Faith and Forgiveness: Obama’s Political Theology

Last updated on: June 30, 2015 at 5:03 pm by Guest Contributor

Faith and Forgiveness: Obama’s Political Theology 2015-06-30T17:03:35-05:00 Guest Contributor

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The eulogy delivered by President Obama Friday morning at Emanuel African Episcopal Church in Charleston was an important moment in American public life. However, the most critical notes sounded by Obama was not the rendition of Amazing Grace or the performative cues that signaled his involvement and ease in the tradition of the Black Church. Rather it was his break with the prevailing and often unspoken theological aspects of American political life that conceal the dynamics of racial and social injustice.

In recent weeks a wide range of responses to the heart wrenching acts of forgiveness by the families of State Senator Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Cynthia Hurd, Tywanza Sanders, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Myra Thompson, Ethel Lance, Susie Jackson, Rev. Daniel Simmons, and Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor. Scholars such as Dr. Stacey Patton have opened up a much-needed dialogue on the politics of forgiveness challenging “…the almost reflexive demand of forgiveness, especially for those dealing with death by racism, is about protecting whiteness, and America as a whole.” I have often argued that American expects forgiveness from blacks for racial sins that are un-confessed. My concern here is not the personal aspect of forgiveness by the families, but rather the way such acts are recruited and refashioned by a political theology that maintains the status quo of racial injustice through forms of sacrifice.

The legal aspect of this theme was explored by the late legal scholar Derrick Bell’s Silent Covenants. Covering a large swath of American history, Bell describes two perennial forms of racial reform he describes as covenants. The first are racial-sacrifice covenants where costly differences between groups of whites were reconciled through the involuntary sacrifice of black rights and interests. The second are interest-convergence covenants where black rights are protected if they can be demonstrated to advance white interests. Religious scholars such as Charles Long have argued that these are repetitions of the America’s original compromise over slavery that represent the religious depth of American public life. Long’s point is important, as slavery was not only our ‘original sin’ but also its political dynamics are source of renewal for America in moments of crisis. A renewal he argued facilitated by the skillful use of and engagement with public piety and symbols. This was in full view in the response of South Carolina’s Senator Lindsey Graham to Obama’s eulogy and this position on the confederate flag.

As calls for the removal of the flag in the wake of the horrific murders at “Mother Emanuel,” Graham stood firm claiming that the flag “works here.” With the political (and corporate) winds shifting, Graham stood by Governor Nikki Haley as she called for the flags removal. However, Graham’s interview on Meet the Press was particularly telling. When asked about his opinion about the funeral service, Graham praised Obama’s words about Rev. Clementa Pinckney as an individual. However he balked at any broader political meaning of his death stating, “I guess when we started talking about God’s grace and embracing the Democratic agenda across the board, he sort of loss me there.”

Lost on Graham was Obama’s articulation of grace that refused to let America as a political community off the hook for this act of racial violence. Obama squarely invoked the history of racial violence, racial subjugation, systemic oppression, voting rights, unjust public school systems, unconscious racial bias, and collective salvation. More importantly, he argued that we don’t need “more talk.” Far too often in the face of racial violence and unrest we retreat from messiness of public life in order to have more “conversations around the kitchen table.” Moreover, Obama warned that symbolic gestures without addressing the social reality they symbolize is to reject the forgiveness offered by the families. The eulogy echoed the question familiar to those who welcomed Dylan Roof into their bible study, should black grace be given so that black death and suffering abound? The eulogy struck at the lifeline of a political theology that perpetuates anti-black racism by severing the relationship between guilt and repentance, confession and forgiveness. This was the grace that Graham could not accept. A grace that calls for new life grounded in creation of a just society.

It’s tempting to either over or underestimate the role of the confederate flag. Symbols have the power to leverage the historical meanings that fuel and motivate our actions. When asked why it took nine deaths to change his mind about the flag, Graham said, “the people of the A.M.E. church, the families of the victims changed everything by their grace, by their love, by their forgiveness…”–not the fact that their loved ones were shot to death in their own house of worship or the white nationalism associated with the attack. In Graham’s political theology black forgiveness can legitimate the removal of the confederate flag as a symbol, but it can’t repudiate racial injustices it symbolizes.

I’m not naïve as to the limits of what can be accomplished through a single speech. However, in the midst of the celebrations and critiques of Obama’s cultural performance, let’s not miss the to move to reconfigure America’s political theology. A move arguably impossible without the deep historical, religious and cultural memories and meanings embedded within “Mother Emanuel.” May the events at Emanuel A.M.E move us towards a political theology in which black life is valued as much as black grace.

Rev. Dr. Christophe Ringer is an Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics and Society at Chicago Theological Seminary

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