Whether Corporations, Too, Can Be Saved

“Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. (Jonah 1:2-3)

I'm going to attempt a meditation on Christian ethics and corporations, and I think perhaps it is best to start with a story. I grew up on a family farm. I can still remember the day our family farm incorporated, and eventually we replaced the sign on the barn that read "Sunny View Farms" with "Schnekloth Farms Inc." At the time, I don't think I understood all the implications of the change, but it had something to do with taxes and the size of the farm and the fact that "Sunny View Farms" was already an incorporated name, so we had to choose another one.

In my adult life, now away from the farm and living in the city, I always hear conversations about corporate farming and agri-business with an ear tuned differently. I'm sympathetic to multiple perspectives. I know that even though my family farm is large, and a corporation, it is still also a family farm. I see both the personal and the corporate side of the ledger.

Also as an adult, convinced as I have become by my reading of Scripture and Christian tradition, I have adopted a confessional position that understands the prophetic tradition of our faith to stand at odds with quite a lot of capitalist corporate ethics. Inasmuch as big businesses make the bottom line the telos of corporate life, and adopt a teleological ethics (the ends justify the means), I must stand against such an ethic.

Making a profit is a "good," on one level, but it is a good that must be qualified by other ethical considerations.

I am quite aware, having lived among and listened to people working at every level of corporate life, that business professionals themselves bring an array of ethical considerations to bear on their decision-making. They move beyond the profit-motive, and take into consideration the good of their employees, care of the land, moral systems of the right (deontology), etc.

It is not true that corporate leaders think only about profit.

But it is equally true that most corporate leaders are unaware of how primary the profit-motive is to all their decision-making, and how influenced they are by their position of power and wealth.

In fact, it's probably impossible for them to see this at work in themselves, typically because part of their compensation is shares in the company, and so their own net worth is increased if the company does well.

Self-interest is always tricky.

So, if I spend time talking with executives at a large corporation, the way they think about themselves and their company is typically very distant from the way the average consumer, or the average worker, thinks about that company. I think the distance between perspectives is caused in large part by the wealth. Because executives make such vast sums of money and are regularly congratulated for their success, they come to believe that they are primarily good. And because many corporations get to be patrons in the community as a result of their wealth, they not only think they are good, they also get the impression about themselves that they are benevolent.

Patron-client structures are equally tricky.

On the consumer and worker side, consumers tend to notice (rightly) what is lacking in the quality of products produced by corporations, driven as they are by the profit-motive. On the worker side, they are very aware of how much the corporation is mostly just using them as a cog in the machine, and paying them wages that match their position as a "tool."

All of this only begins to scratch the surface. Corporate ethics is incredibly complex.

So, to return to the story itself, I happen to know executives at big corporations. I also know workers on production lines. If I weigh in on corporate ethics as a preacher, it's a rather awkward position to be in, because the workers generally feel supported and heartened to know a pastor will stand with them. They're also surprised, because the majority of clergy in our tradition pastor middle class churches whose members work primarily at the corporate office.

In the meantime, my friends and parishioners who work at the corporate offices rightly wonder what I think of them, especially if and when I call out what I consider to be ethics violations by the corporation at which they work.

In short, the answer is, I don't change my interactions with parishioners based on where they work anymore than I change interactions with parishioners based on what they share with me about their psychological diagnosis. If you learn anything as a pastor, it's that we are complex creatures. You can love a whole person even after you know very intimate things about them, like their criminal record or their annual salary.

So, consider this. Martin Luther often wrote popular essays on ethical topics. One of my favorites had the catchy title, "Whether Soldiers, Too, Can Be Saved."

Luther knew that it isn't just individuals who are looking for a word from the Lord. Social groups and nations are addressed in Scripture also, and need such a word. You can hardly read a book of the Bible without coming to the realization that when God speaks through preachers and prophets, God primarily addresses not individuals, but groups.

This put me in mind of the Jonah text quoted at the beginning of this long post. Jonah was called by the Lord to speak out against the whole city of Nineveh. He's not told to go and convert an individual person, or individuals. He's called to preach to the city (and by implication the people/nation) as a whole.

Preachers throughout history have spoken to nations and groups, not just individuals. But in a hyper-individualistic society, we may have a hard time thinking about preaching to corporations. We have perhaps gathered the wrong idea, assuming that a sermon is primarily something spoken on Sunday morning that is just for the individual believer to hear.

But how do we preach to corporations? Like Luther's question about soldiers, we might ask whether corporations, too, can be saved?

It's not really that strange of a question.  Corporations are in our legal fiction "persons". As persons, our political or economic theology may need to figure out how to address them. Thanks to Adam Smith and the rise of classic liberal economic theory, which moved beyond mercantilistic theory, corporations in the 18th century became untethered from government or guild affiliation and became public or private entities in their own right.

Corporations are part of the "powers and principalities" (Ephesians 6:12).  They need sermons in order to be called to repentance that they might serve the common good more fully. All Christians at some level or another recognize that part of preaching is challenge. The preacher is supposed to name sin, identify where we have fallen short, and then offer a word of forgiveness in the name of Christ so that the sinner may then, set free from sin, live in Christ.

It may be that corporations also need to hear the gospel. Although I don't know anyone who thinks that corporations will as corporations enter the kingdom of heaven, we do believe that every power and principality, from a government to a corporation to a cultural system, can move either into greater alignment with the will of God, or further from it.

The relationship between individuals working for a corporation and the entity of a corporation itself is complex. Just like there are no people who are totally good or totally bad, the same may be said of corps. If a preacher says to a person, "Turn from your sin, and live," the preacher is not saying that person is bad or should be buried in guilt because of their sin. The preacher is naming the sin so they can change and live differently, and then hopes they will live more fully in the gospel.

So too with corporations. Preachers need to figure out how to speak to corporations in their communities and challenge them. Would that many more preachers would preach to the corporations! Corporations are "actors" in some ways comparable to human beings, and they need moral checks and balances in place to keep them doing better. Corporations are somewhat unique compared to people in that they have much more power and influence than individuals.

Corporations, especially large corporations, can have tremendous influence in a community. Although oftentimes the main positive influence they put forward is their charity (scholarships, foundations, grants, etc.) the actual positive influence from large corporations is the quality of the product they produce, and the way they pay and care for their workers. No amount of charity in a community can make up for a company paying poverty level wages to thousands of people. No amount of scholarships to schools can make up for tax avoidance.

Corporations can create fear, they can direct everything around them. Like sinners, they can then become blind to their own systems of power and dominance. As a preacher who ends up listening to people at all levels of corporate life, I have learned that typically those at the top are completely tone-deaf to the impact of their power and wealth. They often can't even see the impact of the systems they create, even while they create them in order to purposely stay immune and mostly blind.

Then, because they have great wealth, they are able to do beautiful things that are supposed to provide cover for the harm.

Let me give one example. We have this amazing museum now in Northwest Arkansas, Crystal Bridges. I love to go there. They've got Mark Rothko paintings, among other great works of art. The only reason they are able to have such a large collection of art is because a member of the Walton family is so wealthy (in the top five wealthiest people in the world) she was able to personally collect great American art and build the museum.

Every time I go visit the museum, I love it. I also remember that the entire museum was built from wealth accumulated by sending small communities all over the world into spirals of poverty as big box Walmart stores were built on the outskirts of towns. My opportunity to view Rothko was funded on the backs of the poor. This is a truth.

I'm not even sure what to do with that level of complexity. Should I not go visit the art? What should I do to change that reality. How should I extricate myself from those kinds of systems? Can I?

I imagine this is what it also feels like to work for a large corporation if it is called out for ethics violations. Employees may ponder, Am I complicit? What should I do? Am I a bad person for working here? What if I like working here, and like this company, but learn it is doing something I don't believe in? What should I do?

I think the responsibility of a Christian employee in a large corporation is probably actually very close to the responsibility of any Christian consumer. Inasmuch as possible, work for the good of your neighbor. Do not profit off your neighbor unjustly. If you learn that there are ethics violations within your company, or from a company whose products you consume, raise the issue with the company, not to create guilt, but to create change. Identify the concrete steps you think they should take, and list them. Join with others.

Because the powers and principalities know how to fight, it is guaranteed there will be blowback. None of us like to be challenged. If my friends tell me I should change something, naturally I get defensive. If they challenge me on something I'm particularly blind to, or really don't want to change because I'm quite comfortable, my pushback will be even stronger.

Now magnify this at the corporate level. Corporations have incredible defense systems in place. It's no wonder that its hard for workers and consumers to organize. Corporations have figured out how to game the system to make it hard to organize.

Organize anyway.

Do it always with the goal in mind, for change, for the neighbor in need.

Jesus came preaching repentance for the forgiveness of sins. In our day, now more than ever, this preaching needs to address corporations also.

Corporations need to hear sermons. They need preachers. For the love of God and neighbor.

I would add one more thing. If you listen to workers, you find out how difficult things really are. Wages in real terms for workers have diminished year after year while the super wealthy at the top of the corporations take home sickeningly large paychecks. Many at upper levels of management also take home really large salaries.

I think if you make that much money, you need to suck it up a bit. Corporate leaders are really good at acting all fragile. If you bring concerns about the company, they act hurt. I say, get over it. I do not care about corporate leaders feelings very much. I care that they act responsibly. And I have come to realize the best way to get them to act responsibly is to wake them up. Which isn't alway easy when they're so comfortable and confident.

But do we really want to live in a society where the vast majority of people are sliding further and further towards poverty while a few incredibly wealthy people offshore their wealth.

That certainly isn't what the God of the prophets, the God of Jesus, called for.

Denial of bathroom breaks in the poultry industry

One of the sacred responsibilities of clergy is to serve as witnesses. We are called into many moments in people’s lives. We see, we listen, and then when necessary, we share the story, the truth. So this week Tuesday I opened the newspaper. Front page, I learned that Tyson Foods second quarter profits were $133 million over second quarter of 2015. The company is making a lot of money.

Then, I spent the afternoon reviewing the new report, “No Relief: Denial of Bathroom Breaks in the Poultry Industry." Central to that text, you learn that chicken is the most popular meat in America, and the poultry industry is booming. But workers on the processing line do not share in the bounty. Poultry workers 1) earn low wages of diminishing value, 2) suffer elevated rates of injury and illness, and 3) often experience a climate of fear in the workplace.

Despite this, though, workers themselves say that the thing that offends their dignity most is simple: lack of adequate bathroom breaks, and the suffering that entails, especially for women.

Tuesday evening, I gathered to listen to a large group of poultry industry employees, primarily from Tyson, who shared their stories. They reported many workplace violations, but like the Oxfam report, the violation that was the most demeaning to them and remarkable was denial of bathroom breaks. For a variety of reasons, from lack of “floats,” to arbitrary decision-making by supervisors, to strict rules limiting the length of time for bathrooms to impossibly short lengths, poultry workers, women in particular, are being denied bathroom breaks.

Instead, they are being told to limit their fluid intake. If they do speak up, they often experience systemic retaliation. They live in constant fear both of retaliation, and of the punitive point system for breaks and sick days that leaves them constantly worried for their jobs.

Here’s the thing. As a pastor, I have friends at many levels of Tyson and other poultry companies, from the lines up to corporate headquarters. One of the ways the companies like to talk is to emphasize that they are a team. Tyson even calls their employees team members.

But if you go to Tyson corporate for a visit, you’ll find a very different environment than on the line. Bathrooms are very accessible. Last time I was at Tyson corporate, I was offered a bottle of water, not told to limit my water intake. If you spend time talking to line workers and then spend time talking to Tyson employees at other levels of the organization, it’s clear that “team” means something very different depending on what level of the organization you work.

In their written policies, Tyson leads the industry on workers’ rights. The problem is in the implementation. We are hearing again and again, both in the Oxfam report, and in personal stories from workers all over, that there is a systemic denial of bathroom breaks, among other workplace violations.

Undoubtedly, because this has been in the press, there will be some defensive letters to the editor defending corporate policies. Those letters will also probably mention how much good these companies do in our community, and in the world. But we can’t let those kinds of letters deflect us from looking directly at the real problems in the industry. We are paying thousands of people poverty level wages to process the chicken we all consume, and many peop

le (just not the workers on the line) are getting rich off of how successfully such chicken is selling.

To be completely frank, this report tells us that many poultry workers are dehumanized in the workplace enough to end up urinating or defecating on themselves, and this is happening on the lines where the chicken we all consume is being processed.

Tyson Foods, Pilgrim’s, Perdue, and Sanderson Farms together control almost 60 percent of the poultry market and employ over 100,000 poultry workers. As industry leaders, they should lead the way in ensuring that workers have bathroom breaks necessary to stay healthy, safe, and dignified at work.

To accomplish this, companies should make changes in policy; develop specific commitments that workers have access to bathroom breaks whenever they are needed;
make these policies public, submit policies to monitoring and verification by independent, third-party organizations, and make results of audits public;
create a system that enables workers to file a grievance about being denied bathroom breaks, and ensure that they do not suffer any retribution for doing so;
review existing literature and consult workers, ergonomists, and occupational health experts to determine proper rest break length and frequency;
eliminate or modify the point system, including in relation to bathroom breaks.

In addition, we call upon Tyson and other poultry industry leaders to conduct reviews of internal practices at each processing plant to determine sufficiency of current staffing levels, and their impact on replacement opportunities at each stage of the processing process; make sure staffing levels at each stage of the processing process (from receiving to packaging) are sufficient to provide workers the opportunity for replacement when they need a bathroom break (or in the event of injury, illness, or need for rest); implement an ongoing independent monitoring program to assess compliance with company policy and the law; carry out an anonymous survey of the workforce about their access to adequate bathroom breaks, and publish a summary of the findings and lessons learned; document and communicate results of investigation to employees, along with plans for corrective/preventative measures to be taken in response, including any plans for updated policies.

Tyson, we are witnesses, and we see you. Please don’t deflect or minimize the problem. Make things right. Treat all workers with dignity.

[Sent as a letter to the editor, May 11th, 2016]

How do you know you are saved?

If you've got it all figured out, and are settled on all the answers, you're doing it wrong.

If you're doubting and struggling and questioning and inquiring, you're on your way.

It's unfortunate but appears to be the case that what used to be called theological inquiry is now considered by many Christians to be doubt. I wish more people who actually wonder how Jesus could be both God and man or whether he was born of a virgin could trust that, rather than this being a hindrance to their Christian faith, it is part and parcel of it, placing them in the long line of Christian theologians throughout the millennia who have contemplated such things.

I am always amazed that the dominant form of Christianity in the United States seems driven by a double sense of over-confidence in being able to judge who is saved, and who isn't, coupled with an exceptionally anxious fear concerning life after death.

It seems to say, "Don't doubt, do not question, or you may not be saved. Just believe what we believe, and judge who we judge. Faith is not about freedom, but conformity..."

As a non-conformist Lutheran, even I have to be careful that my pushback against this kind of rigid religiosity doesn't become its own kind of fear-mongering and inverted hubris.

The use of fear is, of course, an incredibly manipulative, effective and powerful tool for conformity. Make people doubt their own salvation, and you can get them to cave to many other things. They're even willing to doubt that it's okay to doubt.

One way Lutheran theology stands apart from this dominant strain is in its uncompromising commitment to the idea that faith is not our own, it is a gift, and what faith does is free us from concern for our own salvation that we might focus on our neighbor and their need instead (and so in this way is a doubled and extended gift).

For this reason, we understand the consolations of faith, the shape of faith, differently from some other traditions. For one, we understand the blessed exchange between Christ and humanity quite differently.

In the conformist tradition, God is by nature wrathful against sin and needs appeasing. We are the deserving recipients of such wrath, so God sends Jesus to cover us in his blood, and takes the brunt of God's wrath upon himself on the cross.

So there is a rupture in God--a wrathful God who needs to kill, and a gracious Jesus willing to suffer at the hands of his own Father that humanity might avoid such a fate.

This substitionary atonement model is appealing for some reason, even though it "breaks" Trinitarian theology in so many ways.

Consider an alternative. God creates all that is and calls it good. Part of that goodness is creation made in the image of God. But the image is tarnished, it falls away from the image at least in part because it is free to do so. God, in great love for that which God has created, send God's heart, the Son, to make that creation part of Godself.  Creation itself, and humanity in particular, so distanced by its own turpitude from its creator, rejects the Son, and kills him.

No need to blame God for the death of Jesus. We did a fine job killing him ourselves. He still takes our place, but he takes our place in a different sense, not as a buffer for God's wrath, but instead rejected by us precisely because he is in himself the restoration of full humanity and creation itself.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor 5:21). This sentence makes all the difference, and how we hear it depends in large part on whether we think it Christ against God redeeming sinful humanity in spite of God, or whether it is Christ with God taking on sin in order to gather all things up into God, occupying our place that we might occupy his.

So in this sense, what is faith? There's kind of an old mystical model around that thinks that faith goes from reading and hearing the gospel, to meditating on it, and then in comfortable contemplation ascending towards some mystical union with God (either now or in eternity).

That's a nice picture, but it doesn't comport much with the biblical witness. Which is why Luther tended to correct that divine notion with an alternative one, that faith is not about rapture with God, but rather faith is about hearing, meditating, and then suffering the text (tentatio). Faith is tension and struggle because inasmuch as we are gathered up into Christ, we now participate in Christ's redeeming work of restoring the fallen creation.

This is why Paul can go so far as to say, "I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church" (Col. 1:24).  So...

• Faith is not about escaping punishment when we die. This turns belief or faith itself into a work. This is the kind of thing the Protestant Reformation tried to correct rather than perpetuate. You aren't going to be saved by having especially strong faith. 
• Faith is not about heroic facility with our intuition of the ultimate. I think a lot of us keep wishing we felt like God were closer to us more frequently, having deep mystical communion with God. But watch out what you hope for. Such mystical communion often comes with a price. And in any event, it is the ordinary of life that will be the majority of our lot, and we're wiser finding God there than when we're high or caught up to the seventh heaven. 
• Faith is not a constant sense of God's proximity. Remember that many of the great saints of the church remarked how distant they felt from God, not how close. There are likely many reasons for this, including the fact that they were willing to engage in struggle, and go serve among the people and in the contexts where the world assumed God wasn't. But feeling distant from God is not a mark of unbelief. Instead, it's an example of call, and struggle, and prayer. 

So then what is faith, if it isn't these things?

• Faith is curiosity and questions. If you're really inquisitive, and wonder whether you can believe certain things or how particular aspects of Christianity work, then kapow!, you're actually in a relationship, you're interested, you may even be in love. You're on your way.
• Faith is a turn to the neighbor. I think often people assume that faith is supposed to turn us towards God. Quite the opposite, inasmuch as faith leads us to deep trust in God, the result is a turn towards the neighbor, set free to serve them in their every need.
• Faith is struggle. Faith is not relaxation, or ease, or inaction. True faith turns us so far towards the neighbor that we are dissatisfied with the current world as it is in its continuing separation from God. "The gospel is the announcement of the arrival and power of God's right-wising, transformative justice in Jesus Christ" (Becoming the Gospel, 8).

If you think faith means you've got it all settled, and you're all good, then try again. The best of the Christian tradition indicates that true faith is faith seeking understanding (fides quaerens intellectum).

You aren't saved if you're ignoring this life and simply waiting for a salvation to come.

Heaven starts now.

Faith is struggle.

The problem with "Diversity" as #ChurchGoals

A guest post by Elle Dowd, #DecolonizeLutheranism

Diversity as a concept has become harmful.  It’s one of those things like “niceness” that is attractive to white people, particularly white liberals, because it sounds really good in theory without demanding any kind of sacrifice from white people.  In reality, “diversity” has been used as a tool to deny people of color equal access to power.  Goals of diversity give marginalized and dispossessed people crumbs to quiet them, in order to maintain a status quo that exists for the benefit of whiteness at the expense of people of color.

This is nowhere more true than within the Church. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said famously that Sunday at 11 o’clock was “most segregated hour in Christian America.”  And those of us in mainline churches, such as my own tradition, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America experience this first hand every week at worship.

 Segregation within our church communities is real, and since 3/4 of white people do not have any nonwhite friends this segregation causes us to fail in building relationships with one another.  

In community organizing we say that power is the ability to change things and influence people, and we believe that our power resides in our relationships with one another. That is why community organizing puts such emphasis on building relationships, on one on ones, on networking, on meeting people. Each individual has different gifts, different connections, and we can serve each other in different ways.  This is what the writer of 1 Corinthians was speaking about in chapter 12, referring to many members and one body.  When we work together, we are able to accomplish more, to co-create alongside the Spirit, to bring forth the reign of God in our lives.  It is because of the relational and communal nature of God, of Church, of beloved communities throughout history that I do believe that integration of Sunday worship is essential. 

And yet integration has often had harmful effects on communities of color and done little to change the status quo in our churches. Even in congregations where people of color are welcome, we often see that the power structure and culture continue to center whiteness.

When we, as white Christians, speak of “diversity” what do we mean?  Do we mean a diversity of opinions, of experiences, of expressions? Or do we look for a surface level of “diversity” that requires no sacrifice from people in power?

Does our invitation have conditions?

Do we invite people of color to our church…as if the church belongs to us in the first place?  As if we are the gatekeepers?

Do we invite people as long as they sing our hymns, eat our lutefisk, clap on beats 1 and 3 (or…lets be real, they better not clap at all), and pose for smiley pictures to post on our church website’s banner? 

And how many people of color are welcome before we start feeling like they are “taking over?”  (Research suggests that30% is the tipping point, after that, white people flee). 

When we invite people of color to worship alongside us, is our invitation for our benefit or for theirs? Is it out of a need for white saviorism?  Is it so that we can ease our white guilt about segregation, to put a few tokens on church committees, to claim that we care about “diversity”? 

Do we invite people of color, but continue to make the church a space where “colorblindness” is held as an ideal, where bringing up systemic racism and injustice is seen as “divisive”? 

Does our “diversity” change us? Does it make us face our privilege? Does it push us to rally against mass incarceration? Does it insist we disrupt the school to prison pipeline? Does it tug our hearts towards abolishing ICE? Does it lead us to ask questions about reparations?

“Diversity” alone as a goal is harmful for the Church because diversity without an examination of privilege leads to a push for assimilation for communities of color. Diversity without deconstruction of power means, “You can be a part of us…as long as you are just like us.”  Diversity without liberation is not diversity at all. It’s about white people putting people of color in their place as tools, as poster children, as objects, as tokens.

Our God is a God who delights in diversity.  She created people of all shapes and sizes and colors and genders. And She creates shem beautiful, in Her own image. But our God does not use “diversity” as Her qualifying identifier.  Our God does not say, “I am the LORD your God who brought you forth in diversity.”   She says over (Psalm 81:10), and over (Exodus 20), and over (Deut. 5:6) “I am the LORD your God who brought you out of slavery.”  Our God is a God of Liberation.  That’s what God does. She sets people free.

That is what #decolonizeLutheranism is about.  It’s about reaching deeper than a goal of a surface level “diversity” and into deep reflection, repentance, and radical reconciliation.  It’s about examining and sharing power by relinquishing it, knowing that our power is stolen power anyways, that it was never even ours to give up, that it was never ours to begin with. 

This is key in talking about our Lutheran heritage. Lutheranism is not an ethnicity.  And our greatest gifts to the world are not our cultural identity markers of things like cuisine and (tired) jokes.  Our greatest gifts to the world as Lutherans is our theology.  Our recognition of human beings as simultaneously sinner and saint. Our insistence on justification through grace.  Our theology of the cross. Our focus on the Gospel.  Our history of speaking truth to power.  These things transcend Scandinavian or German heritage. They belong to all of God’s people. 

Lutheranism is bigger than us, white people, and we are not the boss of it.

To hoard Lutheranism and hold it hostage to white people is sinful. And that is what we are doing when we equate Lutheranism to white culture and refuse any change that necessitates true transformation through sacrifice. Our God is about liberation for everyone.  Liberation means that people of color are able to share in the wealth and power of churches and communities, free from fear of micro aggressions from church leaders, free from fear of violence from the state.  And liberation also means that white people like me are free from our bondage as oppressors, free from our insatiable need to control.  

The ultimate goal of our church communities can’t just be about getting more bodies in the pews of various shades. It has to be a complete reconstructing of what church looks like through the lens of liberation. It means death to our idol of whiteness so that we can make space for rebirth and resurrection into the reign of God. 

On a pilgrimage in Philadelphia in 2014, I visited the Episcopal Church of the Advocate.  The Church of the Advocate has a long history of standing for liberation. And you can feel it.  It is holy ground.  Power and righteousness reverberates from its old walls, even as they are falling apart.  

The Advocate was the site of the ordination of the Philadelphia 11 and a host of the Black Panther Party.  In addition to their ornate neo-gothic architecture, the walls of the Advocate are covered in murals depicting God’s story of Liberation.  The murals begin with creation, flows through the Bible, through slavery, through the Civil Rights Movement, and into hope for the full Liberation that is yet to come.  And just like Jesus, just like Justice, these murals center people of color.  When I visited the Advocate, the Reverend Renee McKenzie, PhD, said to my group, “Whenever you are in a space, I want you to look around and notice who is not there.  And ask why that might be.  And ask those questions out loud.”

And so the questions are less about “How can we get people of color into OUR churches?” and more about WHY.  Why are our churches so segregated? How did they get that way?  How is this maintained? Who orchestrated this? Who benefits from it?  

The questions are more about things like:

Who has the power? Who is in charge? Who is represented? 

What does it look like for people in power to relinquish control?  How does this affect our budget? Our building? Our time?

Is our holy art and hymns full of depictions of a whitewashed Christ?

Are our leaders reflective of the communities they serve?

Is our humor full of insider language?

Who is on the margins? How can we center their struggle?

The path to liberation is through reconciliation.  Reconciliation demands equity as a prerequisite.  And equity demands sacrifice from those of us who currently hold power. This means that things we love, even good things, may have to die, so that better things may live.  This means that we have to deal honestly with our bloody history of colonization and with our present realities of racism in our midst. It means we have to be just as honest about creating Dylan Roof  as we are proud of creating Bonhoeffer. This means we have to talk about the need for reparations, about mass incarceration, about immigration… and the Church needs to lead the way, with the voices of people of color given the most authority. It means, white church, denying ourselves and emptying ourselves of our privilege, putting our very lives on the line. Like Christ does. 

It means we have to #decolonizeLutheranism.