Respondingto Social Justice & Critical Race Theory
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN RESPONDING TO SOCIAL JUSTICE & CRITICAL RACE THEORY by Rev. Dr. Lucas Woodford President, Minnesota South District The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod table of contents 1 PART 1: TOWARD A LUTHERAN ETHOS 2 Chapter 1: Mission & Witness 7 Chapter 2: Black Theology—Roots of the Antiracist Ideology 12 Chapter 3: Definitions 17 Chapter 4: Diverging Perspectives in the Black Community 20 Chapter 5: Critical Race Theory 25 Chapter 6: White Guilt & Black Lives (Matter) 29 Chapter 7: Theological Evaluations 34 PART 2: A PASTORAL GUIDE FOR SOUL CARE IN TROUBLED TIMES 36 Chapter 8: Jesus as Light & Life to Soul Care 39 Chapter 9: Addressing Difficult Questions 42 Chapter 10: Soul Care & Critical Race Theory—A Lesson from the Good Samaritan 47 Chapter 11: Social Justice Activism & the Church 52 Chapter 12: Human Identity with Christ at the Center 56 Chapter 13: Promoting Baptismal Identity & Character 59 Chapter 14: Concluding Observations 64 PART 3: BIBLIOGRAPHY © 2020 Minnesota South District, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Reproduction is permitted. Such reproduction should credit Minnesota South District as the source. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Minnesota South District, LCMS | 14301 Grand Avenue, Burnsville, MN 55306 | 952-435-2550 | mnsdistrict.org Part 1 Toward a Lutheran Ethos 1 CHAPTER 1: MISSION & WITNESS What ethic do confessional Luther- Most notably, the calls to stem the espoused ans have to offer a conversation and culture racial injustices and instead become “anti- wrapped up in endless dialogues and demands racist” by seeking “equality” and “justice” for for social justice? In a church body that is 95 all will be explored in light of clear biblical percent white Anglo-Saxon and of Germanic theology. The challenge, of course, comes in origins, what are we to make of the accusations understanding what each of those terms actu- regarding white privilege, institutional racism, ally means when employed, as well as navigat- and overall systemic racism being pressed ing the ideology behind their use (particularly upon the broader American culture and every “Critical Race Theory”), and then evaluating institution within it, including the church? them in light of the clear Word of God and This part of the present study ventures to our Lutheran ethos. The endeavor of this Part answer those questions with an exploration 1 will be to identify a clear ethic of care as of our Lutheran doctrine in light of our con- we seek to shine the light of Christ amid the temporary American context and the current darkness of competing truths in a very divided varying calls for social justice. In particular, country. Part 2 will provide pastoral guidance this work seeks to address the issue of racism for the care of souls struggling against racism and those affected by the sin of racism in any in its many forms. given form, as well as the erroneous generaliza- tions about American institutions, the church, and the white community in general. 2 OUR LUTHERAN ETHIC There is a danger to reduce our robust citizens of heaven and citizens of any temporal Lutheran confession of faith solidified in the government.3 He emphasizes the importance Reformation to mere personal matters of inter- of our own personal endurance of evil, while nal faith that have no impact upon day-to-day also standing up for our neighbor in the face of living, particularly upon the local organization injustice: of the church. From time to time, the push to “withdraw” from political matters and societal In this way the two propositions are brought issues has been present in various Lutheran into harmony with one another: at one and the minority voices.1 But doing so is to misrep- same time you satisfy God’s kingdom inwardly resent the full-bodied ethic that flows from and the kingdom of the world outwardly. You Lutheran theology, one that is rooted in the suffer evil and injustice, and yet at the same doctrine of vocation and frees the Christian time you punish evil and injustice; you do not to act with intentional care for the neighbor. resist evil, and yet at the same time, you do Luther himself offers a robust explanation of resist it. In the one case, you consider yourself this understanding: and what is yours; in the other, you consider your neighbor and what is his. In what con- We conclude, therefore, that a Christian lives cerns you and yours, you govern yourself by not in himself, but in Christ and his neighbor. the gospel and suffer injustice toward yourself Otherwise he is not a Christian. He lives in as a true Christian; in what concerns the per- Christ through faith, in his neighbor through son or property of others, you govern yourself love. By faith he is caught up beyond himself according to love and tolerate no injustice into God. By love he descends beneath himself toward your neighbor. The gospel does not into his neighbor.2 forbid this; in fact, in other places it actually commands it.4 In other words, the Christian lives life at the intersection of two kingdoms, the spiritual Scholar Gustaf Wingren unequivocally kingdom and the temporal kingdom, where notes how the neighbor stands at the center the object of faith is always Christ and the of Luther’s ethic: “Love born of faith and the indirect object of faith in action is always the Spirit effects a complete breakthrough of the neighbor. Luther had much to say on this as boundary between the two kingdoms, the wall well. In his 1523 work, Temporal Authority: of partition between heaven and earth, as did To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed, he began God’s incarnation in Christ.”5 developing this two-kingdoms thought that As such, wherever there might be social has come to help Christians think through how injustice and oppression, Lutherans certainly we are to live life in relation to others as both have an ethic to act upon in the face of it. This 1 “The Gospel has nothing to do with outward existence but only with eternal life...It is not the vocation of Jesus Christ or of the Gospel to change the orders of secular life and establish them new...Christianity wants to change man’s heart, not his external situa- tion.” Christian Luthardt Karl H. Hertz (ed.), The Two Kingdoms and One World: A Sourcebook in Christian Social Ethics (Minneap- olis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1976), p. 87. 2 “Freedom of a Christian,” LW 31:371. 3 “For this reason [human depravity] God has ordained two governments: the spiritual, by which the Holy Spirit produces Christians and righteous people under Christ; and the temporal, which retains the un-Christian and wicked so that—no thanks to them—they are obliged to keep still and to maintain an outward peace. Thus does St. Paul interpret the temporal sword in Romans 13[:3], when he says it is not a terror to good conduct but to bad. And Peter says it is for the punishment of the wicked [1 Pet. 2:14].” LW 45:91. 4 Ibid, p. 96. 5 Gustaf Wingren, Luther on Vocation (Evansville, IN: Ballast Press, 1999), p. 46. 3 mobilizes us, then, to care for our neighbors Certainly we are not compelled or obliged to in the face of any certain social injustice or let every insolent person run rampant all over oppression. This is not hereby making any the place and to take it silently without doing value statements on the present claims of social anything about it—not if we can follow orderly injustice in our American society. That is yet to procedure in defending ourselves. Otherwise, come. Rather, it is simply to say Lutherans in- however, all we can do is to suffer if someone deed have a clear ethic to provide real care for treats us unjustly and violently. We must not those in the face of oppression and injustice. sanction a wrong, but we must testify to the Yet there are those today who consider truth. In opposition to violence and malice, promoting mere individual responsibility as in- we certainly may appeal to the law. Thus, adequate to fight against such social injustice. before the high priest Annas, Christ Himself In this view, the church as the people of God appealed to the law and asked for justice (John are called to rise up and speak against such 18:23); nevertheless He let himself be struck, oppression and injustice. Like Isaiah speaking offering not merely His other cheek but his to the whole people of Israel on behalf of the whole body.6 Lord, so voices today press those same words into the ears of the Holy Christian Church in A Christian has to be ready to endure whatev- our local congregations: “learn to do good; er you and everyone else may do to him, but seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice he is not obliged to let your whims run riot all to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause” over him if he can prevent it by appealing to (Isaiah 1:17). Such voices hold that the church the law and by seeking the help of the govern- as an institution is to engage against injustice ment. Although the government may refuse through her public speaking and acting. Not to protect him or may itself become guilty of only should pulpits and official public state- violence, he is not obliged to keep quiet on ments bring condemnation of such injustice, that account as though he had to sanction the actions of the church as a whole are to such procedure.7 strive for changes in public policy, provide tangible services to the oppressed, and even In sum, there is certainly an ethic that the organize the masses in civil protest against any church and her individual members are to such injustice.