When I think of dismantling racism, I think of tearing down a wall. This wall has been built of bricks of injustice that once justified the dehumanization and enslavement of Black people. It later kept Black people out of swimming pools and out of the voting booth. It insured separate and unequal education for African American students. This wall led to the division of The United Methodist Church's predecessor denominations into northern and southern branches and embroiled church people of the time in the Civil War. It continued to divide through the creation of jurisdictions, in particular, the Central Jurisdiction, which segregated United Methodists by race.
This wall of injustice did not just impact Black people. It also was at the root of the abusive boarding schools that separated Native American children from their families. It was at the root of the Chinese Exclusion Act and of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. It is at the root of the recent rise in violence against People of Color, including the murder of Black parishioners at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015, the killings of mostly Hispanic people at an El Paso Walmart in 2019, and an almost 300+ percent rise in anti-Asian hate crimes in 2021 [1].
The Council of Bishops is seeking to tear down this wall through the Dismantling Racism: Pressing on to Freedom initiative. Our annual conferences have engaged the work. Our further commitment to the effort was reflected in the North Central Jurisdiction’s “Covenant to Build BeLoved Community.”
How should we continue to live out these commitments? We must articulate a biblical and theological grounding for anti-racism work. Then, we must look at structures and systems within the church and the ministry which beckons from without.
A Biblical and Theological Call
In his speech, “Facing the Challenge of a New Age,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. indicted segregation, and by association racism, in the starkest of terms. He called it “a glaring evil” and “utterly unchristian.” He called it “…a blatant denial of the unity which we all have in Christ Jesus" [2].
It also is the blatant denial of the full humanity of all people. And from it comes ideas that give license to disenfranchisement, marginalization and abuse. In seeking to dismantle racism, we are living out our membership vows “…to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves." [3] We also are living out our understanding of the work of Christ: “For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” Ephesians 2:14 (NRSV)
Reconciliation through Cross-Racial/Cross-Cultural Appointments
Throughout my ministry in The United Methodist Church, I have only served in cross-racial, cross-cultural appointments. In these appointments, there were often a few parishioners who had difficulty receiving me as their pastor. Still, I had the opportunity to serve them in their most vulnerable moments--at the bedside through an illness or helping to prepare a loved-one’s funeral. They had the opportunity to experience me as a person and pastoral leader. And what often happened was reconciliation. The dividing wall was torn down. This was no surprise, for Scripture tells us that, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” 2 Corinthians 5:18
My hope is that we would continue to use cross-racial, cross-cultural appointments as a ministry of reconciliation. To do that effectively, we must engage inter-cultural competency work and prepare congregations to accept such appointments. And we must care for pastors in these appointments and recognize when issues of racism or cultural chauvinism are impacting a congregation’s reception and evaluation of their pastor.
Beyond-the-Walls Evangelism
I remember a church I pastored which had a hunger to grow. But they were in decline and ineffective at reaching out to their community. Indeed, the neighborhood around the church had changed; it had become more ethnically and culturally diverse. The difficulty this church faced was not its mission field. Their difficulty was their inability to see the mission field and to reach out effectively across boundaries of race.
Indeed, this is a challenge for many of our churches as our country grows more diverse. But it also presents an opportunity to lead with ministry that breaks down the walls of racism. Such opportunity invites us to engage in anti-racism and cultural competency work at the local church level as integral to our evangelism and our efforts to reach out to diverse and changing communities.
Supporting Ethnic Churches and New Church Starts
On a recent Sunday, I had the honor of preaching at the Women’s Day program at Scott Memorial UMC in Detroit. Founded in 1909, Scott Memorial was the first Black Methodist Episcopal Church in Michigan. As the oldest Black United Methodist Church in our state, it has a long history of life-changing ministry in its community, including the birth of three other Methodist congregations. Scott Memorial, like so many of our ethnic churches, does not fit the narrative of decline that we often hear.
Indeed, our ethnic churches are making disciples and transforming communities. We must resource these existing churches and find models for new-church starts in ethnically diverse communities. God has called us, after all, to make disciples of all.
Friends if we move forward, patiently, faithfully, and courageously, with initiatives to dismantle racism, the end would be God's “kindom.” Or, in the words of the Rev. Dr. King, “…the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community.”[4]
Let it be so in the annual conferences of the North Central Jurisdiction and beyond.
Kennetha J. Bigham-Tsai
October 19, 2022
[1] Anti-Asian hate crimes increased 339 percent nationwide last year, report says, by Kimmy Yam, NBC News, January 31, 2022. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anti-asian-hate-crimes-increased-339-percent-nationwide-last-year-repo-rcna14282
[2] A Testament of Hope, The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr, ed. James M. Washington, HarperSanFrancisco, 1986, p. 142.
[3] The United Methodist Hymnal, p. 34
[4] Ibid, p. 140