Baptist News Global
Sections
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Opinion
  • Curated
  • Storytelling
    • Faith & Justice >
      • Charleston: Metanoia with Bill Stanfield
      • Charlotte: QC Family Tree with Greg and Helms Jarrell
      • Little Rock: Judge Wendell Griffen
      • North Carolina: Conetoe
    • Welcoming the Stranger >
      • Lost Boys of Sudan: St. John’s Baptist Charlotte
      • Awakening to Immigrant Justice: Myers Park Baptist Church
      • Hospitality on the corner: Gaston Christian Center
    • Signature Ministries >
      • Jake Hall: Gospel Gothic, Music and Radio
    • Singing Our Faith >
      • Hymns for a Lifetime: Ken Wilson and Knollwood Baptist Church
      • Norfolk Street Choir
    • Resilient Rural America >
      • Alabama: Perry County
      • Texas: Hidalgo County
      • Arkansas Delta
      • Southeast Kentucky
  • More
    • Contact
    • About
    • Donate
    • Planned Giving
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Advertising
    • Ministry Jobs and More
    • Transitions
    • Subscribe
    • Submissions and Permissions
Donate Subscribe
Search Search this site

5 reasons why reparations talk makes white people crazy

OpinionAlan Bean  |  March 12, 2019

Alan BeanDoes America owe a moral debt to her African-American citizens? Thanks to a head-turning column in the New York Times by influential opinion columnist David Brooks, the reparations question may be back on the table. After years of conversations with ordinary Americans, Brooks now seconds the motion laid out five years ago by Ta-Nehisi Coates in an essay in the Atlantic. If the center-right Brooks finds Coates persuasive, you might too.

I write as a white male Baptist who has spent the past 20 years standing up for the victims of racial injustice in little southern towns like Tulia, Texas; Church Point, Louisiana; and Winona, Mississippi. Most of the people I have assisted over the years received a measure of justice, but it came after years of struggle. The evidence presented in court by the state in these cases was typically so flimsy that I was initially convinced that no reasonable jury could convict.

Then I would walk into a courtroom, check out the cold blue eyes of the white judge, the white prosecutor and the ladies and gentlemen of the all-white jury, and the sheer inevitability of a guilty verdict would hit me like a haymaker to the solar plexus. This groundhog-day psychodrama forced me to think long and hard about the tragic racial history of America.

There are five interlocking reasons why white America thinks reparations is a nutty idea.

  1. Reparations talk messes with our social boundaries.

Brooks writes that he has spent the last few years asking himself why America is so divided between old and young, rich and poor, urban and rural, male and female, immigrant and native-born, black and white. There is something unique, he says, about the black-white division: “The other divides are born out of separation and inequality, but the racial divide is born out of sin.”

Sin isn’t about a misunderstanding or miscommunication; sin is open rebellion against the ways of God. And until we repent our rebellion we are consigned to the outer darkness, weeping and gnashing our teeth.

Racism is a corporate sin, a communal affair. Typically, white folks live out their lives in the company of other white folks. Rarely, if ever, are we forced to listen to black men and women speak painful words rooted in personal experience. Our social barriers protect us from such talk. That’s why we work so hard to keep them in good repair. You can’t engage honestly with the debate over reparations unless you move outside your comfort zone and live like a stranger in a strange land. It’s a move we must make together.

  1. Reparations talk messes with family pride.

“Some are guilty,” Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote, “but all are responsible.” Ryon Price, my pastor at Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, referenced Heschel’s statement as a fitting reminder at this year’s Ash Wednesday service. Most white Americans can recite a family story full of struggle and hard-fought success. For us, slavery and Jim Crow segregation belong to an ancient world that has no bearing on the present.

“You can’t engage honestly with the debate over reparations unless you move outside your comfort zone and live like a stranger in a strange land.”

I am justly proud of my family heritage. Quakers encouraged Jacob Bean to bring his family to Pennsylvania in 1649 precisely because Mennonites renounced slavery. But after a few years of indentured servitude (to remit the cost of the voyage from Germany), every member of the Bean family received two new suits of clothes and enough money to buy a farm. They were free to gradually acquire the wealth from which I have personally benefited in hundreds of ways, large and small.

The first Bean family to set foot in America wasn’t separated upon arrival and sold off to the highest bidder. They never felt the sting of the whip. True, an ancestor named Ana Bean was burned at the stake in Germany for challenging the state religion. I’m proud of Ana. And my Mennonite ancestors took a lot of flak from their neighbors for refusing to take up arms in the Revolutionary War (which is why the Beans ended up in Canada). I’m proud of that too. But the Bean family came to America of their own free will and left on the same terms. They were free to move, plant and prosper. Thank God Almighty, they were not slaves.

“In America,” Coates writes, “there is a strange and powerful belief that if you stab a black person 10 times, the bleeding stops and the healing begins the moment the assailant drops the knife.”

Once you know the savage details of real history, our white-folks-had-it-hard-too excuses crumble to dust. Self-esteem can’t be purchased with the counterfeit coin of self-deception.

  1. Reparations talk messes with our religion.

A woman once told me that the black folk should thank their lucky stars that the providence of God brought them to America as slaves. Only here would they encounter the glories of western civilization and a shot at eternal life. Of course she had been carefully taught to think this way.

“Once you know the savage details of real history, our white-folks-had-it-hard-too excuses crumble to dust.”

Thankfully, some Christians have a more enlightened perspective. For the past quarter century, R. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, has been calling his denomination to confront its ancient sins.  The Southern Baptist Convention was created so foreign missionaries could own slaves, and the founders of Southern Seminary were avid slave owners. Southern Baptists stood foursquare in defense of slavery and Jim Crow segregation. Mohler calls this sin.

But there’s a problem. The most prominent buildings on the seminary’s campus bear the names of the school’s slave-owning founders. While he decries the racial sins of men like James P. Boyce, John A. Broadus and Basil Manly Jr., Mohler still feels they are worthy of high regard due to their “courageous affirmation of biblical orthodoxy, Baptist beliefs, and missionary zeal.”

A man with the Bible in one hand and a whip in the other will use the Bible to justify the whip. You can’t understand Moses when you think like Pharaoh. You can’t understand Jeremiah when you think like Nebuchadnezzar. You can’t understand Jesus when you think like Herod. Jesus Christ will not be taken seriously unless his followers repent in sackcloth and ashes. And repentance isn’t about saying you’re sorry; it’s about taking responsibility.

  1. Reparations talk messes with our patriotism.

“A child is to grow up a Christian,” Horace Bushnell wrote in 1847, “and never know himself as being otherwise.” American patriotism works in much the same way. We want our children bathed in the mythology of American greatness from their first toddling steps. Which is why Colin Kaepernick can create such a stir by taking a knee during the national anthem. It’s as if the preacher opened the Bible on Sunday morning and said, “You know folks, there’s a lot of morally questionable stuff in here.”

Patriotism blurs naturally into religion. It is easier to worship a nation we have seen than a God we have not seen. So we place the flag in the sanctuary and use “God” and “America” as virtual synonyms. Prophets like Kaepernick who question American greatness – and rightness – must be silenced.

We want our children to come of age hearing the same message in church, at their “Christian school” and on Fox News.  For those who live in this kind of environment, reparations talk sounds like heresy.

  1. Reparations talk messes with our politics.

After two decades on the front lines of criminal justice reform I concluded that white racial resentment was the dominant force in American politics. I was still hoping I was wrong when Donald J. Trump was elected with the support of 62 percent of white men, 52 percent of white women and 79 percent of white evangelicals. Trump was the choice of 71 percent of white males and 61 percent of white females who had never been to college.

“A man with the Bible in one hand and a whip in the other will use the Bible to justify the whip.”

No one with a cursory awareness of American history could pull the lever for Donald J. Trump. Very few non-white voters, regardless of educational status, were attracted to Trump because they live cheek-to-jowl with the legacy of racial injustice. White racial resentment is a byproduct of historical ignorance. Plenty of politicians, past and present, have exploited ignorance and racism; Trump is the embodiment of these maladies.  This helps explain why, no matter how badly he behaves or how deeply implicated in scandal he becomes, the faithful refuse to abandon him.

For the past few decades, Coates tells us, John Conyers (D-Michigan) has sponsored what he calls The Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act (H.R. 40). And every year this proposal is referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary where it quietly dies. Conyers and his co-sponsors aren’t calling for an up-or-down vote on reparations; they just want Congress to consider the undisputed facts of history and determine a fitting legislative response.

Knowing that H.R. 40 would be wildly unpopular in white America, the Democratic Party has never thrown its weight behind the proposal. So we remain in bondage to our own ignorance.

How can Christians and other people of goodwill talk about reparations without driving white folks crazy? It’s a daunting challenge, but it’s also pretty uncomplicated. White Americans need to move outside our social comfort zone. We need to ground our self-esteem in the truth. We need to drop our whips so we can read our Bibles. We need a patriotism that flows from repentance. And we need a politics that replaces historical ignorance with historical inquiry.

It seems to me that we white Americans who claim to follow Jesus ought to lead the way.


OPINION: Views expressed in Baptist News Global columns and commentaries are solely those of the authors.
Tags:racismRacial JusticePatriotismReligion and PoliticsCivil ReligionDavid BrooksreparationsTa-Nehisi Coats
More by
Alan Bean
  • Get BNG headlines in your inbox

  • BNG dinner will bring together Anthea Butler and Beth Allison Barr for a conversation on race and gender

    Two of the most prominent voices speaking to the American church about race and gender will appear together at the Baptist News Global dinner during the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s General Assembly in Dallas this June. Get your tickets now!

  • Featured

    • White supremacy and firearm idolatry: America’s Baal

      Opinion

    • SBC establishes hotline to receive reports of sexual abuse in churches

      News

    • After the Guidepost report: Dwelling with evil while living into hope

      Opinion

    • SBC presidential candidate says Executive Committee’s waiver of attorney-client privilege was ‘not wise’

      News


    Curated

    • Buffalo and Uvalde both appear to have involved the AR-15, the rifle revered by the Christian right

      Buffalo and Uvalde both appear to have involved the AR-15, the rifle revered by the Christian right

      May 27, 2022
    • Ukrainians Count The Days As They Pray

      Ukrainians Count The Days As They Pray

      May 27, 2022
    • Texans plan interfaith protest at Friday’s NRA convention in Houston

      Texans plan interfaith protest at Friday’s NRA convention in Houston

      May 27, 2022
    • Buffalo’s Black Christians Grieve the ‘Evil Among Us’

      Buffalo’s Black Christians Grieve the ‘Evil Among Us’

      May 27, 2022
    Read Next:

    Mass murder and the soundtrack of our lives

    OpinionJustin Cox

    More Articles

    • All
    • News
    • Opinion
    • Curated
    • Former SBC President Johnny Hunt admits improper conduct but denies abuse claims

      NewsDavid Bumgardner

    • America, blood is on your hands

      OpinionJamar A. Boyd II

    • Guns, the elders and the children

      OpinionSusan K. Smith

    • They were attending a conference on Scripture and violence when the Uvalde massacre happened

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • On another classroom full of murdered children

      OpinionDavid Gushee, Senior Columnist

    • Now is the time when we need to hear white evangelical leaders refute white supremacy

      OpinionJoel Bowman Sr.

    • Does the SBC have enough sackcloth?

      OpinionTerry Austin

    • SBC Executive Committee releases previously secret list of convicted and credibly accused church sexual abusers

      NewsDavid Bumgardner

    • Calvinist Baptist pastor says Guidepost recommendations in sexual abuse report are ‘harmful’ and threaten ‘the sufficiency of Scripture’

      NewsDavid Bumgardner

    • Title 42 is expelling the good people, not the bad people, border advocate explains

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • What happens when the good news of therapy and the good news of Scripture conflict?

      OpinionRebecca Hewitt-Newson

    • Sick of war, church leaders in South Sudan recommit to finding peace

      NewsAnthony Akaeze

    • White supremacy and firearm idolatry: America’s Baal

      OpinionBill Leonard, Senior Columnist

    • The European option: Why we need a third way on abortion

      AnalysisAlan Bean

    • After the Guidepost report: Dwelling with evil while living into hope

      OpinionKathy Manis Findley

    • SBC establishes hotline to receive reports of sexual abuse in churches

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Becoming UNSTOPPABLE Christians

      Paid Promoted Content

    • SBC presidential candidate says Executive Committee’s waiver of attorney-client privilege was ‘not wise’

      NewsDavid Bumgardner

    • Rights, responsibilities and the two-fold commandment of love: A reflection on gun violence in America

      OpinionGreg Garrett, Senior Columnist

    • Mass murder and the soundtrack of our lives

      OpinionJustin Cox

    • Letter to the Editor: Where are the repentant SBC leaders?

      OpinionLetters to the Editor

    • What I learned listening to others who have left the faith

      AnalysisRick Pidcock

    • United Methodist model could help Southern Baptists recover from sexual abuse scandal

      AnalysisCynthia Astle

    • Who is Augie Boto, the central figure in the SBC sexual abuse cover up?

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • This is more than just sin

      OpinionMeredith Stone

    • Former SBC President Johnny Hunt admits improper conduct but denies abuse claims

      NewsDavid Bumgardner

    • They were attending a conference on Scripture and violence when the Uvalde massacre happened

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • SBC Executive Committee releases previously secret list of convicted and credibly accused church sexual abusers

      NewsDavid Bumgardner

    • Calvinist Baptist pastor says Guidepost recommendations in sexual abuse report are ‘harmful’ and threaten ‘the sufficiency of Scripture’

      NewsDavid Bumgardner

    • Title 42 is expelling the good people, not the bad people, border advocate explains

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Sick of war, church leaders in South Sudan recommit to finding peace

      NewsAnthony Akaeze

    • SBC establishes hotline to receive reports of sexual abuse in churches

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • SBC presidential candidate says Executive Committee’s waiver of attorney-client privilege was ‘not wise’

      NewsDavid Bumgardner

    • Who is Augie Boto, the central figure in the SBC sexual abuse cover up?

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • SBC plans to release list of known sexual abusers in churches, refutes its own former general counsel

      NewsDavid Bumgardner, Jeff Brumley, Mark Wingfield and Maina Mwaura

    • On three-month anniversary of Russian invasion, Ukrainian Baptists and neighbors keep helping everyone they can

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • While SBC weeps over sexual abuse allegations, the TheoBros take on Beth Allison Barr one more time

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • SBC’s former law firm sharply disagrees with Sexual Abuse Task Force report

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Hearing from victims’ families changed the death penalty debate in Connecticut

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • What’s next for recommendations and reforms in SBC sexual abuse study?

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Guidepost report documents pattern of ignoring, denying and deflecting on sexual abuse claims in SBC

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Author considers how to mourn what’s lost when the faithful leave church

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • As joblessness rocks South Africa, fake pastor diplomas are in demand

      NewsRay Mwareya and Nyasha Bhobo

    • Why breaking up is so hard to do for United Methodists: Connectionalism

      NewsCynthia Astle

    • Oklahoma legislators say life begins at ‘fertilization’

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Baptists in Ukraine continue their humanitarian work amid devastation

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Louisville police training quoted Bible verse to say officers are God’s agents of wrath

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Transitions for the week of 5-20-22

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • ‘It’s still the economy, stupid’

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • America, blood is on your hands

      OpinionJamar A. Boyd II

    • Guns, the elders and the children

      OpinionSusan K. Smith

    • On another classroom full of murdered children

      OpinionDavid Gushee, Senior Columnist

    • Now is the time when we need to hear white evangelical leaders refute white supremacy

      OpinionJoel Bowman Sr.

    • Does the SBC have enough sackcloth?

      OpinionTerry Austin

    • What happens when the good news of therapy and the good news of Scripture conflict?

      OpinionRebecca Hewitt-Newson

    • White supremacy and firearm idolatry: America’s Baal

      OpinionBill Leonard, Senior Columnist

    • After the Guidepost report: Dwelling with evil while living into hope

      OpinionKathy Manis Findley

    • Rights, responsibilities and the two-fold commandment of love: A reflection on gun violence in America

      OpinionGreg Garrett, Senior Columnist

    • Mass murder and the soundtrack of our lives

      OpinionJustin Cox

    • Letter to the Editor: Where are the repentant SBC leaders?

      OpinionLetters to the Editor

    • This is more than just sin

      OpinionMeredith Stone

    • Remember the women: The Southern Baptist cover up of sexual abuse

      OpinionPam Durso

    • Don’t overlook the depth of the disease in the SBC

      OpinionPaula Garrett

    • Tear down the SBC Executive Committee and replace it

      OpinionLayne Wallace

    • It’s time to stop giving Christianity a pass on white supremacy and violence

      OpinionRobert P. Jones

    • SBC report shows how five words turn abuse victim from ‘survivor’ to ‘whore’

      OpinionMarv Knox

    • Former foster youth need to know they are not abandoned

      OpinionAlbert L. Reyes

    • What I learned about Polish hospitality toward Ukrainians: There but for the grace of God

      OpinionPatrick Wilson

    • Stop using Jesus to disguise your predatory patriarchy

      OpinionJessica Abell and Stephany Rose Spaulding

    • Sadly, I agree that a complementarian seminary shouldn’t offer women degrees in pastoral theology

      OpinionAnna Sieges

    • Intolerable cruelty is killing us

      OpinionKris Aaron

    • Another racist mass shooting and our failure to tend Jesus’ sheep

      OpinionEmily Holladay

    • Learning about change from Henry Ford

      OpinionBob Newell

    • Hymn stories: ‘Christ is alive! Let Christians sing’

      OpinionBeverly A. Howard

    • Buffalo and Uvalde both appear to have involved the AR-15, the rifle revered by the Christian right

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Ukrainians Count The Days As They Pray

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Texans plan interfaith protest at Friday’s NRA convention in Houston

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Buffalo’s Black Christians Grieve the ‘Evil Among Us’

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Senate GOP blocks domestic terrorism bill, gun policy debate

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Supreme Court declines to hear 2 different attempts to stop longtime Ann Arbor synagogue protesters

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Dispute over mosque becomes religious flashpoint in India

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Texas shooting live updates: Officials reveal more details about how the Uvalde school shooting unfolded

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • ‘He’s Just A Salesman’: Former Morningside Band Director Talks Bakker’s Ministry Tactics

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • After 2,000 UK Church Buildings Close, New Church Plants Get Creative

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Many Jewish World War II Soldiers Had Christian Burials. That’s Changing.

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Questions Archbishop’s Decision Regarding Communion Ban

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Burka Enforcement and Burka Bans: Where Extremist Policies Meet

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Climate Change Indicators Reach Record Levels

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • The Catholic Church’s views on exorcism have changed – a religious studies scholar explains why

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Indiana pastor admits ‘adultery’; woman says she was a teen

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Church of Scotland Approves Same-Sex Marriage

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBob Allen and Jeff Brumley

    • Banned from Communion in San Francisco, Pelosi receives Eucharist in Washington

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Senior Israeli lawmaker warns of “religious war” over Jerusalem moves

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Minnesota GOP apologizes for Soros puppetmaster video

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • If the media are reluctant to properly label the GOP’s racist, Christian nationalist ideologies, we’ll have trouble hanging on to democracy

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Pope voices hope church in China can operate in freedom

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Telehealth abortion demand is soaring. But access may come down to where you live

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • With AIPAC funding primary campaigns, young Jewish progressives move further left

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Welsh First Minister ‘regrets’ that Franklin Graham is coming to Wales

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    Conversations that Matter.

    © 2022 Baptist News Global. All rights reserved.

    Want to share a story? We hope you will! Read our republishing, terms of use and privacy policies here.

    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • RSS