Stuck

In this season, I’m finally hearing white Christians insist that “everyone bears the image of God.” What’s weird is that every time I’ve heard them quote this scripture, they are using it to defend the humanity of white people, who they say are unfairly bearing the brunt of the blame for racism. They quote the bible as a divine sanction to dodge accountability. They use the sacred text to dam up the dialogue over specific aspects of structural racism by universalizing everything. Sin is sin! Racists come in all colors! White people are people too!

These white Christians are missing the point. Those who emphasize (rightly) that our society is soaked in systemic racism are not saying that white people suck. They are saying that white people are stuck. We are trapped in a racist history we do not understand—as James Baldwin wrote—and until we understand it, we cannot be released from it. One thing’s for certain: us white folk will never get free by quoting the bible selectively to defend ourselves, our counterfeit scripting of history and the unjust status quo it upholds.

We will get free when we stop conforming to the racist conventions of American culture and then—like the scripture says—become transformed by the renewing of our minds. We will get free when we stop defending ourselves and start applying the image of God to everyone—no matter what they look like, who they love, how they worship or where they are from. Bearing the image of God is the basis for a spiritual revival of reciprocity that replaces the ideology of supremacy. We will never get in touch with our humanity until we extend it to everyone else.