Mark Charles finished his four-part lecture series on the Doctrine of Discovery intended to expose the systemic racism of white America and the white Church. He transitioned away from the cultural and historical instruction in his first, second, and third talks to a theological interpretation of Mark 6 and its relevance to the mission of today’s American Church, particularly the white Church.
Charles introduced his theological perspective through Mark 6:35-44.
By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” But he answered, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “That would take more than half a year’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?” “How many loaves do you have?” he asked. “Go and see.” When they found out, they said, “Five—and two fish.” Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.
According to Charles, this passage illustrates the dichotomy of human power and divine authority and is applicable to reflecting on systemic racism. He defined power as “having the ability to act” and authority as “having the permission to act”. Taking a detour from the passage, he described our leaders who are “absolutely, over the top, obsessed with power”, but they “almost never mention authority.” In other words, “what would happen if the U.S. lost its military and its finances?” Answering his own question, he claimed no country would give a care about what we say because “we have a ton of power, but no authority…Power is only effective when you demonstrate it.” Unfortunately, in Charles’ opinion, the white Church all too often adheres to the systemic racism of white America.
Charles contrasted this mentality with that of Jesus. He argued that Jesus “didn’t talk like someone who studied Scripture, he talked like someone who wrote it.” Jesus continually instructs the witnesses to His miracles to stay silent about what they had experienced. Indeed, Charles claimed, “Jesus is not running around displaying His power, he was exercising His authority.” He made a clear distinction between the human confines of power and the divine gift of authority. Specifically, Mark 6:7-13 was cited to support his theory:
Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits. These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.
Charles’ interpretation of this passage is that Jesus is giving the disciples authority, and not power. Furthermore, Jesus commands the disciples to lay down their power through discarding material possessions and to pray to God for provision. As the epitome of this selflessness, Christ emptied Himself on the cross. His authority came through surrendering power. Likewise, He encouraged us to model this lifestyle because our “authority doesn’t come until we’re powerless.” The disciples failed to undertake the task of Jesus’ command to feed the people because they were stuck in the rut of power. They kept on missing the point because “their hearts were hardened.” In fact, Charles alleged that a primary goal of Jesus was to form an attitude of authority in His apostles’ minds.
He continued to engage the audience by sharing his personal story of living on a reservation, “one of the most powerless places in the world.” As he struggled with isolation, despair, systemic racism, and fear, he felt the need to transform his worldview from a desire for power to a calling toward authority. Charles challenged the white-Church-at-large to adapt to a similar struggle. We should each decide, “Every time I’m tempted to pray for power, I’m going to ask you for authority.” He confronted American desires for financial security and comfortable lifestyles by claiming that, as Christians, “If we want access to God’s authority, we have to spend ourselves…This is why most of the miracles we hear of happen overseas.” Thus, we should not shy away from spending our savings and giving extravagantly, placing ourselves in situations of extreme poverty to test God’s provision.
Expanding this line of thought, Charles suggested that the white Church combat systemic racism through the paradigm of authority and “engage dialogue by laying down our power.” The gay marriage debate is the ideal opportunity for this. Charles maintained that “the Church absolutely needs to be engaged politically, not in a partisan way, but in a prophetic way.” However, many white Evangelicals and Catholics are supposedly choosing partisan bickering over prophetic reconciliation. Indeed, Charles judged the white Church by sharing his personal feelings: “The Church is running around arguing about who to bake a cake for. That embarrasses me. That makes me hold my head in shame.”
Once again, we should look to Jesus time and time again demonstrated, “The Gospel’s relational capital is the least.” Instead of loving God from a place of powerless authority, many Christians are allegedly doing the opposite and may even enable systemic racism. Charles once again lamented the white Church’s obsession for power and argued that if we “give up trying to make our nation Christian, we could bring a real level of compassion.”
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