Duke Kwon at LDR Weekend: Time to Pay Up, Blue-Eyed Devils

TLDR Summary: Here are some notable points from, and a full, word-for-word transcript of, the plenary address delivered by PCA minister Duke Kwon at LDR Weekend on September 2nd, 2017. LDR Weekend is an annual conference geared toward blacks, sponsored by Mission to North America, an official ministry of the “conservative” Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). It’s organized in large part by Jemar Tisby and Michelle Higgins, of Gender Apartheid fame. Every evangelical in America, even those who aren’t from the Reformed camp, needs to read or watch the whole thing, because most white Christians have no idea of the deep and raging hatred non-white “Christians” have for them, let alone how widespread this hatred is, or how fast it’s metastasizing. You can watch the entire talk here:

If you have an hour to spare, you really should, just to hear the predominantly black crowd go crazy for the hatewhitey and the gibsmedat. My main reason for spending several hours transcribing the entire sermon is so no one can accuse me of exaggerating, or taking things out of context, so that anyone who reads it has a fair and completely accurate picture of what took place. (It’s also nice to have a record of it in case they take the video down.) But to get the full effect, you really should watch the video, if possible. I’ve timestamped it for those who want to cut to the really incredible parts.

And keep in mind that Kwon isn’t some nobody – he’s a highly respected minister. Duke Kwon preached at the worship service at the PCA’s most recent General Assembly, meaning that he represents mainstream thought in the Reformed world.

Here are some of the things you’ll learn today:

Blacks are the “prophet people of God.”

It’s time to start “speaking the truth in love” about the urgent need for whites to start paying reparations to blacks.

Ephesians 2-4 is all about the need for reparations to blacks.

The story of Zacchaeus is all about the need for reparations to blacks.

Whites who disagree are “fools,” “trolls,” and “enemies.”

White people are “the oppressor.”

White cops who showed up in military gear to a BLM protest two days after 14 cops were gunned down in cold blood at another BLM protest are “fools” and “evil” whose folly and evil were exposed to all the world by a brave Black Lives Matter activist.

In addition to writing checks to blacks, white Christians must turn all our churches upside down, change our practices, “reconsider” our theology, change our hymns, etc., to ensure that our churches now “center” on black people.

Because, in 2017, white churches are the most dangerous places in America for blacks, and black people are fully justified in feeling like they’re being lynched at white churches.

Here are some of the “highlights,” followed by the transcript. (All bold passages are exact quotes.)

The talk begins at at 5:42. Kwon opens by declaring that his black and brown brothers and sisters in Christ are wonderfully made in the image of God, specifically excluding the many white people in the audience. (There were a tiny number of Asians, in the audience, too, but there were a whole bunch of white people, and since Kwon is Asian, and he’s been invited to speak there, it’s implicit that he includes Asians as being made in the image of God.) In the last sentence of the sermon, Kwon calls blacks “the prophet people of God.”

At 11:37 he says that these days, some of the most dangerous places in America for black people to be are predominantly white churches. He tells them that he feels their pain, and he understands why they feel like they are being lynched by Reformed churches:

For some, the church has become the least safe place for members of color (much murmuring of agreement from audience). Which is why I know many of you limped into this weekend weary of the alienating conversations. Some of you feel all alone. Your fidelity to the gospel has been questioned. Some of you feel betrayed. People you thought were allies turned out to be anything but. Friendships have been disrupted or lost. Some have lost ministry opportunities and jobs. Some of you are feeling like strange fruit hanging from Presbyterian poplar trees. (Crowd goes nuts)

Yes, he actually said that black people are not safe in white churches. In fact, he stated, white churches are the most dangerous places in America for black Christians. In 2017, according to Duke Kwon, black Christians rightly feel like “strange fruit” who are being lynched by murderous white Christians.

Still think I’m exaggerating when I say that much of what passes for Christianity these days is nothing but a deep and raging hatred of white people?

17:12 White Christians who won’t sign onto the Critical Race Theology apostasy are depicted as “fools” who refuse to listen to the clear biblical truths being bravely spoken by “prophetic” black Christians, who risk being lynched even showing up at white churches.

23:50 White people who won’t sign onto the Critical Race Theology apostasy are the “enemies” of black people

27:26 We’re also the “oppressor” who needs to be “set free” by the prophetic truths of Black Liberation Theology.

31:07 He says that black Christians need true biblical “meekness,” and then illustrates what he means:

Meekness is Iesha Evans, in that iconic image, in an elegant and grey dress standing in the middle of Airline Highway in Baton Rouge, feet firmly planted, staring resolutely ahead, while being arrested by officers dressed in full military gear, looking better prepared for combat than for Ms. Evans’ peaceful protest.

The “iconic” photo of Iesha Evans was taken on July 9, 2016.

So Duke Kwon condemns the police in Baton Rouge for coming out to a Black Lives Matter protest in full military gear on July 9, 2016.

Does anyone remember what happened on July 7, 2016, just two days before? In case you’ve forgotten, that’s the night that one of Iesha Evans’ fellow Black Lives Matter activists, at another “peaceful” protest, gunned down 14 Dallas cops, murdering five of them.

And Kwon pretends this never happened, and simply denounces the Baton Rouge police officers for not volunteering to be slaughtered.

In fact, at 32:54, he says that the cops were fools, and “evil,” and Iesha Evans’ bold meekness exposed their “folly” and “evil” in full view of others.

Then he really gets going.

At 37:25, he challenges the prophetic black folks to start speaking the truth in love about the pressing need for the “cruciform redistribution of power and resources“ that’s urgently needed. Anyone who denies this is our “enemy” whom we must “love” by preaching this clear biblical truth.

There’s more; lots more.

At 46:04 he denounces the idea that blacks bear much of the responsibility for how they’re regarded by white people. Astronomical crime rates, an 80% out of wedlock birth rate, thug culture, resentment, pornographic “music”, a hatred of education…none of these have much of anything to do with the problems of black people. No, only evil white people reap what they sow – black people are the victims of historic, programmatic white normativity and supremacy, which are sins, biblically defined, as the primary cause of our present racial impasse.

But Duke Kwon has the cure for what ails whitey – REPARATIONS.

47:58 And so, in light of this need, I humbly submit to you a proposal that our wing of the church introduce into its ministry lexicon the language of reparations (the crowd falls unusually silent at first, a hush descending at the invocation of one of the holiest words in the religion of Gibsmedat, before some begin to cheer and applaud Duke Kwon’s “courage”).

48:20 Which brings me to the fourth point about how we speak truth. Fourth, we speak truth by naming reparation as a fruit of true racial repentance (crowd loudly approves). Now, by reparation, hear me – I am first and foremost referring to the basic biblical obligation to repair breaches. To bind the wounds. To restore losses. To return what has been sinfully taken (loud approval from crowd). I’m arguing this primarily from a theology of repentance, you see. If my sin has injured someone, the gospel obligates me not only to grieve those wrongs inwardly, but to redress those wrongs outwardly and concretely.

By the way, remember – this talk is ostensibly about Ephesians 2-4. Before today, did you have any idea that those chapters of the Bible are all about reparations to blacks?

I’ll bet you didn’t. But that’s because, as Duke Kwon explained at 36:14, if the theological and political lenses through which we read that Word have moral and categorical blind spots, then you can stare at the Word all you want and still be racially blind (much crowd noise).

Don’t think you’re racially blind because you’re reading the Bible through a “lens” of white normativity and supremacy? Well, that just proves how racially blind you are. Because lots of passages in the Bible are about paying reparations to blacks. Take the story of Zacchaeus, for example:

49:55 More to the point, once Zacchaeus was transformed by the gospel welcome of Jesus (loud murmuring as crowd correctly anticipates more Gibsmedat coming), he committed to giving half his possessions to the poor, and, if he cheated anyone of anything, he promised to pay it back fourfold. Now here’s the most important part: how did Jesus respond? ‘Cause Zacchaeus could’ve been wrong. Jesus didn’t say, “Now, Zacchaeus , it’s OK – the only thing that matters is what’s in your heart.” (Crowd goes nuts.) Jesus didn’t say, “Now, Zing (sic) that sounds like the social gospel. You better watch out for that slippery slope.” (Much whooping and hollering and applause as audience is really getting into Kwon showing how Jesus was all about da Gibsmedat.)

And, yes, Kwon means real monetary reparations; not spiritual reparations. Because it’s time for us evil blue-eyed devils to pay up for three hundred years of white cultural normativity and supremacy:

57:10 So what would it look like for the church to make restitution for our racial wrong? I invite discussion, conversation about that.

Oh, yeah, you can expect lots of “discussion” and “conversation” about what “restitution” would look like in the coming years.

Just to throw out a few things (much laughter from crowd)…first of all, we might call it “ecclesiastical reparations,” reparations in the church, which begins, of course, with a reckoning with history. See, we need to re-historicize the church’s understanding of racial identity and racial relationships. Because you cannot repair something unless you know how it got broke (sic) in the first place (crowd loudly agrees).

Yes, “the church” needs to repent. But only the white people in the church.

And bearing fruit in keeping with repentance. We repair concrete redress of actual structures and histories through which we have become so alienated.

Read that again. A lot of people will read or watch this, and try to explain it as Kwon simply calling for more “outreach,” and not an explicit redistribution of money and resources. But as he explains here and above, he’s explicitly calling for a redistribution of money and resources. But he’s not calling for “simply” that – there’s a lot more to reparations than Whitey just writing checks, but it definitely includes Whitey giving up lots of cash.

It might include a denomination setting aside a more radical amount of money to subsidize its cross-cultural or specifically African-American ministries. Again, the idea is that of repairing and recovering what was lost by the historic exclusion of African-Americans from our churches. And so, ecclesiastical reparations might also include new approaches to leadership and polity that isn’t simply more inclusive of African Americans, but that centers on their gifts and abilities. (Lots of crowd approval). It would involve a restructuring of community practices, say, amplifying minority voices, rewriting our liturgies, reconsidering come contours of our confessional theology, rearranging our hymnody, all guided by a repentance imagination that pictures what ecclesial life might have been like today, had African-Americans been part of our churches for the last 300 years. (Crowd loves this)

Got that, white Christian? Not only do we blue-eyed devils have to start paying up, and soon, we’ve also got to turn everything about our churches upside down to suit our black masters. We need to change our community practices, rewrite our liturgies, reconsider some contours of our confessional theology, and change the songs we sing. Our new approach to church has to revolve completely around black people – we can’t simply be “inclusive” of blacks, but from now on everything in church must “center” around the “gifts and abilities” of “African Americans.”

Wow.

Just to recap:

Blacks are the “prophet people of God.”

It’s time to start “speaking the truth in love” about the urgent need for whites to start paying reparations to blacks.

Ephesians 2-4 is all about the need for reparations to blacks.

The story of Zacchaeus is all about the need for reparations to blacks.

Whites who disagree are “fools,” “trolls,” and “enemies.”

White people are “the oppressor.”

In addition to writing checks to blacks, whites Christians must turn all our churches upside down, change our practices, “reconsider” our theology, change our hymns, etc., to ensure that our churches now “center” on black people.

Because, in 2017, white churches are the most dangerous places in America for blacks, and black people are fully justified in feeling like they’re being lynched at white churches.

This is now mainstream evangelical thought in America. It was preached by a well-respected evangelical minister, at a conference sponsored by one of the best-known “conservative” denominations in America. And there hasn’t been a peep of protest from any quarters of evangelicalism. On the contrary, many have praised this sermon. Samuel James, a bigwig at Crossway books, one of the leading evangelical publishers, told all his readers at Mere Orthodoxy that they need to watch the sermon, and said it’s “not hyperbole” when another evangelical calls it “the best message he’s heard all year.”

You’d better be ready for what’s coming, White Christians. It’s not going to be pretty.

Full transcript:

5:42 My black and brown brothers and sisters in Christ, you are made in the image of God, his embodied likeness, the crown of creation, divine scintillation, engraved with everlasting glory. You are made in the image of God – a mirror reflecting the king’s radiant beauty. You are dressed in a robe of sanctity, says Irenaeus, called to represent him everywhere with royal authority. And, therefore, declares Brother Calvin, you are a nobility. You are possessed of no small dignity, and you better believe that includes your black body. Which Bavinck insists is not a tomb but, because of the imago Dei, a wondrous masterpiece of God. Consisting (sic) the essence of man as fully as the soul, dear brothers and sisters, body and soul, you are, you ARE, the image of God.

7:12 The image of a god who speaks, who communicates – our covenant Lord reveals himself through words. Indeed Christ himself is called THE word, the divine communication in flesh and blood, and so having been created in the image of this God, and re-created in the image of his Son, you, too, are called to speak – to speak the truth in love.

7:50 Now that’s a well-known phrase in Christian circles, isn’t it? But what does it really mean? How do we do it? You know, in the original context of Ephesians 2 through 4, speaking the truth in love is presented as the primary ministry tool made available by God’s Spirit for the building up of the body of Christ. Through communication of loving and truthful words, the apostle tells us the body will grow out of infancy and into maturity. This body is repeatedly, throughout Ephesians, described as the messy, multiethnic mix of Jews and Gentiles. And this maturity is defined as both, BOTH, depth in the knowledge, the corporate knowledge of the Son of God, and depth in the interethnic oneness made possible by the blood of Jesus. Let me say that again – according to Ephesians, ecclesiastical maturity includes corporate knowledge of Christ and cross-cultural unity in Christ. And you cannot have one without the other.

9:25 Which leads us, then, to two practical implications. One, by these standards, biblical standards, the American church, and perhaps the Reformed church in particular, is an expression of Christ’s body that may be rightly described as immature. (Lots of loud audience agreement). That should humble us. And two, you are therefore called to speak – to employ the ministry of words in order to help Christ’s body to grow out of its cross-cultural infancy. That’s, of course, an apostolic invitation to fill what might be described as the general prophetic office (that’s prophetic with a lower case p if you will)…that’s the prophethood of all believers. It’s a call to serve as a prophetic witness, to raise a prophetic voice, to speak the truth in love…for the cause of racial wholeness, equity, and justice in the church. So – will you speak?

10:51 Now some of you, understandably, you [black dialect for you’re] not so sure. It’s been an exhausting year, hasn’t it? You’ve heard it several times already, just a few minutes ago and throughout the weekend. Many of you are tyud [black dialect for tired]. The church’s ambivalence about its commitment to interracial solidarity has been unmasked. Divisions, especially across racial lines, have been exposed, EXPOSED, not created, exposed (lots of whooping and applauding from the audience) and amplified.

11:37 For some, the church has become the least safe place for members of color (much murmuring of agreement from audience). Which is why I know many of you limped into this weekend weary of the alienating conversations. Some of you feel all alone. Your fidelity to the gospel has been questioned. Some of you feel betrayed. People you thought were allies turned out to be anything but. Friendships have been disrupted or lost. Some have lost ministry opportunities and jobs.

12:21 Some of you are feeling like strange fruit hanging from Presbyterian poplar trees. (Crowd goes nuts) So…you’re not so sure, not so sure, that you’re ready to speak up anymore. Or you’re not sure what difference it’ll make in the struggle against racial sin and evil and I get it. I don’t know all your stories and I’m not you in your shoes, but I’m tired, too. You don’t know how hard it was to prepare these very words.

13:05 But what if – doesn’t faith sometimes say what if, doesn’t hope sometimes say what if? What if this weekend God gives you the refreshment that you need to remain steadfast just for another day? What if the Holy Spirit can give you grace to risk again? Grace for prophetic courage to RISE again, to re-engage, to speak truth to power, to speak love to apathy, light to darkness, righteousness to falsehood, hope to nihilism, good news to despair, even grace to rage. (To speak up for thugs and would be copkillers?)

13:57 And what if we do this, not alone, but together, as a diaspora of witnesses, speaking the truth in love, building up the body into maturity, into racial wholeness, equity, and justice? What if God can do that? Do you believe in a God like that?

14:24 Before we move forward, I think it’s important to start by addressing some limitations…limitations of prophetic speech. But we do acknowledge the power of words in the life of the body, yes, but we also acknowledge that speaking, speaking even the truth in love, cannot solve anything…everything, I meant. Cannot solve everything. Cannot solve anything – let’s go home! (Audience laughter) Cannot solve everything…let me tell you about it!

First, limitations of prophetic speech, first, we must embrace the value of prophetic silence. There is a time not to speak. Oftentimes, it’s simple – that time is when you don’t know what you’re talking about. (Crowd goes nuts again, clearly understanding Kwon to be referring to ignorant white people) Some of y’all need to listen up. Sometimes I need to listen up. You don’t know what you’re talking about or you know you need more time to reflect and pray. Do you know you do not need to have an opinion on every racial issue and incident? And you do not need to immediately share your take on it all the time. Silence is not always proof of complicity; it can also be an expression of prophetic humility.

16:16 Furthermore, silence is sometimes the best response when you’re speaking to a fool (crowd really goes nuts, because they know exactly who Kwon means by fools – white people). Now by fool, I mean the sort of person that Proverbs 26:4 is describing when it says, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you become like him yourself.” That’s referring to the stubborn-hearted person, who’s speaking to you, but not really listenin’. Who’s interrogating you but isn’t really interested in answers or, more importantly, in hearing God’s truth.

17:12 You know, so a person hears you talk about racism and then they respond by rolling their eyes and calling you a Marxist (loud agreement from crowd), refusing, REFUSING to engage the things you’ve actually said, and the places in Scripture from which you have spoken. Though you try and try and try, do you know that you have permission to walk away? Beloved, you do not have to respond to every troll. Jesus did. Remember how he was silent on trial before Herod? There is a time to walk away. Practice prophetic silence.

18:04 The second limitation of prophetic speech that I wanna point out is this – in the pursuit of racial healing, words, while essential, cannot serve as substitutes for relationships or action. Let me put this another way. If we recognize the threefold office of Christ – he is our prophet, our priest, our king, and if we minister by the Spirit of Christ then we can creatively describe all gospel ministry as having prophetic, priestly, and kingly dimensions. So, in the ministry of racial reconciliation, and justice, the prophetic dimension of this work, the important prophetic dimension, includes leading in public repudiation of racial sins, the correction of errors in belief and practice. The priestly dimension of this ministry, entails leading in repentance, listening to and weeping with those who weep, fostering cross-cultural relationships across differences and hostilities. And the kingly dimension entails leading in the administration of institutional change toward racial equity. For instance, by undoing racist and culturally exclusive policies, practices, leadership roles, norms.

19:38 Now here’s the point: we cannot make substantial progress in the ministry of racial healing apart from priestly work and kingly work. Prophetic witness always get the most immediate applause. But prophetic witness by itself is never enough. And that is why, after the violence in Charlottesville, I was grateful, am grateful, for the prophetic condemnations of white supremacy that was (sic) offered by Christian leaders all around the country. But I also knew that what happens next, after the rhetorical smoke clears, is even more important (loud agreement from audience who have a pretty good idea where this is headed). Because it would be far more consequential to the cause of racial justice for those same ministry leaders to dare to dismantle every vestige of the legacy of white supremacy that remains in the very institutions that they themselves lead. And some would pay a price for it; it’s the truth.

19:57 But I tell you the church will not become more racially whole until leaders begin to lose their jobs (lots of assent from crowd), or ministry budgets begin to shrink (crowd noise growing), because they’ve chosen to do something more radical about racism in the church than simply talk about it (crowd gets louder still).

21:22 So prophetic speech is limited. Sometimes we need to be silent. All the time we need to do more than just talk. WE need to do more than just talk. Nevertheless, prophetic speech is powerful, God-ordained, and necessary. Again, according to Ephesians, it is the primary though not exclusive tool that we employ to build up the body into cross-cultural wholeness and maturity, and so we must speak.

21:55 Let me say a few things on speaking in love, and then a few things about speaking the truth. How do we speak in love? First of all, we speak in love, by hearing Christ speak his love to you. When speaking prophetically, you must not need your neighbor’s positive response. He may not listen. She may not repent. They may not change; you have no control over it. Your identity or self-image must not be drawn from the efficacy of your words. Jesus frees from needing anyone’s agreement, anyone’s adoration, anyone’s approval. Some of you are dying on the vine because of this. See, prophetic witness requires unshakeable security in the love of Christ.

23:15 So, whose voice do you most hear in your heart? Is it your own? It better not be. Or is it the voice of the one who declares, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have summoned you by name. You are mine, you are precious and honored in my sight, and I love you. I love you. I love you. Hallelujah.

23:50 We speak in love, first and foremost by hearing Christ speak his love to us. Second, we speak in love by seeking our enemy’s good. Now, I’m talking about enemies either real or perceived or Christian family that’s acting like an enemy. As the Lord himself said, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

24:33 Of course, no one taught or embodied this enormous moral challenge of loving your enemy quite like Dr. King. And here’s one thing he said on that: “When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which (sic) you must not do it. There will come a time and many instances for the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most…there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. Love is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you only seek to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system you love, but you seek to defeat the system.”

25:34 Friends, yes, you may humbly confront, provided you always begin by confronting your own heart in repentance, and in the words of Second Corinthians 10:5 you must demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. You may challenge and even successfully defeat their arguments, but you must not defeat the person. You must not speak so as to humiliate or diminish them personally lest you in so doing diminish yourself. In fact, love must be found not only in the manner in which you speak, but also the goals for which you speak. Humble confrontation is a most loving act when it’s brought to someone for their good. After all, for those who cling to racist ideologies, or those who defend those who do, their false sense of superiority or lust for supremacy distorts and disfigures their soul.

26:58 Which is why James Baldwin spoke these words: “You cannot lynch me and keep me in ghettoes without becoming something monstrous yourself.” (Loud agreement from crowd) And which is why Desmond Tutu wrote this concerning South African apartheid, “In the process of dehumanizing another, in inflicting untold harm and suffering immensurably, the perpetrator was being dehumanized as well.”

27:26 See, even the oppressor needs to be set free. So you speak the truth in love not only for your own liberation, you speak also for theirs. This is love. We speak love by seeking our enemy’s good.

27:47 Third, we speak in love by speaking with subversive meekness. Subversive meekness…we must, of course, resist succumbing to external or physical violence. We must also resist what Dr. King called “internal violence of spirit.” There’s a word in Scripture that well captures this inward struggle. It’s “meekness.” Now in an age when someone else’s verbal ignorance or irresponsibility can become a literal threat to black lives, a call to speak meekly, of all things, sounds strange, even dangerous, does it not? Does meekness mean only to speak quietly, or weakly, or politely? In short, no. What does biblical meekness mean? So far for me the best illustration I’ve found on the meaning of meekness is a poem. It’s called, Who The Meek Are Not, written by Mary Carr. Let me read the key part, the middle:

“To understand the meek, picture a great stallion at full gallop in a meadow, who at his master’s voice, seizes up, to a stunned but sudden halt. So with the strain of holding that great power in check, the muscles along the arched neck keep eddying and only the velvet ears prick forward awaiting the next order.”

Can you picture that great, powerful, meek stallion? See, when applied to animals, that Greek word for meek means tame. As one bible dictionary explains, such animals have not lost their strength, but have learned to control the destructive instincts that prevent them from living in harmony with others. See, meekness is a sort of strength, isn’t it? That’s why speech that’s meek can also be firm. That’s why speech that’s meek can also be righteously indignant. Speech that’s meek can also be LOUD – let the loud people say amen. (Lots of amens and laughter) You need that affirmation, don’t you? Because meekness, you know, is controlling and channeling your inner hurricane of passion and truth toward a redemptive end.

31:07 Meekness is Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, William Smith, and Clarence Henderson sitting down at the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina and refusing to get up despite intense pressure from the angry and jeering crowd. Meekness is Iesha Evans, in that iconic image, in an elegant and grey dress standing in the middle of Airline Highway in Baton Rouge, feet firmly planted, staring resolutely ahead, while being arrested by officers dressed in full military gear, looking better prepared for combat than for Ms. Evans’ peaceful protest. Meekness in the end, of course, is Jesus on the cross, controlling and channeling his eternal power, not outwardly enraged toward those who mocked him and spit on him and nailed him to the cross. Indeed, he even uttered those great words, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But instead channeled his infinite power towards our atonement, for the forgiveness of our sins, and for eternal life. Behold the meekness of Jesus.

32:54 And you can see how such meekness is subversive, don’t you (sic)? You see, the genius of nonviolent resistance is that it exposes the folly of the perpetrator. It dramatizes the evil in full view of others. Meekness of speech is verbal nonviolent resistance. It denudes and exposes the folly and evil of those who oppose you, whether their disproportionate anger, or the incoherence of their arguments, their stiffnecked resistance to the truth. Beloved, learn the secret of subversive meekness. Learn the secret of speaking in love.

33:50 But there’s the other half of the phrase we’re examining, speaking the truth in love. What does that mean, to speak the truth, how do we speak the truth? First, we speak the truth by confronting lies. Ain’t that right, Dr. C? We are called to unmask deception, call out distortions, correct disinformation.
We confront the lies, therefore, the lies that God is asleep at the wheel. That the pursuit of racial justice is more godless sociology than gospel fidelity (loud crowd affirmations). That the real problem is that you’re too sensitive, too hysterical, too political, too unbiblical (more loud crowd affirmations).

34:56 And so we tell the truth…tell the truth that we have racial wounds festering in the church. And they are false prophets and priests who heal the wounds of God’s people lightly, saying, “Peace, peace, when there is no peace” (even more loud crowd affirmations). Tell the truth, that the Great Commission with its mandate to make disciples of ALL nations, IS itself a cross-cultural commission. And one that is fulfilled not only by crossing national borders, but also by crossing real but invisible redlining borders in our own cities (very loud audience approval with applause). Tell the truth – that American Christians have not truly reckoned with the white cultural captivity of the church. And tell the church, and tell the truth to the church, that the church has not adequately repented for its sins of racism, both past and present.

36:14 But don’t forget to tell the truth that Jesus HAS already broken down in his body (much applause) the dividing wall of hostility that separates one from another. And that he’s made available to us all the spiritual resources that we need to become one, IF we would only grab ahold of them by faith. Tell the truth that the word of God is sufficient and that it’s vital to teach and learn about race and racism using biblical thought and categories. But ALSO tell the truth that if the theological and political lenses through which we read that word have moral and categorical blind spots, then you can stare at the word all you want and still be racially blind (much crowd noise).

37:25 Tell the truth, that the cruciform redistribution of power and resources in beloved community can no more be written off as socialism, than the stories of the early church sharing EVERYTHING in common can be ripped out of the pages of the Bible (crowd goes nuts as he’s getting to the gibsmedat). Tell the truth, friends, tell the truth my friends, with all love of enemy, with all concern for his or her good. Indeed, with all meekness, confront lies, and speak the truth.

38:09 Secondly, secondly, we speak the truth by challenging our own tribes. See, true prophetic witness shines light on moral blind spots. It disrupts false narratives. TRUE prophetic witness challenges the status quo. But too often, some of you fancy yourselves a prophet in the wilderness when really you’re preaching to the choir. Speaking the truth involves challenging your own tribe, your own affinity group or constituency. And I cannot explain this better than Sister Sharon Hodde Miller did in a fantastic piece she wrote several months ago. Listen up:

“Prophetic disruption is not simply a matter of speaking hard or unpopular truths. I think what makes a message truly prophetic is its audience. When a conservative pastor preaches about modest dress to his pious congregation this is not prophecy (much laughter from crowd). AND…and, when a progressive evangelical tweets about care for the poor and oppressed to his sympathetic followers, this is not prophetic prophecy, either, necessarily. If you are attempting to disrupt some other audience out there, then you are most likely shouting to the wind, or toppling straw men. But if you are stepping on the toes of your closest followers, then you are probably more in line with the prophetic tradition.”

40:07 I think she’s right. True prophetic witness, truly speaking truth, keeps people off balance. So if you never get pushback from those most like yourself, you’re not speaking truth. If you’re only surrounded by applause, which we all love, you’re not speaking truth. If you’re never agitating someone from your own political party, you’re not a prophet, you’re just a Democrat (much applause). Or a Republican. You’re not speaking a transcendent truth, that appeals to a higher authority, that secures a higher loyalty, and that leaves no human grouping of people smug or safe from the soul-piercing two edged sword of the word of God. And again, I’m not just talking about the trolls – I’m talking about people from your own social, political, or ecclesiastical tribe. Prophetic truth is truth that flusters your biggest fans.

41:47 Third, we speak the truth by correcting flawed approaches to racial reconciliation. Now, I am not suggesting that we abandon the term “reconciliation” – it’s biblical. It’s in the Bible. In fact, it’s precisely why we need to understand what it means. But we do need to redeem it, because in practice, quote unquote “racial reconciliation” has come to mean something flawed, and sometimes something ineffective. See, my problem is not with its theological denotation, it’s with its practical ministry connotation.

42:32 So let me name four weaknesses of racial reconciliation, quote unquote, as commonly practiced in the evangelical church. Number one, it tends to be centered on the perspective and experiences of white Christians in white churches. Its process, its pace, are generally structured around the feelings, the willingness, the readiness, the sincere motives, of white Christians. It is assumed that African Americans must cater to members of the dominant group (applause). It emphasizes…it emphasizes the value and importance of growing in diversity which, of course, is code for integrating more Christians of color in predominantly white congregations (applause). And the members of color bear the brunt of the growing pains. When the going gets rough, the reconciliation process is held in balance by what might be called a politics of sanctification. Which is to say, more maturity of character, and a deeper reservoir of grace is generally expected of black Christians than of white ones (loud crowd approval).

44:06 Number two…number two, racial reconciliation quote unquote tends to be excessively relationalistic and individualistic. That is, it overemphasizes the power of interpersonal relationships to solve racial problems. Which, of course, doesn’t mean that relationships aren’t critical to the project. In fact, that, too is biblical. But this overemphasis corresponds to the general belief that the sum total of racism is personal, active prejudice. And so its internal logic doesn’t naturally lead one to address structural or institutional or corporate dimensions of racial injustice. It just stays right here.

45:09 Number three, it tends to seek to heal division before adequately investigating the roots of that division (much cheering and applause). In other words, it tends to treat the symptom, racial alienation, rather than the deeper causes. Put another way, racial reconciliation often attempts to solve the problem of racial alienation by appealing to our common humanity and our shared gospel identity yet while looking past the deep and lasting effects of sin, and our troubling racial histories.

46:04 Number four, it emphasizes unity in such a way that leads to the false assumption that each racial group is seen as similarly responsible for the problem of racial division (loud crowd approval). And so we have conversations about what “we” have contributed (lots of hoots and hollers) to the problem of racism, and what “we” must do about it. Because, you know, there are failures, you know, on many sides (crowd goes nuts at mocking of President Trump). It struggles to name historic, programmatic white normativity and supremacy, which are sins, biblically defined, as the primary cause of our present racial impasse. And then, to name it so, is to be labeled as divisive, and disunifying (much loud approval). The racial reconciliation movement, which has good biblical reason to be reformed, and to be persevered in and with… This is God’s mission, after all, the mission of reconciliation. Yet it is in need of fresh language and fresh strategies for addressing racial brokenness in the church.

49:18 In John the Baptist’s words, true faith bears fruit in keeping with repentance (Matthew 3:8). Similarly, when the Apostle Paul…commends the Corinthians for their repentance, he lists in 2 Corinthians 7:11 the practical change it produced in them – earnestness, eagerness to clear yourselves, indignation, alarm, readiness to see justice done.

49:55 More to the point, once Zacchaeus was transformed by the gospel welcome of Jesus (loud murmuring as crowd correctly anticipates more Gibsmedat coming), he committed to giving half his possessions to the poor, and, if he cheated anyone of anything, he promised to pay it back fourfold. Now here’s the most important part: how did Jesus respond? ‘Cause Zacchaeus could’ve been wrong. Jesus didn’t say, “Now, Zacchaeus , it’s OK – the only thing that matters is what’s in your heart.” (Crowd goes nuts.) Jesus didn’t say, “Now, Zing (sic) that sounds like the social gospel. You better watch out for that slippery slope.” (Much whooping and hollering and applause as audience is really getting into Kwon showing how Jesus was all about da Gibsmedat.)

51:30 When Jesus heard Zacchaeus promise restitutions…restitution for his wrongs, Jesus declared, “Today, salvation has come to this house.” (Whooping, clapping and hollering continue.) This is what we need to understand….and this is what we need to understand: Zacchaeus ’ Spirit-wrought repentance. Which, by the way, was produced by the kindness of the Savior. His Spirit-wrought repentance is revealed, even completed, in his commitment to provide reparation for his wrongs. See, even my preschool aged son has learned that saying “I’m sorry” is an important step, but that he also needs to ask the injured party (usually his big sister), “How can I make it better?” Will the church learn to ask the same question? (Audience cheers) “How can we make it better?”

53:00 In 1969 the National Committee of Black Churchmen asserted that, historically, the Christian church has served as the “moral cement” of the structure of racism in this nation, and that therefore, the church should share accountability for the problem of racism in America. And they were not wrong. 250 years of providing the moral grounds for slavery, 90 years of complicity with Jim Crow, 60 years of blessing separate-but-equal, even in her pews, the church bears more responsibility for the racist heritage of the United States than we want to believe.

For now, however, my attention is focused on the church’s responsibility, not out there more broadly–that is an important conversation that we must have–but for the church’s responsibility for providing and repairing marginalizing and racist structures within the church.

Have you noticed that in the evangelical and Reformed church, you know, we tend to act as if the dearth of African-Americans from our communion is a morally neutral, sociological phenomenon? In fact, much of the absence of black members can be traced back to the active and passive participation in anti-black racism by white Christians. What I mean is this: evangelical and especially Reformed worship traditions aren’t alienating to black Christians and other Christians of color only because of mere differences or preferences of cultural perspective; they are alienating, in part, because of the racist legacy that not only kept them out of the pews, but also excluded them from the generation after generation development of liturgical life, community life, and confessional theology. The Presbyterian church is weak in addressing the core concerns of the black community because the Presbyterian church literally WAS one of the core concerns of the black community (crowd erupts yet again).

Let me say this again. The weekly discomfort that many of you feel, the weekly discomfort that an African-American feels in a mostly white PCA church, is not only the product of present cultural differences. That discomfort is also the byproduct of past immoral exercises of social and ecclesiastical power. We need to reckon with that.

57:10 So what would it look like for the church to make restitution for our racial wrong? I invite discussion, conversation about that. Just to throw out a few things (much laughter from crowd)…first of all, we might call it “ecclesiastical reparations”, reparations in the church, which begins, of course, with a reckoning with history. See, we need to re-historicize the church’s understanding of racial identity and racial relationships. Because you cannot repair something unless you know how it got broke (sic) in the first place (crowd loudly agrees).

58:15 That leads to a deeper and better informed repentance, does it not? One that names with far greater specificity, repenting of specific sins specifically (crowd loves this)…one that names with far greater specificity the problem of white cultural normativity and supremacy in the church. And bearing fruit in keeping with repentance. We repair concrete redress of actual structures and histories through which we have become so alienated.

59:05 Applied to the church, “reparation” wouldn’t simply mean a redistribution of material resources to individuals, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t involve material resources at all. Ecclesiastical reparations might involve financially black churches in under-resourced congregations. It might include a denomination setting aside a more radical amount of money to subsidize its cross-cultural or specifically African American ministries. Again, the idea is that of repairing and recovering what was lost by the historic exclusion of African Americans from our churches. And so, ecclesiastical reparations might also include new approaches to leadership and polity that isn’t simply more inclusive of African Americans, but that centers on their gifts and abilities. (Lots of crowd approval). It would involve a restructuring of community practices, say, amplifying minority voices, rewriting our liturgies, reconsidering come contours of our confessional theology, rearranging our hymnody, all guided by a repentance imagination that pictures what ecclesial life might have been like today, had African Americans been part of our churches for the last 300 years. (Crowd loves this)

1:00:55 In some ways, you might already be thinking, in some ways, ecclesiastical reparations might sound no different than other, serious minded committed efforts to build racial equity and cross-cultural community in our churches. But the language matters…because it draws from a different theological vision. It appeals not a vague and sentimental notion of outreach, or unity, or mission; but rather it appeals to a flint-faced resolve to seek justice. To correct oppression. And to complete our corporate repentance.

1:01:50 Reparations, I believe, absolutely has the ability to take us down the road to deeper, more fuller (sic), more rewarding, more lasting, more Christ-honoring, reconciliation. Of course, we know that ministry like that is costly. It’s hard work, and we labor. But, beloved, we labor with sure hope that our labor is not in vain. Because God is in the business of reconciliation. He befriended his enemies; I’m talking ‘bout you and me, brought us into his family freely. Don’t you think he can then give us grace to do the same, one to another?

1:02:57 And God is in the business of reparation – repairing broken things, wounded things, raising dead things to life. And speaking of resurrection, don’t you know, don’t you know, the resurrection of Jesus means that racism and white supremacy has an expiration date (Loud applause). The resurrection means that racial oppression, inequity, division, superiority, inferiority, and apathy will not have the last word. Today, dear friends, we see in a glass dimly, but then we shall see face to face. One day the not yet will become the now. Beloved, we are going to get there. We’re gonna get there! Don’t you remember how the story’s gonna end? Christ’s broken, divided, interculturally infantile body (I’m talkin’ about us) will be presented to God in YES! radiant maturity, in all her every tribes, tongues, and nations pan-ethnic unity. He’s gonna do it! Your building up the body with prophetic words, friends, is never in vain, never in vain. And even as we labor day by day, we wait for that day, don’t we? We wait for that day; more than that, we wait on the Lord. For they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. In our racial weariness today we wait on the Lord and renew our strength, so rise UP and SOAR on wings like eagles. Rise up and run, and not be weary. Rise UP, oh prophet people of God, rise UP and speak the truth in love.