CAMINANDO WITH JESUS: Asking Hard Questions of Power

Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

- John 3:14-21

A few weeks ago, during Black History Month, the Union of Black Episcopalians sponsored a virtual event entitled "Hard Questions: Race and the Episcopal Church." It consisted of a phenomenal lecture by the Rev. Vincent Harris in which he traced the historical development and impact of racism within American Christianity. I left thinking more deeply about the theological connection between Christian supremacy and white supremacy.

Christians have wrestled with a superiority complex since the earliest days of the Church. At the Council of Jerusalem in Acts, early Christian leaders wrestled with how much of their Jewish culture should be imposed on the lives of Gentile converts. Ironically, as Gentiles came to constitute larger numbers and attain greater influence within the Church, they forsook their connection with Judaism and began persecuting Jews. The relationship between power and persecution crystallized in 380 CE when Roman emperor Theodosius established Christianity as the state religion. Christians (particularly those of the Nicene tradition) rose to political prominence, Pagan worship became criminalized, and violence against non-Christian religious groups went unchecked.

“Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

When Europeans began their colonial conquest in the 1400s, the notion that Christian faith made a group of people superior to others was not new. Thus, as they encountered African and Indigenous people who had darker complexions and different religious beliefs, a superiority complex emerged intertwining nationality, religion, culture and skin color. These distinctions would lead to the justification of slavery and subjugation, justifications grounded in Christian theology. In the American colonies, the term “Christian” was often interchangeable with “free,” “English” and “white” (usually male and landowning). “Since the African was not English,” the Rev. Harris remarked in his lecture, “they were not deemed normal human beings, and initially not even considered worthy of evangelism.”

“Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

Condemned already. For Black people in the United States, it is slavery, Jim Crow, mass incarceration and more.

Condemned already. For Indigenous people, it is stolen land, the undermining of economic and political sovereignty, mass assimilation via American Indian boarding schools and more.

Condemned already. For Latinx people, it is a border wall; mass deportation; an unjust lack of access to Spanish language services in healthcare, education and financial institutions; and more.

Although Jesus came so that we “may have life, and have it abundantly,” on American soil, Christian supremacy has and continues to produce an abundance of condemnation.

“Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

What do we do with a religion whose theology and practice has given rise to a global hierarchy of human beings based on white supremacy? What do we do with a faith whose social, cultural, political and economic fruit has been structural condemnation for Black, Indigenous and People of Color? Hard questions, indeed.

In a 1968 address given to the World Council of Churches, James Baldwin stated: “There is a sense in which it can be said that my black flesh is the flesh that St. Paul wanted to have mortified. There is a sense in which it can be said that very long ago, for a complex of reasons, but among them power, the Christian personality split itself in two, split itself into dark and light, in fact, and it is now bewildered, at war with itself, is literally unable to comprehend the force of such a woman as Mahalia Jackson, who does not sound like anyone in Canterbury Cathedral, unable to accept the depth of sorrow, out of which a Ray Charles comes, unable to get itself in touch with itself, with its selfless totality.”

For me, the war within Christianity Baldwin perceives is a war of powers. In 1975, theologian Bernard Loomer articulated two kinds of power wrestling over the Christian imagination: linear and relational. He described linear power as the capacity to impact and influence another based solely on one’s own desires and intentions. Traditional Christian theology thinks of God’s will in this way. God has a plan for God’s creation, an ideal way of life. God sets forth to establish that way of life and we, God’s creatures, are merely recipients, or sometimes conduits, of God’s actions. This is the power we are most familiar with. It is the power to establish the terms of life for others without regard for their humanity. It is the power to define who is human and who is not. It is the power to subjugate and enslave. It is the power to condemn.

In contrast, Loomer defined relational power as the capacity to sustain relationships with others that consist of mutual influence and reciprocal love. This kind of power does not merely want to move others, it is open—and even desires—to be moved itself. We see relational power in the Old Testament when God asks Abraham if God should show mercy on Sodom and Gomorrah. We see it again in the New Testament when Jesus tells the disciples, “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” God does not have a unilateral concept of power. God’s power is the kind of power that wants to create a way of life with us, not simply for us. It is the kind of power that embraces difference, compelling us to bond with strangers, enemies, loved ones and neighbors. It is the kind of power that proclaims life is for all of us, not some of us. It is the power of salvation.

As we continue to wrestle with the hard questions and reimagine power, let us look forward to the day when people around the globe, of all religions and creeds, of all skin tones and hair textures, of all gender identities and sexual orientations, can affirm in their own languages:

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Brandon J. Williams is a member of St. Titus’, Durham.