Joy on the Journey

Fault Lines is Voddie Baucham’s attempt to discredit the assumptions behind social justice, Critical Race Theory (CRT), Critical Social Justice and Intersectionality (CSJ/I) while also taking to task some of the people who embrace these perspectives.

One of my general frustrations that is really highlighted in this work is how those who have developed a knowledge of Scripture feel that their Biblical knowledge equips them to make sociological, anthropological, economic and political judgments. The Bible certainly has things to say about these areas, but analyses like this one use the Bible and incomplete work in other areas to make sweeping judgments. This is how Baucham handles the complicated and challenging issues of the emergence of CRT & CSJ/I.

Baucham begins the book with two chapters, Chapter 1 – A Black Man and Chapter 2 – A Black Christian that seem placed to provide legitimacy to his perspective on the issues of race which CRT & CSJ/I attempt to address. Curious for someone who has come to the conclusion that race really doesn’t matter, a position which is foundational to his analysis of CRT & CSJ/I. His use of two chapters to provide his racial credentials is interesting. Despite addressing his own race, his overall approach to the problems CRT & CSJ/I are seeking to solve are lightly addressed. For instance he has no comments about White supremacy. In other words, he is attacking CRT and CSJ/I, which were developed to address issues he chooses to essentially ignore.

Baucham has coined the term “Ethnic Gnosticism” to describe a belief that people who have dealt with ethnic oppression have a better understanding of ethnic oppression than people who haven’t. I think this is an overreach and misunderstanding of the meaning and value of experiential knowledge, which he actually attempts to employ through the subject matter of his first two chapters.

Foundational to his argument against CRT & CSJ/I is that CSJ/I is a worldview (p. 144). This is a claim with which I disagree. He writes “Tools don’t explain, worldviews do.” This to me is insufficient to assign worldview status to CRT & CSJ/I. Tools can indeed explain sociologically what is happening, and the Word of God can sit over the tool to reveal why what is happening is wrong.

There are areas I found agreement. For instance I do find legitimate the facts he uses to counter the “narrative” that Black men are indiscriminately being gunned down by police officers. That being said, the claims African Americans have against America for its treatment of race go way beyond police violence. None of which he directly addresses.

On page 230, Baucham states that his goal is not to destroy, but to expose, warn and correct in hopes that those who buy into the assertions of CRT & CSJ/I “may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil (2 Timothy 2:26).” Periodically, and much later in the book, he makes statements like “I harbor no animosity against anyone named in these pages (p. 230),” “in the meantime we must love (p. 224),” “we must listen to our sisters and brothers and show compassion (p 223).” But he makes these statements after stating unequivocally that any incorporation of terms or beliefs associated with CSJ/I has bought into a “threat to the gospel (p 230).” As well, the overall tone of this work really does more attacking than opening up space for dialogue.

I find uncharitable the way that Baucham goes after particular individuals who have made statements which he believes indicate that they buy in to CSJ/I. For example, on p. 121 he calls the understanding of the Bible held by Atlanta Pastor John Onwuchekwa (John O) heretical and implies what John O actually means based on a quote John O said. It is a dishonest way of approaching someone with whom you disagree. But it seems in the span of the argument, that John O is guilty of association with Jemar Tisby, which is enough for Baucham to unilaterally assign meaning to a particular quote John O made.

Baucham claims to stand on sola Scriptura but as one reviewer notes, he appears to believe in SOLO Scriptura. It seems to me that a more charitable way to oppose CSJ/I is to address why Derrick Bell originally developed it. Bell sought to investigate the extant inequities between Blacks and Whites in the 1970’s that were supposed to be solved by the Great Society laws of the 1960’s. Bell incorporated CRT (CSJ/I applied to race, I think) to analyze what was happening. There are a host of actual legal statements throughout US history that validate some of the claims made by CRT scholars.

Also, there is a continuum of scholars who at some level may employ CSJ/I, some of whom I stand with Baucham in disagreement with, but others who use CSJ/I as a tool I think should at least be heard. But he grabs what appears to be the most obnoxious to the Christian Bible-believer and paints all of these studies with the same broad brush.

He also undermines the devastating impact of racism on the Black community in America, stating that America is one of the “least racist countries in the world (p. 201).” I am not sure on what basis, and I am not sure how America earns this title in light of its sordid history with Native Americans and African Americans, among other minority groups. Unless he means that as bad as America is, just about every other country on the planet is worse. But if racism is a sin, that would be a unique way to treat sin, and one inconsistent with how historically Bible-believing evangelical Christians would say (at least verbally) is the way to treat sin.

On p. 203 Baucham has a rebuttal to the statement that the Constitution made Blacks 3/5 of a person as a compromise for the South. This was done to give Southern states some numerical benefit to their enslaved African American populations in the House of Representatives. Baucham states that individuals were not considered 3/5 of a person, but the entire Black population of Southern states were to count as 3/5 of what they would be if they were White. And he makes this point as a way of disputing the notion that Blacks were not held to be 3/5 of a person personally. I do not see the difference. Blacks could not vote, ostensibly on the basis of their inferiority. But the States were able to get some numerical value from their presence, ostensibly because the Southern states basically knew they were really humans and thus the Southern states were committing a grievous evil. Their status and this 3/5 qualification effectively rendered them legally with 60% of the dignity of Whites, but Baucham chooses not to see this. He cites language in that law that calls Blacks “persons” to indicate that Blacks had full personhood. But the actual history tells us otherwise. This legal rendering is exactly the type of thing CRT and CSJ/I have sought to expose.

I think Voddie Baucham is an outstanding student. It is clear that he has learned and incorporated a way of understanding the Bible and its interaction with the world that comes from the culture of White fundamentalists. He equates this view as foundational Biblical truth and judges those who see it differently as in error. He does not see the incorporation of cultural biases into his understanding of what counts as “scriptural” or not.

Baucham demonstrates how great a student he is on p. 228. I am sure many of his readers were elated to read his statement on that page that he had an epiphany in which he forgave both the Africans who sold his ancestors into slavery as well as the “Americans who bought and exploited them.” Treating both groups as equal, which he does elsewhere. My contention is that they were not equal; the Africans who sold other Africans to White slave traders were definitely sinners, treating other Africans as competing tribes, like all humans all over the planet do. The purchasers treated the enslaved Africans as chattel, families were split apart, more enslaved children were bred and sold, and America dealt with the inferior status of the Africans for centuries. Were both wrong? Yes. In the same way? No.

Further, he states on p. 228 that when he forgave, “I did not harbor any ill will. I did not feel entitled to any apologies or reparations.” This is his right, but is it right or fair to judge other African Americans who feel differently, especially in light of reparations for other Americans, Asians deterred during WW2, and even slaveholders in the 1860’s? What of the notion of repentance, as well as John the Baptist’s admonition to his hearers that the “bear fruit in keeping with repentance (Matthew 3:8)”?

I appreciate the passion Baucham has for the Word of God, and I think he makes good points about the “narrative” being pushed by the media. I agree that it was God’s providence that his ancestors and mine survived our ordeal, but the ordeal did not end with the abolition of slavery. Following its abolition included convict leasing, the backlash against Reconstruction, lynching and Jim Crow laws, and the struggle for dignity and personhood that continued into the 1960’s and even today.

The racialization of America was created for the purposes of the subjugation of Blacks by Whites for enslavement. America is not less racialized, and Black Americans do not know a Black American culture that did not have to deal with oppression and otherization. All this disappears for Baucham, in his mind, because he is a believer. I do not believe we are to dwell on the past, but I also don’t believe we pretend that following Jesus makes the past go away. Certainly the Apostle Paul still maintained a sense of identity as a Jewish man after coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ (Romans 11). But this is how Baucham seems to approach the status of Blackness in a racialized America. Something that goes away upon salvation. Like sin.

At the end of the book Baucham includes the Dallas Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel, of which he was one of the signers. A statement that, among other things, includes these two seemingly contradictory statements. A section entitled “Sin” includes the following sentence: “All human relationships, systems and institutions have been affected by sin.” That sounds very comprehensive. But the Dallas Statement does not consider this notion THAT comprehensive, because in the section entitled “Racism” is: “We deny that systemic racism is in any way compatible with the core principles of historic evangelical convictions.” This second statement must mean that while the first is true, historic evangelical convictions choose to not include racism as a sin that affects “All human relationships, systems and institutions” thereby making historic evangelical convictions inconsistent with the first statement and thus questionable. Rev. Dr. Dennis Edwards does an excellent job critiquing the Dallas Statement here https://www.missioalliance.org/reflections-after-the-statement-on-social-justice-and-the-gospel-whats-this-really-all-about/.

My hope is that Baucham is telling the truth when he claims to desire conversation among brothers regarding CRT and CSJ/I, but I do not see much evidence of this desire in the book.

Today I finished the book Leadership Courage: Leadership in a Culture of Cowardice, written by my coach and friend Kirk Kirlin. Here are my notes from the book.

“Leadership Courage” represents Kirk Kirlin’s plea for the church to wake up to be what Jesus called it to be, in a world that desperately needs the salt and light we are. Kirk asserts that church leadership has gotten soft, that pastors have acquiesced to the demands of congregation members to be cared for, to focus church resources internally and to not be challenged. And yet Kirk notes that this is not the way of Jesus. Jesus cast vision for a church that is outward focused. Kirk believes that the world desperately needs a church that is pursuing it with Christ’s love, but to get there, church leaders must realize that they are not in the church member comforting business, they are in the people development business. Church leaders must lead with courage to take people where they need to go. Because these are the marching orders of our Founder Himself, Jesus Christ, who is quoted in Luke 9:23 as stating “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”

Kirk builds off Edwin Friedman’s book “A Failure of Nerve”, along with his own personal experiences in ministry as well as his experiences coaching many church leaders, including me.

Kirk opens the book with the statement “The American church has a courage problem.” He asserts that courage is essential to leadership, courage being defined as “…not the absence of fear…but moving forward in the face of fear.” Kirk writes that God is calling church leaders to lead with wide open hearts, risking pain, because the goal is being a human fully alive, in which is the glory of God. In this posture people will see the power of God and be drawn to His love. Kirk writes that the unchurched suffer when churches fail to be salt and light in their communities. In other words, the world is worse when the church fails to reach out with love to the surrounding community.

Decisive, clear and disruptive are three descriptors of courageous leadership. It is not courageous leadership but a culture of cowardice that prioritizes comfort in its members as opposed to challenge. Church members must be led, not coddled. We read in Ephesians 4 that God has gifted leaders to the church to “12 equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” A worthy goal; one not stumbled into, but approached with intention and even effort.

Kirk writes with passion because what is at stake is the eternity of those who do not yet know Christ as Lord. Courageous leaders lead with love, willing to pay the price for risky love, as did our Lord Himself.

The core of the book is the description of nine principles of leadership courage that Kirk believes must mark the courageous leader in these times. Each is connected but also has distinctions. They are:

1. Presence: Courageous leadership is not about skill, technique or knowledge. It is, most of all, about the presence of a leader as he or she moves through life. Leading with a non-anxious presence, calm and focused on the goals and purpose of the enterprise.
2. Responsibility: Courageous leaders must take full responsibility for one’s own emotional being and destiny.
3. Differentiation: Courageous leaders promote healthy differentiation within the churches or systems they lead. In other words, the leader is not equivalent to the organization she is leading. She is not equal to its success or failure.
4. Stand: The courageous leader stands, as an exemplar, in the sabotage and backlash that must come when moving forward with courage into initiatives that challenge the comfort of some of those who he leads. The leader’s ability to stand provokes maturity (people-development!) in those he leads.
5. Motivation: The courageous leader heeds the words of Friedman who writes “don’t push on the rope.” This describes the fact that the unmotivated are invulnerable to insight. With regard to change management Kirk identifies three types of people in congregations. He states that each has value, albeit for different reasons. Each responds to change based on how they are wired. Pioneers eagerly jump into new initiatives; belongers embrace change when they are convinced that it is safe and successful to do so; resisters are those whose primary orientation is pain avoidance. Each is God’s gift to the pastor and that a great leader leads each type of person appropriately.
6. The Adventurous Life: The courageous leader re-introduces herself to the adventurous life, a life not about predictability but about the life of risk and trust as one presences the way of Jesus in the culture.
7. Undermine the 80/20 Rule: The courageous leader challenges the notion that 20 percent of the people do almost all the work in the church. Instead, he invites everyone to participate in kingdom work. The pastor must think like a people-developer, not a gatherer of spectators.
8. The Unreasonableness of Being Reasonable: The courageous leader disengages from an unreasonable faith in reasonableness, embracing passion instead of moderation, being a role model in living sacrificially for Christ.
9. Go First!: The courageous leader takes the first step, doing what is right because that is her mission. Courageous leaders have learned to govern themselves, to manage their emotional reactivity and to restrain their impulsivity.

This book is Kirk’s plea for leaders to leap, to be people developers, not to coddle spectators. For pastors to lead dynamic, adventurous, world-changing communities that point with love to the life-transforming power of Jesus Christ. To do so, they must be developing themselves. The way we move forward as a church that is making disciples is through church leaders being passionate disciples themselves and empowering the people they lead to join them.

GROUND RULES

Here are ten recommendations for ways to approach racial conversations, assuming the goal is mutual understanding and a peaceful exit. Humility and recognizing that each of us is shaped by our experiences are critical things to remember when discussing race. Race is not just about skin color, it is about heritage, background, ways of being indoctrinated into American culture, and strategies of self-protection from the trauma that one can experience when one is told, either explicitly or implicitly, that you don’t measure up for reasons that are fundamental to your physical make-up. These “ground rules” come from my approach as a follower of Jesus Christ, in Whom I believe is the healing needed for the wounds created by racism.

1 – Enter into the conversation with an attitude of prayer. Keep Jesus central, pray beforehand, pray afterward, and pray during if you feel the need. Remember that division is what the enemy wants for the church, but unity is what Jesus died for. Jesus is stronger. We must depend upon the resources of Christ to achieve the purposes of Christ.

2 – Begin with the end in mind. The end is not to change minds but to embrace brotherhood, knowing one another better. White people cannot experience what it means to be Black when they hear how it feels to be Black but a White person can hear the heart of a Black person, even if the White person doesn’t change their mind. Black people must reconcile the fact that, even though in many cases they have needed to learn more about Whites than vice versa, for occupational advancement and general cultural engagement, Blacks don’t know the hearts of White people any more than Whites know the hearts of Blacks. Dialogue is necessary to know one another, and this knowledge and awareness is the goal.

3 – Seek to build on an already established base of mutual respect. Tough, personal conversations are best had when both parties respect one another beforehand. How one feels about race is very personal and exposing, so these conversations should take place when the risk for damaging the relationship is low, very low. The issue of race is extremely emotional; mutual respect goes a long way to minimize emotion. Don’t enter into this conversation as foes but as allies, as siblings with the same Father.

4 – Open up a space of grace. If you are Black, allow the White person to be himself or herself. Understand that they won’t understand. Let them hear, even clarify, without being too soft, but don’t judge them for their response; they are being them, just like you are being you. Also, don’t make your goal getting the White person to say “I’m sorry.” If your goal is their guilt, you will lose long term. (See #1 and #2.) If you are White, don’t respond as if you have the answer to how the Black person should feel. You don’t. How could you? Your goal in listening is to hear the heart of a Black person. Don’t respond in such a way as to exonerate yourself from guilt, for example, by talking about what Black people are doing to each other or by distancing yourself from any racism at all. It is ultimately not about you personally; it is about the fishbowl of a system we all are swimming in – the historical, sociological, economic water that surrounds us all.

5 – Exercise care with communication. Hear hearts beyond the words. People will bring a whole lot of defensiveness to this conversation. Often we don’t articulate feelings very well. But if it matters to have the conversation, then give people the benefit of the doubt when they speak in less-than-precise ways. Try not to use loaded, judgmental words. Also, recognize that in touchy conversations, clarity in communication is important. Some might press you into hyper-precise definitions, sometimes for actual clarity.

6 – Be gospel-centered. There is pain on the journey, but its destination is deeper unity, even love. While this is valuable to non-Christians who are genuinely caring people, it should be seen as necessary to Christ followers who claim unity in Christ. Unity in Christ can be tricky; we each benefit from it, but we don’t achieve true unity on our terms alone. One person dictating all of the terms places them in a position of superiority. That’s not unity; that’s faux-unity. Ultimately, because of the cross and because of what was paid for our unity, each of us suffers in small ways in order to gain in great ways. More than we realize is at stake if we remain willingly blind to disunity because of race. And remember, Jesus became an “other” to reconcile “others” to Himself. If you are White, see the Jesus you claim and follow as becoming one of the oppressed – by sin, by the enemy, by sickness and death. He identified with the oppressed out of love, even when He didn’t have to. If you are Black, remember that the Jesus you claim and follow empathized with those different than Himself – humans, when He is God! – to pursue their unity with Him and the Father, at a great cost to Himself. He wasn’t standoffish, but He could have been.

7 – Let it be difficult. I have been in conversations where the difficulty gets stiff-armed with a joke or with a distracting comment. This discussion is painful and can be difficult, but the path to true relationship is through painful times, not around them. Respect one another enough to be willing to hear their pain. Being gospel-centered is critical for this. (See #4 and #6.)

8 – Don’t try to “win.” When one person wins, the other loses. Your struggles don’t lessen another person’s struggles. Life is hard in different ways for every single person. Playing the “what about me” game is not the point here; again, the point is to share hearts so you can be heard and known at a deeper level.

9 – Don’t steal the other person’s story. I have seen this happen when a White person responds to a Black person’s mention of oppression with a comparison to the Irish. Unless there are Irish people in the conversation, there is no need to bring them up. This conversation is about what has made the two people who they are up to that moment, to establish understanding, to hear hearts, and to empathize. Validate where the other person is, their own personal story, their own personal pain. If you are Black, understand that being human involves pain, and White people experience pain too. As is written in Romans 12:15–16, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.”

10 – Empathize. If you are Black, do what you are asking your White friend to do in this moment. Give them and their life experiences a chance to be heard and an attempt to be understood. If you are White, please recognize that, because of White cultural predominance in American society, the Black person you are talking to has most likely thought a lot more about White people than you have about Black people. Recognize that in many instances, though not all, they have probably come closer to you and your culture than you have to theirs. Black people must bridge the cultural divide as a minority by needing to adapt to the majority culture. The majority White culture is seen as better or preferable simply because it is the majority, thereby implying that minority cultures are lesser.

CONCLUSION

I was recently talking with a missionary to Russia. He mentioned the challenge of needing to earn “chits” with the people over time there because of their history and the natural suspicion that has developed over the years. He seemed to be very accommodating to the background of these people with whom God has called him to share Christ. He seemed open to allowing them to be themselves and to taking the time to earn their trust. I am assuming this is because the call to show Jesus to them is that important.

I am fascinated that when an evangelical is called by God to enter a different culture in another part of the world, historical and cultural differences are understood and accepted. A need to learn the language and appreciate the suspicion of historical tensions is understood and accepted. In some sense, the “other” across the seas is allowed to fully be a person with a real historical background and experience.

But in the United States, perhaps because it is home, it seems that acceptance of the same types of historical and cultural differences is not as common. Learning the language and appreciating the suspicion of historical tensions is not embraced as easily. And how much more within the body of Christ itself is this important? What should the powerful gospel do when each of us applies it to our own personal place in the American historical, cultural system if God is truly seeking to make us one, not on Black terms or White terms but Jesus terms?

I want Jesus to be glorified. And I suspect that His glorification in our lives will come at a cost to us. Many of us, but not all, are willing to be the oddly-Godly and pay that price in the general culture. But fewer of us seem willing to pay the personal price of walking into deep relationship with our brothers and sisters who look different than us but who will spend eternity in the same location as us: around the throne of grace. If we are able to go deep into personal relationships across race, how much would the world be amazed at us?