A Christian Struggle Against Racial Injustice

The following is the original text of a speech I gave at MIT Asian Christan Fellowship and Intervarsity large group. It was originally written for Asian Christian Fellowship. Please forgive the any errors in text.

Ignorance is bliss. Over the past five years, I’ve really started to understand that saying as I’ve watched people who look like me be killed with impunity. I’ve watched Barack Obama, one of the most successful black men of all time, be challenged on if he is a “real American.” I’ve read about how the US Court of Appeals instructed North Carolina to rollback their voter id laws as they quote “targeted African American voters with surgical precision.” I know my chances of being locked up in jail today are 1 in 3. I’ve seen the city of Flint be poisoned and my home state look on with indifference as people continue to endure the effects of drinking lead-contaminated water. This reads like the Civil Rights section of a US history book but this is happening today in 2016. And I’ve largely observed Christianity remain silent or support these actions.

There have been times recently when I have been enraged for hours at the current state of affairs and American Christianity’s culpability in allowing racial injustice to continue. I’ve struggled with God over the cynical perspectives I’ve adopted in a futile attempt to control my anger. I have internalized perceived realities such as “No one expects anything of black men” and “The world will always be uncomfortable with my skin tone” and crumbled under their weight. The Lord has convicted me about these positions and forced me to confront my frustrations. There seems to be an unspoken belief that racial injustices and the consequences it has on me is not Christian problem. But I am not the only one who suffers the effects of racism. The internalization of unbiblical ideas and principles among members of the church in response to current events is a fundamentally Christian problem. Preachers have delivered whole sermons on James 2 but I want to quickly read a portion of the passage to rebuke the notion racial injustice isn’t a Christian problem.

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?

…For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. (James 2:14–16, 26)

Why is faith without deeds dead? Because as Romans 12:2 states, Christians should be transformed by the renewing of our mind. This is a fundamental shift in how we view the world and our place in it. We are no longer merely bystanders but actors, attempting to be agents of change for our Lord. This truly only leaves us with three options: advocate, aid, or devote.

Advocate means that we support an issue and explain to others why we feel this issue is important. This can be done through having personal discussions or publicly raising awareness. When I say aid, I mean giving resources. Whether this is volunteering or donating, this is a more significant commitment. And finally, you can choose to devote. Devotion is difficult, time-consuming, and painful. It requires unbelievable sacrifice. It is being actively involved in a solution. An issue becomes your focus, one of your primary methods of glorifying God. There are very few things in life we can devote ourselves too, so we should truly make sure that God is calling us to devote ourselves to a particular cause.

This isn’t something I made up. This is the case presented to us in Scripture by the founding members of the Church as we know it today.

Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. (Acts 6:1–6)

In this chapter, there was clearly an issue with the treatment of widows within the Church. When distributing food among the widows within the church, there was a bias in favor of Hebraic Jews over Grecian Jews. This was a very serious problem. In the Greco-Roman period, women typically weren’t allowed to work and contribute to the sustenance of their households. Thus, widows were especially vulnerable in this society, so any bias in food distribution could lead to starvation. What we see in the Christian response to this problem is a clear example of advocate, aid, and devote. In verse 1, we see the Grecian Jews advocating on behalf of their widows by complaining about treatment by the Hebraic Jews. The twelve apostles aid by gathering all the Christians together and guiding them to a solution. Now the apostles do something incredibly important here. They acknowledge the fact that they should not be leaders in implementing the solution decided on by the Church. For that, there should be seven men who devote themselves to such a cause, one of whom is the first Christian martyr, Stephen.

Maybe you aren’t convinced that this biblical model of addressing large conflict in the community doesn’t apply to you. Maybe you feel you don’t have to worry about racism because it doesn’t affect you. I would caution against such a perspective. It almost certainly appears to have eternal consequences.

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father,inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:31–46)

Advocacy and standing up against injustice is not something we can simply opt out of. It is fundamental to our understanding of what it means to serve the Lord.

As Asian Americans Christians, you have a responsibility to your brothers and sisters. When you see unjust events happening to African Americans, you have three options: advocate, aid, or devote. When you see African Americans aren’t getting hired in your industry at a rate similar to their graduation rate, aid by asking your company to consider changing hiring practices. Likewise, myself and other African American Christians have a responsibility to you. When I see the plethora of jokes made about those of Asian descent, jokes that typically aren’t made of any other ethnic background in America, I need to advocate and say that isn’t acceptable. I personally believe my calling has to do with fighting for justice for the disenfranchised. Black, Asian, white, Hispanic, Arab, it doesn’t matter. So if there is an issue in the Asian American community that is neglected or ignored, it is my job to devote myself to resolving that issue. Finally, both of us have a responsibility to our white brothers and sisters. There are both emerging and currently neglected issues in the white community. Heroin usage and addiction is on the rise and we should be asking why there has been a large opioid boom in the pharmaceutical industry and is it truly necessary. The coal industry is going to die in the next two decades. What are we doing to plan for the impending job loss? Are we advocating for policy change? Apprenticeship programs? Second career training? As Jesus spoke to us, our neighbors are everyone, not just people of color. It is not my place to ask you to devote yourself to racial injustice as that is between you and God. However, do prayerfully consider giving of yourself if your calling resides in a similar space.

To provide some insight to my background, I am an Asian Christian Fellowship alum who also attends Cornerstone Church, a predominantly Asian church. I was struggling to find a church my freshman year and an ACF member recommended Cornerstone to me. By attending Cornerstone, I ultimately got plugged in with ACF and the subsequent journey has led to me speaking here today. I mention this because much of what I grapple with as a Christian on a daily basis I was initially exposed to through ACF and Cornerstone. Most importantly, I learned what it meant to be truly introspective about my spiritual life. Poems, blog posts, diagrams, etc. Just be earnest in your time of reflection. Another idea I learned about during my time with ACF was the idea of embracing your identity in Christ. It would be totally disingenuous to stand here and explain to you what that looks like. I don’t know what that looks like because I deeply struggle to understand what it looks like in my own life. But it is important to understand your ethnicity is a piece of the puzzle that is you, a son or daughter of God. Finally, one of the things I learned about, and am absolutely awful at, is community. The idea of the church as a body that belongs together and spends time together is something that sometimes I frankly am uninterested in or lack the energy to pursue. But Cornerstone and ACF were so focused and amazing at fostering a sense of unity in the community that I knew that it was something I had fight to invest in. Of course, part of being in community means tackling internal and external issues affecting that community. While the focus of this talk was on how to approach racial injustice as a Christian through the lens of the Black Lives Matter movement, it is important that as Asian Americans, you are advocating for your community beyond its circle. Gather support from people of different backgrounds. One of the very encouraging outcomes of the Black Lives Matter movement is how often I’ve seen Asian Americans advocating for African Americans. But the challenges in your community are important as well and you should be speaking out about those. So the question I’d like to leave you with is: What would an Asian Lives Matter movement look like?