Pastor G challenges white Christians to join in the fight for justice and equity in America. He argues that systemic racism is an American conundrum created outside of the African American culture. Therefore, those who are capable of eliminating it are the ones who created it. He suggests that those who say that they are Christians should be the first to step up to the plate and walk along side peacful protesters demanding equal treatment under the law.
I’m getting messages from my white clergy friends saying “Pastor G is there anything I can do?” Well the truth is that everything that is going on right now in streets around the world are waiting on my white clergy and christians to stop justifying, blaming and shaming people for dying and start standing up and speaking up for your neighbors. It’s time to answer the question posed in Luke 10:29 (...and who is my neighbor?). In the midst of an obliterated routine for churches nationwide we need to obliterate a history of passing by “on the other side.” We must recognize the danger and sin of justifying death, violence, and indifference of other Christians as “oh, they deserved it.”
If my white Christians brothers and sisters don’t accept the reality of micro-aggressions toward people of color as sin then we will never make any progress. You become part of the problem and not part of the solution.
It’s beyond time to recognize the challenges we’re facing and to join in this fight for liberty and justice for all and not some. Too many predominately white churches and more specifically pastors are standing on the sideline making religion hypocritical to those marching peaceably in the street right now. The Good Samaritan parable means nothing to them because they feel as if so-called Christians are ignoring those from our community who are suffering under so many acts of violence aimed at them for absolutely no reason at all by the very people we should be able to trust.
My voice can’t pull this one off alone. This is not our issue as a culture. We are all tired of being confined to a system designed to under protect, over police, over enforce, under serve and over sentence. Until our white brothers and sisters stop crossing by on the other side of the road, those of us who deal with this tension everyday will continue to die at the hands of thieves and robbers. We can’t fix your problem for you without your voice and visible support standing with us. If you need to know exactly what to do, go to our website (uniteforchange.org or Unite for Change) and keep up with our cause to bring our community stakeholders together to fight for justice and equity. Prepare your white pastor friends and they’re congregations for the challenge to step up, speak up and stand up with us.