Fr. Jon Connor, D. Min., Ph.D.

American has once again erupted in racially based demonstrations that periodically and predictably arise when injustice and frustrations bubble over the rim of the caldron that has been percolating in America since its inception.  From the subjugation and genocide of the indigenous North American people to the wholesale slave trafficking of African people to the illegal and unjust interment of American citizens of Japanese to the current interment of Latino immigrants, the American ethos is rife with racial enmity.

For a faithful believer, this situation can only be characterized as sinful.  Sin being the separation of humans from their Creator, and by extension the Creators creations (i.e. human beings).  In fact, Jim Wallis, clergyman, writer, and publisher of Sojourners magazine, says that “racism is America’s Original Sin”.

Racism and “racist” are terms that are bandied about without much understanding of their true meanings.  I would like to take a moment to clarify, from a sociological perspective what these terms mean and the ramifications therein:

The Racism/Xenophobia Model

Terms Defined

Prejudice: To have a prejudgment or preconceived opinion about something that is not based on objective fact or one’s personal experience.

Bigotry: To actively, aggressively (and perhaps violently) promote one’s prejudices to the point of hatred and unreasonableness.

Discrimination: To actively deny status, power, privilege, or prestige to another based on one’s particular brand of bigotry.

Xenophobia: The fear and/or hatred of strangers, foreigners or “the others”.

Racism: The BELIEF and activity to promote one’s own race and to deny status, power, privilege, or prestige to another based on solely and completely on race. (N.B. by extension, this definition also applies to the other “isms” such as sexism, ageism, etc.)

From a sociological perspective, racism and xenophobia are the most similar and we will use those dynamics as interchangeable.

The Model

An example would be helpful. Let us say an individual believes that African-Americans do not maintain their homes and drive down property values in a neighborhood. This individual happens to be a banker, and his belief is “institutionalized” into his banks policy (a concept called “redlining”). As a result of these policies, African-Americans are unable to get mortgages or home improvement loans. They are then unable to move into better housing or repair/update their current dwelling. The resulting decay/deterioration of the housing stock becomes less desirable and slum like thereby becoming Cultural Racism reinforcing the original Individual racist belief.

One of the disclaimers that is often heard is the statement “I’m not a racist”. That may well be a true statement on the part of any given individual, however, to the extent that one subscribes to the Cultural aspect of racism and benefits from that construct, one is stilled painted with a brush that was dipped into the racist paint can.

In order to understand privilege, it will be helpful to examine another sociological model. I refer to this model as the Dominant Culture Paradigm or DCP.

Understanding Privilege

• Members of the DCP are unaware of it.
• It’s “just the way things are”.
• Instructs & informs both conscious and unconscious behavior and beliefs.
• As with most paradigms, blinds one from seeing things differently.

What Sort of Information Gets Filtered?

• Age
• Gender
• Race
• Religion
• National Origin
• Disability
• Sexual Orientation
  

DCP vis-à-vis “The Differents”

What this schema attempts to depict is that those individuals who are within the DCP are the one’s with “privilege”. So, an English speaking, 40ish, white, Christian male, get’s an advantage within our society and even a “free pass”, i.e. affirmative action for jobs, schooling, promotions etc. As I stated earlier, they are unaware of this advantage and perceive life as “just the way things are”. It is much like living on Earth in that we never think about gravity as a force in our lives. If we are transported to an environment of zero gravity, we become very aware of that issue.
Those who are the “Differents” are constantly aware of the metaphoric gravity and must work against this edge in order to be a fully functioning member of the society.

So as believers we are called to acknowledge our brokenness and our sins of both commission AND omission. I passionately believe that America is addicted to racism, much like an alcoholic or junkie is addicted to their drug of choice. I believe that the 12 Step approach is a needed and viable solution to the racial quagmire that exists in our society.
I therefore propose that ALL believers begin this Program immediately and without further deal. Our lives and our world have become unmanageable:

Twelve Step Recovery from Racism

1. We admitted we were powerless over Racism–that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our Racist selves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our Racist wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these Racist defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our Racist shortcomings
8. Made a list of persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all (Enslaved Africans; Native American genocide; Chinese Exclusion; Japanese Internment Camp victims and all these groups descendants to name some of the most obvious).
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
    

And the Final 12th Step
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to Racists and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof.
(Deuteronomy 22:8)

On Friday, November 21, 1980 a deadly fire erupted in the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino killing eighty-five people. The fire was tragic not only because of the number of people that died in it, but because their deaths were needless––the MGM Grand had no water sprinklers. A few days later I was sitting in a graduate course on the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), and the professor began class that morning by speaking rather casually about a strange law found in Deuteronomy 28:2. “Do you know, or remember from your reading,” he asked, “that the Deuteronomic law required that a parapet (a kind of fence or wall) be built around the roof of a house?” As he talked he caught us up in what a strange law that was. Then he pointed out that in ancient Palestine people often used their roofs as living space, and if your good friends with three children between the ages of two and six came over you wouldn’t want one of the kids toppling over the edge of your roof; nor, of course would you want one of the parents after a couple of drinks to moon-walk over the unguarded side and break their neck. You wouldn’t want that he suggested because you care about your friends and their kids; and, the truth is, even if they are sometimes annoying, you love them. Well, actually, even if you are yourself sometimes critical and rather cynical about your fellow human beings, you care enough about people in general that you don’t want anyone falling off your roof and getting hurt––or killed. So you build that little fence or wall to protect visitors. If you don’t it says something about the sort of uncaring person you are––and you ought to be held responsible for that. “Now,” asked the professor, “how might you apply this obscure law from Deuteronomy if you were building a big hotel today?” What he was eliciting, of course, was the understanding that because we love others we act in their best interest though doing so may, in our personal judgment, seem rather small, unnecessary, or inconvenient, in the moment.

So, why should we wear face masks, forgo the joy of meeting for worship with Christian friends until it is safe to do so, or practice social distancing? It is for the same reason the people of Israel built that parapet, or why a hotel/casino owner should know to install sprinkler systems and fire exits––even though it might be a lot of trouble or cost more to do so?

Saturday night I listened to the rant of Arthur Hodges, the pastor of a large Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista. Hodges is unhappy with the limits that have been placed on church gatherings. He thinks them unfair and more onerous than those imposed on other businesses. In fact, he says, such limitations are unconstitutional. What is interesting, is that he was being interviewed because he and his church, South Bay United Pentecostal Church, has just lost its case before the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the attendance restrictions placed on churches. The Supreme Court in a five to four decision rejected the challenge of Pastor Hodges and his church. I say “interesting” because now that the United States Supreme Court has decided the case the limitations imposed on churches during the pandemic are by definition “constitutional” despite Pastor Hodges repeated assertions to the contrary. However, whether such limitations are constitutional and whether or not they are unfair when compare to those imposed on other enterprises is not the question.

The question is not what is legal, or constitutional, or beneficial to the church as a business enterprise––and lets be honest many churches today are nothing more than, as Eugene Peterson pointed out, “shops.” They are businesses, shops, run by shop keepers. Some of them, like South Bay United Pentecostal Church, are highly successful shops run by shrewd managers, and they would howl like wounded wolves if the tax advantages granted them by the state (tax advantages many consider unfair) were taken away. But I digress. Something about self-serving churches and ego centric clergy triggers some usually dormant Kierkegaardian madness in me (See: “My Descent Into Kierkegaardian Madness,” October 11, 2015).

The question for every individual and every church wishing to be genuinely Christian, longing for “God’s will to be manifested on earth as it is in heaven,” is not what is constitutional, or convenient, or what is in the best interest of their “shop.” But what does it mean, especially in times such as this, to act lovingly, to act responsibly, cheerfully and with good will in the legitimate best interest of everyone around us––our family, our friends, our church, and the larger community?

Scripture is subversive in that it has within it the power to undermine, to topple and overthrow the existing world order –– its values, its thinking, its way of life. This subversive quality is frequently apparent in the Psalms where the poets have discovered something utterly amazing about God. What they have discovered, as the Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann observes, is this: “Yahweh’s peculiar inclinations are with the broken-hearted and the ones with crushed spirits. That is, Yahweh’s solidarity is not with the ones who go from success to success, but the ones denied success.” In the Psalms the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed and the humble look only to God–– have no one but God for their help. The Psalms are subversive, then, because God is subversive. I thought you might appreciate the following version of Psalm 10. Well, actually, I hope it will feed your own subversive passions––your feelings of compassion and justice in an age of exploitation, corruption, greed, violence, mendacity and arrogance.

Psalm 10: A Song of the Oppressed

1Why do you stand so far from me, O God?
Why are you hiding, Lord, in all this crisis?
2 In arrogance the selfish and greedy chase down the poor.
May they be caught in their own cruel traps
set for the innocent!
3 Having departed from the path
they have no knowledge of what is sacred,
and no compassion
for the suffering of humanity.
They boast of their power to take whatever they want,
they curse the Lord and reject God as weak.
4 With smug and condescending faces
they disdain God and deny the divine power.
In their self-centered importance they are always saying,
“There is no God.”
5 They are rich, powerful, and entirely self-satisfied.
The wisdom of your Way, O God,
is far beyond their comprehension.
As for any who would challenge them,
they laugh in derision.
6 They say to themselves,
“Nothing can touch me!
No one can bring me down!
No one is as clever as I am!
Nothing bad is ever going to happen to me!”
7 Their mouths are full of rotting lies,
violence, and oppression;
Under their tongues are plots to hurt
and destroy all that is good, beautiful, or true.
8 Courts, markets, and positions of leadership
are their lurking places;
they spring from hidden blinds
to kill the innocent and vulnerable.
Their stealthy eyes are always watching for victims.
9 Like predator lions
they stalk those alone and helpless;
They lurk in the dark shadows
ready to catch those already afflicted;
They catch the injured and the poor
and draw them into their net.
10 In their speech they camouflage their true motives
with high principles and ideals,
but they are always crouching in readiness
to spring on the innocent.
11 They confidently reassure themselves saying,
“God has forgotten;
God has hidden His face; God will never see it.”
12 Arise!, O Lord, Arise; lift up Your hand.
Do not forget the hurting, troubled and afraid.
13 Why have the wicked despised You O’ God?
Because they do not believe
You will require accountability.
14 But You have seen it,
You have carefully noted the harm they do
how they devour the poor and vulnerable as prey.
The defenseless commit themselves to You;
You have been the helper of those
who have no other help.
15 Break the power of the unjust,
the indifferent and the cruel;
seek out all their ways of wickedness,
until by your goodness they are overcome;
and no injustice or oppression or unkindness is to be found.
16 You are the Lord, You are our good and strong King;
You are our Help and Comforter.
17 O Lord, You have heard the cries of the oppressed
and know the longing hearts of the humble.
Strengthen their hearts, listen to their desperate pleas.
18 Vindicate the vulnerable, the helpless, and the oppressed;
So that those who have become their own god
will no longer cause terror.
(trans. larry hart)