“I have
to tell you, at my church it is easy to not talk about racism. At my
church, it is easy to dismiss as politics the economics of hundreds
of years of systemic racism. But not talking and not acting is the
path to destruction. We can could watch that on the news every night
and ask if that is the future we want for ourselves.”
– Steve
Wells, Pastor of Houston South Main Baptist
Dr. Steve Wells, a Texas
pastor, called on white churches to address racial injustice during
George Floyd's funeral Tuesday afternoon, saying, “We are better
than we used to be, but we are not as good as we ought to be.”
Wells began his message
thanking the organizers for letting him speak because “everyone
would have understood if said we don’t need to hear from any white
people today.”
Wells continued …
“If I could just have
the privilege, I would like to say a word to white churches. We are
better than we used to be, but we are not as good as we ought to be.
That is not good enough, which means you have to take up the work of
racial justice. Racism did not start in our lifetimes but racism can
end in our lifetime.”
Before speaking at the
funeral, Rev. Wells told his friend News10NBC’s Deanna Dewberry …
"You and I grew up
in West Texas where people are kind of plain-spoken. And I remember
someone saying, ‘Sometimes silence is golden, and sometimes it's
just plain yellow.' This is the season to recognize racism is real,
and it's a problem. Even if I don't know how to fix it, I have to
recognize that it's real.”
While he applauds peaceful
protests demanding change, Wells said protesters, policy change, and
pastors all have a role to play. He explained …
"It's not enough
to walk in the streets. We have to walk in the halls of power, and
somebody's got to legislate. But why pastors? It’s because
legislation isn't going to change a heart. We can write it down in a
book, but until our hearts are changed, the world is not going to
change."
God bless, Rev. Dr. Steve
Wells. I don't know much about him, but his words rang so true. A
short biography tells us …
Steve Wells has been
pastor of South Main since March of 2003. He grew up in Lubbock,
Texas. He attended Baylor University, where he earned a B.A. in
Philosophy (1990). Steve was a member of the first graduating class
of Baylor’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary, earning a Master
of Divinity summa cum laude (1997) and a Doctor of Ministry (2003),
concentrating in Preaching and Worship.
Before coming to South
Main, Wells served as pastor of churches in Texas and Mississippi.
Steve met his wife, Missy Yeary Wells, at Baylor. Steve and Missy
were married in August 1990 and have three grown children: Rachel,
Ben, and Joshua.
Well's message about “not
being easy to talk about racism in his church” resonates throughout
the country. Lip service is commonplace; however, honest dialogue
about systemic racism is lacking. Ignoring the issue or simply
praying about it does not evoke needed change. Churches must accept
the challenge of being a force for needed change. Predominantly white
churches must champion justice and spearhead the movement for
minority justice.
In his new (2019) book,
The Color of Compromise,
Jemar Tisby (BA, University of Notre Dame, MDiv Reformed Theological
Seminary) surveys the history of the Christian
Church with an eye toward the innumerable moments when white American
Christians could have interceded on behalf of racial justice, but did
not.
Taken together, Tisby
argues, from the founding of the United States to the present, these
moments constitute an ignominious timeline spanning four centuries of
suffering, so that today’s headlines are connected to seemingly
ancient atrocities. By the end, it is clear that past and current
events retain a striking similarity regarding the church and race.
Tisby explains …
“Every time that the
white community – especially Christians – failed to confront
racism in its everyday, mundane forms, they created a context of
compromise that allowed for an extreme act of racial terror like
planting dynamite at a church ( a reference to 16th Street Baptist
Church bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.) That’s the idea of
complicity. It’s not that every Christian was a
foaming-at-the-mouth racist hurling racial slurs and burning crosses
on peoples’ lawns. It’s that when they had the opportunity to
intervene in everyday ways, they chose complicity over confrontation,
and this enabled a larger atmosphere of racial compromise.”
(Eric C. Miller. “The
American Church’s Complicity in Racism: A Conversation
with Jemar Tisby.”
Religion & Politics. April 2, 2019.)
Tisby
explains that any talk of social justice in the church distracts from
what “Christians should be “focused on – the Gospel.” He uses
his book as an example. Tisby says …
“Throughout history,
Christian activists have always asserted that this is an artificial
separation—that the two go together. So if you read the comments on
some reviews of the book, or on social media posts promoting it, you
see some of the same criticisms now that were made in response to
activists throughout American history.
“The main objection
to The Color of Compromise has to do with whether Christians
should be involved in these topics at all. It reflects, in my view,
an over-spiritualizing of the Christian faith that ignores physical,
material concerns like poverty, mass incarceration, voting rights,
and other important issues.”
Many white churches uphold
oppression through silence on racial injustice. When discussion of
racialized violence stops at the church door, the result is an
unbearable discordance for many observant Christians, particularly
young black and brown Christians. Reverend Margaret Sawyer, an
organizer at the Pioneer Valley Workers Center, says …
“Even if it says on
the (church) door that Black Lives Matter, culturally, a congregation
has come together in a certain way over a certain period of time.
Certain things are done, certain things are not done, and that makes
(the church) less open.”
Now, Rev. Dr. Steve Wells
has opened a new dialogue at a very crucial time. I am in hopes that
not only will Christian white people praise his efforts, but also
they will heed his words and initiate much-needed change for equity.
These white Christians know racism is a sin. The question remains
about how they will band together to defeat the old structure of
systemic racism in America. Prayers are needed, yes … but actions
are needed more now during the swell of consciousness about racial
injustice.
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