AUDIT. AWARENESS. ACTION

Romans 12:15 “…weep with those who weep”

The moment you see George Floyd’s name you know what this piece is about.

It is a piece which I have struggled to write and this is the third time I have started it and then started again. So, I ask for forgiveness if anything that I offer offends or demonstrates my own lack of understanding at this time. This piece is a start, not the definitive statement but it starts from a place of weeping.

I have found it uniquely difficult to put pen to paper and I have a strange sense of disempowerment. This probably reflects my sense of inadequacy to speak into the hugely destructive and distressing arena that is racism. Perhaps you feel the same way?

Perhaps that is a healthy place to start: to acknowledge that I don’t fully understand and I don’t have easy answers if my starting point is myself and my own marred knowledge. I am part of the problem because I see things dimly (1 Cor 13:12). We live in a broken World, before the glorious return and final judgement of Christ, and so we weep with those who are weeping.

I have found myself strangely quiet and reflective and wondering if I, with a white ethnicity, have anything to offer? The more I have prayed and read Scripture and spoken with friends and people who have far more personal understanding than I about racism and cultural presumptions, the more I have come to the view that my, and our, primary identity in Christ is the clothing (Gal 3:27) that means we each have a voice as Christ followers; and also ears to listen deeply by seeking the voices who understand this injustice from personal experience.

I have found the writing of Christian activist, pastor and theologian Thabiti Anyabwile immensely helpful. Do look him up. His challenge is to recognise the bias that we carry through life and to recognise that if we pause to dwell then we might be called by Christ to come to a place of change within ourselves and how we view situations.

“If we allow ourselves even for a moment to contemplate the vast weight of suffering in the world, we will easily be overwhelmed with grief. This is why we develop the habit and self-protective instinct of overlooking the suffering around us.”

Thabiti Anyabwile, In The Life of God in the Soul of the Church The Root and Fruit of Spiritual Fellowship

A great friend, Rev Esther Prior, is vicar of St John’s Egham, and she has helped me enormously in recent days. I highly recommend this seven-minute interview with Esther (32 minutes into the 54 min service, note that the sound goes for a moment at 34 minutes):

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CBJHOKoBt6P/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet 

Esther wonders if one of the reasons that George Floyd’s death in another country has resonance in the UK now is because “the World has stopped”.

I recommend reading The Life of God. If you have stopped, don’t rush into starting again. Don’t bury the questions and learning, shaped by Scripture as a disciple of Jesus Christ.

A word of caution, writing not theologically but as a Christian pastor. We mustn’t reduce people to what they can help us with for our own ends, nor make assumptions about anyone. Please don’t assume that everyone you might want to approach to help you understand might be in a place where they can help you; it would be wise to ask their permission rather than make assumptions, because our faith surely leads us to honour people for who they are, not merely for what they can give us or what they may represent.

I come to this with a deep awareness that I am speaking about something which I am learning about alongside so many others right now. There are many, sadly, such as Esther, who can say “it is personal, think of me”, so are able to speak stories of pain and with far deeper understanding than my own. The fact that people have such stories in 2020, in the UK, in Surrey, in Godalming and villages and in homes, businesses and shops here strips away the veneer of image that racism is a thing of the past.

Thabiti Anyabwile provides a Christian framework for engaging with racism and how we respond personally and locally. He says that to be a healthy church (and Christian) then the pastors and teachers of the church must start with Scripture and allow its meaning to drive the agenda. In What is a healthy church member?

Galatians 3:28 “you are one in Christ Jesus”

Like many Christians, I am considering questions of identity, value, uniqueness, our God ordained purpose, and how our actions flow from our deep seated and sometimes unconscious attitudes. Our Christian faith speaks into all of these and we must not be silent. As Christians we bring the powerful voice of our faith in Christ, which shapes who we are.

Our foundation is that “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”. (Gal 3:28) and Paul’s reason for saying this is to demonstrate the basis of our identity which is beyond reducing people to an ethnicity. All people are created in the image of God (Gen 1:27) and our faith is about the identity we have found in Christ. We are called to proclaim this into every situation we find ourselves in. If we truly believe that a black life matters as much as any other life, then we will see everyone as having equal identity. I suspect that no Christian would disagree with this but…

This takes us to a place of being willing to pause and ask questions, of taking what Rev Ben Lindsey, the vicar of a black majority church in South London calls ‘audit’: to take a self-audit and to self-audit the businesses, churches and charities that we are part of with eyes and ears that listen and see. Audit is about asking questions, seeking to listen and wanting to integrate the saving grace of Jesus Christ fully into every aspect of who we are. As the Holy Spirit flows through us we are a new creation and we become deeply aware of places, people and positions where there is injustice.

This may bring discomfort and disrupt our own expectations and norms, but it is God who is the great disruptor time and again in Scripture and throughout history. He does not leave us in the status or the status quo we create or are used to. This is the point of Christianity: it is no longer about me but about God and us.

When we comprehend this we begin to understand that our Christian faith is an activist faith. We are disturbed by the Holy Spirit within us into action when we begin to glimpse with fresh eyes those who have been at the margins of justice, or on the receiving end of injustice. Sometimes, that injustice is forcefully propelled onto our tv screens and media feeds in an uncompromising way and we are left with a decision: to audit ourselves and places we are involved with, or to walk away from the discomfort and ignore the past and present.

Psalm 37:28 “The Lord loves justice”

As Christians we bring the unique power of God’s love into shaping how the past might be healed and where the future leads for those who bear the hidden trauma of racism but that love is also a love of practical action too. It isn’t about ideals alone but about ideas that are acted on, in love. Ben Lindsey gives some utterly shocking examples of what the disparity of opportunity looks like, today. I would urge you to watch this interview between Rev Tim Hughes of Gas Street, Birmingham and Ben Lindsey:

https://www.facebook.com/gasstreetchurch/ (8th June, 2020)

This is what Ben might mean when he says that Audit leads to Awareness, and Awareness leads us to Action. He warns against rushing to Action. Awareness is when we come to God in humility and cry “Lord, shine a spotlight on my heart”. What resonates with me about this call to all of us from Ben is ‘heart’. God is the God of compassion and time and again in Scripture God is described as the God of Love. The Psalmist tell us (Ps37) that God loves justice because he his righteous.

As Christians we have a voice to bring to wherever we have authority and power of the perfect interweaving of judgement founded on loving justice. Justice without love is no justice at all. Judgement without justice is injustice. We are called to have love at the heart of our attitudes but love can be a code for softness or acquiescence. There is nothing soft about God’s righteous judgement and we know God judges our hearts (1 Sam 16:7). It is a deep call to explore what drives us and, where we discover that there is sin present in this, to acknowledge and repent of this before Almighty God.

Today: what are you going to do and how will you think differently now?

This surely frees us, as Paul goes on to say in Galatians 4, to be people of freedom based on our clothing in Christ. Once we fully comprehend this freedom we lose the shackles of fear that bind us to concern about status, privilege, maintaining that which we have or concern that our voice may be dismissed or ignored. We become truly open to listen and learn and to ensure that the future does not repeat the past.

We are freed to speak out in our workplaces and communities; and do so in the love which knows that God is The God of Justice and hope; the God who draws us together for eternity.

Practically, right now, we can seek to learn and understand by Auditing our response to racism and our own situation. We can seek to be Aware of the situation, history and injustice so that we can understand more. We can sense the Holy Spirit’s calling us to Action in Love. This might lead us to attend an interview with Ben Lindsey on Tues 16th June at 8pm with a live Q&A afterwards.

We can open our eyes to why a person’s death on another continent has opened a response that means that I am writing this article and you are reading it.

The question I’d leave you with is one that I was asked by a friend after I’d listened to them: “so, what are you going to do and how will you think differently now”?