[This letter was written in response to NT Wright’s paper “Undermining Racism.” Tom wrote it, he says, following British reaction to the unfolding racial crisis in America. I am publishing this letter with his permission, for which I am grateful.]
Dear Tom,
I wonder if I could reflect on your recent paper, and share with you why I think it misses the mark.
Now it says some very good things that must be said by any minister of the gospel and especially by theologians. First and most importantly, that we should bring a gospel perspective to bear on this turmoil and not repeat the secular nostrums of various groups. And that at the center of a gospel perspective is Paul’s vision of a differentiated unity in the Body of Christ that transcends old creation boundaries. And that if we do that, we will find that the “biblical gospel of Jesus undermines racism.”
We should avoid the Platonic tendency of earlier generations that allowed Christians to dismiss social concerns as liberal social gospel, which permitted them to wipe their hands of racism that infected their attitudes and actions.
Therefore, second, we should remember that our Christian identity ought to be first and foremost in the ways we think about ourselves and others in the church—that we are Messianic people.
So third, virtue signaling and shouting louder and being “woke” by secular standards are lazy substitutes for real theology that ought to be used by Christian leaders.
Then fourth, that some of the concrete gospel work that ought to result from genuinely Pauline ecclesiology are penitence, mutual forgiveness (in fact 70 X 7), and meeting with leaders from other ethnicities to learn what are their real grievances.
I agree with all of that, and heartily affirm it all.
So why am I writing?
Because of assumptions you make along the way that are not accompanied by arguments.
For example, you point several times to Paul’s vision for a “polychrome” church. At one point you acknowledge that skin color didn’t matter much in “the already polychrome Mediterranean world of Paul’s day.” But then you go back repeatedly to stress what you think American Christians have missed and still miss—that the Body of Christ is polychrome and ought to be polychrome.
I do not find anything in Paul’s letters or in the rest of the New Testament about color. Much is said about the church being from all nations and peoples and tribes and tongues (such as Rev. 7:9), and including Greeks and Jews and men and women (such as Gal. 3:28).
But nothing about color.
Many of your readers might read what I am writing and think this is dumb because it is obvious that this New Testament vision implies colors, and that my denial of their mention means I am trying to avoid the obvious in a racist way.
No, this is exactly the problem that Martin Luther King pointed out—that racists are always seeing colors instead of real human beings made in the image of God with infinite complexity and differentiation. The differentiation is not in their pigmentation but in their souls and gifts—the ways they reflect the infinite variety in what makes up the image of God.
It is obvious–but bears repeating–that Clarence Thomas and Barack Obama share a similar pigment but have little or nothing else in common, except that both are made in the image of God and both claim Jesus to be their messiah.
And what they would say about this question of color also bears pointing out. Obama would say that their skin color is tremendously significant in this discussion and marks the great divide in society and the churches.
Thomas would say that focusing on color is the problem. In itself it is racist. That King was right to call for a color-blind society, that only a color-blind society can be just in its institutions—its systems, if you will. And Thomas, who is a fervent Christian, might also notice that the New Testament is color-blind and therefore its vision of justice and the church is also color-blind.
A second assertion you make without argument is that American society (and its churches) is/are systemically racist. Our “structures have colluded with [racism].” Our racial mistakes are “deep in our systems and cultures and must be rooted out.” “The white male still appears privileged.”
Tom, no one doubts the presence of racism today–and sometimes deep racism–in American society and some of the churches. But systemic in the way that one side of the debate means it? Institutional obstacles that prevent young blacks from prospering in American society? Where is the proof? There is plenty of counter-proof, as I have argued here and here.
Most if not all the black leaders and thinkers like Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Glenn Lowry, Carol Swain, Walter Williams, Jason Riley, Derryck Green, John McWhorter, Robert Woodson, Voddie Baucham, and Charles Love have suggested that there is indeed systemic racism, but not the kind which today’s dominant narrative would concede. Robert Woodson, for example, points to failing inner-city schools that are protected by teacher unions that fight charter schools (thus preventing inner-city parents from having a choice in where they send their kids to get an education). Carol Swain reminds us that Planned Parenthood kills black babies disproportionately, and Jason Riley warns that woke calls to defund police will hurt most of all blacks in the inner cities where crime is far more prevalent than in white suburbs.
In other words, there are not two sides of the debate defined by the white side and the black side, as your paper suggests. No, this is a debate going on within black communities (not “community” as if to suggest there is only one black community, another racist assumption made by many [but not you]), and your paper picks from one side of the debate and ignores (no doubt unintentionally) the other.
Then you make the assertion repeatedly that there has been no change since the 1960s and 70s. “No amendment of life . . . no real change . . . Have we [white Christians] learned nothing? [apparently so] . . . The churches have, by and large, forgotten that [the diversity of Jesus’ family] was their vocation, and that racism is a denial of that vocation . . . How did we slide into racism without even realizing? . . . the much deeper failure of western Protestantism . . . We easily tolerate problems at that level [racism as a secondary distraction] . . . We have failed to live out our calling in the gospel.”
Most of the black leaders and thinkers I have mentioned, and many more, would be astonished to read these words from you–that nothing has changed, that America has not made significant progress (while admittedly being still very imperfect). They might say that this must have come from someone who either uncritically adopts assertions made on only one side of the debate today or else has not lived here through this last half-century.
You also suggest without real argument that the existence of all-white churches proves (theological and systemic) racism still at those churches. Do you really know that? Of course in the past there was plenty of racism, especially in times of slavery and Jim Crow and in the 60s and 70s. But do you really know that the fact that a church is mostly white today proves that it is racist? Even at white churches that have tried to attract other colors, but unsuccessfully? There are many of those, all over the U.S.
And what about all-black churches? Is it to be assumed that there is no racism there? Even if some black thinkers such as Derryck Green charge (with argument not just assertion in the forthcoming McDermott, ed., Race and Covenant from Acton Books) that after the 1960s many black churches changed their focus from a gospel of grace to a gospel of race?
Perhaps there are cultural issues regarding worship and preaching styles that affect this “most segregated hour of the American week.” I know that is true for some of my black brothers and sisters in Christ. They prefer a mostly-white church because of its theology or liturgy or worship style, while other blacks regard white worship as dull. And some white Christians I know prefer an otherwise-all-black church for similar cultural and stylistic reasons. In neither case is racism the reason.
Another issue I have with this paper, Tom, is that it barely gets beyond old creation solutions. You say the church ought to be of mixed races (since that is the gospel vision), its leaders ought to get to know blacks personally and swap pulpits, and they should listen to real grievances (presumably voiced by blacks). This is little different, again, from what the New York Times exhorts: society (and churches) ought to mix races, we should get to know one another, and listen to the grievances that blacks have against whites.
Now I am not totally fair: you add the need for penitence and mutual welcoming and forgiveness.
But why does the forgiveness seem to be required of whites alone? “The truly extraordinary thing here is that black Christians will still gladly have fellowship with white Christians, despite everything.”
What if a church is not racist? Is that possible? Or is it only true of black churches? What if a mostly-white church has talked about racism for decades and condemned it? And its members have been careful to treat others fairly and lovingly no matter their pigment? Is this church and all its members to provide “tearful-eyed repentance both for that evil [of racism] and the resentment which it caused”? Is it to repent of Jim Crow segregation and slavery when no members participated in either or approved of either?
Now I will ask some questions that sound dumb and insulting to the most influential biblical scholar in the world—a man from whom I have learned so much and whom I esteem highly, as a man of God and fellow Anglican. So these are questions I would ask of this paper if I did not know its author. Does not the gospel say that all have sinned, no matter what color skin? Why do we get the impression from this paper that sin is committed by one skin color and righteousness is characterized by another skin color? Why does this seem to be a religious version of the new “whiteness” doctrine, that anyone who has a white skin is guilty of racism, and that those who deny it are even more guilty because they lack moral awareness?
Again, you know the answer to the following dumb questions. So consider them more rhetorical questions addressed to the paper as if I did not know its author. Should we not be going deeper as Christians when addressing racism, to talk about racism as a human problem stemming from original sin which pollutes all of us, and that only the blood of Christ wipes that clean? And that Christ calls us all to costly discipleship by the power of the Holy Spirit to look at every person as a unique child of God made in his image? And that like Paul, we should look at no man anymore after the flesh (2 Cor. 5:16)? But by the new creation—either as a person in the new creation or one whom I will pray enters that new creation?
Carol Swain and Derryck Green and Robert Woodson are among many black Christian thinkers who warn Christians against phony repentance for sins they never committed. Here is Green:
In these fruitless attempts, it is always the presumption of white guilt/black innocence and the demand that whites must absolve themselves from the original sin of racism. This presumption simply imitates the way that secular political programs such as Black Lives Matter approach racial issues. They combine virtue-signaling with a look-busy-while-doing-nothing self-righteousness that keeps the “conversation” going interminably. The conversation will never end because it is presupposed that the only guilt is white guilt and the only victims are blacks. Even if today’s whites are not guilty of enslavement or segregation, they must forever atone for the sins of their fathers. This ongoing liturgy would be condemned if it were not stoked by fear and resentment. White Christians genuflect in front of blacks in a ritual act of confession, admitting their white, guilt-by-association sins (racial privilege and “supremacy”) even if they have never personally committed these sins. The next step in the liturgy is for whites to express self-loathing through obligatory sacramental acts of contrition, followed by attempts to seek dispensation, which whites instinctively know they will never receive because they intuitively sense that blacks will never grant it (chap. 11 in Race and Covenant).
Green says these new efforts, like the old ones you describe by the WCC delegates at Nairobi in 1973, will fail:
Despite the fact that all this will be done in the name of Jesus, there will be no resolution. Churches will have imitated the world’s way of reparation rather than using their own theologies of redemption and atonement. They will have sacralized the secular. The churches will continue to suffer self-inflicted wounds as a result of plagiarizing false profiteers and baptizing their secular programs with tainted water. Black Christians will still be victims, and white Christians will still be racial oppressors. (chap. 11, Race and Covenant).
Tom, I agree that we should listen to the grievances of our black brothers and sisters. But I think we need to be careful to pay attention not only to the Barack Obamas but also to the Clarence Thomases—not only to Willie Jennings but also to Voddie Baucham. In other words, we should remember that there is no one black community and no unified black church. And that the way to fight racism is far more complex than simply recognizing Paul’s vision of the church—which many who are thought to be racist have long ago assimilated.
With great respect and continuing friendship,
Gerry
Professor Gerald R. McDermott recently retired from the Chair of Anglican Divinity at Beeson Divinity School.
Comment by Dr. Bruce Atkinson on July 13, 2020 at 7:45 am
Yes, and black lights like Thomas Sowell, Ben Carson, and Condoleezza Rice as well– to help balance the scales of justice and reason.
A brilliant article, professor.
Comment by Mike on July 13, 2020 at 8:39 am
I must read more of this man’s writings! He makes absolute sense!
Comment by Faith McDonnell on July 13, 2020 at 8:51 am
Amen! Yes read everything by Gerry McDermott you can get your hands on!
Comment by Timothy on July 13, 2020 at 1:20 pm
Gerald McDermott’s article is like a fresh early morning breeze.
Comment by Lawrence Kreh on July 13, 2020 at 1:46 pm
I agree in part with this well-writtenarticle. I too highly respect N.T. Wright and yet I also think he has a limited perspective on U.S. race relations in church and society. Having grown up in Birmingham during the civil rights era, I can personally testify at the improvements in racial justice made in my lifetime. Otherwise, I would conclude that the issue is hopeless and would never improve. I also think the theme of collective guilt is overstated. But we do have a history of racism, not only with blacks, but with native Americans and others. And yes, racial dialogue must be a two-way dialogue or it is just guilt mongering. Moreover, within the black community there the problem of the breakdown of families and a high crime rate that is not fully the result of racism.
However, I am convinced that there is indeed systemic racism and that the BLM movement (not the originating organization) has merit. Clarence Thomas and Condoleezza Rice are their viewpoints represent a small percentage of the black community. Anyone can see the voting patterns of African American and white evangelicals to see the obvious gap in worldview.
Recently, our predominately white suburban evangelical church hosted a black community activist from inner-city Oakland (also a Christian) who spoke of his own personal experiences and those of others in their community that were both painful and credible. By in large, to the credit of our parishioners, we listened, avoided knee-jerk reactions, and learned from subsequent discussions.
One small personal example of the gap: As a white person, I would much rather be pulled over for speeding than I would as a black person. The fact that i support the police and believe most are honorable does not mean that reform is badly needed. We cannot police in communities where there is mistrust of the police.
Bottom line: It’s complicated. Whites need to listen to reasoned black people more than we have. And indeed, more than I personally have.
Comment by Linda Okerstrom on July 13, 2020 at 2:00 pm
This is the most succinct, truthful and redemptive piece I’ve seen on this evil discussion dividing humankind. Time we recognize the source and agenda behind it, ie the pit. And also……are we really railing against God as Creator who made us with whatever color He chose? Isn’t it like the original sin – did God say? Or…..did God make a mistake in giving out our varied skin pigment? Am I as a white to rail against God for making me white? And sending me forth into the current era and my particular family, community, country, and socio economic strata only to reject my very essence? It’s about time we all embrace who we are, accept who others are, give God receive the glory and get on with the real battle.
Comment by Michael Harder on July 14, 2020 at 8:35 am
I have been a pastor nearly 35 years. I have tried to engage in conversation and active friendship with my black pastor friends and move beyond talk and theory to active practices aimed at reconciliation, understanding, appreciation and unity of the churches in my community. Years ago as a young associate at a church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania I proposed we diversify our church staff to better engage the diverse community. I met no opposition to my idea but it was pointed out that our community and county were predominantly white (if I recall correctly 92%). Many churches reflect one race because of their surrounding demographic. In this case other strategies can be taken to unify the diversity of God’s people. Today that church has daughter churches in more diverse communities and their local church staffs reflect their communities races. They share pulpits and work together.
Comment by David Gingrich on July 18, 2020 at 8:57 am
NT Wright believes the lies of the Left and apparently wants to show them how “woke” he is. Sad.
Comment by Mary on July 18, 2020 at 1:09 pm
Did you all actually read NT’s whole paper?
Comment by Dr. Daniel Mercaldo on July 19, 2020 at 3:58 pm
Thank you, IRD, for having the courage and spiritual fearlessness to publish this response to a fellow “evangelical elite” that often dominate our thinking by their rhetoric and PC ideas. Why must we echo the world’s thinking perverted by sin, rather than bravely doing what Gerald has done so masterfully and kindly in his response to Wright. Again, thanks for publishing something many of ca finally “hang our hats on!”
Comment by James Sundquist on July 20, 2020 at 10:34 am
I find it an extreme and bitter irony that Gerald McDermott and a host of Christian Professors would white-wash racism in the the church yet simultaneously celebrate, are gobsmacked over, and promote people like John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards who was instrumental in laying the foundation for antisemitic racism, then Kuyper Calvinists pass the racist baton to create Apartheid, while Jonathan Edwards and Robert Lewis Dabney fan white supremacy flames in America, false claiming in biblical illiteracy that Blacks are the Curse of Ham, and yes this did happen in the church. When what they should have done is emulate Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch having a Bible study on Isaiah 53 in his chariot. Had the follow this example, we might not even be having to have this conversation!
Comment by Search4Truth on July 20, 2020 at 11:18 am
There is a story in the Gospel of John about a woman caught in adultery. Am I to take it that you would have had to qualms about casting the first stone?
Comment by James Sundquist on July 21, 2020 at 8:27 am
Calvin had no problem casting the first stone at Servetus who opposed infant baptism the literally had him burned at the stake. And we should remain silent in the face of iniquity or obey the Apostle Paul and expose them?
Comment by CJ Luzi on July 21, 2020 at 6:21 am
As a white man in America who loves Jesus. Thank you.
Comment by Gary Bebop on July 22, 2020 at 4:54 pm
How quickly the church succumbed to the media-exaggerated (and sustained) crises of 2020! Leadership collapsed as if there was no gospel scaffolding to hold it up. Our hierarchs babbled like new-born experts on COVID-19, then spouted the memes and dogmas of BLM as if under compulsion. The hierarchs fell all over themselves like a comedy act trying to get ahead of a fast-moving train of events. They could not distinguish between contradictions and fact, between anarchist madness and reasonable advocacy. They went out of their way to bloviate, to hype, to preach to the choir, to chase the bandwagon, to catch up to “what’s trending.” The bemused condition of the church begs for the cure of truth-telling and exposure to light, as in this response to N. T. Wright.
Comment by William on July 24, 2020 at 2:12 pm
Gary,
Amen and amen. The best analysis that I have read in a long time. Yes, our church “leaders” have looked like sheep without a shepherd joining a stampede off a cliff.
THANK YOU.
Comment by William on July 25, 2020 at 3:14 pm
In addition. Re-reading N.T, Wright,, “Undermining Racism“, actually adds nothing to the current political-secular situation in America. Most of what he advocates fits a then 1960s America and now belongs in the been-there-seen that-done that folder. When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assonated, I was 24 and he was 19. I just wonder where he has been these 52 years since. A historic and real constructive racial transformation took place in the America I have lived in. Not that it’s finished, but it has made an unprecedented and historic advance.
But, what Mr. Wright might have missed is that the Christian church, of which Dr. King was a PASTOR, has been under relentless attack these past 50+ years. And, it is intentionally excluded, ignored, and even mocked by many of these various secular forces involved in this current conflict as the place to turn for help or answers. In fact, as Gary Bebop points out, many current church leaders are actually aiding and abetting this. ALL CHRISTIANS of all ethnicities, national origins, creeds, cultures, backgrounds, et al need to wake up and face up to the fact that too many Americans of all ethnicities, national origins, creeds, cultures, backgrounds, et al have turned their backs on God and left the church in pursuit of what appears to be pagan idols.
Comment by William on July 25, 2020 at 4:20 pm
… was assassinated, I was 24 and WRIGHT was 19.
Comment by Jennifer A Johnson on September 11, 2020 at 10:16 am
I just came across this response to Tom Wright. I concur with Gerald McDermott. There is rubber stamping when its comes to race relations in America. And that is especially strange coming from Tom Wright, who goes out his way to explain Scripture in a well-researched way. I enjoy and gain a lot from Wright’s study of Scripture, but I find him way off when he speaks about social, political and economic issues.
I recently posted my own thoughts. See the link above.
Comment by Michael Simone on November 18, 2020 at 10:33 am
Good analysis, but I stopped at the beginning illustration. Rather than thinking to myself, “Ouch,” I would have responded, “Well, I certainly didn’t intend that.” But it sounds like Tom’s guilt about being a white male overwhelmed his clear thinking at that very moment. He lost purchase on addressing her (implicit) racial Marxism at the moment his own shame/guilt was controlled by her insecurity.
Comment by Dale R Yancy on March 11, 2022 at 12:54 pm
As others have stated, this is a brilliant, well-thought out article in response to N.T. Wright. I have thought for a number of years that the scales have shifted and now weighted in favor of more racism in the black community, and why is that? I believe that young blacks from the time they are in kindergarten, all the way through college, have been indoctrinated by mostly white liberal teachers and professors that they are victims of the white man and white oppression. They grow up thinking that whitey owes them something. And our response as whites is to feel guilty and instead of holding black youth to the same standards as white youth, whites offer “affirmative action” as a way for blacks to advance in society. But they are operating by different standards, sometimes with much lower expectations which further cements the “victim” mentality. I believe that Marxist groups like Black Lives Matter which is only a revival of the Black Panther Party of the 60s, are an outgrowth of this racism that has been inculcated in them throughout their educational experience. And, I offer up Barack Obama who received the votes of so many whites which enabled him to become president. Many whites had high hopes that Obama would help to bring the races together and bring a healing to our land. Instead, he inflamed the racial tension in our nation time and time again. He was always playing the race card, and he’s a perfect example of a man who has been brainwashed into thinking that he and every black man or woman is a victim of white suppression.
Comment by Isa Kocher on August 29, 2022 at 4:26 am
“have the mindset of Christ”
Nothing in this response seems to me to look at it from the Christ point of view but from the point of view of those who seek to justify themselves.
You can’t justify yourself. Our only justification is Christ.
I was born to a rather rich Westchester family with naturalized Swiss parents in the early 40s, during WWII, but I never could accept that I was ‘white’. White people are dead, drained of blood. Although in the 40s and 50s and 60s, the discourse, the culture, the society did not have the means to articulate my sense that ‘white’ utterly denies my humanity and its entirety, its beauty as a loved one of the creator. I vigorously felt that it separated me from the best of me. In Europe or in South America, I viscerally felt dehumanized by ‘white’: living people are all people of color, which is different for every person in the world, no two of us alike.
It’s very difficult to purge the race [conscious and unconscious] out of one’s world view, but Jesus demanded it, said emphatically that it is the law. The parable of the good Samaritan, in particular, the praise for the good Centurion, Matthew 3:9, Luke 3:8. Jesus says do it, or you cannot experience the love which is our legacy. It says so in Deuteronomy, choose life, so that you may live. If you don’t the land of the covenant itself will throw you out. It is spelled out in detail at Leviticus 19. The consequence of denying it spelled out by Ezekiel 16.
I find this response particularly demeaning and denigrating of the very real injustices of 500 years of church racism and it’s denial of God’s love to the the majority of humanity.
1. ‘black person’ was not English until the 17th Century. Nor as far as I know, European culture. Quite the contrary.
‘white person’ was first written in the 18th Century.
You cannot read ‘black person’ ‘person of color’ white person’ back into 1st Century language and culture. That 1st Century scripture does not use cognates of 21st Century English ‘race’ ‘racism’ ‘ “woke” ‘homosexuality’ ‘black person’ ‘person of color’ ‘white person’ ‘segregation’ etc. in its 1st Century discourse, is because those concepts are not any part of that culture: scripture is not a catalogue of sins, has no catalogue of sins, Leviticus not withstanding.
It’s not about ‘me’ or ‘mine’ but that we, the Body of Christ crucify Christ on the cross of race.
It’s not about laying blame. God is judge. Our responsibility is to purge it. Every day we turn to god and ask to be forgiven, the LORD’s Prayer.
2. Race as biology, racism as biology, and the whole vocabulary of racism that has developed has a known history starting with ‘Dum Diversas’ papal bull issued on 18 June 1452 by Pope Nicholas V. ‘Romanus pontifex’, papal bull of Pope Nicolas V, Portugal, 8 January 1455, all the way through to Dred Scot v Sanford, SCOTUS 60 US 393 (1857) up to the denial of GI Bill benefits to non-whites in the 1940s and 1950s, redlining to this day, Sunset laws, systematic underfunding of non-white education to this very hour.
Denigrating and denying and the scientific sociology, anthropology, linguistics, discourser analysis, and economics research on race, racism and its effects on our society, ad hominem denigration “liberal’ ‘leftist’ ‘woke’ while having no substantive research of any kind in any body of juried research, is neither rational reasonable nor logical. Throwing denigration at, denying and criminalizing the science did not make science disappear in the church of the Middle Ages, nor in the USSR, nor in PRC, and that kind of ad hominem attack on responsible academic and science study demeans the denier.
3. It’s not the means by which injustice is the outcome which makes injustice sinful. Injustice is sin. Scripture spells out the rights of the poor as the meaning of the Hebrew word for justice. Whoever, however, when ever, where ever, why injustice exists is not the issue. First feed the hungry.
The whole of Christianity is totally summed up in the parable of the good Samaritan. Jesus say explicitly, as do the prophets at great length, that taking care of others is our responsibility. The first law is the love GOD: the second is the same law which is to love others as if they are our selves. That is how we love god, by loving each other.
4. The accusation that “they are racist” is just that, an accusation. Where in the USA since the 15th Century have non-whites had the means, the authority, the power, the wherewithal to impose racist injustice on ‘white’ people. The patent absurdity of that accusation is beyond all possible conceivability. Outside of bad porno, and worse -B scifi movies. Even the poorest of the poor whites are victims, not of non-white oppressors, but of the exploitation of the majority in power.
Who, how, why, when, where the injustice exists, along our way, the only thing that counts is our picking them up, the victims, and doing for them what they need. That is not optional, not a suggestion, not forgivable. That is our job. It does not matter that it’s too much for anyone to handle, we are commanded to do just that, give forgive, love. Without limit. That is Christ and when we take care of someone, we are their friend and family they are ours.
Phippians 2:7 have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
postscript: St Paul never mentioned color? Really? How have we fallen so far out of grace where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Lord, I am not worthy… say but the word. Lord, heal us.
Comment by Hershel Franklin on August 29, 2022 at 5:08 pm
When a writer attacks the principle of “woke” without any rationale as to why it is in his or her opinion a bad thing, I usually quit reading. I read this whole thing and wondered why you didn’t end with a call to support a disgraced former President. Many of the comments reflect the secular problems involved with racism rather than the problem Prof. Wright seemed to address, the problem of racism within American Christianity. I can certainly understand why Prof. Wright didn’t wish to enter an exchange with this author of the blog.