Racial healing requires dismantling oppressive systems

Sean Palmer, teaching pastor at Ecclesia Community in Houston, described the pernicious effects of racism during a conference at Truett Theological Seminary. (Photo by Ken Camp)

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WACO—Healing racist systems within the church requires everyone—oppressed and oppressors alike—to recognize they are wounded by racism, a speaker told a hybrid conference offered online and at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary.

Catherine Meeks, executive director of The Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing, remotely delivered the keynote address on the opening day of the conference, “Do you want to be healed? Racism in the White Church.” (Photo by Ken Camp)

“Racism has wounded every soul in this country in one way or another,” said Catherine Meeks, executive director of The Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing.

From Atlanta, Ga., Meeks remotely delivered the keynote address on the opening day of the conference, “Do you want to be healed? Racism in the White Church.”

Short-term interracial projects, one-shot seminars and occasional pulpit exchanges cannot cure what ails American churches, she insisted.

“That is an illusion,” Meeks said. Instead, Christians must “destabilize the systems that marginalize, denigrate and dehumanize people,” she said. “Replace it with something that looks more like what God has in mind.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has offered busy American Christians the rare opportunity to “stand still” and practice introspection, examining the “systems and narratives we have constructed,” Meeks said.

“Racism is like a chronic illness that has to be dealt with every day, every minute,” she added.

‘Find a brave space’

Becoming vulnerable, asking hard questions and discussing sensitive subjects with a person of another race demands courage, she acknowledged.

“Let’s get out of our safe space boxes. Let’s find a brave space where the truth can be told,” she urged.


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Responsibility for dismantling oppressive systems begins with white Christians because their forebears created them and maintained them to protect the privilege they enjoyed, she asserted. Tinkering around the edges is not enough, she added.

“It can’t be cleaned up. It has to be healed,” she said.

Greg Garrett, professor of English at Baylor and program organizer, emphasized the same point in explaining why a conference on racism specifically focused on the white church.

“White people created this system, and only white people can dismantle it,” he said.

Sean Palmer, teaching pastor at Ecclesia Community in Houston and author of Unarmed Empire: In Search of Beloved Community, likewise described the pernicious effects of racism.

“Racism always leads to injustice, cover-ups and murder,” he said.

‘Everyday experience’ of Black Americans

Palmer used a personal experience to illustrate how African Americans face suspicion and live with a fear unfamiliar to white Americans.

Palmer recalled an occasion in February 2020 when his home security alarm sounded in the night. He was awakened by a phone call from the security company, who were checking to see if it was a real emergency.

Because he was sound asleep, Palmer was unable to answer the phone before the security company representative hung up. After he determined there was no home intruder, he tried unsuccessfully to call the company. So, he knew the police would arrive at his home soon.

“This was a few weeks after Atatiana Jefferson was killed in her home by police,” he recalled.

When the police came to Palmer’s front door, he answered it and identified himself, making sure the officer could see he was not holding a gun. At the officer’s request, he presented a photo ID.

At that point, the police officer asked him, “Are there any warrants for your arrest?”

Palmer assured the officer he was the homeowner, not a lawbreaker. At that point, his wife—who is white—entered the room. Looking past Palmer, the officer asked the woman, “Ma’am, are you all right?”

Once the policeman was satisfied Palmer’s wife was not in danger, he told her she could go back to bed, but he continued to question Palmer.

After receiving reassurance by radio there were no outstanding warrants for Palmer’s arrest, the officer finally returned his driver’s license, telling him before leaving, “You know, I could cite you for having an unregistered alarm.”

“That is the everyday experience of men and women of color in America,” Palmer said.

‘Lay down rights … become the other’

He cited research by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. Political and religious liberals tend to make moral judgments on the basis of fairness and whether harm occurs, according to Haidt. Conservatives—both political and religious—tend to view moral issues through the lenses of respecting authority, maintaining purity and protecting the in-group, he asserted.

Christians can bridge differences by exercising their “charity muscle” by learning to speak in love and play well with others, Palmer insisted. That means surrendering status and identifying with the marginalized, he explained.

“Healing and redemption come when people lay down their rights, privileges and positions and become the other,” he said.

The Feb. 17-19 conference—jointly sponsored by Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary, The Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing and the Public Religion Research Institute—is the first of three planned over the next three years, made possible in part by a grant from the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation.


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