The Arc and The Road: A Journey Towards a More Just Society
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously summarized the 19th century abolitionist Theodore Parker thus: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
The apostle Paul reminds us that God “reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation”.[1] The basis, framework, and goal towards full racial equality and racial equity in our communities, churches, nation, and the world is in the reconciling work of Jesus Christ. While the Lord’s death and resurrection enabled the fullness of reconciliation to already be a reality, the living out of that reality is a long and arduous one in which generations of God’s people continue to pray, protest, and work for God’s justice to reign. When we pray, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” believers in every time and in every place invoke the power, presence, and promise of the Lord Christ to make real and tangible that which we know and believe to be possible because of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection.
At this writing, we in the United States are mourning the recent deaths, celebrating the lives, and continuing the legacies of two icons of the civil rights movement: U.S. Representative John Lewis and The Rev. C.T. Vivian. Their deaths come during a time when the tragic murder of Minnesota resident George Floyd has galvanized moral indignation against white supremacy, weaponized and legitimized as law enforcement. Floyd’s death sent shock waves for the vividness with which it revealed white violence. For eight minutes and 46 seconds police officer Derek Chauvin held his knee in Floyd’s neck, as another officer restrained Floyd’s legs and two others stood by. Floyd’s final words were “I can’t breathe.” Floyd’s death—along with the equally horrific deaths of unarmed African Americans Breonna Taylor in Louisville, KY and Ahmaud Arbery in Glynn County, GA—palpably demonstrated ways that the United States is far from being “a more perfect union,” miles away from being a “more just society,” a dim glimmer of being “the shining city on a hill.”
Living into God’s promises is a long and arduous journey. Working and praying for a more just society requires a multi-pronged approach and collaboration with multiple “co-conspirators” as encouragers and fellow sojourners on this journey. As a Filipino American pastor theologian, I recently have engaged in working for racial equality and equity in the following practical ways:
- Protests: A week and a half after George Floyd’s death, my seventeen-year-old son and I joined hundreds of peaceful protesters in downtown San Diego on the steps of the main administration building of the City and County of San Diego. Most of the crowd was his age. As he carried our homemade sign “Black Lives Matter,” we joined the chorus “What’s his name? George Floyd! What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!” The protests ended with us being tear-gassed—an experience forever etched in our hearts and in our chests. On our way home, he was more committed to the cause, undeterred by the tear gas.
- Conscientization: While we received plenty of support via social media for our participation in the protest, two of my congregants were highly critical of our attendance. Their critique and public opposition both to the protest, specifically, and to the reality of white supremacy, white nationalism, and systemic and historic racism provided a public opportunity for education and conscientization of the realities of racial inequality racial inequity, particularly against Black communities.
- Congregational Process: I serve as one of three pastors in a largely white, affluent, 1100-member congregation in north San Diego county. Working with one of our elders, we placed a proposal to begin a process of dialogue, analysis, and action to address racial injustice on the agenda of our Session. (In Presbyterian polity, the session is the local governing council of ordained elders.) The final proposal that was approved was a process and a working group that is putting in place a multi-pronged, multi-year process of education, conversation, and intersectional analysis of race, racism, economics, and history, all grounded in what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Our working group is prayerfully and methodically seeking to facilitate this process for the whole congregation through such things as community conversations, focused sermons and Bible studies, and navigating the sensitive dynamic of carefully listening to experiences of Black communities and of people of color, experiences which are foreign to a large segment of our congregation.
- Collaboration with Co-Conspirators: A regular source of support, encouragement, and inspiration are through other friends and colleagues of color. At this writing, I have been working with about 40 other Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Christian leaders in southern California, alongside Black pastors and Black churches in Los Angeles, to prepare a prayer vigil and protest event to express publicly AAPI’s solidarity with our Black siblings. Beyond the actual event in August, we are discerning ways forward for sustained work as we link arms and hearts for collective action.
Likewise, as a past Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), I co-authored, co-signed, and co-coordinated a public statement with other past Moderators and Vice Moderators of our General Assemblies in critiquing the racist events that we and so many in our denomination witnessed in our recent historic digital 224th General Assembly. White supremacy reared its ugly head when elected commissioners disrespected our African American Stated Clerk (chief ecclesiastical officer) and one of our African American co-Moderators, and when the rules and procedures of this digital Assembly stifled consideration and debate of multiple items of business related to racial justice, environmental justice, economic justice, and social justice, to the point of actually taking votes that were an affront to Black women and girls. That joint Statement and the continuing sentiments surrounding the 224th General Assembly continue to reverberate in our denomination as we who are in key positions of leadership are advocating for more just systems of decision-making and deliberation.
- Scholarship and Learning: As a Filipino American pastor theologian, I am working with two collaborative inquiry teams funded by The Louisville Institute. The first three-year project, titled “A More Equal Pulpit,” has examined gender equality in Latinx and Asian American congregations in southern California. The project supports and advocates for women to be in senior leadership of congregations through scholarship, empowerment, and resourcing. The second three-year project funds five Filipino American theologians to conduct intersectional analysis of three Filipino American congregations and their community contexts, seeking to understand the emerging and embedded Filipino American theologies. Additionally, I write articles about racial justice for both popular and academic audiences which focus on how the mind and heart can be deconstructed of theologies and hermeneutics that are hurtful to communities of color, and instead articulate and lift up alternative reconstructions that have either been missing from or muted in ecclesiastical and academic arenas. For me personally, I have spent part of my study leave and vacation this summer reading volumes that have not been part of my regular diet of academic discipline in liturgics, ecumenics, and homiletics. Thus, I’m making my way through Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, Eddie Glaude Jr’s recent volume Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, James Cone’s The Cross and the Lynching Tree, and Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.
- The Board Room: a few weeks ago, I was honored and privileged to be elected to a two-year term as the Chairman of the Presbyterian Foundation, the fiduciary of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) which stewards and manages close to $2 billion in assets under management and disburses about $73 million annually to faith-based causes in the U.S. and around the world. One of the strategic priorities of the Foundation is diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). While the Foundation’s staff, senior management, and Board are the most diverse in its 225-year history, much more needs to be done. One of the three key emphases that will occur in my tenure will be deepening and expanding the strides we have made with respect to DEI in our hiring and retention of staff, Board culture, and in other forthcoming initiatives that leverages the Foundation’s reputation, resources, and resolve for impactful, positive change towards a more just Church and a more just world.
As is evident from what I have outlined here, I have chosen to utilize the various micro and macro arenas in which I’m involved to engage on this long, arduous journey towards racial justice. I have always been about “both/and,” nimble in speaking to and speaking from the level of the leaves, the trees, the forest, and the ecosystem. What about you? How and where is God calling you to speak? What are your gifts, life experiences, passions, core competencies? Where is God challenging you to extend and expand your networks, your knowledge base, your theological and cultural assumptions to re-learn, re-think, deconstruct and reconstruct? Who are the co-conspirators in your life and ministry? Are you listening to the lived experiences of Black communities and Black colleagues? Are you speaking out and against white supremacy, white nationalism, and white exceptionalism from the pulpit (even in a time of virtual, digital worship gatherings), in your classrooms, in your writings, in faculty meetings, in ecclesial/ecclesiastical settings? Are you registered to vote?
The journey towards a more just society involves both road and arc: it is life and faith for Christians of every generation to love God and love neighbor, to correct the course, to reckon with truth, to confess, and, yes, to repent. The stakes are high: life and death, and the very soul of who we are in our humanity.
[1] 2 Cor. 5:18
