Let us act: A letter to my fellow white religious leaders

My fellow clergy: The collective, historical silence of our white churches regarding the systemic sin of racism in America is deafening and damning. And it must end today.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote about us — white religious leadership — in his Letter from Birmingham City Jail in 1963: “… some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows.”

More cautious than courageous. More apathetic than prophetic. More paralyzed than proactive. Silent behind the security of our stained glass windows, and our white privilege.

White religious leaders of America: Our silence is complicity, and the moral vacuum created by our polite refusal to take the problem of racism as seriously as we do the problem of hunger — or virtually any other social ill — has resulted in the proliferation of an evil that looks like us.

Yes. We are complicit. May God have mercy.

Fellow ministers of the liberating gospel of Jesus Christ: I call us all to collective and active repentance, now.

We have forgotten that in his first recorded sermon, Jesus the Christ put the religious establishment on notice as to what his mission would be, and read from the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has appointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Do we not follow in the footsteps of this Christ? And yet …

We have not preached about racial injustice from our pulpits. We have not taught white allyship in our Sunday School classrooms. We have not listened to the voices of people of color, nor elevated their message, nor have we welcomed their witness. We have not mourned with those who mourn the flagrant acts of aggression against their pigment.We have not grieved with those who grieve daily injustice. We have not turned the tables of white privilege and white fragility. We have not stood in solidarity with our neighbors of color until there was viral video evidence to shake us from our apathy.

We have pretended that systemic racism in this country is not the white church’s problem, nor our purview as white pastors.

We have decided that, since overt acts of racism “don’t happen in our town,” or since our suburban churches are mostly white, or since our rural communities aren’t very diverse, that racism doesn’t actually require our attention.

We have not acted decisively and in wholehearted support of our brothers and sisters of color, because we have been more interested in maintaining our emotional comfort than advocating for the upending of the racist systems that benefit us at every turn.

We have not spoken boldly and prophetically, because we have been more afraid of what our white congregations might think of us than we are of the shameful repercussions of our silence.

We have worried about how our white parishioners will respond when/if we raise names like Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and George Floyd during worship, and whether the nice folks who tithe will feel uncomfortable.

We have pretended that our prayers on behalf of the dead and their families are enough to shift our national conscience toward justice and truth.

We have convinced ourselves that the work of anti-racism is reserved for those few white pastors who “feel passionately about the issue.”

We have deluded ourselves into thinking that we should leave the real work of advocacy around race and anti-racism to the voices of our brothers and sisters who are black, indigenous, and/or people of color (BIPOC). We have remained silent.

And in so doing, we have clearly communicated to our white congregations that we affirm the status quo of racism in America. We have abdicated our moral responsibility.

Is it any wonder, then, that precious little has changed here since Rev. King was jailed in Alabama in 1963?

“I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.”

White religious leaders: We preach about repentance.

Today, we will model it. On Sunday, let us own it.

Let us stand before our congregations, unprepared though we may be, and say out loud that racial justice in America is long overdue. May we own to our churches that we have been silent where we were called to be prophets. Let us declare that we and our congregants will learn together how to be part of the disruption and the healing, and that we refuse to be complicit any longer in the sin of racism.

And then let us act.

This is how the kingdom of peace and justice comes.

Amen.

Erin Baldwin Day serves as pastor at Palmer United Methodist Church.

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