New York Times bestselling author and historian Jemar Tisby recently joined Interfaith Alliance President and Baptist Minister Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush to discuss racism within white evangelicalism, the broader church, and the critical role of intercultural relations in achieving racial justice.
Presented by Belief stateInterfaith Alliance’s weekly radio show, podcast the discussion centered on what Tisby characterized as a rejection of broader evangelicalism because of its engagement with issues of racial reconciliation.
The African-American author spoke of coming to the Christian faith in a “white, evangelical context” and in a youth group where pastoral messages began to permeate. By accepting Christ through the sinner’s prayer in youth group, Tisby began a path to becoming a lifelong Christian. , unaware, he described, of the extent to which race was entrenched in religion among his fellow evangelicals.
Tisby attended the University of Notre Dame and became involved in social justice through service projects that led him to work at the Center for Social Concerns on campus. Shortly after, he was introduced to Reformed theology through books “even whiter than the evangelism of Notre Dame.” He attended a Dutch Reformed Christian church where he was “the only black” and “an outsider in every way.”
Raushenbush called Reformed theology a “strong movement” interested in what could be “pure Christianity.”
“They wanted to be THE essential,” stressed the liberal Protestant pastor from Mainline. “It’s a very theologically conservative movement and they claims Christianity aggressively.
Tisby claimed that he was part of the more conservative branch of Reformed theology, implying that “we are making Christianity successful.”
After graduating, Tisby joined Teach for America, teaching sixth grade social studies in Arkansas, the fourth poorest county in the country.
“All of these ‘social issues’ now have a human face, and they show up every day in my classroom, in the families in the community that I interact with,” Tisby recalls. “This exposure to generational injustice in the form of racism and economic exploitation conflicts with this Reformed and evangelical tradition that I belong to, which doesn’t seem to have much to say about the material social problems of the world real. So, I start asking questions about my faith and how my faith relates to what I see every day in the (Mississippi River) Delta.
Tisby proposed that people need to understand the intricacies that occur: “It’s not like Reformed and evangelical leaders are saying we shouldn’t care about anyone, but what they’re saying is that is incidental. They would use this language “at the heart of the gospel or as an implication of the gospel.” The idea is that what’s at the heart of the gospel are these kinds of high theological questions about salvation and redemption and these intellectually rigorous questions.
Tisby suggested that anything other than these issues was “selective social issues.”
“If it was about abortion, they’d be talking about that at the heart of the gospel or some other issue, but if it’s about fighting racism or poverty, ‘well, you know, of course, but don’t make a big deal out of it because it replaces the Gospel and not the core (of the Gospel).’
This problem created a “what should I do about this” moment for Tisby and led him to sign up for Reformed Theological Seminary“who is ultra conservative and has had direct exposure to the racism that exists in these white churches. »
While in seminary, Tisby launched the African American Leader Initiative, exposing him to what he called “haters, whispering, and backbiting toward people engaged in racial justice work.”
He recalls a time when “a member of our group, who was white, casually said that some of the other students were talking about ALLI (African American Leadership Initiative) and how it was a distraction from the Gospel. They wonder why you are doing this.
Tisby remembers feeling hurt and deeply hurt: “These are the people I sit next to in class. Unbeknownst to me, they think that what I do and what I am involved in is not “really biblical.” I thought, “Oh, it’s close to me, right next to me.” It’s not far from racism, it’s really here on campus.
The color of compromise The author cited historical examples: “the election of (Barack) Obama as the first black president (of the United States) or the rise of the Tea Party, the murder of Trayvon Martin, the rise of Black Lives Matter after the murder by Mike Brown,” concluding that “all of these things mean you can be black or Christian, but you can’t be both.”
Tisby realized, “God made me dark on purpose, it’s not an accident and it’s not something I have to get rid of or leave behind to be a Christian.” This is who I am as a Christian. So I volunteered to step down, but it was very clear that in the circles I was in, the work I was doing and representing was not welcome.
Raushenbush praised Tisby’s efforts: “You gave people the opportunity to express these ideas in a way that was welcoming and engaging.” I respect all of you and this tradition that gave me my conversion enough to engage on these issues, but you also engaged this community and asked if we could talk about it. This is part of a broader effort by Black Christian leaders who live predominantly in white Christian spaces to say “can we all grow up”?
“I think of the Southern Baptist Convention which, you know, its origins are racist,” Raushenbush charged. “It’s not like it’s a mystery or anything like that, it’s very clear that the Southern Baptist Convention was started so that slave owners could own people.”
Tisby asserted, “Looking at it, how the Southern Baptist Convention starts is if you look at the name of a denomination and it has ‘South’ in the name, which means pro-slavery.
THE How to fight racism the author later founded the Reformed African American Network, today The Witness: a black Christian collective.
“People like me from my generation really believed in this story of racial reconciliation. We believed it when white churches and Christian leaders said they wanted reconciliation, they wanted diversity. So we entered in good faith into “their spaces,” their non-profit organizations, their churches, their seminars. And we made a good faith effort to expand the narrative.
Tisby contrasted the concepts of desegregation and integration.
“It’s the difference between unlocking a door, opening a door, going out on the street, inviting people in and making them feel welcome.”
Tisby assessed the desegregation of schools, businesses, and churches as passive in removing barriers to entry.
“If you use the DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) framework, it would be more of the inclusion part. Many of these Christian spaces desegregated but did not integrate. They haven’t really integrated Black people and other people of color, namely our cultures, our questions that we bring to theology and to God, and haven’t really integrated that into the life of the organization or of the congregation.
Tisby recalled an invitation from Grove Municipal College multicultural coordinator in October 2020 before the presidential election.
“I go there, and the experience is good, it’s definitely a conservative college and student body, there are, you know, slight disagreements in students’ questions, but nothing out of the ordinary. I’m moving on. It’s only a year later that this online petition, “Save GCC from CRT,” Save Grove City College from Critical Race Theory, is being put forward by these alumni, by these donors, with very little student participation. But basically it lists all the reasons why Grove City College is going down the path of “bad woke liberal left” and among their grievances they cite my appearance at the college a year prior.
After the 2016 election, Tisby recalled a sinking feeling.
“This is not going to be good for the country. This will not be good for black people or immigrants. I also knew that there were people in my church who were celebrating, they were happy, “Christianity had returned to the White House”, their concerns were priority. Again, it’s not about distance. This is my church family, they have held my child, we have prayed together, we have shared meals together and been to each other’s homes. And yet, for 81% of white evangelicals who voted to pull the lever for (Donald) Trump and have this reality in my own church, it was like: What am I doing here?
“It’s almost like this missionary mentality where in many American missions, in history, these white missionaries would go to different countries and serve in different ways, but they actually lived separately,” Tisby said. “They wouldn’t really be one of the people who had to perform. I try to incorporate the experiential lived reality of things like white Christian nationalism into my work. This affects real people in real congregations.