More than Ferguson

Last updated on: December 4, 2014 at 5:48 pm by Guest Contributor

More than Ferguson 2014-12-04T17:48:00-05:00 Guest Contributor

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

by Miles S Mullin, II
R3 Contributor

After the St. Louis County (MO) Grand Jury in Ferguson declined to indict Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, chaos ensued. Certainly, chaos ensued in the streets of Ferguson as protests turned into riots throughout the city. At the same time, chaos of a different sort emerged among evangelicals. In the aggregate, evangelicals (and here I really mean white evangelicals) were uncertain how to respond to the developments in Ferguson. On the one hand, many felt a natural inclination to support former Officer Wilson’s version events. On the other hand, many others–having come through the racial reconciliation emphases of the 1990s–felt discomfited by such a “conservative approach” due to the circumstances of the case.

After Michael Brown was killed, Ed Stetzer began posting a series of articles on his Christianity Today blog entitled “A Time to Listen.” Listening is good, and many of the posts are helpful, instructive, and insightful. But why does it take tragic events to catalyze white evangelical listening? Unless they have been silenced by why-do-you-make-everything-about-race shaming, black evangelicals are willing to share something they know that we (white) evangelicals do not: white and black evangelicals experience life differently in the United States because of race.

As white evangelicals, we may wish that this were not the case. We may wish that being white did not grant us the privilege of “no assumptions” in so many arenas of society. We may wish that we lived in the society of the catch phrases: a color-blind society; a post-racial society. But we do not. Instead, we live in a racialized society, “a society wherein race matters profoundly for differences in life experiences, life opportunities, and social relationships (Emerson and Smith, 7).” White evangelicals have a difficult time coming to terms with this for several reasons.

First, the historic evangelical emphasis on the necessity of individual conversion through repentance and personal faith in Christ colors the way evangelicals view evil in the world. The (correct, in my estimation) emphasis leads them to see sin solely in personal terms, a position so eloquently expressed in the Facebook post by New Orleans Saint Benjamin Watson. And, while I certainly endorse that perspective, a myopic focus on it in relation to social ills fails to account for the fact that there is systemic evil and institutionalized wrongdoing that transcend the aggregation of individual sin in society. That is what we see in many of the idolatrous societies portrayed in the Old Testament as well as what we see, in part, in Paul’s reference to “powers and principalities.”

Second, regardless of the subversive heritage that American evangelicalism may (or may not) have possessed in the past, by the late twentieth century, its dominant form was reflexively conservative, characterized more by Billy Graham’s “politics of decency” than Ron Sider’s sort of “social action.” For the most part, contemporary white evangelicals respect authority and comfortably speak of “the rule of law.” As corollaries, two things occur.

First, this means that–despite their own doctrine of depravity–they have a propensity to believe the accounts of those in authority vis-à-vis other witnesses, reflexively defending their actions. We see this in Ferguson, but also in the Rodney King debacle, when many white evangelicals ridiculously defended the actions of the police officers who beat King. Second, in describing their position they end up employing language with a history of racial oppression, using such phrases as “law and order.” Such terms have a weighty history that African Americans remember well, a history of being, at best, the position of white Southern moderates, at worst code words for segregation.

Third, white evangelicals have a hard time coming to terms with the difficult truth that the United States is a racialized society because they want it to be otherwise. They want America to be the sort of meritocracy of opportunity about which David Brooks dreams. That is a great desire and a worthy dream. But it will only be more closely approximated when both individual sin is confronted and the systemic ills that perpetuate injustices are addressed. It is not an either/or proposition, and it is about so much more than Ferguson.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

December 3, 2014

“Is God an Uncle Ruckus?”

Next Post

December 5, 2014 No Justice, No Christmas? Why Michael Brown and Eric Garner’s Deaths Make Advent Matter

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Amy Steele Andre E. Johnson Book Reviews/Series Brian Foulks Call for Chapters Carol Howard Merritt Classes Conferences Contributors Crystal St.Marie Lewis Daniel White Hodge Earle Fisher Eulogy Fredrick Robinson Guest Contributions Henry McNeal Turner Institutes Interviews Joseph Boston Katherine Whitfield Kimberly Peeler-Ringer Lectures/Roundtables Natalie Bullock Brown R3 Book Series R3 Contributor Rashad Grove Readers Reflections Symposiums Teaching Traci Ellis Travis Harris Uncategorized Video

Select a Month June 2020 February 2020 December 2019 November 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 October 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz