“What am I supposed to do?”
I have referred to this question at multiple points throughout this book and have explored why it can be dangerous if asked in isolation of the transformational blindness-to-sight journey. Left unexamined, this question suggests that moving into problem-solving mode is the logical and expedient step in the process for white people, and it simultaneously discounts the major handicap that our blindness to racial patterns, systems, and structures brings to the equations. It’s my deep conviction that the primary work of Jesus in our lives is to rescue us from the shadows of this current kingdom and lead us to the light as he brings into view the kingdom of God.
With that being said, I don’t want to minimize the role of concrete action. Christ’s life tended to follow the pattern of contemplation (that is, seeing) and then action (that is, doing), and the realm of cultural identity is no different. Once we see differently, we should indeed act differently, and that pattern should be evident at regular junctures of our cultural identity journey. This chapter proposes some action steps that can be paired with the stages of awakening.
One last disclaimer before jumping in: I’m not certain what term to use to describe this last stage. The term white ally is the most commonly used for those who align with the interests of people of color, but that term has begun to fall out of favor. Some use the term accomplice as a replacement, but that hasn’t achieved mainstream acceptance. So I’ve chosen to use the term active participant, as it seems in line with the spirit of the command of Jesus to “seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously” (Matthew 6:33 NLT).
With that, here are some important actions steps that can accompany the different stages of the awakening journey.
It’s important that we each take responsibility for continuing the journey of educating ourselves, and there are a variety of ways we can be deliberate about that. A first and easy step is to subscribe to the work of my friends Latasha Morrison and Judy Wu Dominick, who have created an online community called Be the Bridge to Racial Unity.1 There are now thousands of members who regularly learn from a variety of practitioners, theologians, and academics. You’ll find a steady stream of helpful resources there that will stimulate your learning about cultural identity.
Also be intentional and diligent about reading and listening to voices you might not typically align with ideologically. There’s a consistent temptation to carry preexisting views shaped by political and theological leanings (that is, left/right, liberal/conservative) into explorations of cultural identity and racial awareness. While there’s nothing wrong with having defined viewpoints and inner convictions, be mindful that few things shape our biases more than social location. When we don’t allow our viewpoints to be challenged by those on different points of the ideological spectrum, we miss the chance to sharpen our critical-thinking skills and to unearth blind spots. Such lack of engagement can place unnecessary restrictions on developing a holistic, 360-degree kingdom perspective.
Let me share an example from my journey of engaging with multiple viewpoints. One of the social issues that became paramount for me in my racial awakening was that of poverty—particularly poverty affecting children. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a World War II–era pastor, theologian, and activist, said, “The ultimate test of a society’s morality is how it treats its children.” In America, the richest nation on earth, one in five children lives in poverty. This means one out of every five of our children is in constant danger of harm, because statistics show that poverty drastically reduces the possibility of a child getting a good education and having access to health care, while also increasing their chances of entering prison. When you add race to that equation, the danger level skyrockets. This is what led Dr. Marian Wright Edelman, one of my heroes, to claim, “The most dangerous place for a child to grow up today is at the intersection of race and poverty.”2
Once this became clear to me, I knew I could no longer live in middle-class environments sheltered from the plight of those navigating poverty. So I followed some of the suggestions that you’ll see later in this chapter: I made a lifetime commitment to stay proximate to suffering, and I consistently served with organizations that worked with families in poverty. But what about this first point? How would I continue to educate myself? How would I best expose myself to new areas of thought and be mindful to engage with those whose views were different from mine?
I began to discover that within the realm of scholarship on poverty is a sharp ideological split over solutions. Those on the more conservative side argue that the solution involves personal responsibility: nurturing the family unit, teaching life skills, instilling morals, and so on. Those on the more liberal side argue that the solution falls more on the side of social justice: addressing root causes such as housing discrimination, failing schools, and the lack of economic opportunity in low-income neighborhoods. I had my own beliefs and biases that nudged me in a certain direction, but I also realized that my social location and personal experience had played a large role in forming that bias. Therefore I made a commitment to educate myself on the best thinking and practices from both sides of the ideological divide.
One of the most concrete and enriching learning experiences that helped facilitate my continuing education was a book club that intentionally studied two competing philosophies. The first book was Bridges Out of Poverty by Dr. Ruby Payne, who is arguably the most visible educator about poverty and who provides materials and workshops for teachers and administrators across the country. Payne’s approach revolves around personal responsibility; she believes that if children in poverty are going to prosper, they need to develop a specific set of skills. Included in this proposed skill set is building and keeping relationships, getting one’s needs met, communicating in middle-class vernacular, and entertaining and being entertained. Payne asserts that children growing up in a culture of poverty don’t succeed because they have been taught the “hidden rules of poverty” so they are unaware of the hidden rules of the middle class.
The second book we read was An African Centered Response to Ruby Payne’s Poverty Theory by Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu, a well-respected Afrocentric educator and the author of more than sixty-five books. He took exception to what is often called the “blame the victim” approach to alleviating poverty: the onus falls on those victimized by the system to find a way to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. He felt that Payne located the problem of poverty with the people born into the system rather than engaging in a critical analysis of why those systems exist in the first place. He rebuked her use of deficit theory (poor people are poor because of their own deficiencies) and took exception to her belief that success for poor children is defined in relationship to their ability to live a middle-class lifestyle. He then laid out his own vision for addressing poverty, focusing on the rebuilding of vital systems on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis.
The members of the book club fell on different points of the left/right, personal responsibility/systemic justice spectrums, and therefore were challenged by the conflicting convictions in each of the books. Engaging in honest exploration of each voice resulted in a rich and dynamic atmosphere, and we walked away feeling wiser and more seasoned. So I recommend studying with people with different philosophies. There is no one voice that can help you engage cultural identity, so it’s wise to educate yourself by listening to a wide spectrum of voices.
In chapter four, “Encounter,” I shared a quote from Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. Stevenson is regularly called on to speak on the concrete steps that white people can take when responding to our growing awakening. His advice always begins with the same call to action: get proximate to suffering. He argues that this is the core gospel message (“to me, the Great Commission is a call to get approximate”3) and that this pattern is evident in the life of Jesus himself.
One of his most succinct descriptions of getting proximate was in a graduation speech at Wesleyan University’s 2016 commencement ceremony:
The first thing I believe you have to do is that you have to commit to getting proximate to the places in our nation, in our world, where there’s suffering and abuse and neglect. Many of you have been taught your whole lives that there are parts of the community where the schools don’t work very well; if there are sections of the community where there’s a lot of violence or abuse or despair or neglect, you should stay as far away from those parts of town as possible. Today, I want to urge you to do the opposite. I think you need to get closer to the parts of the communities where you live where there’s suffering and abuse and neglect. I want you to choose to get closer. We have people trying to solve problems from a distance, and their solutions don’t work, because until you get close, you don’t understand the nuances and the details of those problems. And I am persuaded that there is actually power in proximity.4
We must remain aware of the temptation to educate ourselves from an ivory tower. I’m a strong advocate of reading books, listening to podcasts, watching TED talks, and engaging with any other form of intellectual education, but I’m also conscious of the limits these place on our ability to be fully awake. Our history of race has resulted in a variety of inequalities throughout society, and we can’t fully understand these inequalities from a distance. We can learn about ideas like race, culture, and identity in a classroom setting, but it’s far more transformational to learn through actual proximity to suffering.
I often speak with white people who resonate with this point but are unable to imagine how to move from their comfortable quarters into greater proximity with suffering. There are certainly no one-size-fits-all answers to this question. In his book Irresistible Revolution, my friend Shane Claiborne tells the story of a summer that he spent with Mother Teresa. That ten-week period had a profound impact on his development, but it left him uncertain about how he could continue the work when he returned to Philadelphia. Feeling desperate, he asked Mother Teresa for advice. She replied, “Calcuttas are everywhere if only we have eyes to see. Find your Calcutta.”5
It should come as no surprise that at the center of these wise words is a call to increased awakening. Mother Teresa was reminding Shane that the problem wasn’t just the absence of suffering in his hometown; it was his inability to see the suffering. When we pray to have our eyes opened, as Mother Teresa urged Shane to do, God transforms our vision in unexpected ways. We can never discount the role of the Holy Spirit as we look for ways to become more proximate to the suffering all around us.
One leader that has really shaped my thinking around the concrete action that white people can take is Pastor Dee McIntosh, founder of the Lighthouse Covenant Church in Minneapolis.6 She says that one of her biblical heroes is Nehemiah, whose reconciliation story reflects a number of justice-savvy qualities that should be emulated as we embark on our own journey. She points out that this Old Testament account opens with a grim report on the city of Jerusalem, which had been laid to waste by the Babylonians and then by the Assyrians.
All the able-bodied Jewish men, women, and children were captive, so the only inhabitants left were orphans and widows. The city no longer had the means and resources to accommodate the needs of the people, nor could it protect them from the destructive forces that intended to harm them. The urban Jews were displaced, dispossessed, and disenfranchised. Hanani, one of Nehemiah’s brothers, headed to the palace to share the “great trouble and disgrace” of the residents (Nehemiah 1:3).
In the best sermon I’ve ever heard on the book of Nehemiah, Pastor Dee named four traits that Nehemiah demonstrated when he heard of the pain in the city: First, he took seriously the report from the people who were in the midst of the suffering, and he didn’t insist on confirmation from outside sources to validate the reality of the misery. Second, he responded by entering into an extended period of lament. Third, he repented—first for ancestral sin, second for the sins of the Israelite nation, third for his own complicity. Fourth, and finally, he responded with concrete action (Nehemiah 1:2, 4, 6-10, 11).7
Each of the first three steps was of critical importance and was covered in previous chapters. The fourth step is the most germane to this chapter, and Pastor Dee described Nehemiah’s concrete response like this:
Nehemiah recognizes the context in which he lives. He recognizes that he is in a seat of privilege that those in the inner city do not have. He recognizes that he has the capacity to influence people who look just like him, who come from the same context as him, and have resources, and he takes all of those resources that he has into the inner city of Jerusalem and he says, “How might I work with you?”8
She then expanded on the resources he had and focused on the social capital of Nehemiah as a high-ranking member of the king’s court. When he was awakened to the pain of the city, he took the risk to access and then spend that social capital and to share those resources with the people who most desperately needed them.
Nehemiah recognized many important things, but let’s focus on just one integrated idea: becoming aware of our social capital and networks and then spending that capital for the cause of reconciliation and justice. Here are two questions we can regularly ask ourselves:
I’ve tried to ask these questions of myself at each stage of my development, and the answers have evolved during the various seasons of my life. For example, when I left the Willow Creek staff, I had one kind of social capital to spend. I wasn’t aware of that capital at the time, but leaving to plant a church in the city was celebrated widely by a number of white, suburban churches. This was bizarre to me, as I didn’t see what I was doing as particularly noble, and I expected to fail. But my insecurities did nothing to stop a strange narrative from forming that made me seem like a heroic figure: “Young white pastor leaves comfort of the riches of Willow Creek and goes to plant a church among the poor of the inner city.”
This was not a narrative I started, and I did everything I could to curtail it, but I was aware of its persistence. It made me sad, because it was one more reminder of how disconnected the white church is from churches led by people of color. There were amazing, persistent, rooted, trustworthy ministries doing important work, but for all kinds of reasons they were (and are) ignored by most of the white church. And when a privileged, educated person like me leaves the comforts of white Christianity to join in this work, we talk about it in almost messianic ways.
Much more could be said about this dynamic, but that would take me too far off the point. Despite the obvious flaws in this preferential treatment, it would have been ignorant of me to overlook the privilege that came with it and not reflect on how that privilege and social capital could be spent on behalf of justice. Using the two questions above, I reflected on how to do this best. If I put it in a Q&A format, it would have sounded like this:
Q: What social capital do I have access to?
A: The attention of dominant culture congregations who want to talk about urban church planting
Q: In what ways can I spend that social capital for the sake of justice?
A: Take myself out of the center and point their interest at churches that have been doing the work credibly for a long time
The fascination with River City’s launch lasted only a year or so, but during that time I received a handful of invitations to speak about the journey of urban church planting. With the Nehemiah template in my head, I prayed and tried to find ways to recenter their interest. And I consistently declined speaking opportunities, encouraging white churches to invite pastors that had served in the city for a long time.
Over time, that form of social capital disappeared, and I had to be on the lookout for new forms of currency that could be brought to the common table. Recently, the Nehemiah principle has played out in the fundraising we do for our nonprofit arm, the River City Community Development Center.9 While we are like most nonprofits in that we typically feel overworked and underresourced, we understand that we are extremely privileged. While we don’t have many in the River City congregation that have excess monetary wealth, we have a number that are connected to a robust social network. This has translated into our community development efforts getting far more exposure than the typical neighborhood nonprofit, and we see that as a privilege. We have therefore committed ourselves to be advocates for some of the other wonderful nonprofit organizations we’re in relationship with and to look for ways to share our funders with their ministries as well.
No two stories are alike, so the ways you become aware of, access, and spend social capital for the sake of justice will look different from mine. But there should be lots of similar themes in our stories. We can each learn from and emulate the story of Nehemiah and follow the pattern of his efforts: hear the pain, lament the pain, repent for complicity, and join in the efforts.
One of the most effective ways to be transformed out of a fix-it mode and into a learn-to-see mode is to find a place where you can serve consistently. I was fortunate to receive this advice during my awakening era while working at Willow Creek, and it led me to a wonderful organization called Bethel New Life located in the West Garfield Park neighborhood of Chicago. Bethel New Life works with families that are trying to break the cycle of poverty. Each Saturday Bethel would host a series of activities and programs for the families in the neighborhood. These programs depended on volunteers, and since I was a twentysomething volunteer with a lot of free time, it was a perfect match.
I began going to Bethel two Saturdays a month, and though I enjoyed the volunteer aspect of it, I also found it to be more uncomfortable than I’d expected. For one, I realized that I was still carrying all kinds of ignorant and uninformed perspectives about those who live in poverty. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I had been significantly shaped by the deficit theory (a term that I was unfamiliar with at the time but which is the most accurate way to classify my perspective). Again, deficit theory views poor people through a deficit lens: namely, they are poor because of their own moral and intellectual deficiencies.10
The version of this that I had been groomed to believe was that the fundamental problem of those living in poverty was that they didn’t work hard enough. If they would develop a stronger work ethic, the narrative went, it would almost single-handedly lift them out of poverty. But as I was with these families at Bethel each Saturday, that viewpoint was challenged in a major way. What I saw were families whose work ethic put mine to shame, with many of the mothers working as many as three jobs to make ends meet. It was very uncomfortable to have my inadequate perspectives challenged in such a mighty way, and it was transformational. The ugliness of poverty disturbed me, and I haven’t been the same since. I was also humbled by the grace and resilience these families showed as they navigated poverty continually, and they taught me epic lessons about faith.
The other significant lesson during that era confronted my pride. Though I had signed up with the intention of serving however Bethel needed me to volunteer, I had an unstated assumption that before long I’d take on a leadership role. After all, I was a staff worker from Willow Creek, and church leaders from around the country came to learn from our church. I didn’t complain the first few times I was assigned tasks that seemed menial to me, such as overseeing craft tables and serving hot dogs. But when it became clear that these kinds of tasks might be my permanent assignment, I began to get restless. I even began to wonder if it was bad stewardship for me to have my leadership gifts underutilized, given that I was spending so much time there.
It took longer than it should have for me to find the cure to this dilemma. I eventually realized how many different forms of pride my attitude represented. I was not only overstating my own abilities, I was also understating the abilities of the men and women who ran Bethel New Life. Over time it became clear to me that those on the frontlines were the experts on what needed to happen—not me. After all, what did I even know about working with families facing abject poverty? It was ridiculous that I was feeling tension about my leadership being underutilized, though it was also predictable. This continues to be one of the classic combinations that come with early stages in the blindness-to-sight journey: an underestimation of how serious the problem is and an overestimation of our ability to effectively solve the problem.
I tell this story to emphasize the point that we need not only to find a place where we can serve consistently but also to do so without expecting to lead or be in charge. People eagerly volunteer and, in an attempt to be helpful, try to employ their ideas. We need a different posture in our service—one of waiting to be invited in. An elder at River City who coaches young leaders in our congregation says, “You may have gifts that can be shared in this environment, but wait for them to ask you for them. It’s always better to be invited than to invite yourself.” We’d do well to listen.
This is consistent with the posture of Jesus himself, who reminded his disciples that “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve” (Mark 10:45). The path of wisdom chooses humility over pride and service over ego. When we serve consistently and humbly, it positions us to see new things and build trust with the organization. This creates a unique opportunity to go deeper in our cultural identity journey.
In chapter one, I shared an exercise in which I was instructed to take an inventory of the voices that were informing me as a person. I organized the exercise around four groups of voices: my closest friends, the mentors I looked to for guidance, the preachers/teachers/theologians I relied on for spiritual guidance, and the authors of the books I was reading. This led to the painful realization that my world had been and was continuing to be shaped almost exclusively by white voices. I knew I needed to put myself in positions where I was under the leadership of people of color.
Chances are high that, if you’re white, your results would be the same. The pastors of your church, the Sunday school teachers, the mentors who speak words of life to you, your small group leader, anyone else who is a major influence for you—it’s likely that this group is overwhelmingly white. It’s the unavoidable fruit of living segregated lives.
The big question is, will you have the will to change that? I use the word will because placing yourself under the leadership of people of color is more difficult than it sounds. Most of us have no idea how strongly we prefer white styles of leadership, communication, decision making, etc., until we submit to a leader of color. In that new arena, we discover how life in America is lived on two different sides of a racial divide. When you’re a person of color, it doesn’t matter if you prefer to be under a leader from your own cultural group; you still have to learn to adapt to white leaders. But when you’re white, you can choose to stay under the leadership of white people your entire life. And when you experiment with putting yourself under a leader of color, you have the choice to opt out as soon as it becomes uncomfortable for you.
Therefore, putting yourself under the leadership of a person of color is a matter of will. To do it, you must possess the will to endure if it gets uncomfortable for you. You must possess the will to check your own privilege when it flares up—which it will. You must possess the will to push forward, even when everything in you wants to give up.
In chapter eight, I explored the concept of self-righteousness and the tendency we have to rest our identity on the idea of racism reflecting binary categories of good people and bad people. Rather than seeing growth as progress on a spectrum from blindness to sight, we face a constant temptation to establish a cultural identity through association with the good people and condemnation of the bad ones.
One of the casualties of an allegiance to the good/bad binary is what Dr. Robin DiAngelo refers to as “the very unhelpful phenomenon of un-friending on Facebook,”11 where we distance ourselves from white people who don’t align with our values. Because we don’t want to be implicated in their badness, we literally or metaphorically excommunicate them from our friendship circle. We may believe that this shows solidarity with people of color, and we hope that the dramatic gesture confirms that we’re staying awake.
Unfortunately, this type of thinking is backward. It’s not a dramatic gesture at all, because one of the easiest actions we can take is to turn our back on someone who doesn’t agree with us. And the tendency to engage in un-friending is one of the primary fuel sources of self-righteousness, as it promotes the false good/bad binary. Finally, it exonerates us from one of the important duties of a white-awake person: investing in other white people. DiAngelo asked, “If we don’t work with each other, if we give in to that pull to separate, who have we left to deal with the white person that we’ve given up on and won’t address?”12
I admit that I’ve fallen into this trap many times myself. It’s frustrating and emotionally depleting to plead with white friends, family members, and associates to take racism seriously, and when they don’t, it’s easy to go to a self-righteous place and tune them out. But when this happens, everyone loses. I lose. The person I’ve tuned out or un-friended loses. And people of color lose, since we fail to be genuine allies in this work.
So one of the most positive, actionable things we can do to advance the cause is to resist the temptation to un-friend those that frustrate us (in whatever form we do that) and choose to invest actively in white people. This is making the choice to engage the coworker who makes a crude comment about someone of another race—not by showing him up but by taking an opportunity to talk about the history of racism. This is making the choice to engage with that uncle at the Thanksgiving table; instead of rolling your eyes when he makes a snide remark, start a discussion about how the family has dealt with (or not dealt with) race.
It may not seem like the most enticing work, but engaging with the white people in our extended community is one of the most concrete ways to make a difference. The apathy, indifference, and even hatred in the white community are the chief threats to racial progress in our country, and any little spark we can ignite is positive for the movement as a whole.
Dr. Christena Cleveland is a social psychologist, public theologian, author, and the first Associate Professor of the Practice of Reconciliation at Duke University’s Divinity School. Her book Disunity in Christ is one of my favorite resources for racial reconciliation, especially because of the unique way she integrates social psychology and theology. In a lecture at Fuller Seminary, Cleveland introduced the term sociological imagination, which she defined as being able to see the social structures around us: the factors that influence who we are as individuals, the social groups and belief systems we are a part of, and how these affect us as well as the larger society.13 In short, sociological imagination involves knowing where we’re socially located in our society.
When reflecting on this notion of sociological imagination for seminarians (though it can be as easily be applied to a number of different spheres), Cleveland said, “When you go and join a church staff, or you go and join a nonprofit staff, are you taking this sociological imagination with you such that when you join this new organization, are you thinking, ‘Okay, well where am I located . . . not just in the larger society, but in the context of this organization?’”14 She then went on to ask these questions:
Being able to locate yourself socially may not sound complicated, but my experience suggests it’s difficult for white people, especially when we are in crosscultural settings. Sometimes I think this is due to embarrassment about being white. Sometimes I think it’s due to sheer unawareness. Sometimes I think it’s because we want to project a spirit of cultural confidence, and we think that downplaying our whiteness will help. Whatever the reason, the result is that we have anemic sociological imaginations with a corresponding inability to self-identity our social location with clarity.
It often strikes white people as counterintuitive, but one of the best ways to develop trust and credibility in crosscultural circles is to locate yourself humbly. In my early stages of grappling with my whiteness, I frequently made the mistake of downplaying my whiteness. I hoped that if I pretended it wasn’t there, it wouldn’t harm anyone. But this backfired, as it placed doubt in the minds of the people of color as to whether they could trust my leadership. How could they entrust the needs that came with life in their social location to a leader who couldn’t articulate the dynamics that came with his social location?
So I began to get braver with acknowledging my social location. Each time I shared in a crosscultural setting, I located myself and fully acknowledged the uncertainty I felt being in that circle as a white man. I also pledged to do my best to listen and learn humbly. This was always more vulnerable than I wanted to be, and it flew in the face of how I had been taught to view leadership. (Leaders should be confident and clear on where they’re going, right?) To my surprise, this consistently engendered deeper trust and confidence among the people I was working with. They weren’t looking to partner with a white leader who was unaware of his social location or unwilling to acknowledge it; they were looking for someone who could authentically and honestly ask questions about what that meant and how it affected me, them, and the world around us.
I also like Cleveland’s term sociological imagination because it has the potential to transform the way you interact with every social sphere you occupy: your family, your friends, your church, your school, and your work. Seeing the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world with greater clarity positions you to recognize the ways that the battle plays out in each of those spheres and to seek ways that you can become a change agent in them. Watching this happen has been one of the unexpected joys of emphasizing cultural identity so much at River City.
Rob, who works in commercial real estate in Chicago, has been on a steady transformational journey regarding white cultural identity for the past decade, and he recently emerged as a major change agent in his industry. As his social awareness and then his sociological imagination strengthened, he began to notice not only that the commercial real estate industry was almost entirely white but also that it seemed to be systemically inaccessible to people of color. As he probed into the reasons for that, he concluded that it was largely due to the fact that most real estate jobs were obtained through friends of family or fraternity brothers already in the industry. For minorities to get into the business, they would almost have to be sought out by someone in the industry who valued diversity strongly enough to buck the trend. While that could happen in theory, Rob saw little evidence to confirm that it did.
So he began to work for greater awareness and increased justice. As someone well respected within the industry, he risks his social capital to do this. He has been talking about it at conferences, bringing it up in meetings, and consistently pushing it with leaders in the industry—and he believes his efforts are making a major impact. It started with widespread discomfort, as nobody likes having a veil of systemic racism pulled back. But the discomfort led to constructive conversations, and fruit is starting to be borne from those conversations.
Most notably Rob has partnered with the founder of a large development company to create an organization that brings awareness of the commercial real estate industry to communities that might not know much about the profession. They will team with colleges and companies to teach and train minority students in the commercial real estate industry. The organization has already garnered support from the CEOs of some of the largest companies. I suspect even more changes are to come, and it’s directly tied to Rob developing a sociological imagination and combining it with the courage to do something.
I realize Rob has enough access to his industry to create change, but I believe the principles apply no matter what level of influence you have within your workplace. Some awakened individuals have had significant impacts in workplaces. Rebecca works for a national nonprofit that does great work for a marginalized people group but has a workforce that’s 98 percent white. By simply having the courage to mention this racial disparity to her boss, this became a serious issue in the organization. She was asked to write a memo on the importance of being an organization that dealt with issues of marginalization both internally and externally, and that memo traveled all the way up to the CEO.
Mark works at a school in the Chicago Public Schools system, which has different standards for white students and students of color. As he has become awakened, he has used sociological imagination and courageously started a diversity committee at his school to address biases. Who knows how that might impact future directions there?
Taken together, these stories inspire us to locate ourselves, develop a sociological imagination, and then step forward courageously. We can each play an important role in instigating systemic change.
I’m a big fan of mentorship; I believe it’s important that we both honor and learn life lessons from those who have walked the road longer and farther than we have. However, I think it’s a mistake to fall into the trap of thinking that the only people who can or should mentor us are older and/or more experienced. Often the greatest subject matter experts on race, justice, and identity are the young people who navigate this world on a daily basis—particularly those who are coming of age in dangerous and challenging social settings.
This simple truth has revolutionized the way we think about mentorship at River City. We have a fundamental conviction that investing in the young people of our community is the most important kingdom work we can do, and for a long time we’ve been encouraging adults to get involved at our church by mentoring young people. But over time we realized that mentorship isn’t only one way—from the adult to the young person. Often the reverse was happening. The young people in our community have to navigate and overcome unthinkable challenges, ranging from gang activity to gun violence to a culture of drugs. The skills necessary to survive in a setting like that eclipse anything that many of our adult mentors have ever had to face. So it made sense to treat these relationship as mutual mentoring.
We changed the name of the adult position from mentor, which had been in place for many years, to listener. We weren’t denying the need to have stable mentors who would become part of the larger adult network surrounding these young people. But by changing the name to listener, we acknowledged that the adults needed to learn too. By listening to what these young people were experiencing and by coming to understand how they were navigating challenging circumstances, adults were entering into a relationship that was as transformational for them as it was for the young people.
This principle is true in my life as well. I love Sundays with my community and am very busy from early in the morning until the completion of our service. But what happens next is the highlight of my week. The young people take over the building thirty minutes after the service ends, and they hang out there for the rest of the afternoon. I just sit with them and listen to them talk. Their resilience and creativity consistently amaze me, and I learn much from them every Sunday. I feel like the luckiest guy in the world to have access to so many young people, and I wish that for you as well. If you don’t have access to young people—especially young people in the midst of dangerous and challenging social realities—I strongly recommend searching for a church or organization that you can partner with. The lessons you’ll learn will be priceless.
I so love the encounter between Nicodemus and Jesus, and I’ve carried the content of that conversation in my heart for a lot of years now: “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again” (John 3:3).
The center of all these conversations on race, justice, reconciliation, and cultural identity remains eternally the same: Jesus Christ. I believe the kingdom of God is the central priority of Jesus. I believe that being born again is a beautiful invitation to a baptism into a new reality with Christ. I also believe that if we’re going to take seriously the process of awakening, we must prepare to dig in for the long haul. While I don’t want to discourage anyone from boldly moving forward, I’m tempted to say that it’s not worth stepping into this journey unless you’re ready to follow Jesus all the way to the end.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” deeply touched the nation. Writing on April 16, 1963, King was unusually vulnerable about the hurt he felt toward the indifference and even criticism that he received from the white Christian community. Leaving himself wide open, King shared this:
I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate . . . who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season . . .” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
These words are haunting for me, and they serve as a constant reminder of the dangers of a halfhearted pursuit of cultural identity.
While most of us would like to live under the illusion that the great threat to racial progress is the “bad” white people, King dispels that. Even back in 1963, he was clear that it was not the “bad” people of the White Citizens’ Council or the Ku Klux Klan that were the greatest threat to progress but instead the “white moderate,” who often demonstrated “shallow understanding” and “lukewarm acceptance.” For King, halfhearted commitment was far more confusing than absolute rejection. He then added an important commentary:
I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much. I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action.
To put his words in the positive, can we develop the vision to see that “injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action”? I believe King was 100 percent right when he said this, and with these brilliant words he left us with a call to full devotion to the kingdom vision of Jesus. To participate in this work, we have to dig in for the long haul. We have to take seriously that life as we know it is a battle between two competing kingdoms and that we must be strong, we must be persistent, and we must be determined.
Following Jesus into an awakening of cultural identity requires a life of robust faith. That’s why an image I often come back to for sustenance in the journey is this: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2).
There’s a lot I love about this passage. I love that there’s a great cloud of witnesses that has gone before us, and they now surround us with prayer, cheering us on as we press forward. I love (as well as loathe) the reminder that sin so easily hinders us, requiring us to repent and refresh regularly. I love the reminder that we must run this race with perseverance.
As much as I love each of those truths, what I most love is the description of Jesus as the pioneer of our faith. A pioneer leads the way into unchartered territory and thus creates a path for others to follow.
Isn’t that an inspiring way to think about the role of faith in our cultural identity journey? It reminds me that sustenance for the journey doesn’t come from inside me. The courage, the strength, the wisdom, the humility, the direction—they all come from Jesus. He is the pioneer of this faith journey, and he is the one who charts the course. My job is to listen for his voice and then to follow him bravely as he blazes the trail. I can’t see the master plan or precisely where he’s leading me, but I can see him carving out the path right in front of me. And if I follow, one step at a time, he will protect and guide me into a deeper awakening.
I pray that I will continue to meet Jesus in powerful ways, and I pray that you will too. I pray that you are able to throw off everything that hinders you from moving forward. I pray that you fix your eyes on Jesus, the pioneer of your faith. And I pray that, in return, he opens your eyes to see his kingdom in ways that go beyond what you could ever imagine.