Having been singled out in the original petition that started off the "Grove City College is going 'woke'" scare, I thought it worthwhile to read for myself what is contained in Reading While Black by Anglican Priest and Wheaton College professor, Esau McCaulley (I've heard him interviewed previously on the HolyPost podcast and been impressed). What dangerous ideas are contained herein, or is it all just Culture War smoke? Is there not value in having students at a college that is 94% white with only one Black professor (himself singled out by the resultant committee as part of the problem)??
That being said, let me share the first passage that made me set the book down and think (from page 11, it didn't take long):
In my evangelical seminary almost all the authors we read were white men...It seemed that whatever was going on among Black Christians had little to do with real biblical interpretation. I swam in this disdain, and even when I rejected it vocally, the doubt seeped into my subconscious. Eventually I started to notice a few things. While I was at home with much of the theology in evangelicalism, there were real disconnects. First, there was the portrayal of the Black church in these circles. I was told that the social gospel had corrupted Black Christianity. Rather than placing my hope there, I should look to the golden age of theology, either in the early years of this country, or during the postwar boom of American Protestantism. But the historian in me couldn't help but realize that these apexes of theological faithfulness coincided with nadirs of Black freedom. (p. 11)
As someone who grew up in a county that was 95% white, going to a school that was 99% white and a church that was 100% white, I had no direct knowledge of the state of the Black Church in America, but Esau's observation that much of Evangelicalism has written off the Black Church as hopelessly tainted by the Social Gospel is an accurate reflection of the vibe that I felt as a young person. I can't point to a specific moment or person who advanced that notion, but it was there.
While it is true that the theology of any era of the Church could be tainted by the failures of that era in specific areas of sin, and the failures of a culture do not necessarily infect individuals within it {For example: Bonhoeffer rising above the Nazi-tainted theology of the Germany he grew up in}, that being said, the connection between leading American theologians and the dehumanizing treatment of Blacks should not be papered over. How could it be a Golden Age when so much of the American Church was acquiescent to, or even championing, such injustice? How can Evangelicalism be healthy if we don't reckon with this history, or worse yet, try to dismiss it? {For example: The troubling whitewashing of Jonathan Edwards' ownership of slaves by John Piper}
I learned that too often alongside the four pillars of evangelicalism...were unspoken fifth and sixth pillars. These are a general agreement on a certain reading of American history that downplayed injustice and a gentlemen's agreement to remain largely silent on current issues of racism and systematic injustice. How could I exist comfortably in a tradition that too often valorizes a period of time when my people couldn't buy homes in the neighborhood that they wanted or attend the schools that their skills gave them access to? How could I accept a place in a community if the cost for a seat at the table was silence? (p. 11-12)
And here is where the strong push-back against the idea of racial reconciliation following the murder of George Floyd comes into play. McCaulley's book was published in 2020, since then the amount of conversation and effort poured into being 'anti-woke' and anti-CRT, including official statements from the seminary presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention, speaks to the truth of the 'unspoken pillars' that he refers to. Efforts to speak to some of the true horrors of American history or efforts to understand and combat the racism that still infects our society today, have been condemned as threats against Christianity {thanks, in part, to the merging of Church and State in Christian Nationalism, to be a 'good Christian' one must be a patriotic American}. In his analysis, Esau McCaulley is speaking the truth, but it isn't one that many within Evangelical circles want to hear, hence the drive to purge Christian Colleges of such viewpoints.
{Further reading: When the shameful past of Racism hits close to home, a response to Richard Rothstein's The Color of Law which details the history of Redlining (the practice of keeping minorities out of white neighborhoods)}
I had difficulty with how the Bible functioned in parts of evangelicalism. For many, the Bible had been reduced to the arena on which we fought an endless war about the finer points of Paul's doctrine of justification...But I wondered what the Bible had to say about how we might live as Christians and citizens of God's kingdom...what about the exploitation of my people? What about our suffering, our struggle? (p. 12)
Here too I can relate to his observations about much of Evangelicalism. There is great emphasis on getting theology exactly right, but much less emphasis on the practical implications of that theology in the lives of disciples of Jesus. The social ethic of millions of American Christians {American is put first for a reason, it reflects part of the sickness} has been reduced to Pro-life (narrowly defined), anti-LGBTQ, and whatever Culture War topic is dominating the punditry at the moment. Does not the Bible have things to say to us about far more topics than these? Our call as followers of Jesus is supposed to be all-encompassing, yet only a handful of issues dominate all discussion and passions, and racial injustice is decidedly not one of them.
Rather than being a voice that Christian college students should be sheltered from, Esau McCaulley is sharing hard truth that the Church needs to hear, another indicator that the controversy at Grove City College is far more about politics than theology.
Biblical and wise thoughts of Esau McCaulley that I interacted with in October 2021: We ignore "repay evil with blessing" at our peril: the Culture War, politics, and 9/11
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