Group Dynamics and Emotional Expression Book

America has a long and troubling history of racial inequalities and injustices. As I write this review, we as a nation are in the midst of reckoning with some of our racial legacies due to the unfortunate murders of George Floyd, Ahmad Arbery, and Breonna Taylor. These killings, which have stayed in our national conscience has forced many of us to reconsider how race effects our own lives and that of society. The need for racial reconciliation has existed for as long as America has been a country and now more and more people are recognizing and pushing for this reconciliation to happen. Once we agree that a problem exists, we find ourselves faced with another daunting problem: how shall we achieve racial reconciliation? A variety of different voices are calling for different solutions, many of which are contradictory. How will racial reconciliation be achieved, and what specifically should the response of the church be? We cannot deny our failures in this area, but we are also unsure of what to do.

In the midst of these questions I found myself reading Beyond Racial Gridlock by sociologist George Yancey. This is not a new book, having originally been published in 2006, but the message of the book is a timely one. The talk about racism we hear today is needed, but also incomplete. This is because the solutions proposed all contain some deficiency. They all lack a distinctly Christian understanding of race. All of the dominant approaches are secular in origin, even though all are blessed by different Christians. What is needed, according to Yancey, is a uniquely Christian approach to racial reconciliation. George Yancey's book puts forth a new, Christian, model of racial reconciliation called mutual responsibility. Before he gives his own model of racial reconciliation, Yancey first gives and overview of different understandings of racism, followed by overviews and analysis of the four leading secular models of racial reconciliation, including the Christian adaptation of those models. He then gives his model, mutual responsibility in the second half of the book.

Americans typically understand racism in either an individualist or structuralist way. Individual racism makes racism about the individual persons beliefs and actions. Social structures and factors aren't racist, only people, as moral agents, can be racist. Structural racism understands racism as something embedded in the laws, systems, and structures of the country. Structural racism holds that an individual may not be individually racist, but still benefit from racist systems. Likewise, a minority may not experience individual racism against them, but the structure of society is set up in such a way that their race is held against them. Despite some ways an individualist definition of racism can be helpful, e.g., forcing people to be accountable for their own actions, Yancey finds it ultimately insufficient to explain reality.

These two understandings of racism will lead to different models of racial reconciliation. The first two, colorblindness and anglo-conformity, both flow from an individualist understanding of racism. The second two, multiculturalism and white responsibility, flow from the structuralist understanding of racism. Yancey gives each of these models a chapter and describes the model, depicts the strengths and weaknesses, and then follows up with a look at the Christian adaptation of each model.

Yancey shows his skills as a sociologist in these four chapters. Each of them is balanced and fair, and he goes to pains to point out strengths in every model, even those who would seem to be strongly opposed to. This kind of humility and desire for truth is present throughout the book, and is refreshing and encouraging. Instead of caricaturing proponents of the models he disagrees with, he attempts to understand them and take what is good from them and reject what is false. If only more books, Christian or non-Christian, took this kind of approach!

I won't give an overview of the four models, though I think anyone seriously interested in the topic should read this book for themselves, as his overviews are short and clear enough that my summary feels deficient and unnecessary. What I do think is the highlight of these four chapters is his criticisms of each of the four models. He shows how each of them is incomplete, and have deficiencies. These criticisms are important, especially as I have read several books which, despite nuances, fall pretty easily into these categories and still have the same deficiencies. The work of Soong-Chan Rah (Next Evangelicalism, Prophetic Lament), for example, despite his needed message, falls clearly into the category of multiculturalism, and his work has the pitfalls of that model. He lacks any real criticism of the immigrant church and would elevate minority voices above white voices. A secular example of multiculturalism would be Ibram X Kendi's Stamped From the Beginning. This book was a fascinating and well-written history, but his ultimate solution would has no way to rise above relativism. Absolute norms and ways to judge a community from outside do not exist for Kendi. These books are examples showing how well Yancey's categories and criticisms still work.

After looking at the secular models, and their strengths and weaknesses, Yancey gives us his own model, mutual responsibility. This model puts forth the idea that racial reconciliation is the work of all races, and all have their own responsibility. The biggest problems with the secular models is that they are all incomplete, they all have a poor grasp of sin, and they have no role for forgiveness.

The flaw with all of the secular models is that they all have an inadequate understanding of sin. The colorblind and anglo-conformity models are convenient for white people as they absolve them from responsibility. If we realize that we are corrupted by sin and naturally drawn to what is best for ourselves, we will not be surprised that these two categories are favored by whites. Nor should we be surprised that minorities are in favor of the multiculturalism and white responsibility model. It is convenient for minorities to be able to blame the majority culture for all of their problems and not to have to examine how their own failures and sin may have contributed to the problems. Our sinful nature naturally makes us want to choose what is best for us, and our model of racial reconciliation is no different.

If we are to develop a uniquely Christian model of racial reconciliation, then forgiveness will be key. Christianity is unique among all religions in that it offers grace, and this is especially true of modern American "Wokeness". "During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith. They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? Other religions had different versions of gods' appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of return from death. The debate went on for some time until C. S. Lewis wandered into the room. "What's the rumpus about?" he asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity's unique contribution among world religions. Lewis responded, "Oh, that's easy. It's grace." (Philip Yancey What's so Amazing About Grace) That we have been forgiven by God and should forgive others is a hallmark of the Christian faith, though it has never been easy. Forgiveness is necessary for racism to be overcome however, and the church has a unique role to play in offering and receiving forgiveness. The majority (white) church has to repent of the historic evils of racism and the ways they are still receiving benefits from them. The racial minorities are to forgive the majority group. Only by truly forgiving can we hope to move forward with reconciliation. If the white church does not believe they are truly forgiven, then reconciliation will not occur. Likewise, if the minority group does not believe the white church has truly repented, then reconciliation will not occur. The white church has to truly repent and work towards reconciliation and the minority church has to truly extend forgiveness. This work of repenting and forgiving is something only the church can accomplish.

The mutual responsibility model essentially is asking for all Christians, especially minority Christians, to be models of forgiveness and repentance. An interesting counter to this idea comes from Ibram X Kendi, who coins the phrase uplift suasion for any requirement which makes people of color be better than the average person before they are recognized. He argues (persuasively, I think) that this cannot work for racial reconciliation. We cannot require black people to be better than other races. We have to take them as they are, flaws and all. I agree with Kendi's analysis, but I also think Yancey's position is correct to call for minorities to rise above. This call would be unreasonable if it was a call for the entire population to do this, but not for those who have the spirit of Christ in them. It may be forgotten now because of how long the church has lived in compromise in the West, but once upon a time the church was known by the love for each other and St. Athanasius even used the holiness of the lives of Christians as an argument for the divinity of Christ in the fourth century. How else can you explain the transformed moral lives of Christians other than the power of Christ living in them? I believe this kind of transformed lives are what Yancey's model calls for. All races working together in forgiveness and repentance in a way that doesn't make sense otherwise.

Beyond Racial Gridlock is a fantastic book, and the best book on racial reconciliation I have read. This book would now become my top pick if I was going to recommend only one book on race to a Christian (replacing the excellent Divided by Faith). The book is charitable, it goes beyond merely black and white and includes all races, and is unabashedly Christ centered. We need a Christ-centered response to all of our problems, and this book is a start in the direction we need to go.

The biggest flaw of the mutual responsibility model is that, while George Yancey understands well that the conflict is spiritual, he does not include the fact that racism and white supremacy are principalities and powers on this earth. I would affirm this to be true, and think that his lack of a cosmic understanding of the problem impacts his analysis and solution. Despite the serious flaws that come with the white responsibility model, Christian proponents of it grasp better than others that white supremacy is something beyond merely structural or individual sin. White supremacy is a spiritual power opposed to God. Our battle is not merely against flesh and blood, but against the cosmic powers of this present darkness. As such, our weapons cannot be merely flesh and blood either. Forgiveness, grace, and repentance are needed yes, but they are not sufficient without the defeat of the spiritual power behind this evil. As William Stringfellow perceptibly observed

"The monstrous American heresy is in thinking that the whole drama of history takes place between God and humanity. But the truth, biblically and theologically and empirically, is quite otherwise: The drama of this history takes place amongst God and humanity and the principalities and powers, the great institutions and ideologies active in the world. . . . Or to put it differently, racism is not an evil in human hearts or minds; racism is a principality, a demonic power, a representative image, an embodiment of death over which human beings have little or no control, but which works its awful influence in their lives."

I am grateful for George Yancey. I think he is a gift to the church, and I hope his book is read more widely than it seems to have been. Newer books are not necessarily better, and none of the newer books on racial reconciliation I have read have been better yet.