White European Superiority Continues to Invade Our Theology

The divisions in North American politics are sharp and create upheaval over what exactly it means to be Christian.

There is racial unrest so deep, it threatens to undo the ministry of reconciliation to which the church is called.

Reformed theology is used to justify white supremacy and isolationism.

All of these things were also true in 1968, the year Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated

While this could be a series of stories from yesterday’s news, all of these things were also true in 1968, the year civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. The unrest in society raised conflicts and questions within the church, and the Synod of 1968 recognized the need to do something about it. As Rev. Reggie Smith mentioned in the first article in this mini-series, Synod 1968 established July 14 as a day of prayer, when members of the Christian Reformed Church would “give themselves to repentance and to public and private prayer” for racial reconciliation.

Divides always raise questions about the nature of Christian community, and some in the church interpreted Reformed covenant theology as supporting segregation. Christian Reformed Churches in the Chicago area were divided over the issue of whether “Black covenant children” should be allowed to enroll in a predominantly white Christian school.

Some in the church interpreted Reformed covenant theology as supporting segregation.

The Report of the Race Commission given at Synod 1970 notes that while a covenant focus for believers and their children had brought blessings, such as a robust system of Christian education, it also could bring with it “a danger of isolationism in which the assigning of resources, the establishment of priorities, and the forming and educating of the people of God all leads to a kind of introvertish and self-serving mentality” (299-300). The Report notes honestly that there was distrust from all sides, and concludes “Christian love was in crisis” (309).

Recent events raise the question of whether the legacy of segregationist thinking that benefited white Christians in the past may still be showing itself in our theology and practices in the church today. Is covenant theology still being used as a stand-in for “white European”?

Is covenant theology still being used as a stand-in for “white European”?

The horrific shooting of four people worshipping in a synagogue was perpetrated by a young man who justified his actions through a shockingly accurate articulation of Reformed theology. It appears that racist strains of Reformed theology are not gone.

And it’s not just happening in the United States. Reformed denominations like the Presbyterian Church of Canada administered residential schools, whose stated purpose was to “kill the Indian in the child,” and do the “mission” work of making them more white and European.

Reformed denominations like the Presbyterian Church of Canada administered residential schools.

Canadian Senator Lynn Beyak has gone so far as to say that the Christians who ran these schools “never meant to hurt anyone” and was disappointed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission “didn’t focus on the good. The people I talk to are Christians.”

While the Government of Canada, the Presbyterian Church of Canada, and the Anglican Church have all issued apologies for their role in residential schools, it may be that there are still white Europeans in Canada who think (quietly perhaps) that making Indigenous peoples more like them was actually a kindness (because isn’t being a white European better?).

You have to wonder if we have gotten anywhere in the last 51 years—if unity is as far-off a dream as the New Jerusalem, if instead of moving forward in love, we have continued forward in hate.

Does this kind of thinking still exist in churches?

But the examples above are extreme. Does this kind of thinking exist in churches where people also “never meant to hurt anyone” but perhaps are still doing things that subtly and quietly reinforce white European superiority?

Every time white Christians like me say things like “we’ve opened our doors to those people” when referring to more people of color entering a church or an institution, we reinforce white superiority. Because, of course, we assume that the doors are owned and policed by white Christians who should be celebrated for our generosity in “sharing.”

Every time we are known for who we exclude than for the boundary-breaking love that brought us to salvation in the first place, we reinforce white (male) superiority. Nearly every key conflict of the church in the last fifty years has been related to who is allowed to do what, and nearly every one of those conflicts has been decided by groups like classis or synod that are still made up almost entirely of white men. (You need no more evidence for this than that we’ve often designated “ethnic” or “women” advisors to Synod, because on its own, Synod tends to be dominated by white men. We know it, and we know it’s an issue. Because the Body of Christ is bigger than that.)

Every time we dismiss cries for racial reconciliation as being “political,” we reinforce white superiority.

Every time we dismiss cries for racial reconciliation as being “political,” every time we keep ourselves apart and our ears closed, we reinforce white superiority. When the Christian Reformed Church was debating the Belhar Confession (which was eventually adopted as a contemporary testimony), one of the most common critiques I heard was that as a document from South Africa coming out of apartheid, it “has nothing to do with us” (as if North America was not also built on a premise of white racial superiority, thanks to the church-sanctioned Doctrine of Discovery).

Christian love is once again in crisis. What is the root of this disease in our churches today?

Noted theologian Willie James Jennings reminds us that “we have yet to comprehend fully how deeply and thickly race and Christian faith are entangled in the Western World.” In his ground-breaking work The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race, Jennings traces the legacy of our theology as it grew up alongside colonization. In the colonizer mindset, white Europeans were the ones who “had” salvation and were “bringing it” to the rest of the (darker-skinned) world.

“We have yet to comprehend fully how deeply and thickly race and Christian faith are entangled in the Western World.”

This hierarchy and these assumptions permeated the way our theology was formed—so much so that it’s difficult to see all the ways that it is there. But the truth is, even if we’ve never participated in apartheid or contemplated shooting a synagogue full of Jews, white Christians in North America have been exposed to a version of Christianity that is so enmeshed with white supremacy that we may be unable to hear the undiluted gospel any more.    

White Christians, we need to talk: we’ve gotten it so horribly wrong before in ways that have brought death, suffering, and inter-generational pain to our brothers and sisters in Christ. We have been damaged by this legacy. We have gotten so used to seeing ourselves as the primary beneficiaries and dispensers of salvation that it has allowed our pride and superiority to go unchecked; it has cut us off from the richness of God’s beautiful and varied world and made us continue to defend theological justifications that shut others out. We need to repent.

We have gotten used to seeing ourselves as the primary beneficiaries and dispensers of salvation.

I one attended a memorial service where the minister reminded us, right after the family members of the deceased had spoken, that “whenever someone speaks out of the white-hot crucible of suffering, we should listen.” But listening seems to be a skill that fewer and fewer people have these days, especially if they are accustomed to holding societal power and are weary of it being challenged.

This year, July 14 once again falls on a Sunday, and we could again conclude that the divisions among us reveal that “Christian love is in crisis.”

Let us reclaim the 1968 prayer that God’s people will again “live together in the fellowship of love.”

Let us commit to pray in humility for “ears to hear” and “eyes to see” the truth of our theological history. Let us confess as white Christians our superiority and our pride. Let us pray that the reconciling word for humanity spoken through the gift of Christ would call us to “a more excellent way.”

And let us reclaim the 1968 prayer that God’s people will again “live together in the fellowship of love.”

Watch this blog for a suggested prayer for the July 14 day of prayer, written by Rev. Reggie Smith and Rebecca Warren.