In today’s Washington Post I write about the year since Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, and what white Christians can learn about justice and reconciliation.
Here’s an excerpt:
The question is how do we sin? We sin as individuals, one against another. Many Christians stop there, and assume that if they are not personally racist then there is no problem, for them, of racial injustice. But sin also compounds itself in structures — social and political — that can perpetuate and compound issues of sin and injustice.
Most white evangelicals get this idea when we are talking about issues of abortion. I once heard a progressive pastor I knew to be pro-choice on abortion preach on the issue with the conclusion, “We wouldn’t have to worry about this abortion debate if we just taught our young people sexual morality.” In many ways, that’s true enough. But it avoids the larger question of a predatory political and economic system in which unborn children are not even recognized as persons with rights to life and liberty.
Questions of racial justice are not simply about whether white individuals use the “N” word or wish harm to black people. The issues include questions such as how community policing can better reflect the communities they serve.
Read the entire article here .
