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"I am blessed because I walk not in the counsel of the ungodly, but I delight in the law of the Lord"

(Psalm 1:1-2)

A Spiritual Response to Racism?

            By Celia C. Peters

What feelings does racism evoke in you? Anger? Fear? Maybe even hatred? Although we have entered the 21st century, unfortunately we cannot say that we've left racism in the past. How then to best deal with such a primitive concept in an age of enlightenment? Simply ignoring it doesn’t seem possible, if you have a pulse, heartbeat and brain waves. If you are a devout follower of any spiritual faith, chances are your religion advocates loving others in peace -- not fostering hatred and violence. The question is: How does a positive, life-affirming belief system combat a negative and destructive one, particularly given that human nature typically dictates a visceral and defensive response to the pain of racism?

In many ways, the adoption of religion has in and of itself been a response to racism for blacks in America. Upon arrival on these shores, Christianity was forced upon African slaves, who already practiced religions from their various cultures. These slaves came from communities of traditional African religions, where political and religious leaders were the same people. Despite the oppression surrounding them, religion was the one area where slaves did have some freedom, because white slave owners were so eager to pacify them with it. In the story of Christ, whites had a ready-made model of passivity to hold up as an example of how slaves should respond to systematic attempts to dehumanize them. Covertly, however, slaves practiced their own religions and continued to develop "underground" cultural communities. For some blacks, this early chapter of American history led to embracing the idea of "turning the other cheek" to racism. On the other hand, the "invisible" leaders of black slave culture rallied around Old Testament stories of Exodus and New Testament predictions of apocalypse. These themes fortified the belief that racism and the nature of God are incompatible. Many black American churches maintained a "liberation tradition" that rejected racism and slavery; they became the backbone of the Underground Railroad. This, then, was the quintessential spiritual response to racism. In fact, some took it further: so-called "slave preachers" led the three biggest slave revolts in American history -- Gabriel Prosser in 1800, Denmark Vesey in 1822 and Nat Turner in 1831.

Through the 20th century, black religious life changed as black Americans looked for strategies to deal with racial inequality; many denominations were born as a result. When the issue of civil rights began boiling over, the two most profound black leaders to emerge, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, were both men of deep faith, whose responses to racism were rooted as much in their spiritual beliefs as their thirst for racial justice. King came from a lineage of social activist Baptist ministers and adopted Gandhi's eastern ideology of passive civil disobedience. Malcolm X, who led the Nation of Islam church, advocated racial separation and violent self-defense in response to racism, which struck a chord with suffering American blacks. In 1964, he left NOI and made a pilgrimage to Mecca where a life-changing experience of multiculturalism inspired him to denounce racial separatism.

Religion continues to be central to black American life, yet given the protections of civil rights legislation, is it equipped to deal with the subtle politics of modern-day racism? Theologian James H. Cone questions whether theology is willing to address racism. According to Cone, "The cultural bond between European values and Christian beliefs is so deeply woven into the American psyche and thought process that their identification is assumed. White images and ideas dominate the religious life of Christians … reinforcing the 'moral' right of white people to dominate people of color economically and politically." Theologian Paul Rasor sees racism as insidious: "… the evil of racism poisons our spirits as much as our institutions. It gets inside us despite our best efforts to block it out, eating away at our hearts, eroding our capacity for expanded community. We must … be willing to do the difficult soul work necessary for spiritual transformation."

A beautiful concept, to be sure, but how does this translate to the situation where your brother, husband, son, father or boyfriend stands on a dark road in the middle of the night, staring down the barrel of a gun held by an angry cop? How do ideological discussions of racism help the indigent mother whose newborn doesn’t survive under the negligent care of a doctor who sees them as "those people"? Beyond the life-altering, the intricacies of racism also complicate life; if you feel that a store clerk is discriminating against you, it's not the same as being attacked with a fire hose, although the experience can evoke the same rage, despair and disgust. Nowadays, racism may come in the form of a job interview that never materializes, a racist e-mail sent to your child at school, or a co-worker's constitutionally protected right of free speech.

As long as racism is still with us, we are left with the task of drawing upon what we believe in and finding a way to respond to it in a way that works -- in the long and short run. Whether that response comes from a spiritual place is a question that we all -- like those who have come before us -- must answer for ourselves.