CS 4 - Your whiteness is kicking in!

It’s been through godly leaders of color pointing out my cultural blindspots that’s allowed me to journey out of my native culture, and one such moment like this happened in 2019.

It was to be a significant event in which I was humbled to be invited to support. Pastor Arthur Breland of United Church had been meeting with community leaders, neighbors, and the city of Atlanta to help change the name of the street, which his church sits on from Confederate Ave to United Ave. Arthur, who’s African-American had no desire to pastor a church that sits on a street named after a rebellious nation that was founded upon the sin of white supremacy. 

Arthur arranged a march down United Ave with many different churches around the city and One Race was proud to help out and support this initiative. He invited me to go with him the Sunday before the March to get the word out to four different churches in the city and asked me to meet him at 9 am at his church. After hopping in the car and on our way to the first church with the radio blaring worship music, I asked Arthur a normal question that made sense to me, “What do you want from me as we go to these different churches and announce the march?” 

Arthur answered graciously with, “Dan, your whiteness is kicking in. Let’s just roll with what comes and see how the Holy Spirit guides us.” What ensued over the next four hours was amazing as we made the announcement, but also watched the Holy Spirit do some amazing things in the different churches we were at. 

But what was meant by Arthur’s comment, “your whiteness is kicking in”? What is whiteness and what is a Biblical response to it? The National Museum of African American History and Culture defines whiteness as; “Whiteness and white racialized identity refer to the way that white people, their customs, culture, and beliefs operate as the standard by which all other groups of are compared.”https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/whiteness

 This doesn’t seem so bad, but as in all cultures, there are positives and negatives. From a Biblical perspective, culture is what it is. No culture is a perfect culture. The negative aspect of white culture is that it carries a lot of terrible history with tenets of white supremacy. The problem with dominant white culture is that as Daniel Hill writes in his book, White Awake quoting a friend, “White culture is very real. In fact, when white culture comes in contact with other cultures it always always wins. So it would be a really good idea for you to learn about your culture.”

Having lived a cross cultural and racial life since 2006, I have witnessed this many times when those that come from the dominant culture enforce their cultural worldview on those coming from other groups. This is one of the reasons I love the training, Serving with Dignity, which places a huge emphasis on realizing the power dynamics of race, culture and class and seeks to give power away. 

So, in that moment when Arthur called out my whiteness, I had a choice. I could have gotten defensive, felt guilty or even shameful. But, as a follower of Jesus, I am always called to humility, particularly if someone points out my cultural blindspots as Paul does to Peter in Galatians 2. I am called to model the humility that Paul describes in Philippians 2 to, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” 

I’m grateful to Arthur confronting me like Paul confronted Peter in Antioch, but can you imagine how this confrontation felt like in the new church in Antioch in Galatians 2? “When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?” (Galatians 2: 11-14)

Peter is a born again Christian that has walked with Jesus as his disciple for three years. He was the main leader in the early church of Acts.  Yet, because of his Jewish cultural superiority, we still see the sin of ethnocentrism displayed in Peter’s life in Antioch towards the new gentile believers.

Don’t forget, in the early church, Peter is the main leader! In Acts 2 we see Peter addressing the crowd, “Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say.”

Peter later receives a vision from the Holy Spirit in Acts 10 He receives the vision about Gentile inclusion into the family of God. “He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.”

Paul, a new Apostle to the message of Jesus has just called out Peter for his ethnocentrism. Peter is operating out of the distinction making false self when he sees people coming down from the Jerusalem church and withdraws from eating with the Gentile Believers. Think about what’s happening in this context. Peter is having table fellowship with the new Gentile believers (which is huge), and Jewish believers show up from Jerusalem who were with James’ church and he gets up from the table and stops eating with them. Peter feels the peer pressure from his fellow Jewish family for what he’s doing and cowardly retreats.

Then Paul confronts him to his face in front of the whole church, specifically saying, “This is not in line with the gospel!” Can you imagine the tension in the room after this confrontation? What’s interesting is that we don’t see Peter’s reaction, all that we know is that in Acts 15 at the Jerusalem council, Peter is now arguing for Gentile inclusion into the church.

Peter is operating out of his Jewish Cultural Superiority, which prohibited the Gentiles from being a part of God’s covenant. This was a huge problem in the early church. Hebrew Jews felt superior to the Gentile Christians as they were the first people in the covenant. David Stern states in his commentary; “In conclusion, the difference between Gentiles and Jews prior to the Messiah’s coming was not merely the external fact that the latter were circumcised, but the spiritual and ontological fact that God dealt with them differently. God chose the Jewish people to receive certain promises and called them to exemplify God’s involvement in human life and history.”  (David Stern: Jewish NT commentary)

There is a prayer in the Jewish Tradition that says, “Praise you because you have not made me a Gentile”. The traditional text is: Baruch atah adonai, eloheinu melech ha-olam, she-loh asani goy. “Blessed are you, Lord our God, king of the universe, who has not made me a gentile.” The blessing is recited as part of a series of blessings known as Birkot Hashachar, literally “blessings of the morning.” It is recited in succession with two other blessings thanking God for not making you a slave and — if you’re a man — for not making you a woman. Every Jewish man is obligated to recite three blessings daily. These express gratitude for one's station in life through the negative statements: thank God that I am not a gentile, a woman, or a slave.

Tim Keller writes; “But in addition, racial pride must have entered into it. It had been drilled into Peter, and all the Jews, since their youth that Gentiles were unclean. While hiding beneath the facade of religious observance, Peter and other Jewish Christians were probably still feeling disdain for Christians from “inferior” national and racial backgrounds. Peter was allowing cultural differences to become more important than gospel unity.” (Keller: Galatian for you)

Peter is falling back into the elementary principles of the day, which was sin! Paul is making the case in Galatians that because of what Christ has done on the cross that we are free from how the earthly principle of the day shapes us. Peter was more committed to his cultural identity, rather than kingdom ethics. It is clear that Peter was being controlled by his Jewish culture, which was a superior culture to the Gentiles, and not living out kingdom culture. We must choose the kingdom culture everytime! 

Rasool Berry states, “Christians should be aware that our sin often blinds us and makes us susceptible to using culture and power for self-justification. Culture often blinds us to what the Bible is saying. Power allows us to insist that our blinded version of reality MUST BE TRUE. Look at Peter — an apostle! — he let his Jewish upbringing keep him from eating with Gentile fellow believers (Galatians 2:11–13). His culture blinded him to his wrong-doing and his power as an apostle permitted the status quo that kept the Gentiles as second-class citizens in the church; that was until Paul used his power as an apostle to publicly critique Peter’s abuse of power (Galatians 2:14).” (Rasool Berry, The Promise and Perils of CRT)

The same thing happens when we perpetuate the fallen elements of white culture. We are expecting Christians to assimilate to white cultural norms, rather than being born into the kingdom of God. We are missing the beauty of God by only operating in one cultural norm and not seeing the beauty in other cultures. 

Without knowing it, white people can operate as if we’re superior. The direct result is that People of Color are seen as inferior, and if they are not careful, they can begin to live as if they are second class citizens in the kingdom. 

One of the greatest hindrances to the advancement of racial reconciliation here in the US is that we’ve valued the majority cultural values over other cultures. These cultural preferences have blinded us to not see the cry of the oppressed, the structures that have oppressed them, and the oppression of our own lives. Too often, when majority white people are exposed to racism, they see and understand the problem, but are too busy with their own lives to dive into racial justice issues.  They become okay with a system that kills brown people and relegates them to inferior positions. Any unjust and wicked system needs to be called out with gospel truth, much like what Paul did with the sinful Jewish Culture. 

I’m thankful for my brother, Pastor Arthur Breland, for lovingly pointing out my cultural blindspots. I would have missed a beautiful movement of the Spirit that Sunday morning. I’m afraid that the bride of Christ in this country is missing the beautiful vision of Revelation 7 because we’re not allowing people to point out our cultural blindspots!