CBF Podcast: Changing the Way the Church Sees Racism, Featuring Drew Hart

By Andy Hale 

Although I was born in Alabama, my family was transplants from other parts of the country. Therefore, I always viewed myself with a disconnect from the infamous images of fire hoses drowning Civil Rights activities, with the police dogs bearing down on others. “That is not my history. I am not part of those white people,” I have often thought to myself.

I find that I am not alone. We are 50 years removed from the Civil Rights Movement and we can often act like we have arrived. Often, we act like racism is in our distant past as we go about our day in comfort and privilege.

Our silence and ignorance are complicit. The church is complicit when systematic racism abides, and we remain apathetically silent.

We sat down with author, activist and professor Drew Hart to discuss changing the way the church sees racism.

“Despite its common usage, race is not a natural biological category for human beings, though physical features certainly create boundaries of difference. The language of race obscures rather than clarifies human similarity and difference. It is smoke and mirrors. Instead of being a biological fact, race is a social construct,” wrote Drew Hart.

Hart teaches in the Bible and Religion Department at Messiah College. He is the author of “Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Sees Racism.”

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CBF’s podcast shares stories from across the Fellowship and innovative practices of those working to renew God’s world. The vision is to share ideas, stories, and innovations from ministers, authors, and practitioners.

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Sponsorship

This podcast episode is brought to you by The School of Divinity at Gardner-Webb University, Campbell University Divinity School, David Correll of Universal Creative Concepts, Launch Mission Creative, and the 2018 Summer Conference of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America.

Andy Hale leads Church Starts Initiative and hosts the podcast of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Hale is a CBF church starter who serves as pastor of Mosaic of Clayton in Clayton, N.C. Follow on Twitter @haleandy