Editor’s Note: This is one of two panel discussions from SOLA Conference 2021. Find more resources and videos here.
In this panel, four pastors from diverse contexts discuss how the church can remain gospel-centered and united as it engages with the topics of justice, racism, and diversity.
Part 2 of this conversation touches on how the pastors view the future of racial dynamics between Christians and within the church, Critical Race Theory, how to maintain unity in the church, and words of encouragement to all.
Most of us work and work for a lifetime. In fact, the majority of Americans spend the most number of their waking hours at work. Christian workers witnessing well in their workplaces can surely make a difference for Jesus. But what does that look like? Why should I bother? What does witnessing mean in the Bible, and how can we do that at our work without being labeled weird, feeling awkward, and getting in unnecessary trouble?
Below is a transcript of the panel discussion. It has been edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the audio here.
Michael Lee: Our heart is that our church members would be able to see the sin of racism, ethnocentrism, love of money whatever it is – that they would see that and then repent of it. And yet, over this last year, some people dug in deeper and dug in harder. They’re progressive tribe, they’re conservative tribe, left, or right. Do you guys have any stories or ways that you’ve been able to see a softening of hearts and opening of minds and repentance over some of these sins?
Scott Sauls: I’ll give a quick answer if you don’t mind. It’s happened generationally for us. In large part, where the softening happens, there is a prophetic spirit in the millennial and Gen Z generations, where they’re done with monolithic, homogeneous community. They’re craving diversity, or at least they think they are, until it becomes diversity of ideas, and not just diversity of life experience, diversity of privilege and not privilege, and so on.
But there’s still this massive appetite in younger generations that they’re marrying cross-racially and cross-culturally and so on. And parents who might have been otherwise hardened toward these conversations are recognizing that if they don’t listen, they might actually lose their own children. And that generational love and affection from parents to children has actually opened the older generation’s mind and heart to listen more carefully.
We’ve seen some really beautiful things start to emerge from those conversations because family ties have been the initial catalyst. One wishes that one would just be able to even listen to strangers who say they’re hurting and adjust accordingly. But, maybe God puts those covenantal relationships together in order to apply some pressure on us when we’re not willing to listen to those that are maybe further away, if that makes sense.
Bobby Scott: Yeah, I can even add a personal testimony to that. The last conversation I had with my grandmother before she died, I was 19. And she just kept exhorting me, “But Bobby, you can make it.” And I was respectfully listening. But at the time, I was transferring to UCLA. I used to be a competitive bodybuilder, and I was pretty successful as a teenager. I had my own private training business; I think I was at times even charging and making $100 an hour. I’m like, “Of course I can make it, Grandma. What are you talking about?”
But as time has gone by, and I’ve looked back, I know what she’s saying. “Bobby, progress has been made that I can only dream about.” That the oppression that P.J. talks about. For her, Black and White signs everywhere: you can’t come to the school, you can’t have this job, you can’t this. Those signs are gone now, and her grandson walked through doors that she would only dream about.
I look at my kids. My daughter just got married last weekend, and my son-in-law’s Russian. And I don’t know what term they call my oldest daughter. She really represents the dream that we’ve been hoping about, sitting at a table where we just see people, we see the one humanity. Yeah, that’s how she looks at people. And I thank God for that.
So I just see the progress. There’s a conference I’ve gone to in Chicago; I think P.J. has been there. And it is an urban conference, but you see people from every walk of life, in every cultural background in America, and they’re all in their 20s. And so it’s happening. It really is. So when people look at me, I try to tell them that you’re looking at the first generation of Black Americans born into this nation with all the rights of an American citizen. I was born in 1964. So it takes time to undo 350 years. It happens in steps. And we are, as painful as it is to recognize, we’re not all the way there. But we have made progress.
P.J. Tibayan: If I could share some stories on this, and I’ll try to be brief, and it might be even discouraging. I hope this is encouraging, though. So in 2014 for me – I grew up here in LA – 2014 for me is when the scales fell off in seeing ethnocentric oppression. It took a while. I mean, I grew up here in L.A., immersed in different cultures here in L.A., dated people from different ethnicities, and it took conversations with Bobby, Pastor Steve Ross [for me to change].
And I want to say this to encourage the SOLA family here, the SOLA Network. It took online resources. Thabiti Anyabwile would tweet things that were just so off the wall to me. In 2012, during the Romney-Obama election, I remember him tweeting something like, “It’s not a given that abortion is worse than racism.” And I thought, “What? We’re talking about killing babies!” But I know Thabiti loves Jesus, and he’s thoughtful. So, what does he mean by that?
And so I could just go through benchmarks in my life. In 2014, after Mike Brown. It was two church members, African American members of our church, in my living room, just sharing story after story. And slowly, all those years of thinking, living as a minority, as an Asian American, Filipino American, here in L.A., I still couldn’t see the ethnocentric oppression towards African Americans. My best friends were African American, and whenever they played the race card in high school, I’d always get mad at them. So I want to say, in terms of encouragement, there’s hope because there was hope for me. I was blind to these things, and it took a really long time. I was a pastor for 12 years. I had to repent for 12 years of unfaithfully discipling people by being inevitably indifferent towards this issue as a pastor.
Then there’s another one of our members. I started preaching [race] on our church immediately and just discipling people on it, not really from the pulpit, but just discipling people and having conversations. Then when the George Floyd situation happened, one of our members who I’d been discipling for years, she was saying, “Oh, that’s what you’ve been talking about all this time.”
Then this last year, just to give a third story, I preached a sermon trying to lay out the case that it actually does exist. I preached a sermon in our church in January on that topic, and I was praying, I said in the beginning of my sermon, “I’m praying that for some of you, the scales will fall off today.” And one brother, whom I never thought would, he came to me in the evening gathering that same Sunday night and said, “Brother, this morning, I realized that I’ve been blind. You’ve been telling me, we’ve had conversations, but I realized that I just gathered preachers around me who say what I want to hear.”
So in terms of encouragement, God is working. God’s Spirit is working in people’s heart. The Law of God is written on our hearts. The New Covenant is real. Christ is working. And so SOLA pastors, Christian churchgoers, keep discipling. Keep speaking the truth in love, and God will work. It takes time sometimes, but we’ll get there. We’ll get there.
Bobby Scott: Really short response. Those of you who don’t know who Emmett Till is, look up Emmett Till, and watch that case. And then look at the Rodney King case, 1992. And then watch the George Floyd response. That’s change. That’s a lot of change.
Michael Lee: Thank you. P.J., I just want to say that I’m glad that the scales fell off, versus your brother just logging off.
Scott Sauls: Could I bother you with a question? You had mentioned, in the midst of all the progress that you just illustrated, there’s also an over-realized eschatology. Can you unpack that? It just made me curious, so I wanted to ask you a question about that but didn’t have a chance.
Bobby Scott: Yeah. So I’ll go back for folks listening. I was talking about one of the challenges in having this conversation about justice. The Emmett Till case is about a young teenage boy, brutally beaten and killed [by White men]. They have a trial. The jury is out for an hour to come back laughing – not guilty. Everybody knew these men had lynched and killed this young teenage boy. He didn’t get justice. Blacks have always cried out about that.
When I was a teenager in high school, one of my friends hated White people. I grew up in self-segregating Virginia in the 70s. So the laws changed, but it takes time for hearts to change. He hated White people, and he got pulled over in the wrong side of town; we didn’t go over to certain parts of the town. He was found hung in his jail cell the next morning, and they said he hung himself. And I know he couldn’t stop his mouth. But what recourse do we have? So we couldn’t pursue justice.
But now, I want to tell folks in my community: This is a process. We don’t want to flip the whole conversation, and now all of a sudden, it’s okay for us to be judge, jury, hanging man. “Oh, he should be in jail forever.” The facts have to be vetted, there needs to be a trial, and there needs to be a jury.
It came out, in this case with George Floyd, the right way. Justice is a process. And I think sometimes in my community, we’ll see someone shot, and instantly the cops will be fired and go to jail. Did the person have a knife? Did the person have a gun? Were they attacking the police? All these are important in justice. With God, he knows everything; it’s always instantaneous. And when we aren’t satisfied with the process now happening – I couldn’t get a fair hearing with Emmett Hill. I couldn’t get a fair hearing with 1992, Rodney King. But now that’s happening. A cop went to jail, but I think we moved the goalposts.
So now we want a millennial kingdom with Jesus, where there is no cop anywhere who would do anything wrong. That’s the kind of justice that we’re wanting in the eschaton. But we’re not in the eschaton. And God has been pleased to reign with evil.
Look at Matthew 13. He’s allowed the enemy to sow tares right now, and he’s going to pull them up at the end of the age. He hasn’t asked us to pull up evil out of societies. He calls us to preach so that by his love and his grace, he can convert sinners with evil hearts. I think we want the just kingdom right now. We don’t have that, and we need to recognize that we can’t move the goalposts. We can influence a just process, and I think that’s what Christians should strive for. That’s what I meant.
Michael Lee: That makes so much sense now. If anything, we want the just kingdom, but without the king. That’s good.
All right, this one’s for P.J. This past year, the SBC was in the news for this declaration – and if you don’t know what the SBC is, it’s the Southern Baptist Convention – that critical race theory was incompatible with the Baptist faith and message. Now we don’t have time for a deep dive into CRT. But from my observation, many leaders of color were pretty offended by this statement. Some even left the convention. So I’m asking you because you are a member of the SBC. What are your thoughts on this when it comes to gospel witness, church unity? How did you respond when you saw that decision made by some of the leaders?
P.J. Tibayan: Yeah, so it was the six seminary presidents that made that statement in December. In terms of the statement itself, they are saying that the CRT and the Baptist faith and message are incompatible, CRT in any way or any form. Knowing some of the brothers there and following their ministry, I was like, “That doesn’t make sense.” Some of them don’t mean what the statement could mean. So I thought the statement was unclear and unnecessarily provocative. And I think even among the six, it was spread out.
So my take on it was that I think it was an error. I think it was wrong to do. When I saw it, I thought, “Oh, no. I know what some other brothers might mean by this, but it’s not going to be taken that way.” So I think it was bad communication; it was a bad decision. I’ve seen some of the leaders backtrack in humble, godly ways, and I haven’t followed it too closely in terms of who’s doing what.
But in terms of church unity, in terms of cooperation, or church, for the SBC, we do have a Baptist faith and message we want to unite around. Obviously, the Trinity, the gospel of Jesus Christ, justification by faith alone evangelism, and we’re Baptists, or congregational, autonomous churches. So for us, unity means that we are clear and visible. Mark Dever says, “You should have clear fences, low fences, and shake hands often.” Clear fences, low fences and shake hands often. So, be clear with your positions. Be clear with where you’re at. The SBC is, right now, divided on CRT’s usefulness, and we don’t want to dive into that right here in this panel, though I’d be happy to in a different time.
But a clear fence is where we stand. We all agree that the Bible alone is the final authority for faith and practice. We all believe that Christ alone is the only way of salvation that we’re all sinners, and the greatest problem is our own personal sin, and we are damned before God because of our sins. So we agree on those things. But how these things work out, we should just be clear on what we’re clear on. Keep it low, let’s have the conversation, shake hands often, and work through cooperation in ways that are thoughtful, so there needs to be theological triage in terms of what’s most important, what’s less important.
But I would also say one more thing about unity, because there’s levels to unity. You have gospel unity with all Christians everywhere, then you could even go to your own tribe of Christians – SOLA Network, or The Gospel Coalition, or something like that – and then you have denominational. So if I could go from larger to smaller, then denominational unity would be like a third level of unity, and one level below that would be a local church unity, and then maybe the elders of a local church in terms of unity. So even when we talk about unity, we have to talk about what level of unity. Because if we’re talking about general gospel, Christian, unity, then hey, Trinitarianism, Christ being Lord and God, and justification by faith alone, and Bible is God’s word – let’s go. We’re all united. So I think it’s important to celebrate the biggest unity most passionately, and then accordingly, celebrate unity in varying ways.
One more thing I’d say about this historical moment. I do think we also have to be sensitive to the time we live in. So, for example, Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield could not be members of my church or your church, I’d assume because they were slave owners. But if we were living then, we’d be cooperating with them, in terms of the gospel, because of the blind spots of that culture. But Jonathan Edwards couldn’t be a pastor in the 1960s, just like some of those on the wrong side of the Civil Rights Movement couldn’t be pastors of our church today and members of our church today. So there’s a fog of the historical moment, so we could start dividing – it’s not clear here how to move forward.
But my point here is, there is enough vagueness in terms of the ethnocentric oppression, which is real, it does put a fog into our lives. And so it’s hard to draw super clear lines. I think 50 years from now, we’ll have greater clarity on today. We do our best in the moment. But we all have to admit that there’s some fog in our lives as we’re drawing lines of unity and division.
Scott Sauls: With this thinking too, David and Solomon would not qualify for membership in our churches either, based on all their many wives and other things. So very astute observations there.
Bobby Scott: This is really problematic for me in a lot of different ways. I’m not Southern Baptist, but I did see the statement. And I’ve seen the responses of some of my friends, people I know, gospel preachers, gospel pastors, leaving loudly the SBC because of this.
And I probably need to say this – I’m not a critical race theorist. As far as I know, I’m not a Marxist. I do wonder, though, if there is such a thing as a born-again, saved Christian in Communist China, who is a Marxist. I hear our conversations, and I hear my brothers who are pushing back on critical race theory, and I appreciate the concerns and the bells that they’re ringing.
But then I’ll hear the same ones listen to Jordan Peterson, who is not a Christian, who’s next to an atheist, because a broken clock is right twice a day and God’s common grace. He makes some insightful comments about human nature because he studied and observed it, and they will use that. I’ve seen them use talking points from other conservative talking heads, they’ll even be on some conservative talk shows, and they will borrow some of their points about where our society is in not embracing personal responsibility. So they’ll call Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, Dennis Prager, Candace Owens, even beyond the shows. But if a Black scholar quotes a part of Critical Race Theory to say there are dimensions of sin that are corporate, all of a sudden he’s a Marxist, and you cancel him. That’s problematic for me. That’s really problematic for me, just the inconsistency of that.
P.J. Tibayan: On the CRT and Marxist: when these words are used to kill conversations, as a slogan and to box out conversation, we just know we’re on the wrong track already.
Scott Sauls: Yeah. If we believe all truth is God’s truth, then, as somebody who comes from the Reformed community, that’s a central reality. If the Apostle Paul in Acts 17 can quote Stoic and Epicurean philosophers and poets from memory, positively, not to confront what was said, but to affirm what was said, and to affirm how it intersects with the truth of God, even though the systems is broken – there are kernels of truth in every broken system even, because of the image of God. I think of how nature has a lot to say that is actually more biblical, in terms of the doctrine of sin, than many of us as Christians are willing to embrace.
We are not willing to embrace, as Nietzsche did, how we are all prone to lust for power. Look at our partisanship. Look at the political partisanship, both from the left and from the right inside the church of Jesus Christ. You can have in the same city, two churches filled with people who will affirm that they believe the Bible from cover to cover, and 90% of the people in this church, in this zip code, will say we vote Democrat because we believe the Bible cover to cover, and 90% of the people in this zip code, will say we vote Republican because we believe Bible cover to cover. And these people say, I don’t know how you can be Republican and Christian. I don’t know how you can be Democratic and Christian. And what’s going on here, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways is that Nietzsche’s words are being played out inside a local church – that we love power more than we love, love.
So can we learn from nature? Yes. Can we learn from Darwin, who said similar things as Nietzsche, even though we would disagree? I would disagree with many of the things that Nietzsche and Darwin said (I would disagree with more than what I would agree), and yet Darwin said similar things in terms of the social structures – the strong eat the weak.
And in the same way, Critical Theory, which comes from the same stream as Nietzsche and Darwin, and Marx, there are certain diagnoses in there that can be learned from, and they can actually shed light on our understanding of the nature of human depravity, how it affects us all, and about how those with power will do almost anything to hold on to it. We’ll even use the Bible to hold on to power, and people without power will do anything to get it and use the Bible in order to get there.
So when you asked your question about what’s the biggest idol in the church, I would say it’s power. That’s what drives self-righteousness, which Kathy Keller calls a natural religion of the human heart, where we trust in ourselves that we are right, and we look down on others with contempt. So yes, we can learn from this system. And yet, Critical Theory, while it offers some helpful diagnoses, I have yet to see – at least in my understanding; I’m not an expert, I don’t have a PhD in it – but I think I know enough about it to know that it offers no solutions in terms of bringing about peace, restoration, equality, and equity, and all of these other things because it’s driven by competition for power, rather than being driven by the competition to see who can outdo the other with love. And that’s where we need the gospel desperately.
Bobby Scott: Just a couple of quick Bible verses. One, the Exodus story. The language is that the Egyptians oppress the Israelites. This is the dynamics of corporate sin. In Daniel’s prophecy in Chapter 2 and Chapter 7, the Babylonians conquer and oppress Judah, the Medo-Persians conquer and oppress the Babylonians, the Greeks conquer and oppress Medo-Persians, and you have four kingdoms in there. Then the Romans come in alongside to do the same thing. We won’t stop studying war until Christ comes back. Before then, you’re going to have countries with power wielding that power over the less powerful countries; they expand their power.
Or read the story of the Trail of Tears. That there was an appeal to our supreme court. The Native Americans said, “We can’t fight, and we don’t have the power. We’ll appeal to the Justice Department.” And they won the case to keep their land. Then President Andrew Jackson said, “Let’s see how badly the Supreme Court will stand behind them,” sent the army, destroyed them, and took the land. So we don’t want to think that use of illegitimate power is a part of our narrative, and somehow we’re the one millennial kingdom, the city on the hill – that’s national idolatry, and we saw some of that on January the 6th.
Michael Lee: Can I ask, don’t get you guys in trouble with your churches? Because I realized that we’re gonna talk about our churches, leading our churches, and our churches may be listening to this. But do you feel like, this past year, our churches got a little separated between politics? There’s the Democrats and the Republicans, and you’re all trying to be one church, but maybe you have some deacons, some elders, who are on one side, and then there’s distance. That broke my heart. I felt it.
Someone posts something, and then they’re a little flock within our church family. They’re responding, liking, and commenting. This past year of our church, have you sensed it? How have you responded to it? How are we going to lead our churches through that? Maybe it’s elders or staff members. I sense it. Church is a little separate. I’ve had one group – I’m on sabbatical, so I don’t think my church members can listen to me – I had a group form, and they said, “This is our safe space. We’re all Republicans.” And that broke my heart. I don’t know how to lead us through that. Maybe I’ll figure that out in the next couple of months, come back healthier and whole.
Scott Sauls: Would it be cliche or not funny to say, “Just preach the gospel?”
Michael Lee: Just preach the gospel!
Scott Sauls: He himself is our peace, who brought the dividing wall down between God and humanity through his perfect blood, and then brought the dividing wall down between Jew and Gentile, to make one out of the many, through his blood. What else is there?
Michael Lee: So I do want to share, one of my huge takeaways for us from this panel is: We do believe the gospel is the answer and the solution. And for us as pastors, if we can really focus our prophetic gift, our teaching, our resourcing, to exposing sin – really exposing sin, not just a policy, or a proposal or a polity, but to really address it from the sin heart issue – that’s how we can shepherd and lead our people. That’s versus, “vote this way, think this way, post this way, march this way.” If our solutions are secular, then we’re not going to be able to provide the gospel as the good news and as the answer. So that’s one of my huge takeaways out. But Bobby, I think you want to share something?
Bobby Scott: We experienced a lot of grace this past year in terms of God preserving our unity, but we have had folks leave. Either we weren’t conservative enough, or we were too progressive. And God gave grace to me and my co-pastor Anthony. When we preached, we kept trying to make it clear that our identity, our political identity, isn’t up for debate. It is not going to change on November the 2nd.
Our political identity is tied to the fact that we have a king, and we’re part of a kingdom – Philippians 3:20 – and he has marching orders for us, and he has a platform in Matthew 5-7, and we follow that. And he is sovereign – that’s back to Daniel 4:34-35 – that he is sovereign over who’s the next king of any kingdom, because he’s ruling. And we’re okay. He is bringing about his desired will, and we will experience blessings from him as we walk in faith, trusting him. So we have a kingdom. We have a king, and our king doesn’t ride on the back of donkeys or elephants. He is the sovereign king of all.
P.J. Tibayan: In our church, we didn’t have any members leave. We had one of our newer members share how, right before the election, he got in a group with some of our members after the service. Three people voted for Trump, three people voted for Biden, and two people who are voting for neither. And he had this pleasant conversation. He said, “I never thought I could have a conversation like this in a church before,” and he told me about that later. He’s recovering from a previous church in a different part of California, not anywhere local.
It made some of us reflect on what are some of the things – preaching the gospel is certainly going to be the core. And I would say, preaching the gospel every single Sunday, even to non-Christians, calling them to repent. It’s highlighting the big line of what we unite around versus what we don’t unite around. So preaching the gospel explicitly.
But I’d say, on top of that, we have a clear membership line: We have a confession of faith. And when we teach that class, we tell people, “This is what we agree on.” And what’s not on here is what we agree to disagree on – this is a uniting document. We have a church covenant and a confession of faith. And we agree on those things. And we agree to disagree on the other things and say, “This is our unity in Christ and our confession of faith.” And so that’s another thing we do.
We do the Lord’s Supper every week, redrawing the line of who’s in Christ, again. Another thing we do is we pray every Sunday night. I was telling Scott, before we started here, we have our Sunday night prayer meeting. We’re praying for other churches, other gospel churches; we’re praying for people sharing the gospel of non Christians regularly. And those things bring the eternal things to mind – what we’re rallying around – and so when the storm of COVID, and the elections, and race, hit this year, by God’s grace, there’s been strong unity. It’s a season – I don’t assume it’s gonna be forever – God’s been kind to us, in that regard.
So anyways, just to encourage you brother, some ways of fleshing out because the church is the body of Christ – we do preach the gospel – but the church embodies the gospel, we are the body of Christ. So what constitutes that body? And how does that body define who it is, and how they live together? That’s where church ecclesiology comes in very practically for how the gospel fleshes itself out.
Bobby Scott: And I can add this to what I was saying about our church too. But I think P.J. will say the same, and Scott. We’re not saying it’s okay to be a member of our churches and be like, “We’re pro-abortion” or totally indifferent to the sin of racism. We’re not saying that at all. We’re not going to make your political party a requirement for membership.
But we do make truth that you can’t openly reject what the Bible says about the sanctity of life. So the friends that I know who vote Democrat, they’re not voting Democrat to be pro-abortion. They’ve thought through very carefully. They’ve been told for 20 plus years that a Republican president is the only way to end abortion. We’ve had 20 years of it, and we’ve not gotten a step closer.
In fact, Chief Justice Roberts said that, because it’s legal precedent now, he wasn’t going to vote against Roe v. Wade, in the decision last year. So they feel like we’ve been sold a bill of goods, saying we have to always vote for a Republican only because they’re the ones who are pro-life, and that’s how you’re going to end Roe v Wade. So with their code of conscience, they are voting because of other issues that they believe those platforms hold to. Thabiti is a friend of mine, and Voddie Baucham is a friend of mine. They’re both preachedat our church, and they both have different political views. And I think we can have friends with different political views.
Scott Sauls: I could tackle into that. I’ve said this in our church, and I don’t know what the effect was. But I said, wherever you align, the loudest voices – in my opinion – the loudest voices on behalf of the unborn should be Christians who are Democrats. And the loudest voices on not being indifferent to racial injustice should be Christian Republicans. If we don’t grieve the injustices in our own party and indifference toward our fellow human beings in our own party out loud, then we probably shouldn’t tell anybody what party we’re a part of because it will damage our witness. The only thing that’s going to preserve the Christian witness is to be willing not only to speak truth to power on the other side of the aisle, but to speak truth to power on your own side of the aisle out of grief – that you are supporting a system that has inherent in it, things that injure your neighbor, who you’re called to love. So food for thought there.
Michael Lee: Wow, that would be really uniting. That would really be powerful.
I think we’re close to it with time. I really enjoyed our discussion together. I have one last question. I live in an Asian American bubble here in Southern California. My church is predominantly Asian American. I’ve wanted to speak to more Black leaders, White leaders. And over this last year, one thing that I’ve really been trying to practice is more empathy – listening, reacting less, getting triggered less by other people’s takes, and trying to understand, “Oh, this is how this person feels. This is what they’re thinking; this is what they’re experiencing.” Whether it’s anti-Black sentiment, anti-Asian, anti-White, that’s another thing – you can’t post it because you’ll get canceled – but I think that’s a reality. A lot of people hate White people right now.
And it’s a scary thing, I would imagine, to be a White, middle aged, preacher in this day and age, especially on the topic of justice and race. What’s one thing that you could share about your experience that would help people of other ethnic backgrounds understand, empathize, and love? And I know you can’t speak for all Black people, Asians, and Whites, so we’re not going to treat each other like a monolith. But just from your personal experience, what’s something that you can leave us with that we might be able to better understand and love one another who are our brothers and sisters in Christ?
Bobby Scott: I’ll go first. I always say you have to really think through what 350 years of legalized, overt, intentional, even terrorizing with lynching, racial oppression has done to the Black community. And I get it, “Get over it,” is what the majority culture would say. But they’re simply parts of our American society now that the “American Dream” for Black people was achieved, and the American dream for Black people was, “Let’s make a class of servants and slaves illiterate, and let’s do everything we can do to make that happen.” If it means cutting off the tongue of someone we find reading, let’s do that.
I served in Watts for 12 years and did outreach with some Christians who are White. And he said, “White people don’t come down here.” There are parts of our American structure that have been so radically racialized to be what that “American Dream” would be, that they should bring tears to all of our eyes.
I think as a church, we should have a burden to stop saying, “It should be over now.” No, not 350 years. So I think there’s work to do for a compassionate, truth-driven church, to see what’s happened in America, and to make efforts intentionally, like Jesus in John 4, to bridge with America’s Samaria.
Scott Sauls: Rather than speak on behalf of White people, I’d rather speak to White people. And that is that, when you’re so accustomed to being in the majority, you watch the sitcoms, and they’re mostly built around White life and White assumptions and Eurocentric realities, when you look at the history of American politics and power, it’s the same. When you look at where the money is, it’s the same. And are there exceptions? Of course.
But realize that you have a culture if you’re White. Even phrases like “ethnic food.” White American food is ethnic food, right? We have these implicit ways of expressing our own normativity in American culture because it’s the air that we’ve been breathing, and we don’t even realize what we’re doing. And so now is the time – because it’s a time in many ways – of reckoning. First, with Black voices that have been willing and empowered and emboldened to speak up about how painful the last 350 to 400 years have been, as well as now, Asian Americans, who are speaking out in light of what happened in Atlanta and how that’s triggered realities that our Asian American brothers and sisters have been living for so many years.
It’s time for us to just pay attention, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and don’t shut people down. Don’t call upon the one Black voice that’s saying the opposite of what most Black voices are saying and say, “See? See what this Black person says? Therefore, all of this is something I don’t need to pay attention to or deal with.” Don’t do that. It’s very obvious what’s being done there. And that’s not to say that the Black voice that’s saying things that other Black voices aren’t saying should be shut down and canceled as well. But pay attention to what the majority of the minority communities are saying, and learn what you can from a humble place. Or else it’s just gonna get harder for everybody.
P.J. Tibayan: To ask me speak, as an Asian American at SOLA, this feels really wrong. (Laughs.) So first, I would say to read all the SOLA stuff on the website in that regard to get their perspective.
But if I could say something to Asian Americans, and then to the other demographics as well. For the Asian Americans, I’d say, realize that we do have the double consciousness that minorities have. So, we can see ourselves by ourselves, and we could see ourselves through the majority culture’s eyes, just like African Americans can in that regard, whereas the majority culture would have a harder time. See, they don’t have that double consciousness. So as Asian Americans, we have that advantage.
We should actually use it to speak on behalf of our African American brothers and sisters and neighbors, to the majority culture, and realize that we need to take risks in that regard. You will lose friends, you will lose clout, and you will lose platforms. That’s just a part that comes with it. But if I think about for myself – 350 years. No longer being able to or to be invited to be speaking a certain thing, that’s so small compared to what our neighbors have been going through, that we should take that risk. So I just say that to Asian Americans.
To European Americans: Speak to them. Tell [other European Americans] what you see from your side because you’re not gonna be written off as an angry African American the way that they would be written off in that way, at least not initially. (Eventually, you might get written off, but at least initially.) So I would say that.
Then, for the Asian Americans, too, towards, African Americans: Get to know their stories. We have our own suffering, too, so I don’t want to go against that or minimize that. But loving others is really how we grow in our humanity and in Christ. So find out their stories, then advocate, and stand in solidarity where you can, biblically.
Then I’d say, Asian Americans were not quite marginalized to the end, to the edge of society, but we’re not quite in the center of power either. We have that middle space, generally speaking, so we do need to process our own challenges, while also loving our neighbors facing their different ethnic, ethnicity, people group challenges, and we’re not always gonna hit the bullseye.
So what I’d say to European Americans is that our fear of man, our insecurities, our desires, to want to just fit in – it tempts us towards silence. It tempts us towards a denial. And really, if it gets hard in our hearts, it tempts us towards indifference towards the situation. And so what I’d say to the majority culture, brothers and sisters and neighbors, is encourage us to share our experiences. Encourage us to speak up. Draw us out because some of us have thoughts and want to share them and others of us haven’t thought about it. And we don’t even want to think about it. But we need to. So I’d say to the majority culture, to draw us out of this indifference, to share, and then be slow to take offense as we share our stories and share our thoughts on a situation. Because we’re in process just like everyone else.
And now I would say to our African American brothers and sisters and neighbors, be patient with us. We have tried to fit in and not want to go into the burdens that you might have to bear, and that’s part of our problem of our self-centeredness. So we do need to grow in that. So be patient with us. Keep sharing your burdens, keep sharing your stories and disciple us. I would say that to Christian brothers and sisters. I mean, Bobby has been talking to me about it before the scales came off. So keep speaking to us, and keep guiding us, and keep sharing your experiences. Let us process, and give us that space to keep going with you, and be patient with us. Then, again, read the SOLA Network content. I think that’ll give you a lot of perspective on Asian Americans.
Michael Lee: Very good. Well, thank you so much, brothers. This was a really good panel, a really good discussion on the topic of “Race, the Gospel, and the Local Church.” Thank you so much for watching. We are going to be sharing this through social media. So please like, comment, and share, to get the good news out. God bless, and thank you.
For more resources from SOLA Conference 2021, click here.