Why I Won’t Debate Racism

Spoiler: Our Dignity Is Not Up For Debate

I’m not sure if this is because of new management, but I’ve been seeing an uptick in white supremacists, misogynists and racists on Twitter lately.

The only thing I can compare this to is what I observed as a Georgia Republican political consultant & lobbyist in 2016-2017 with the rise of Trump - a sudden emboldening of white supremacists, misogynists and Christian nationalists to say everything that had been considered “fringe” up until that point.

Now, to be clear, I am not calling everyone who disagrees with me on social media a white supremacist or sexist. The vast majority of them are likely not intentionally aspiring to be these things. But I can’t help but wonder if this sudden emboldening of racism & sexism on Twitter is drowning out the voices of BIPOC & women on the margins. And I can’t help but wonder if this perceived trend is influencing the thought & theology of various otherwise moderate, anti-Trump western white evangelical thought leaders.

A few examples of this (without naming specific names because this is mostly speculative on my end):

A prominent Never Trump evangelical thought leader recently likening Stacey Abrams to Donald Trump (whatever your political views on either - they are *not* on the same level).

A prominent anti-Trump Christian historian likening my critiques of Jonathan Edwards (a slaveholding theologian) to being “the mirror image of the Christian Right”; an accusation that likely contributed to his resignation as President of an association of Christian historians due to his ungraceful tone towards me and prominent BIPOC & female scholars such as Dr. Jemar Tisby, Dr. Kristin Kobes Du Mez and Dr. Beth Allison Barr.

A prominent US Pastor tweeting all kinds of ridiculous assertions about “women’s liberation being bad for women” and “progressive Christians dividing the Global Church” entirely based on misleading statistics and half truths.

But the more I think of it, the more I realize an important fact: These white male evangelical thought leaders aren’t just being shaped by just the louder, recently emboldened voices on social media. They’ve already been radicalized by the exclusive voices of other white evangelical men that they’ve exclusively learned ministry & theology from.

I say this as a self-identified Global Evangelical but our evangelical theological and academic institutions in the west are filled with volumes of theological works by white male scholars who haven’t necessarily felt the need to consider for a moment that folks on the margins (specifically women and communities of colour) may have something to teach them - things they even *need* our perspectives on to better understand God and the human condition.

This is why when voices like myself, Dr. Willie James Jennings, Dr. Angela Parker, Dr. Jemar Tisby, Dr. James Cone, Dr. Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Dr. Beth Allison Barr, Dr. Rene Padilla, Kyle James Howard, etc. come along, we’re labeled as everything from “woke” to “progressive” to “CRT” to “Marxist” to everything in between.

The reality however is that I’ve never identified myself as any of the above labels. Why? Because I refuse to subscribe to the white normative frameworks that these exclusive clubs have imposed on the rest of us outside looking in.

Or, as the Swiss church reformer Zwingli once retorted when accused of being a secret Lutheran:

“The papists say, ‘You must be Lutheran, because you preach just as Luther writes.’ I reply, ‘I preach just as Paul writes. Why not call me a Pauline?…I will not be called by Luther’s name, for I have read little of his teaching. I will have no name except that of my captain, Christ, whose soldier I am.”

But here’s another trend I’ve been seeing on Twitter lately - being invited to debate things like white supremacy & colonialism.

One well-meaning Australian theologian, Dr. Michael Bird publicly invited me to debate what we can still learn from slaveholder theologians like Jonathan Edwards. I politely declined because of the reasons I outlined in a thread, primarily: i) The question isn’t one that appeals to me as a person of colour (versus a question like, “Why do white male scholars dismiss slaveholding more easily?”), ii) The suggested co-panelists were mostly conservative white male scholars and, iii) One of the suggested panelists had just dismissed me as “woke” (a racially abusive term that has been weaponized against BIPOC advocates for justice).

Then, Dr. Preston Sprinkle, a well known Christian theologian and podcaster chimed in offering to host myself and Dr. Bird’s suggested co-panelists on his podcast to debate Dr. Bird’s suggested topic. I politely declined again while alternatively suggesting a separate conversation on my suggested topic with a panel of BIPOC + female scholars. Sadly, I never heard back from either Dr. Bird or Dr. Sprinkle on this.

Still, over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had people (including one western missionary) comment on my tweets on colonialism asking for a debate on “the merits and demerits of colonialism”.

Again, I can see how a debate like this is perfectly reasonable to folks who have never had to see someone like me as an equal peer because of systemic exclusion. But I’ll never accept an invitation to debate the dignity of myself and my community.

After all, topics like white supremacy, colonialism & racism aren’t purely intellectual debates for my people and I - they’re lived, traumatic memories. There can be no debate because there is ultimately no debate in our minds. And any such debate is a form of privilege removed from these painful, endured realities - a privilege that people like me do not have.

My goal isn’t to win debates. My goal isn’t even to change hearts and minds. My goal is to be faithful - nothing more, nothing less.

What I’m Up To This Week

This is Week 1 of my 3 Week self-imposed Christmas break. In addition to a couple of end of semester exams and projects for my dual degree Master’s program in Seminary, I plan on reading, writing, watching the FIFA World Cup (go Morocco!) and spending time with family.

Still, allow me to share one unique, time-sensitive, IJM-related opportunity that will encourage some of you: Because of some generous IJM Canada donors, all church gifts to IJM Canada this Christmas up to $35k will be matched. So if you’re a Canadian church leader, I hope you’re able to join your church with dozens of Canadian churches partnering with us to fund rescue, hope & restoration for the millions of children & families in desperate need of that this Christmas. You can give here or reach out to me if you’d like to learn more about this opportunity.

$600 funds aftercare kits for 12 rescued child survivors of online sexual exploitation.

$1200 funds an entire investigations training module for government partners rescuing men from forced labour slavery in the Thai fishing industry.

$6000 funds an entire year of community engagement efforts in one of our programmatic regions.

$10,000 funds an entire rescue operation.

Help me grow this community

Would you take two minutes to share this on your social media and encourage others to subscribe? If there’s a church leader you think would benefit from my thoughts, feel free to send them this link / email and encourage them to subscribe too.

Until next week!