'Now is a Time for Theology to Thrive'

AUG. 9, 2014, is a day I’ll never forget. It was the day that Michael Brown was killed by Ferguson, Mo. police officer Darren Wilson.

For many young people in the United States, especially those of us involved in the Black Lives Matter movement, this was our Sept. 11. We all remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when the news broke of another police-involved killing of an unarmed black citizen.

I was in the final days of a yearlong internship with Sojourners. My fellow interns and I were on our closing retreat in West Virginia. I was on my phone checking my Twitter timeline when I began to see retweets of images: Michael Brown laid out on Canfield Drive with blood still leaking from his bullet wounds. I remember the anger that instantly came over me. “Not another one!” was all I could think.

As the day wore on, I felt frustrated that I was stuck in a retreat house, forced to sit idly by while the grieving community in Ferguson was antagonized by officers in riot gear with police dogs. I knew then that I had to do whatever it would take to join the people in this fight for justice. I never imagined how this movement would change the way I—and many others—actually do theology.

Justice-seeking has always been central to my Christian identity. I grew up in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a denomination born out of the fight for freedom and in protest against racial discrimination and slavery, as many have learned after the massacre at Emanuel AME in Charleston, S.C.

However, it became apparent early in the Black Lives Matter movement that “justice” was not part of the spiritual imagination or vocabulary for many U.S. Christians.

On the issue of police brutality, churches across the nation were virtually silent. For some, it was the silence of indifference. For others, it was fear—fear that this hot-button topic would split their congregations, would lose them membership or support.

Two months after Michael Brown’s killing, Ferguson organizers issued an invitation for clergy from around the country to come to Missouri and march on the frontlines. This was a pivotal moment for the movement. On Oct. 13, dozens of clergy arrived to join a four-day action of prayer and protest. As many as 43 people, many of them clergy, were arrested as part of a planned civil disobedience action. As clergy faced police in riot gear, Rev. Osagyefo Sekou said, “We are saying that these officers are members of our society and that they are part of a racist and sinful system. We are offering them the opportunity to repent and to be reconciled into our community.” As protests began to spread nationwide, clergy made headlines. No longer could churches and denominations afford to be silent. They needed to have an analysis of the social climate.

A call to reform

As the Black Lives Matter movement continues to grow, it has become increasingly necessary that churches address the turmoil in the streets.

David Wigger, a 29-year-old recent graduate of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, was one of the clergy arrested in October. “This movement is challenging the church to be the church ... to be creative and prophetic,” Wigger told Sojourners. “It is challenging the church to live into its calling, to risk stability for faithful action, and to both follow and lead. It is challenging the church to be a witness in the world and to live beyond the four walls or a Sunday service. It is challenging the church to be better.”

Caitlin Fair, a 27-year-old teacher, organizer, and “artivist” who attends the nondenominational Kingdom Church in Ewing, N.J., believes the Black Lives Matter movement “challenges the church to push past its theological comfort zone. It requires the church to step out into a territory that may be intimidating, but is absolutely integral to authentic Christian discipleship.” For Fair, “a church that is not actively engaged in discussions and actions around the issues we are currently facing is doing a disservice to its congregation and the people it intends to serve.”

Along with the call to bring the church to the streets is also a call to reform what happens in the church. Recent Pew surveys show that Millennials are leaving churches in droves. This is partly due to the fact that some churches appear to have become safe havens for racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. When young people think critically about the multifaceted and systemic nature of racism and the oppressions they face, too often churches appear to be passively maintaining the mechanisms of white supremacy and privilege. This is a critical element of the theological crisis.

When it comes to building a movement, Candace Simpson, a second-year student at Union Theological Seminary in New York, sees the value in intergenerational spaces such as church, but she has questions. “How do we support movements, like Black Lives Matter, when as an institution we frequently shame the not-so-respectable, welfare recipients, unwed mothers, incarcerated people, or queer people?” asks Simpson. She believes this movement will “challenge us to think more broadly about this word ‘leader’” and will perhaps “snap us out of expecting that a good word only comes from a man in a suit or a woman who wears pantyhose.”

The church cannot be challenged without also challenging our theology. When I began seeing protest signs that read “James Cone Was Right” and “This Is What Theology Looks Like,” I knew that, for the majority of Christians in this country, there would be a wide gap in understanding. Many Christians would not be familiar with Cone and his black liberation theology, would not understand that systemic oppression requires a theological analysis, would not know how to respond to the injustice that systemic sin creates or feel comfortable doing so.

If our theology renders us silent and docile in the face of oppression, then it is quite frankly toxic to our faith. What good are we to society and to God’s kingdom if we are sitting in pews while the world around us suffers and burns? Our theology should inform our actions as Christians. Jorge Juan Rodriguez V, another student at Union Theological Seminary, says, “Theology happens when we offer our bodies in solidarity with the oppressed, disrupting the systems that perpetuate oppression.”

A moment of theological crisis?

If this movement challenges the church’s theology, then is it a moment of theological crisis? For Christians such as me, who feel that too much of U.S. Christianity has been co-opted by values of empire, the answer is an emphatic yes. This movement has further exposed the ways in which our theology has failed us. “Many of my activist peers articulate a complex spirituality and engage in practices like meditation or prayer,” says Simpson, “but they have been hurt so badly by church messages that they would never attend anyone’s church. We’ve sadly pushed so many people away from the church that they make unnecessary distinctions between faith and activism.”

David Wigger and Caitlin Fair, however, describe this moment not as a crisis, but as an opportunity or a crossroads. Similar to an identity crisis where one undergoes a drastic change to one’s meaning system, the Black Lives Matter movement requires Christian theology to be transformed. “This is a definitive moment in the life of theology, America, and myself,” says Digger. “It is not a time of crisis, but a time of fulfillment. Now is a moment for theology to come into its own. Now is a moment for theology to live into the Word and the Spirit. Now is a time for theology to thrive.”

Fair sees this as “an opportunity to stop skipping over difficult portions of the biblical text, parts that don’t fit into the peaceful, passive narrative. It’s an opportunity to explore who Jesus was, and what the Bible actually says, in totality.”

“We focus on things like helping the poor through coat drives and food drives because it’s easy and it makes us feel good. It’s not messy. It doesn’t involve politics and difficult discussion. However, this kind of participation is not only underdeveloped and irresponsible, but it is un-Christlike. Jesus was a radical. He was persecuted for his beliefs and teachings. I believe this moment presents an opportunity for the church to re-engage in the radical work that it is intended to be doing.”

Dr. John Jefferson Davis, professor of systematic theology and Christian ethics at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, maintains that theology is like a backbone in a healthy body. “The backbones in our bodies, like the foundations and electrical and plumbing systems in our homes, are usually taken for granted—until something goes wrong,” Davis writes. “Like a healthy backbone in a healthy human body, sound biblical theology can provide support, shape, and stability to the body of Christ.”

Members of the body of Christ continue to be terrorized, murdered, and lynched by those sworn to “protect and serve.” We must continue to develop a theological analysis that ensures that neither dignity nor humanity is stolen from our black sisters and brothers. As Christians, we must make the connection between the cross at Golgotha and the one at Canfield Drive.