritical, given how active they are on other social issues, such as abortion and LGBTQ rights, says Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission at the Southern Baptist Convention.聽
The question for Evangelicals 鈥� and white churches more broadly 鈥� is not whether they should be socially active, says Mr. Moore. It鈥檚 whether they should be consistent in their activism.
鈥淲hen the subject is race, there鈥檚 a temptation for white 海角大神s to suddenly become mute or very ambiguous,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hat was the case in 1963. That鈥檚 the case in many contexts in 2020.鈥�
Meanwhile, promoting racial equity has long been one of the key roles of the Black church, which has historically connected social and spiritual liberation, says Anthea Butler, a professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania.聽聽
To join that movement in earnest, she says, white churches will need to dismantle systems of structural racism that disproportionately benefit them 鈥� some of which they helped create.
As always, change comes at a cost, says the Rev. Dr. Frederick Douglass Haynes III of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas. But accepting that cost to uplift the most vulnerable in society, he says, is the gift of religion.聽
The church, in his opinion, needs the 鈥渕oral courage鈥� to promote a more equal future and the humility to admit failures in the past. Rev. Haynes, whose father and grandfather were also ministers, is all too familiar with those failures.聽
In 1991, he remembers the heartbreak of addressing his church after the beating of Rodney King. It was a similar feeling, he says, when he spoke on the death of George Floyd this year. Both times, he says, he took that pain and laid it before his congregation. In his opinion, advocating racial justice is the responsibility of every church 鈥� including white evangelicals, who may at first need to listen and learn.
鈥淚f you鈥檝e been quiet for 400-plus years and all of a sudden you say something for a week, I鈥檓 sorry,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 not enough.鈥�
After the spotlight
Mr. Rutland agrees. Still, even he admits that had this summer鈥檚 protests not come, he doesn鈥檛 know when he would have first preached on racism. He plans his sermons in advance, he says, and the topic wasn鈥檛 on the docket.
鈥淲e should have responded to this hundreds of years ago, and we didn鈥檛,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 just act like because I preached one sermon on racism we鈥檝e arrived.鈥�
But after decades of silence, one sermon can matter 鈥� at least Mr. Rutland鈥檚 did to Abby Maddox, a congregant at First Baptist for most of her life.聽
鈥淚 just wanted to stand up and cheer,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e called to mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice. And we鈥檝e got a whole group of people who are mourning right now.鈥�
Mourning, for her, has involved reflecting on racism in her community, and even her own life. She鈥檚 been reading books on race theory, attending a discussion group with friends, and having hard conversations with her children and family. People need to talk about the issue to make it better, she says, but making it better requires more than talking. The change needs to last.
In the eyes of Mr. Tisby, leader of The Witness, change doesn鈥檛 come from the many who join a movement when it鈥檚 easy. It comes from the few who remain, who adopt social justice as a way of life. The current level of activism around racial justice is unsustainable, he says. So, when it wanes, who will be left?
That鈥檚 a question the Rev. Reginald Davis, of First Baptist Church in Williamsburg, Virginia, also has in mind. Founded in 1776 by a group of slaves worshiping in a carriage house, he says, First Baptist is one of the oldest Black churches in the nation. Martin Luther King Jr. visited in the early 鈥�60s, and the crowd was so large that many listened through open windows on the street.
鈥淏lack Americans, we have fought about this. We have preached about this. We have marched about this. We鈥檝e been jailed about it. We have written about it. And we died for it,鈥� says Mr. Davis. 鈥淏ut it has not been solved because enough white Americans have not gotten involved.鈥�
For the first time ever, he鈥檚 seen a large number of white Americans getting involved. The question now, he says, is who will remain.
鈥淲hen the media walks away, the cameras are not on us, the interviews are gone, if we don鈥檛 engage the system to correct the systemic problems,鈥� he says, 鈥渨e鈥檒l come right back to where we were before.鈥�
