Photograph: The white supremacist "Unite the Right" march in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 11th and 12th, 2017.  They hold Emancipation Nazi, Confederate, and Gadsden "Don't Tread on Me" flags. Photo credit: Anthony Crider | CC2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Introduction

The section on Race engages the vexing problem of racism, in particular in the United States. We explore its origins in Western Christian heretical ideas, European colonialism, Enlightenment “science,” and other factors. We believe “race” as constructed under those conditions must be addressed by Christians today because Christians historically were not simply complicit, but causal, in its formation and deployment. In response, we uphold Jesus’ definition of humanity, his ethical teaching and model, and the new humanity he perfected in his life, death, and resurrection.

Messages and Resources

See also slides to this presentation. The introduction features John Winthrop vs. Roger Williams to highlight the debate over freedom of religious Conscience vs. Christendom. The presentation highlights Christian accomplishments in health and hospitals, education and schools, land ownership and economic justice, and criminal justice reform.

A series of blog posts where we explore how Christian (mostly Protestant) heresies started and continue to influence our modern political and racial challenges. This includes the very notion of race itself, and how our modern economics, housing, schooling, and policing systems have been shaped. Christians must take responsibility for these heresies in the framework of repentance.  We have designed a study guide to accompany the blog posts.  Please consider using it for personal reflection or discussion in your family, church, organization, etc.

This blog post series relates to both the topic of atonement and the topic of desire because, like fallen Adam in the garden, we desire to deflect blame, and therefore we scapegoat others. On the political level, this builds group cohesion and creates a social outsider, who is blamed for the group’s woes, who the group must exile or kill or marginalize in order to maintain a hopeful lie. This series explores what political scapegoating has looked like in the U.S.

Study and Action Guide to Dominique Gilliard’s Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice That Restores

A nine week study and action guide for small groups to discuss, compare belief systems, and consider advocacy and action steps. Gilliard identifies five pipelines to prison, contributing to mass incarceration: drug policy, immigration, lack of mental health, the school-to-prison pipeline, and private prisons. Gilliard holds up restorative justice to contrast with retributive justice, and says the Church must act restoratively because God in Christ acts restoratively.

Study and Action Guide to Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

A seven week guide for groups to discuss, compare belief systems, and consider advocacy and action steps. Constitutional law professor Michelle Alexander examines the war on drugs as a political tool, and how it eroded the Fourth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights of American citizens. Implicit racism has affected the criminal justice system at every level: policing, prosecution, plea bargaining, jury selection, sentencing, and reintegration.

 
 

Race: Topics:

Church and Empire: Topics:

Race is a construct created by European colonialism. For more background, consider the Church and Empire section of our website. This section reminds us what Christian faith was like prior to colonialism, and in resistance to colonialism, to show that Christianity is not “a white man’s religion.”