The social structures of society can be more or less loving.

Filling another gap in my write-up on Christian ethics (I'm at about 225 pages). I should have it ready to publish by the end of the weekend. Feedback welcome.

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Is it possible for the structures of society to be set up—formally or informally—in such a way that certain groups of people are benefited while others are disadvantaged? It is hard to see how the answer is not an unequivocal yes. When slaves were not allowed to vote or move or own property or even stay with their own families, they were clearly disadvantaged by the structures of society. The same could be said of women, who were not allowed to vote in the United States until 1920. In these cases, the structures of society were “less loving” toward slaves and women than they are now toward African Americans and women.

In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, there were initially some promising developments for former slaves. In the 1870s, more than a dozen African American men were elected to Congress. But after the debacle of the 1877 election, government soldiers left the South, and southern society quickly found ways to unofficially re-enslave the “freed” slaves. [1] In most of these states, it would be over 100 years before a black representative was elected again. 

In the aftermath of World War II, the GI bill allowed white soldiers returning to buy houses and start a profitable economic path to middle-class prosperity. However, the same black soldiers returning from war often found themselves “redlined.” Redlining was the practice of declaring areas of cities where African Americans lived as risky for banks to give loans. Meanwhile, blacks were not usually welcomed in other areas of the city. From 1945-1959, African Americans received less than 2% of all federal loans. [2]

The 1960s saw a number of landmark laws passed, attempting to change these “structural injustices.” The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended the Jim Crow era with its segregation of blacks into different theaters, accommodations, and schools. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made illegal all the underhanded obstacles that whites had created to keep blacks from voting—things like literacy tests and poll taxes, not to mention harassment and other economic reprisals. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 made practices like redlining illegal.

Although the Wesleyan Methodist Church was founded as an abolitionist movement, the Wesleyan Church largely did not participate in the civil rights movement. At best, its churches were silent. At worst, they looked down on “troublemakers” and “law-breakers” like Martin Luther King Jr. The evangelical church in the United States gets no credit for these developments that very much fit the spirit of Christ to set the captive free (cf. Luke 4:18). Indeed, the movement toward desegregation in the mid-1900s resulted in a dramatic surge in white Christians attending private Christian schools.

What are the principles on which Christians should agree, especially those in the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition. First, it should be clear from the previous paragraphs that the structures of society, both formal and informal, can be unjust and unloving. Christians should delight when laws are passed such as those mentioned in the 1960s. We have been focusing on issues of race, but the same kinds of issues have historically existed in relation to women and others as well. It is fallen human nature.

[textbox: The Origins of Race

The concept of race as we understand it today was not always obvious. The slaves taken from Africa did not view themselves as “black.” They distinguished themselves by tribe: Mbundu, Yoruba, Igbo, etc. Similarly, the slave traders did not initially think of themselves as “white.” They were Portuguese, Spanish, English, and such.

The concept of “white” and “black” thus came into existence as a result of the slave trade. Even here, the precise connotations developed over time. The slaves that were first brought to America in the 1600s did not have to be lifelong slaves. Till the time of Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, black slaves had much in common with white indentured servants. Thereafter, slavery almost inevitably became the life-long identity of the black person.

Similarly, not everyone with light skin was initially considered white. Irish and Italian immigrants were not immediately considered to be white when waves of them immigrated. This is why we say that race is “socially constructed.” Our skin color is simply a continuous scale of how much melanin is in our skin. Prejudice against new groups coming to the States is as old as the second group to arrive. Indeed, prejudice against “the other group” is as old as humanity.]

While the Wesleyan position on homosexual acts and LGBTQ lifestyles is clear morally, secondly, we clearly do not support the harassment or oppression of any group, especially in the name of Christ. Whether it actually happens or not, the sentiment of the Declaration of Independence is noble when it claims that “All men [and women] are created equal.” Scripture binds us to love our neighbor and our enemy. No one else is left.

Therefore, the use of Scripture or theology to harm or oppress others is fake Christianity. Any use of the gospel to hide hate or mistreatment is a false gospel. It is the Devil masquerading as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14). Just as we abhor the fact of pastors who belonged to the KKK, we abhor using Christ as a pretense to hate gay or transgender individuals. Just as we abhor the fact that church people might attend church and then go to enjoy a public lynching, [3] we abhor any attempt to hide behind Christ to keep LGBTQ individuals from employment or access to the normal opportunities of secular life.

Racism and prejudice are good at hiding behind impressive-sounding argument. The one giving such arguments sounds smart and likely indignant at the “real wrongs.” They think they are the ones fighting for truth and justice. We saw the same pattern after the killing of George Floyd in 2020. After an initial sense of outrage, the machine of rationalization and white supremacy took over. Indeed, in the end, the quest for racial justice probably lost ground. The real injustice, the real evil, the predictable backlash says, is “CRT,” “critical race theory.” [4] How dare someone suggest that whites are racist or that whites are somehow privileged in society? 

It is distraction. And so the initial injustice is forgotten in a sea of pretend righteousness, with the white church on the front lines. In the end, someone put it well at that time. "If you want to know what you would have done during the Civil Rights era, you are doing it now."

The concept of equity is a third principle. Equal opportunity is a great concept, but it is only as helpful as it is truly available. You can tell me I am free to get a job, but if I do not have a ride, I do not really have the same opportunity as someone with a car. The concept of equity is the notion that truly equal opportunity may involve more empowerment for some than for others. The application of the idea can be complicated to be sure. Sometimes we create more problems trying to fix something than were there in the first place. But the goal remains.

This was a fundamental principle of Jesus’ earthly ministry. “Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick” (e.g., Luke 5:31). Women in Jesus’ day were not full members of society. Jesus elevated them. The “poor” of Jesus’ day were not just those who could not feed or support themselves, they were individuals displaced from where they were supposed to be in society. Those with skin diseases were on the margins of society. Jesus gave them re-entry. And the same went for the demon-possessed—their problems went beyond the spiritual.

We cannot make everyone the same. Redistribute the wealth and, ten years later, natural giftedness will likely redistribute it again to some extent even given equal opportunity. We are talking about getting everyone to a baseline and removing obstacles left by inequitable structures.

Yes, “correlation is not causation.” Unevenness in numbers and statistics is only the beginning of the conversation. What are the actual causes? Where in the “system” is the actual injustice? Some issues may be so baked into our culture that it will take more than one generation to work them out.

Yet it is not the spirit of Christ to give up. Social inequity and injustice may seem like hopeless causes, yet God so loved the world. In the well-known story of starfish washed up on the shore after a storm, we may not be able to save all the starfish, but we can save one, then two, then three. And I do not mean to suggest that the “we” here are the whites saving the blacks, for that in itself is a racism of superiority, a condescending “helping those poor people” mentality. We are in this game together. We save each other together. We will fail often but, perhaps, we will succeed some.

We dare not wait for Jesus to come fix it. That is truly burying our talent in the sand. “Now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2).

[1] In 1933, my mother’s father spent a summer in Virginia pastoring a rural church. My mother remembered the lights of prisoners building a highway at night in the distance. A little research showed this was a “chain gang,” a group of African American prisoners. The Jim Crow south after reconstruction made it possible to arrest black men for everything from unemployment to just hanging out in the wrong place, “vagrancy laws.” Then the state rented them out to former slave owners, a clever way of re-enslaving them by other means. Over time, these practices have created a tendency for white culture to see black men as dangerous and likely criminals.

[2] And it is not like these sorts of "structures" only existed in the South, even if they were much more extreme in the Deep South. After the "Great Migration" of the early-1900s, blacks were more or less "ghettoed" into certain parts of northern cities. You can still see the wall in Detroit built in 1941 to separate incoming whites from existing blacks. That the black parts of town became slums was virtually a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[3] In the notorious lynching of Sam Hose in Georgia in 1899, some 2000 “Christians” went to church, then traveled to the lynching site, many by special train from Atlanta. There Hose had his ears cut off and his body mutilated by knife. His body was doused in gasoline and set on fire. Spectators took pieces of bone and flesh as souvenirs.

[4] In my mind, there are extreme elements to some critical race theory, which itself is not monolithic. That is not the point. The point is that the outrage at CRT is mostly a smoke screen, a distraction to get us off topic.