White Privilege, #BLM, Faith and Works - A Personal Reflection

Preamble

I have been a member of the progressive congregation of Trinity St. Paul’s United Church in Toronto for nearly twenty-five years. What hooked me was a fabulous choir led by a dynamic music director. I have sung Bach Cantatas, taize chants, modern Norwegian song cycles and many, many sacred hymns. Other ways I have contributed to the community include being part of the Pastoral Care Team and co-leading a series of contemplative retreats about the inner spiritual life. What I haven’t done is join any of the social justice action groups that are the life-blood of my congregation: climate justice, the conflict in the Middle East, LGBTQ+ rights, Indigenous rights and more. For reasons I get into below, I felt resistance to joining church led social action groups. I would join rallies and sign petitions as a concerned citizen but never as a member of TSP. George Floyd, Breanna Taylor, and so. many. others. changed that. Recently, I joined the TSP Public Witness Circle to address anti-Black racism. I am part of a sub-group that is thinking about a theological framework for making an institutional statement. In our first meeting I intended just to listen. I felt like I had much more to learn than to offer. But, after everyone else had spoken, my friend Lynne asked: “Gabrielle, do you have anything you’d like to say?” My heart started to beat more quickly. What could I add of value? What did I know about how a church witnesses to racism? But words did come flowing out of my mouth, and what I found myself saying was not an answer but a question: “What I want to know is what is so passionate in us and our faith that compels us to do this work?” This question seemed to energize my group. We each agreed to write a personal reflection. Mine is below. I am sharing because I hope it inspires my white friends to consider their own reasons for stepping up and doing the work of dismantling systemic racism. Please share in the comments section if you are so moved.

Personal Reflection on my decision to participate in TSP’s Public Witness on Anti-Black Racism

I was born at a time when Canadian children were taught that racism was bad.  This was demonstrated in my home as well.  Racism was not tolerated – full stop.  So, when I observed what was happening to black people – intolerance, violence, discrimination – I would condemn it.  As a first-year university student I found a racial slur in a library cubby that said, “Go f**k a black chick” and while at first, I just left it there and tried to find another place to study, I felt an impulse to do something and went back to erase it.  I tried scratching it out with my pen.  When that didn’t work, I used my saliva and finger to rub it off.  That night I recorded in my diary: “It wasn’t much, but I feel like this one small act was something.” It was my first action for racial justice.

Fast-forward twenty-five years – George Floyd is killed and in all my circles the act is roundly received with horror.  Instagram, twitter, Facebook become a series of black boxes with the simple hashtag #BLM.  I follow suit. But then, the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement call me out further.  They say: “White people it is time to check your white privilege that allows systemic racism to flourish in 21st century society.” 

They were speaking Truth and it cut right through me.  For the first time in my over five decades of life I thought about the ways that my skin colour gave me advantages that people from racialized groups didn’t have.  I thought of my predominantly white profession of archives.  I have been a strong advocate for women in archives but have never considered the racial bias in our archival practices.  I looked back at my hiring record.  Of the 100s of people I have hired over the years how many were racialized? Very, very few.  I was confronted with a shameful reality: I had not only benefitted from a system that privileged white people, I had perpetuated it.

The leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement also said: “It is not enough to condemn black racism. White people must act to dismantle the racist systems.” Sandy Hudson, the co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement presence in Canada spoke about this to our congregation in a recent sermon.  She began with passages from James 2: 14-25:

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters,[a] if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. 19 

 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25

Hudson’s words were very powerful, and her arguments for defunding police were convincing, but while she made an excellent case for “works” she left out something very important: faith. 

I came away from her sermon with a question: Where does my faith come into my response to white supremacy and systemic racism?  Many good, secular people are coming together to respond to systematic racism. How will mine, as a Christian, be a helpful addition?  

The question is a vital one. There are good reasons to leave my faith out of it altogether.  Christians have a bad track record when it comes to imposing their faith on others.  The United Church of Canada has issued apologies for its role in the Residential School System.  Missionary work to convert “the heathens” is roundly criticized now for oppressive hegemony that devalued others.  Much of the climate crisis can be traced back to a religious world-view that put humans at the centre at the expense of non-human ecosystems.  I don’t want to be part of something that later will be condemned as harmful.  

But faith has also been the rock on which such visionaries as Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, and Gandhi, have stood.  They are exemplaries of faith-based witness. What can I learn from them, and how will I stand on my own faith to respond to anti-black racism?  

I begin to answer this question by reflecting on the tenets of my faith.  What is my theological framework as it were? I come up with a list:

Tenets of my Faith

-       The Kindom is already here.  “I see a new Earth”. “We are a resurrection people”

-       All people are made in the image of God (Genesis 1: 26-27: Then God said, “Let us make man/woman in our image, according to Our likeness.”)

-       Jesus taught us to love our enemies; to love our neighbour as ourselves

-       We are called to be peacemakers

-       We are not alone.  We live in God’s world.

- We live in a world of abundance.

As I do this work of identifying the tenets of my faith, I notice that there is more to my inner resistance to joining this faith-based witness at TSP.  Not only have Christians got it very wrong in the past, I have also noticed that some Christian action is hardly recognizable from political action.  It can be accusatory, intolerant, and create divisions of “us” and “them.” It can be success-driven eerily mimicking the practises of capitalism.  Sometimes individual egos can inflame a situation rather than heal it.  A tone of self-righteousness can seep in.

The question now becomes how can I avoid these traps myself?  Here is a tentative list of ideas, many which need to be developed further.  My hope is that as a group we can practice (some of) them together.

How I want to practice Christian action

1.     Integrate contemplative practices 

-       All action will come from a place of deep connection with the LOVING God; I will be grounded in LOVE.  Contemplation is integral to action.

-       It is God that acts through me and I must be deeply attentive to God’s presence in my life; not me but God

-       I can use contemplative practices to develop sight to see the Kindom so I can point to it for others. 

-       I can dream with God for a better world (use the Christian imagination)

-       I can spend time in solitude. I can spend time in stillness and silence by myself and with others.

-       I can inhabit the words of Julian of Norwich: “The love of God creates in us such a oneing that when it is truly seen, no person can separate themselves from another.” 

2.     Integrate the Divine Feminine 

-       For millennia the masculine modality has prevailed.  In this modality it is fight or flight.  It is aggressive and power-driven.  What would it look like to bring in the divine feminine to this work? One person called it “tend and mend” – what would this look like? Other qualities of the divine feminine: spaciousness, softness, sweetness.  What else?

3.     Practise non-Dualism

-       Richard Rohr has been seminal in raising our awareness to how dualistic our frameworks can be.  How can non-dualism practises be brought into this work?

4.     Join the Fellowship of the Weak 

-       I am not alone. I do this work in community.  

-       I can let my heart break with God’s for the pain of the world (lament)

-       I can connect with times in my life when I have been “othered”; I can connect with the pain and lift it up to God.  I can connect my pain with the pain of other people and with Jesus’ suffering.

-       I can create space for listening to others.  I can take steps to widen my circle.

5.     Feed my soul with beauty and goodness

-       I can feed my soul with goodness and beauty as sustenance for the journey. I can do this in solitude and in community.

-       I can develop a discipline of celebration 

-       I can claim joy!