It has now been several weeks since the inhumane murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, which re-ignited not only national but global attention to the Black Lives Matter movement. Social media posts expressing lament and outrage and detailing calls for action through protests, donations, policy changes, and institutional reform have flooded our news feeds. As these conversations slowly revert to our ego-centered lives, I have been reflecting on how we as people of faith can keep ourselves accountable to continue combating anti-black racism in the United States. What does sustainable allyship look like?
Personally I have been diving deeper into the ways in which my theology, and my conception of God and God’s work in the world, is infused by whiteness, namely a framework of U.S. American individualism. It is clear in Scripture that God cares profoundly about systemic brokenness and systemic change. Yet believers like myself who have been socialized in Western Christianity are concerned foremost with “my” walk with Christ, “my” relationship, and “my” salvation, making us blind to the ways in which racial justice is at the center of God’s heart. This myopia is evident with the emergence of “churches that care about social justice” as a marginal subset of churches, when the pursuit of social justice cannot be divorced from Christian ministry.
As Erna Kim-Hackett writes: “When Scripture says, “I know the plans I have for you”, the ‘you’ is plural and addressed to an entire community of people that has been displaced and are in exile. All Scripture has been reduced to individual interactions between God and a person, even when they are actually between God and a community, or Jesus and a group of people. As a result, white theology defines racism as hateful thoughts and deeds by an individual, but cannot comprehend communal, systemic, or institutionalized sin, because it has erased all examples of that framework from Scripture.”
Our individualistic understanding of the work of God must be dismantled in order for us as Christians to effectively fight against anti-black racism. How can we disentangle the Truth of the Gospel from a “truth” that has been shaped almost exclusively by white (male) perspectives? What taken-for-granted beliefs undergird our lives that might actually run counter to the teachings of Jesus?
Confession: It’s so much easier to go on without asking myself these questions. Why disrupt a spiritual foundation that has sustained me and generations of my family pretty well so far? I think of Romans 12:2-3 – “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind… Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.” The life of following Christ is one of constant renewal and transformation, and this includes our deeply ingrained theological assumptions.
I believe this is where sustainable allyship begins for those who profess Christ as King. I believe that God is calling the U.S. Church to this posture of humility, openness, and re-learning in this critical, extremely challenging, historical moment. If we feel hesitation, discomfort, and even fear, we are likely heading in the right direction. Jesus did warn us that walking with Him was going to require a lot of courage.
Esther Yoona Cho (Ph.D.) is the Research Programs Director of VPUE Undergraduate Research at Stanford University and the Director of Communications at New College Berkeley.