The book signing for The Color of Compromise Thursday night had quite a mixed crowd of community members, seminary students and faculty, undergraduate students and administration in attendance. First, BSCF Education officer TracyJean Khonje welcomed Jemar Tisby to say a few words about his book for those who had been unable to come to chapel earlier in the day.
He began by reading a section from his book about the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, and how this represented a wake-up call for the young white professional Charles Morgan, Jr. to question the role of the broader white community in allowing for a silent, creeping culture of hate to develop in Bir- mingham’s church culture which culminated in an outbreak of racial vio- lence.
Tisby then said the American Christian church, then and now, resisted changing the status quo in terms of race relations, and how that needs to change because religion, politics, and race have been intertwined in this country since before its founding (citing a Virginia law that regulated abortions based on race), and that it is important for the church, which believes in loving thy neighbor, to be at the forefront of progress.
He talked about how the Christian denominations split North and South over slavery around the time of the Civil War, over the issue of missionaries owning slaves, and how Christian denominations split again after the Civil War when AfricanAmericans formed their own churches, not wanting to experience prejudice in the house of God.
He noted that people generally start to disagree with the history in his book around the 1970’s to the 1990’s, when he talks about how the “religious right” and the “moral majority” grew around the tax-exemption of private Christian schools, now desegregated, that still prohibited interracial relationships between students a few years before it rallied around antiabortion issues.
Reiterating his point from earlier in the day, he gave an acronym for how people in the church can engage in helping racial progress: ARC, which stands for Awareness, Relationships, and Commitment. In awareness, he argu ed for a deeper historical understanding of race relations in the country and in the church. With relationships, he encouraged seeking relationships with people in the church across ethnic and cultural lines, but he cautioned that friendships with people of another race is not the stopping point, but rather a starting point for commitment, which includes changing institutions and systemic inequality.
After these words, the event moved to the question and answer portion. First, he answered a question from someone who wondered if he worries that people will just dismiss the book as “one version of history,” and not take it seriously. Tisby answered that he was frustrated with a larger culture of rejecting the peer-reviewed work of academics—other, more experienced historians— who spend years studying their subjects and yet still are ignored because, “The academy is labeled ‘liberal’ and therefore, you don’t have to listen to what they say.” He talked about that as a cop-out to avoid engaging with the facts.
Someone also asked a question about Lecrae, the Christian rap artist who wrote the introduction to his book. Tisby responded, “He and I have a lot in common. Both from a white evangelical background who started facing more and more backlash when we started speaking out about racial issues.” Another person asked a question about how not to give up when it seems like the divide between races is just too wide. For example, some people in a crowd can see Tisby speak and be outraged, thinking his words are accusatory and judgmental. Other people can see the same speech and think Tisby is calling for the church to come together and acknowledge history so the church can move forward. Tisby responded that at some point, if one has already done due diligence to try to convince someone, but they refuse to see the other side, then it’s okay to move on and spend one’s energy elsewhere.
He also said a key part of engaging in these difficult conversations regularly and facing adversity is therapy and a support network of believers to encourage one another, even if the broader church does not provide that support as, for example, when another video comes out of an unarmed black person being killed by the police. He also answered a question about The Witness, the “black Christian collective that engages issues of religion, race, justice, and culture from a biblical perspective.” He stated that although the organization focuses on the black church tradition, the organization includes a number of white members as well, and that this group grew out of a larger Christian organization with a Reformed tradition that began suppressing the members who were speaking out on racial issues. As a result, The Witness’ founders left that organization a few years ago to pursue these topics more freely.
To my surprise, Tisby asked a few questions of the audience. He asked whether Andrew’s racial diversity changes its racial dynamics as opposed to other Christian schools which have far less diversity. Some of the people present answered that people from any background who want to get out of their comfort zone and hear different perspectives do so, but that people who want to stay in their comfort zone do that as well.
Other people pointed out that some organizations like The Agora and some cultural clubs push serious conversation on these issues, but that only people who are already interested in those topics attend. Other people shared the history of the Adventist church with regards to race relations, including the split between the state conferences and the “regional conferences” for African-American churches when black Adventists no longer wanted to endure discrimination by the General Conference.
Tisby asked about the Seminary’s engagement with the racial history of the Adventist church, and a few from the Seminary responded that change was taking place, and that there is willingness, but the progress towards actual changes, such as teaching the history of the contributions of black Adventist theologians in seminary courses and sponsoring black students pursuing PhDs (with only three black people receiving PhDs from the seminary since its founding), is still reluctant.
Throughout the talk, Tisby shared a few recommendations for people wanting to deepen their understanding of racial history and the church.* After the discussion was over, Michael Nixon headed a book give away, and finally, members of the audience clapped for Tisby and then transitioned to a line to get their books signed. The discussion was meant to have lasted only 30-45 minutes, but there was so much sharing and so many questions that the event lasted two hours. All in all, there was a huge outpouring of camaraderie and support in that room from people who had been working here at Andrews to facilitate more serious conversations on race and bridge the cultural divide between black Christianity and Christianity at large, and it was a beautiful experience to witness.
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Throughout the talk, Tisby shared a few recommendations for people wanting to deepen their understanding of racial history and the church: The book Divided by Faith
The New York Times series “The 1619 Project” The work of the African- American activist Bree Newsome
The documentary on Netflix by Ava DuVernay When They See Us
The docu-series by Henry Louis Gates, Jr The African-Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.