2 of 8

Ellis: Mark, you don't think Johnny Whiteguy is going to stay in the dialogue if he's called a racist. What I see there is what I call a convenient reaction: "I'm not going to deal with it if they're going to call me a racist." I think for the Christian leader, that's not an option. The option is to listen to what's really being said and then ask questions with the goal of understanding. We need to find out what people are describing, as opposed to taking offense at their language, because in leadership it comes with the territory.

Franklin: The old labels—bigot, racist—don't help this conversation move anywhere. But can the Emerson/Smith way of talking about a "racialized society" help the average white person admit that society assigns certain privileges and benefits, certain doors of access, on the basis of possessing white skin? For many in the black community, having whites acknowledge this is a kind of litmus test as to whether or not we can have an honest dialogue.

Ortberg: It's strange that Christians today would say, "I'm not a racist." That strikes me as odd for a people who generally acknowledge some form of human depravity. Somebody once asked Dallas Willard, "Do you believe in total depravity?" He said, "I believe in sufficient depravity." That is, when we get to heaven we are sufficiently depraved and nobody will be able to say, "I merited this on my own."Well, if depravity touches me as a sexual being and in my ways of dealing with anger and so on, it would be remarkable if the one area in my life in which sin did not touch me was racially. So everyone in our society, particularly those of us who are in positions of privilege, is fallen in terms of racial issues. But when the problem isn't obvious, and there are no laws on the books, we lack language to talk about it.

Gilbreath: Emerson and Smith's main conclusion is that evangelical theology, with its emphasis on individualism and personal relationships, makes it extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to deal with systemic issues of racial injustice. Is that an accurate assessment?

Packer: I think the substance is right. Evangelical Christianity starts with the individual person: the Lord gets hold of the individual; the individual comes to appreciate certain circles—the smaller circle of the small group, the larger circle of the congregation. These circles are where the person is nurtured and fed and expanded as a Christian. So, we evangelicals are conditioned to think of social structures in terms of what they do for us as individuals.That's all right, but it does lead us to settle too soon for certain self-serving social structures. And we are slow to pick up the fact that some of the social units that we appreciate for that reason can have unhappy spinoff effects on other groups.

Lyons: I don't believe evangelical theology is inherently predisposed to racism. I think the American cultural adaptation and interpretation of evangelical theology overlooks all kinds of stuff. And therein lies the malady. Good theology and the message of the Cross is adequate. What we have done to the Cross is another story. We've made La-Z-Boy versions of it, instead of just picking up the cross and following Jesus. So, while there is a definite tendency towards individualism among evangelicals, to say that it stems from our theology is a stretch. I don't make that leap. Biblical theology is adequate, but our cultural adaptations and interpretations are twisted and warped.

next page... |  2 of 8

share this page

October 2 2000, Vol. 44, No. 11