It’s very odd to see my fellow white evangelicals insist that we should stop talking about sin. Yet whenever one mentions the sin of racism, that’s exactly what they do — roll their eyes, complain that you’ve mentioned that again, beg you to change the subject, and insist that the real problem isn’t so much the sin itself as the fact that people won’t stop talking about it.
This is because of some fundamental confusion involving both of these things: racism, and sin more generally. The latter confusion shapes and informs the former confusion. White evangelicals don’t want to talk about the sin of racism, in part, because it challenges their inadequate, unreal, and unbiblical theology of sin. That, in turn, threatens some of their hazy, also inadequate, unreal, and unbiblical notions about “sanctification,” which tend to be unexplored manifestations of the cardinal sin of pride.
And that, alas, is where matters of theology get mixed up with psychological matters of identity. The prideful semi-theory of “sanctification” that shapes the shallow theology of sin is the product of the desire — or emotional need — to think of oneself as Good. Or as One Of The Good Ones. If that’s your starting point — the need to think of yourself as Good, then you’re going to have a very hard time accepting a biblical theology of sin.
And the sin of racism, in particular, is going to be something you really, really, really don’t want to talk about. Or think about.
These mostly undiscussed conflicting theologies of sin are part of why white Christians tend to wind up talking past one another whenever the subject of the sin of racism comes up. It’s not a conversation, or an argument, or even a disagreement, just competing monologues between two people who are not facing one another or even standing within hearing distance to the people they’re not listening to.
The opposing sides of this non-conversation are often described as left/right or liberal/conservative, because that’s how this tends to shake out politically, but the theological divide here really comes down to these very different, incompatible understandings of sin.
Consider how whenever some progressive sort says anything about the explicit racism of MAGA politics, the conservative response is to complain about how “the left” is always “playing the race card” or “whining and wailing about racism.” Those silly leftists see racism everywhere.
What we have here, among other things, is a different understanding of the theology of sin. Is it, as Paul described it, the pervasive, inescapable natural state of a fallen world that perpetually shapes us into its mold? Or is it mainly a matter of discreet, deliberate, voluntary individual choice — a choice that can and will be avoided by sanctified, righteous individuals?
The latter view may be utterly alien to everything we read in the epistle to the Romans, but it’s very familiar to anyone who’s ever watched cartoons in which a little angel appears over one shoulder and a little devil appears over the other one. That’s a very comforting idea of sin as it suggests the possibility of avoiding guilt and complicity altogether. And the possibility of avoiding responsibility altogether.
It’s also a very comforting — albeit fantastical — idea of choice, suggesting that the most common and most consequential choices we will be faced with will be between The Obviously Good Thing and The Obviously Bad Thing. What a wonderful world that would be.
The contrast and contradiction between this cartoon theology of sin and the grimmer Pauline version underlies one of the main ways in which attempts to discuss the sin of racism go off the rails. This has to do with how people respond to any accusation of racism or accusation of complicity in racism or complicity with racism.
Again, the political spectrum of “left” and “right” isn’t really a fitting description, but because that political split parallels the distinction we’re discussing here, we’ll stick with that familiar language.
For folks on the right, any hint of such an accusation is a huge deal — one of the worst, most outrageous suggestions you could possibly make.
For folks on the left, it’s not. And, for them, seeing it as a huge deal misses the main point.
Tell those folks on the left that they’re complicit in or with racism and they’ll react very much like a bored congregation listening to the preacher read some well-worn passage from Romans about how we are all sinners. You’re reciting basic, elementary facts about human nature and American history and culture. While those basic facts may be dismaying, none of this is news. “You’ve got a lot of work to do on this yourself” isn’t something they’re going to be offended by or get defensive about any more than, for example, the apostle Paul would’ve been offended or defensive if you’d just told him that he, too, was a sinner.
But when folks on the right sniff out even the slightest trace of anything that could suggest their complicity in or with racism, they react like the preacher had stepped down from the pulpit, walked up to their pew, pointed a long finger in their face and shouted, “You are a sinner! You especially, and exceptionally, and uniquely!”
The accusation stings because, to them, complicity with sin must mean that they personally, with evil intent, made a deliberate, conscious, volitional choice to perform a specific, discreet act of harmful malice. That’s what sin is, to them — the intentional choice to do wrong. It’s not the natural state of the fallen world under the powers and principalities of wicked archons (to use the language of Paul’s first-century sociology and psychology). And since they have no sense of such powers and principalities — no sense of sin as something that is embedded in and enforced by institutions, structures, traditions, laws, culture, etc. — and do not recall a moment in which they deliberately chose to yield to the devil on their shoulder, they take angry umbrage at the suggestion that they are in any way complicit or guilty or responsible or in any way related to this sin.
This indignant tetchiness is partly due to a genuine bewilderment. The prospect of guilt for sin not explicitly, willfully chosen due to deliberate animus just confuses them. The concept of responsibility for complicity in some inescapable, unchosen milieu of vast injustice is just multiple steps beyond anything they’re currently willing to consider. They’re a bit like the two young fish in the old joke, asking “What the heck is water?” They’re offended at being told they’re soaking in it.
But this same tetchy indignation is also partly due to a troubled conscience and an at least semi-conscious recognition that their avoidance of such responsibility has been wrong. And also that this avoidance has been, on some level, very much a deliberate, willful choice motivated by a negligence that produces outcomes indistinguishable from any choice motivated by animus and malice. (This relates to another shallow, individualistic, and mostly unexplored aspect of their theology of sin: A preoccupation with sentiment.)
The stock expressions of indignant defensiveness that recur in any conversation about complicity in the sin of racism are revealing. “I don’t have a racist bone in my body!” is one popular phrase declaring one’s innocence of any such possible complicity or taint. It is a cry of protest often made by white Christians — a protestant cry made by Protestants. And yet it is also an explicit rejection of the theology of the Reformation.
Just think of how it would go over if, after the pastor rambled through Romans 3, some parishioner stood up and shouted, “How dare you? I don’t have a sinful bone in my body!”
That declaration of innocence would be denounced as foolishly and dangerously wrong by the pastor and the rest of the congregation, even if they weren’t fully able to articulate why.
But focus that same foolish and dangerous claim on a single variety of sin — a single, peculiar institution — by saying “I don’t have a racist bone in my body” and the rest of the congregation will shout “Amen!” and “Me either!” and sit around clucking about “cancel culture” and “identity politics” and “DEI” and “wokeness.”
And the absolute disregard for even their own understanding of the theology of sin will go unnoticed.
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