We Need To Talk About Race In Church

F. Willis Johnson, Holding Up Your Corner: Talking About Race In Your Community
Will Willimon, Who Lynched Willie Earle?: Preaching to Confront Racism

As a preacher in Ferguson, Missouri, Reverend F. Willis Johnson served on the front lines when the Michael Brown case exploded. He marched with local clergy and community members when the case stalled. And when things turned violent, Reverend Johnson interposed his black body between panicked protesters and police armed like a counterinsurgency corps. Yet he realized, eventually, such camera-friendly direct action wasn’t enough.

Johnson’s first book draws its title from the biblical story of the paralytic who, unable to approach Jesus directly, had four other men lower him through the roof so Christ could heal him. Christ healed this man through his faith, Johnson says, but also the faith of his four friends, who needed to each take their corner of his mat. Likewise, if we call ourselves Christ followers, we must assume responsibility for getting society’s least powerful through the door.

To achieve his goals, Reverend Johnson expounds his Empathic Models of Transformation, or EMT—the abbreviation is deliberate. EMT requires Christians to Acknowledge, Affirm, and Act. This means those who have standing in American society, the wealthy, white, male, and heterosexual among us, must reject our encultured White Savior complex and genuinely listen to the oppressed, where they are, regardless of our discomfort.

Despite promising to talk about race in his title, Johnson’s EMT becomes more inclusive. He’s concerned with society’s “othering” process, where our power structures categorize people into insiders and others. This includes people we’ve “othered” for their sexuality, gender identity, and more. Once we understand how power structures, often invisible, lift up some while marginalizing others, Christians can mobilize the Gospel into acts of radical resistance, just like the Apostles did.

This slim volume is part of a congregational study challenging Christians to explore the countercultural impulses of their faith. Johnson demonstrates how Scripture boldly opposed power structures of its day, and how modern Christians, inspired by that message, stand firm in defense of the powerless and oppressed. He invites congregations to join difficult conversations about painful topics, but he reminds us we don’t fight alone. We follow the One who brought Good News to the poor.

Bishop Will Willimon didn’t discover the Willie Earle lynching until he was in college, though it happened in his South Carolina hometown. From that point, the spectre of racial violence hung over his thinking, as he proceeded through seminary, ascended the ecclesiastical ladder, and eventually became a Duke University professor. Now he commences from Earle to question how white pastors can counsel white parishes on contemporary American racism.

Early in his book, Willimon unpacks the history. After a crowd of whites was unanimously acquitted for lynching Willie Earle, Reverend Hawley Lynne of Pickens, South Carolina, preached a fiery sermon to his white Methodist congregation. Whether it changed much, Willimon doesn’t address; what matters is that a Christian leader used the church to challenge the powerful in their high places, in the Wesleyan tradition.

Reverend F. Willis Johnson (left) and retired Bishop Will Willimon

Willimon relates this to today’s environment. Though most denominations condemn overt racism, white Christians remain reluctant to address systemic inequity that prevents poor non-whites improving their station in America. But Christianity’s root demand that believers address injustice. The white Protestant illusion that Christianity only preaches getting to heaven when you die makes little sense to African-Americans and other people genuinely oppressed.

Directly addressing congregational ministers, Willimon expresses his opinion that Christian leaders must address structural injustices. If Christians are a people of mission, we cannot extend that mission only to people like ourselves, those who already share our values or whose experiences resemble our own. A congregation that doesn’t reach outward doesn’t represent the Christ-like model, and from the parable of the sheep and goats, we know how that ends.

Though Willimon intends this book for preachers, and others conducting organized ministry, it offers plenty of insight for serious-minded Christians engaged with today’s world. What does Christianity mean, Willimon asks, when we see someone bleeding by the road? More important, when it’s us bleeding? Willimon doesn’t answer these questions directly. Rather, he challenges Christians to go inward seeking answers. Because only when we know Christ can we change.

These books have some commonalities. Both authors are United Methodist clergy: Johnson, a pulpit minister and church planter, Willimon a retired bishop. Both teach in seminaries, so they have the “teaching and preaching” halves of ministry covered. And both books run under 100 pages, plus back matter. But they aren’t identical in theme or approach, and have different intended audiences. I recommend reading both books together.