Who Do You Trust? Series

During my senior year at seminary, we had something called “racial reconciliation day.” It involved, among other things, attending a rally at the college that the seminary was attached to, wearing a ribbon or a tag or label - I don’t remember exactly what - to announce to the world one’s repentance for racism, and a worship service in the chap-el featuring a speaker by one of the few black professors at the college. I had been looking forward to hearing him speak, because I had heard him during my first year and was deeply moved by his love for God and his commitment to society’s failures and outcasts.

But, unfortunately, during the intervening year there had been some ugly incidents at the college, attacking this man and his family, vile illustrations of the bigotry that still occurs even now, even among people who call themselves Christian. It was shocking to most of us, and this day of reconciliation was an attempt on the part of the administration to come to grips with the ongoing reality of this ugliness and to promote dialogue and self-examination and - ultimately - healing.

And so this once godly and compassionate professor, whose name I have forgotten but will call Dr. Chapman, had become bitter, and angry, and accused the mostly white audience of complicity in the events. The gist of his speech - I can’t call it a sermon, because it was neither Christ-centered nor Biblical - was that, if you were white you were a racist, and if you were black anything you did to get your own back at the oppressors was justified. At the end of the service the congregation was invited to stand in corporate acknowledgment and repentance of our sin. I could not, nor could some others. I was not willing to confess to something I had not done, and I was deeply distressed by the total absence of any mention of the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ to overcome this evil, to break down walls and to make two people one.

I talked to Dr. Chapman afterwards. I hoped that somewhere between his pain and mine we could communicate, but it was not possible. He said that as a member of a privileged class I could neither understand his viewpoint nor absolve myself of guilt. The privilege of my white skin gave me an edge, an advantage, so that just by existing I oppressed those not so gifted. At no point did he acknowledge how distressed his colleagues were about the events, and how supportive they were of him. He rejected their attempts to reach out to him, and cherished his pain, and stoked his anger.

I thought about this for weeks. I even went to the black pastoral counseling professor on the seminary staff, a friend of Dr. Chapman, to try to explain why I had been so distressed, and why I thought that the worship service, rather than help achieve reconciliation, had actually made things worse. I wound up weeping all over his shirt front (he was a lovely man) but he didn’t understand what I was getting at. I eventually gave up.

And the reason I am telling this story is because what lies behind it is a violation of the tenth commandment.

Dr. Chapman was not able to find common ground with me, because he couldn’t forgive me for having something he wanted. He coveted my so-called privileged status because he believed that it would have made him safe from injustice, safe from slander and spite and harassment. He coveted my complexion.

He believed - although I rather doubt that he would put it in these terms - that my white skin was a bigger privilege than his Christian upbringing. He had been raised Christian, in an intact and loving family, and yet he believed that I, raised atheist in an abusive and ultimately broken family, was luckier - just because I was white.

How sad, how self-destructive that is.

It’s self-destructive for a lot of reasons, but two are most important.

First, when Dr. Chapman put me in a box marked “white = oppressor”, it became impossible for us to develop a relationship, a relationship that should have been natural and easy because of our common allegiance to Jesus Christ.

Second, as long as he looks at my skin color - or anyone’s else's - as a bigger gift than the gospel, he will never know the peace and wholeness that is the result of receiving Jesus Christ.

And yet Dr. Chapman’s point of view is a common one, and has become endemic in today's society..

It is also a thoroughly understandable one, in the light of the suffering he and his family - and far too many other black Americans in this country - have endured. It is natural to be angry when one has been hurt. And it is easier to stay angry, even when the anger is misplaced, than to renounce the anger in favor of a more constructive re-sponse.