So God created human beings in his own image. Genesis 1:27

As black evangelical leaders, we believe it is important to respond to The Gospel Coalition’s publishing of Pastor Voddie Baucham’s Thoughts on Ferguson, a perspective we deem to be extremely anti-black. First, we condemn The Gospel Coalition’s editorial leadership for its moral and pastoral failure in publishing such an anti-black viewpoint. No Christian organization should ever participate in dishonoring the image of God in black people, especially at a time when so many black Americans are in pain. Second, we lament the internalized anti-black racism that Pastor Voddie conveyed in his article and the fact that it has been used to further support White-on-Black violence among Christians. Here, we offer a different perspective, one that we believe honors the image of God in black people.

A Brief of History of White-on-Black Violence

Racism is White-on-Black violence.

In 1619, the first twenty Africans were brought over as labor for the new colonies. Within one generation the white majority had defined black people as permanent slaves and non-human property. This created a social order in which black people were only valuable for their ability to support a white dominated society that was economically prospering off of the stolen land of Native Americans and the stolen labor of African Americans. Consequently, a system of White-on-Black violence was born.

This system of White-on-Black violence has defined the last 400 years of American history. For example:

• Millions of Africans died during the middle passage journey from Africa to the so-called ‘new land’, even before ever stepping foot in America.
• Slavery lasted for 246 years, beginning in 1619 and ending in 1865.
• From 1865 until 1945, well over one hundred thousand black people were re-enslaved through the convict-leasing system, in which whites arrested blacks for minor crimes such as changing employers without permission, vagrancy, engaging in sexual activity or loud talk with white women.
• Simultaneously, white (mostly Christian) Americans sought to retain white control through racial terrorism. About 5,000 African American men, women, and children were lynched by white mobs.
• Jesus, who was both the Son of God and a poor Galilean Jew living in solidarity withthose under Roman occupation and those vulnerable to crucifixion, has been transformed into a powerful white man. This image is a form of idolatrous systemic white violence against black people and all people of color.[i]

Despite such White-on-Black violence and much more, black people have always resisted. For example, dissident voices like Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass rejected ‘the Christianity of this land’ in its complicit endorsement of white domination over black bodies, proclaiming that it had nothing to do with the true peaceable Christ. Protests like these continued until the 1970s, always triggering systemic white backlash.

In the 1960s black consciousness arrived in mainstream public discourse, affirming the value of black people in the face of historical and ongoing White-on-Black violence.  Not surprisingly, the system in which Whites were always on top, responded. Taking a cue from the convict-leasing system, White law enforcement began arresting black men en masse for nonviolent drug crimes. Since the 1970s, the prison population has boomed from about 300,000 inmates to beyond 2 million people caged like animals, a disportionately large number of them black men. Black bodies continue to be controlled by this system of White-on-Black violence.[ii]

Now in the present, black people in Ferguson and around the country are fed up. We are fed up that 1 out of 3 African American males will be arrested and go through the American injustice system at some point in their lives[iii], primarily for nonviolent drug charges, despite studies revealing that black youth and white youth use drugs at comparable rates. Research also tells us that black males are 21 times more likely to be killed during an encounter with the police than their white counterparts.[iv] Just as critical, schools are being defunded all around the country in many black neighborhoods while prisons are being expanded -- another example of systemic White-on-Black violence.

Black-on-Black Violence is an Extension of White-on-Black Violence

The historical and current system of White-on-Black violence sends messages that are so powerful that many black people succumb to them, ultimately becoming defined by them.  Internalized racism, a term first coined by black scholar W.E.B. DuBois in 1903,[v] involves accepting a white supremacist social world that places black people at the bottom, and adopting society’s negative stereotypes about African Americans concerning their abilities and intrinsic worth.[vi]

An example of internalized racism: as a result of growing up in an anti-black society in which violence inflicted on African Americans has been historically judged less harshly than violence against Whites, regardless of the perpetrator – black people begin to believe that their own life and the lives of other black people are worth very little. Due to internalized racism, they become more willing to engage in violence against other black men, women, and children – so-called “Black-on-Black violence.”

Indeed, a research study conducted in 2011 found that internalized racism significantly predicted black male teenagers’ propensity for violence. In other words, the more internalized racism a black male teen possessed, the greater his aggressive behavior, the more positive his attitudes toward guns and violence, and the more at-risk he was for engaging in violent behavior.[vii] Based on these findings, the researcher concluded that a lack of self-respect and/or negative views toward their own race (e.g., internalized racism) result in black male teens’ greater propensity to engage in violence. In essence, “Black-on-Black violence” is simply an extension of systemic White-on-Black violence.

Pastor Voddie’s Internalized Racism is Black-on-Black Violence

Black-on-Black violence takes many forms. Propped up by the mighty platform of The Gospel Coalition and the many white people who frequent the organization’s online space, Pastor Voddie was quick to point out the physical Black-on-Black violence that exists in America. However, despite the fact that he is black, Pastor Voddie failed to see the ways in which he engaged in a form of verbal Black-on-Black violence that mirrors White-on-Black violence. By conveniently omitting any discussion of the ways in which the long-standing system of white domination contributes to fatherlessness in the black community, police brutality of black people, negative societal perceptions of black people, the systemic disempowerment of black people, the internalized racism of black people and even Black-on-Black violence, he assaulted the character and worth of black people, suggesting that black people like Michael Brown deserve to be killed. In doing so, he made a statement in support of White-on-Black violence, an argument that many whites have used throughout history.

Just as we are presenting a historic look at the system of White-on-Black violence, the Bible also shows us -- from Exodus to the Gospels to the 1st Century Church -- the forms of systemic violence perpetrated upon the people of God by those in power. In this light, all Christians today should grieve with a people group that has been and continues to be victimized by such systemic violence. Blaming one Black young man for the sowing of such sin is a great disservice to the very people to oppressed people of the world, to whom Jesus consistently showed mercy.

We encourage you to read Dr. Alan Noble’s point-by-point response to Pastor Voddie’s article. Given the long history of anti-black violence in this country, all followers of Jesus must be committed to engaging in the transformative and liberative work of Jesus, which means affirming the image of God in black people and resisting all White-on-Black violence in word or deed.

No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you:

to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8

By Austin Channing Brown, Christena Cleveland, Drew Hart and Efrem Smith

Austin Channing Brown, M.A. is a Resident Director and Intercultural Liason at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI.

Christena Cleveland, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Reconciliation Studies at Bethel University in St. Paul, MN and the author of Disunity in Christ: Uncovering the Hidden Forces that Keep Us Apart.

Drew Hart, M.Div. is a pastor at Montco Bible Fellowship, an Adjunct Professor of Theology at Biblical Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. Candidate in Theology and Ethics at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.

Efrem Smith, M.A.. is President/CEO of World Impact, Inc. and the author of The Post-Black and Post-White Church.

---

[i] Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey, The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2012).

[ii] Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York, N.Y.; Jackson, Tenn.: New Press ; Distributed by Perseus Distribution, 2012).

[iii] Ibid., 9.

[iv] Ryan Gabrielson et al., “Deadly Force, in Black and White,” ProPublica, accessed November 30, 2014, http://www.propublica.org/article/deadly-force-in-black-and-white.

[v] Du Bois, W.E. B. 1989 [1903]. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Penguin

[vi] Jones, C. P. (2000). Levels of racism: A theoretical framework and a gardener’s tale.

American Journal of Public Health, 90(8), 1212-1215.

[vii] Bryant, W.W.. (2011). Internalized racism’s association with African American male youth’s propensity for violence. Journal of Black Studies, 42, pp.690-707.

This is has been an emotional few days for many of us. There is much to unpack, to understand, to invite in and keep out as conversations about the no-indictment swirl around us. While there are many myths, fallacies, and misunderstanding occurring within these dialogues (or lack thereof) there is one that has me all riled up. 

What bothers me the most is the response, "Mike Brown deserved to die because...sin." It bothers me not because you ignore the pain that this has caused a number of people, not the least of which is Mike Browns family. It bothers me not because it ignores the systemic inequities in policing black bodies, of which Mike Brown is but one. Rather it bother me because if you this, you believe it only for black bodies. 

Consider what you are really saying. Are you truly prepared to justify the death of Mike Brown in the street without trial because he sinned? Are you prepared to justify that for yourself? Should someone with a gun be allowed to pull the trigger when you lie? Or when you are disobedient? When you drink excessively? When you are gluttonous? 

is this an okay standard to set for your own children? When they steal? When they commit a crime? When they disobey a teacher, an officer, a pastor, or you? Is immediate and violent death an acceptable result? 

If this is not acceptable for your family, but is acceptable for Mike Brown, you are making an incredible assertion. Making this claim that Mike Brown "brought this on himself and therefore we cant cry out against it" suggests that there is something especially heinous, especially evil, especially criminal about blackness and all that can be expected is death- immediate, swift, violent and without repercussion. Stripping blackness of all dignity, of all humanity- sin is reason enough to be gunned down? 

If if this is true, why did we not gun down the perpetrator of movie theater shooting? Why was there not a cry in the streets for his swift execution or the many others who didn't just steal property but stole lives? What is so especially wrong about Mike Brown that his actions warranted what these others did not. And though this assertion, this double standard has been employed to justify the death of Mike, even this doesn't compare to why I really wrote this post tonight. 

I do not recognize this version of Christianity. I only know the Christ who died for the sins of all. I don't know this Jesus who forgives your sins, who offers you grace, who grants you mercy, but has none for black bodies. I don't know this Jesus who hung on the cross for you so that you would have life everlasting but must cannot offer the same to black bodies. I do not know this Jesus who only died for my white brothers and sisters, but whose arms could not stretch wide enough for black bodies, and therefore Mike Brown had to die because his sin was just too much for Christ to bare. No. I don't who this is. I don't know this God of a two tiered gospel. 

I only know the Jesus who died that we all might live. I only know the Jesus who wants us to have life and more abundantly. I only know the Jesus who is takes away the sins of the world. I only know the Jesus who offers grace, mercy, peace, love. I only know the Jesus who reconciles all things unto Himself.

I serve a God who loves Mike Brown.

I serve a God who created black bodies in the Imago Dei. 

I serve a God who died for all. 

You can keep your cheap religion. You can keep this religion who exacts from black bodies but has mercy on white bodies. You can keep this religion that believes there is something innately wrong with blackness that requires our death. You can keep this religion that demands our perfection while your family daily receives forgiveness from sin. You can keep this religion. I don't want it. But you have to call it something else. And when this religion asks you to pay for sin or the sins of your son with a death in the street on a sunny afternoon, I'll be sure to ask if my God might grant you peace. 

And to those who read these assertions and feel the weight of the words, the judgement, the condemnation, the carelessness. To you I speak love. 

You are loved by God the Almighty who created heaven, earth and you. You are loved immensely by a God who is fully present. You are loved by a God who knows this is a season of lament and promises not to leave you lonely. You are loved by God who see you, who knows you. You are loved by a God who has not made you inferior, has not made you lower, has not made you more worse. You are loved by a God who is intimately familiar with you. You are loved by a God who first loved you, who died for you, who is coming back for you. 

This first day of Advent, you may lament. You may cry out. You may mourn. There is much injustice, much darkness. But what we will not do is believe that we are too far for God to reach us, to bad for God to save us. Resist. #blacklivesmatter

So yesterday, I posted a little Facebook status update very concerned for some of my white friends who would be with extended family for the holiday. Just by looking at the comment section of their own pages, it was clear there might be some contention over recent events in the news. After posting the following update, my own comment section brought me great joy! Check it out! 

Austin: Ooowwweee. Some of you are going to have some interesting conversations at the dinner table tomorrow. And by interesting I mean *terrible*. Christ be with you. (And maybe you should bring some books and powerpoint presentation on systemic injustice).

• Abi: Someone needs to create a Systemic Injustice for Relatives slideshow, quick.

• Austin What should it include, Abi? Oh, this could be fun...

• Austin: Slide 1: slavery and capitalism

• Abby: I have one on my teacher computer that is like "power who has it" that I use. .. should have brought it! (Who has the power is a question we ask fit lots of books

• Abi: Slide 2: Slavery and Evangelicalism

• Austin: Slide 3: Jim Crow and how you grandparents *really* gained wealth

• Abi: Slide 4: History of the Police Force

• Austin:  Slide 5: The fallacy of "black on black" crime

• Austin: Abi, I think we may be on to something lol

• Abi: Seriously, if someone makes this I will start bringing an overhead projector everywhere I go

• Austin: Ha! I love it.

• Abi: Slides 6-22: White Privilege

• Jason: I like your Pedagogy for the Christmas Sweaters, y'all

• Austin: Slides 23-25: defining whiteness, white superiority and anti blackness edited for more space 

• Abi: Slide 24: "Post-Racial" America, or, How Can There Still Be Racism If We Have a Black President?

• Jessica: Slide 25: "Dominant culture narratives"

• Austin: Slide 26: No more monoliths- not all black people are the same. Plus another slide on the difference between loving black culture and loving black people

• Abi: Slide 27: But I Don't Hate Black People! Racism as practice, not emotion

• Austin: *slow clap*

• Austin:  Slide 28: looking beyond your one black friend

• Justin: slide 29: How Progressive Christianity is often still racist, and what it means to be Intersectional

• Austin: oh, no you didn't add intersectionality at the family dinner! lol

• Justin: yeah that might be asking too much of people that are still understanding systemic racism

• Jessica: I think we need to revisit slides 6-22 and name each subcategory

• Austin: Hmmm. Yes. You are right. Lets do it.

• Austin: Slide 6: White privilege and education

• Austin: Slide 7: white privilege and rioting

• Austin: Slide 8: White privilege and stop/frisk

• Jessica: Slide 9: White privilege and career choices/ job interviews

• Austin: Slide 10: white privilege and names

• Abi: Slide 11: White Privilege and "Neutrality"

• Jessica: Slide 5.5: White privilege and you. "Who, me?!" Yes, you.

• Austin: Slide 12: White privilege and 'objectivity"

• Austin: Yes! Jessica, Yes!

• Abi: Slide 13: White Privilege and Media Representation

• Timothy: Slide 30: MLK was peaceful, and they still killed him... In a suit.

• Austin: We might give that 2 slides, Timothy

• Jessica: Slide 14: Privilege and the politics of respectability

• Timothy: Slide 31: Reverse Racism... Nah.

• Abi: Slide 32: Not All White People... Nah

• Timothy: Slide 32: MLK was not the only black leader...

• Timothy: Slide 33:... He was the only black leader that made white people feel comfortable.

• Marcus: Slide 34: Malcolm X wasn't the devil and Rosa Parks wasn't the first to sit on the bus

• Marcus: Slide 35: why facts are never neutral

• Austin: you all are brilliant and wonderful

• Brandy: These are brilliant! Each time I thought of a new one, someone had already included it.

• Timothy: Slide 36: If Mike Brown had shot up a school, he'd be alive. Examples provided.

• Marcus: Slide 37: why nothing is as bad as slavery and jim crow except actual slavery and jim crow.

• Marcus: Slide 38: why you need more black friends

• Timothy: Slide 39: How to separate thug black from regular black at a quick glance.

• Marcus: Slide 40: the differences between racism and anti-blackness

• Austin: Sigh. You all make me so happy.

• Timothy: Slide 41: The duality of being the villain and the victim.

• Marcus: slide 42: the cultural-theological-physical and sexual obsessions with blackness.

• Austin:  Marcus, please make this slide for us.

• Abi: Slide 15: White Privilege and Housing/Districting

• Abi: Slide 16: White Privilege and Voting

• Abi: or whatever number we were on up there, heh

• Austin: Abi, we have a lot of slide left for white privilege. Fill em up!

• Timothy: Slide 43: Affirmative Action balanced out white privilege. Thank you.

• Abi: 17: White Privilege and Theology

• Abi: 18: White Privilege and the War on Drugs

• Marcus: Slide 44: Almost no one mentioned in the bible, including God and Jesus, are white.

• Marcus: Slide 45: Mythbusters: The actual decedents of the Neanderthals....

• Abby: Standardized tests and the school to prison pipe line.

• Austin: Love our list. But I think no one would stay for the turkey. lol

• Amber: I'm so sad I can't share this 

• Shara: I'm so mad I missed all this but can I squeeze one or two in the middle?

• Shara:  Slide 46: Why people who claim to be "colorblind" are lying

• Shara: Slide 47: Why it's ridiculous to want to be "colorblind"... Accepting that different does not equal bad

• Jewel: Slide 48: Why buildings will never be worth more than black lives or nah

• Jewel: Slide 49: Have you thought about having a conversation with your one black friend or nah

• Shara: Slide 50: Why society values animals more than black men

• Jewel: Slide 50: How not to put your one black friend in the magical negro category or nah

• Kathi: I need one to explain why there are so few poc in Oregon. Answer number 1: they were written out of the constitution until almost 1930

• Jewel: Slide 51: The history of biased media toward people of color

• Jewel: Slide 52: How to have empathy and compassion for populations that have no privilege because you took it.

• Jewel: Slide 53: How to see people of color as equally human as you see yourself

• Jewel: Slide 54: How to not share racist sentiment in social media if you don't want to be called racist

• Austin: You all are on a roll! I LIKE it. I like all of it!

• Jewel: Slide 55: How you would feel if someone told you to just get over the unjustified killing of your child

• Jewel: Austin, I think I can go all night lol

• Jewel: Slide 56: How it is not endearing to tell someone of another race just how much you fetishize them.

• Velynn: Girrrllllll for real!!! Lol!!!

• Jewel: Slide 57: How Jesus never taught you to be racist

• Jewel: Slide 58: It is never okay to touch a POC's hair, skin, any body part without permission

• Austin:  Slide 57 made me laugh for real tho, Jewel

• Jewel: Slide 59: How your all white congregation will never be what heaven looks like

• Jewel: Slide 60: How holding contempt in your heart for poc while adopting poc children won't get you extra crowns in glory

• Jewel: Slide 61: You just might be racist if you forbid your children to date or marry interracially

• Jewel: Slide 62: How going on a short term mission trip does not mean you aren't racist

• Jewel Slide 63: How the very same people you view as animals could be angels in disguise

• Jewel: Slide 64: This is probably why you don't want to have me over for Thanksgiving

• Shara: Lol umm this is no longer a slideshow over holiday dinner this is at least a semester long course for undergraduate students lol

• Jewel: Undergraduate, Graduate, Doctoral everyone can get educated 

• Amber: This is amazing. Omg

• Amber: Slide 65 - Black Culture: Was it Appropriated or Nah? 

• Jenny: Austin, this is making me so happy. Slide 66 - Why it's not reverse racism for white people to not say the N word.

• Jenny: Slide 67 - see previous slide about reverse racism not being real.

• Jewel: Jenny, amen to all of that!

• Jenny: Slide 68 - if you are tired of talking about race/racism, that is your privilege oozing out.

• Jenny: Slide 69 - movie ratings and the absence of complex poc roles. And why that matters immensely.

• Austin: Slide 70- TED Talk: Danger of a single story

• Jewel: Slide 71: How not to speak for people of color

• Jewel: Slide 72: Why slaves were not happy on your family's plantation

• Jenny: Slide 73 - how not to ask poc to speak for all poc

*As you can see I removed pictures, hyperlinks, and last names. I also removed any personal comments. This list brought me great joy. It was oddly cathartic to see a list of everything we wish we could address in this moment in time.  

Do you have more to add? Place them in the comments section! 

"Be patient," they say. 

"Be peaceful," they say.

"Just wait," they say," for this is how Christ behaved... MLK behaved... the truly godly behave"

But I serve a demonstrating Christ. 

I serve a Christ who walked into the temple, looked around and felt anger. Who fashioned a whip for the purpose of driving folks out. Suddenly tables crash to the floor. Money clangs as it scatters across the floor. Feet pounding, tripping, running, racing to get out of there. Benches over turn. A whip slices through the air. A voice roars, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations. But you have made it a den of robbers."   

I serve a demonstrating Christ. Though we often skip this story. This story wedged in all four gospels, the final provocation for killing the man called Jesus.  But we skip it because it serves us no more. We have no need for this Jesus because we don't make animal sacrifices anymore. We are never in danger of bringing in too many bleating animals, of exploiting too much in a cash exchange, of walking through our church carrying cows, goats or doves. So we explain this passage not as a story unto itself but only in service for why Christ died. 

But what if this moment is about more. More than money. More than animals. More than noise. What if this is about a demonstrating Christ who was consumed by love for the temple, the gathering place where God met man. What if this is a story about the need for the nations to come. The need for the space to be cleared so that nothing stood in the way for the scattered to arrive. We commonly refer to this story as "Jesus cleansing the temple" and I would like to submit to you today that the Church still needs cleansing. 

Because America has erected a far more dubious system for keeping people out. 

Out of our schools. 

Out of our neighborhoods.

Out of our churches. 

Out of our leadership. 

Out of our communities.

Out of our conscience.  

We indeed have a sacrificial system, extorted for gain. Its called racism and black bodies are the ones dying. Indeed America has perfected the systemic art of thievery and segregation.

For what feels like forever we have watched the taking of black lives again and again and again. Unarmed their black bodies have been cause enough to extract a final breath. Black bodies have only been welcome here so long as they are willing to bend to the white will. Black bodies have been welcome here so long as they are willing to hand over all that they are in pleasure to the white whim. Black bodies have been welcome here so long as they keep in line, stay in their place, remain locked out or locked up. Any violation of the white will is cause for judgement, correction, threat, death. Head over to social media and it is overrun with photos of the white will violating white law and yet over and over again this does not result in death. And while the black community mourns, the segregation is on display. The racist thought patterns are on display. Displeasure with how we mourn, how we grieve, how we scream, how we cry is met with icy cold disdain. And touting civility as the highest form of godliness, we are asked to be patient, peaceful, wait. 

But I serve a demonstrating Christ. Surely Christ could have stood on the steps of the temple, at the entrance and waved his arm toward the commotion. Surely he could have declared to anyone who would stop long enough to listen, "Do you see what is happening in there?" "Don't you think someone should stop this?" Surely he could have taken his twelve from stall to stall and quietly pointed out each atrocity before his eyes. Calmly explaining his rationale to each seller, he could have ministered to each one persuading them to do what it right. Surely he could have been patient and kind asking each one to please leave the temple. Surely he could have used humor to catch people off guard. Or perhaps he could have waited- waited until the day was done, until Passover was done, until the Temple was done. Surely he could have... could have done anything other than demonstrate. 

But I serve a Christ who disrupts.

And we are called to demonstrate Him, right? 

So how long before you unseat privilege and power? How long before you turn over the tables of injustice? How long before you whip your congregation into shape, beat out racist ideology and roar your displeasure? How long before you scatter your donors and donations? How long before you throw your gains to the floor? How long before you are consumed by more than four walls. How long before you are consumed by love for EVERY body.  How long before the bodies which contain the Spirit of the Lord matter more than property, wealth, and power? How long? How long before you disrupt antiblack thought patterns? How long before you cast out problematic language? How long before you call out racist actions?

When will you take a stand? 

When will you be fed up?

You know, like Christ.