RACISM, THE ENEMY WITHIN: A WHITE PROTESTANT CONGREGATION TAKES A LOOK INSIDE A Practical Research Project presented to the Faculty of Claremont School of Theology In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Ministry by Wally Burman May 2020 Copyright © 2020 by Wally Burman NT S C HOOL OF T O H M E O E L R O A G L Y C 1885 This professional project completed by WALLY BURMAN has been presented to and accepted by the Faculty of the Claremont School of Theology in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree DOCTOR OF MINISTRY Faculty Committee Rev. Dr. Karen Dalton, Chairperson Dean of the Faculty Rev. Dr. Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook May 2020 ABSTRACT RACISM, THE ENEMY WITHIN: A WHITE PROTESTANT CONGREGATION TAKES A LOOK INSIDE by Wally Burman The purpose of writing Racism, the Enemy Within: A White Protestant Congregation Takes a Look Inside is to describe how White Protestant Christian churches of the United States have been affected by white supremacy and socialized into operating from a place of white privilege and racism. This practical research project will include my own personal experience with racism, as a white Protestant Christian clergy person, and an analysis of the ways in which racism has contributed to the decline of Protestant Christian denominations. This project involves scholastic research along with the practical implementation of said research within the context of a local congregation so as to educate and inform members of a pilot group on the topic of racism. It also presents feedback responses gathered during a five- week pilot program that addressed the topic of racism. My theories that White Protestant congregations operate from a place of white supremacy were confirmed by how the congregation withheld opportunities from people because of their association with a particular group of people based on their race and the color of their skin. The congregants were surprised by their racist tendencies, but also willing to accept their racism and subscribe to a process so as to become anti-racist over time. Several important resources—the film, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, along with articles on white fragility by Robin DeAngelo, and the excellent book, Anxious to Talk About It, by Carolyn Helsel—aided this personal research project greatly by guiding the congregants of the pilot group through a process of identifying their racism and learning how racism has contributed to the decline of their congregation. Table of Contents Introduction: …………………………………………………………………………………........1 Racism, South Dakota style: The American Indian and the Homestead Act of 1862………..7 My Story: How I was affected by white supremacy and racism…………………………….10 Section I: 1. Theological and biblical issues related to our common life together……………………..12 2. Orthopraxy vs. Orthodoxy………………………………………………………………...17 3. Racism in the USA: Within the Context of the White Protestant Christian Church...…....21 4. Religious Education – how to teach/engage difficult topics in a faith community....…….25 Section II: 1. Project Description.………………………………………………………………………...31 2. Methods…………………………………………………………………………………….33 Definitions, delimitations, and limitations....................................................................36 3. Analysis.…………………………………………………………………………………...37 What worked and did not work?....................................................................................38 First Feedback form results from PBS movie: Traces of the Trade: ………………....40 Second Feedback form after five-week pilot program: ……………………………….46 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………….........61 Future Recommendations ………………………………………………………………..........64 Part I: Group outline for educational discussion on the topic of racism ...…………….64 Part II: Group outline for educational discussion on the topic of anti-racism ..……….64 Bibliography ...………………………………………………………………………………....66 Appendix A: Stages of Racial Identity Development Integrated Model ....................................69 Appendix B: United Church of Christ’s Sacred Conversations to End Racism. …………........70 Appendix C: Feedback questions and responses …………………………………………...….72 vi Introduction From the years of 2015 to 2019, I served as a pulpit supply pastor, assistant to the pastor, and then senior interim pastor at a Lutheran church located in Southern California. I will refer to this congregation as Lutheran Church (LC) for matters of confidentiality. LC is a small Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) congregation with approximately sixty persons participating in worship on Sunday mornings. LC has been in existence for several decades, and it, like many Protestant Christian Churches here in the United States, struggles with declining membership and an absence of congregants under the age of forty. Based on the fact that the average age of LC’s current members exceeds seventy years of age, LC may likely be forced to close because each year some of the members age out of membership or die and the congregation could age out of its building and be forced to sell its property. When I inquired about the reason for the decline in membership and the lack of younger people in the congregation, the current members would often times focus on the things they did not have, like young members, a band, big-screen television screens, a young pastor, and blame the pastor or the younger generation for their lack of interest in things of God. However, I did not hear the current members of LC taking responsibility for their part in the problem of declining membership and looming church closure. Because of LC’s reluctance to own their part of the problem, I decided to apply practices and principles from my chaplaincy training to the presenting problem of declining membership at LC. My four units of clinical pastoral education (CPE) that I received at Los Angeles County Hospital trained me, upon entering the hospital patient’s room, to use a spiritual assessment tool that asks the following questions: What did I see? What did I hear? What was the emotional pain 1 present? What did I do about it? What was the outcome? In applying the spiritual assessment tool in the situation where the church and its members are the patient, I saw that the church was about one-half full and that the congregants were not sitting together, but sitting in a dispersed pattern about the sanctuary. I heard the floorboards of the church squeak along with the aging church organist squeaking out the notes on the church organ. I heard the aging choir members attempting to squeak out notes of the choir anthem with voices that were as aged as the members. I also heard the members blaming the Millennial generation for not getting out of bed and coming to church, or blaming former members for moving away so as to be closer to their families, or I heard the remorse over the death of so many former members that contributed to the declining membership of the church. However, I did not hear them taking responsibility for their situation; they conveniently blamed people and forces just out of reach and beyond their control. These observations answer the what did I see? and what did I hear? questions. The answer to the question what did I do? will be covered in Section II under the project section and the answer to the question what was the outcome? will be covered in Section II under the analysis section and also in the conclusion section of this document. Hence, what did I do? and what was the outcome? are the focus of this personal research project and will be described throughout the remainder of this paper. To establish a biblical basis for my project and to isolate LC’s problem, I will now add the words of Jesus from the Gospel of John 13:34: I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also need to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.1 1 John 13:34 (New Revised Standard Version). 2 During my years serving as a pastor, I have witnessed many white Christians not loving one another due to acts of racism. I have seen them operating from a place of white supremacy, viewing people of color with prejudice and treating them as inferior beings. Hence, they are not loving one another as Jesus commanded. Specifically, I observed that the people at LC have been socialized into taking white privilege for granted. This group of people tend to be unaware of the racist sentiments that they hold. They want to be a welcoming Christian church but are unaware of how racism hinders their efforts to do so. Part of the impetus for this project stems from comments made by ELCA Pastor Lenny Duncan in his book Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the U.S. Duncan, reflecting back upon the time when he was a five-year-old and gazing upon images of Jesus depicted as a White person, noted the following: “He [Jesus] looks nothing like me, so I’m left thinking he can’t possibly be for me. If he looks like all the folks who have, in fact, told me that black lives don’t matter, how can I trust that he believes my black life matters?”2 The question that arose for me was: Could the white supremacy that made Duncan doubt Jesus caring about his life be in operation in a West Coast Lutheran congregation? Even though LC claims to be a friendly church that is welcoming to all, it has experienced serious decline in membership over the past several decades. I suspected that white supremacy-based notions and racism were responsible for the decline of this congregation. The goal of my project is to educate the people of LC on the topics of white supremacy and racism through the use of group education and conversation. 2 Lenny Duncan, Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the U.S. (Minneapolis, Fortress Press: 2019), 70. 3 To support my claim that racism is the cause for the general decline in membership at LC, I will add comments by Claremont School of Theology professor Rev. Dr. Sheryl Kujawa- Holbrook who defines racism as: …the systematic oppression of one race by another. In the United States, racism operates on the personal, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural levels and, as a system, differentiates between whites and people of color. Because the social systems and institutions within the United States are controlled by white people, they have the social power to make and enforce decisions and have greater access to resources. Racist attitudes and behaviors can be intentional or unintentional. A shorthand definition for racism is prejudice + social power.3 Kujawa-Holbrook defines power as “the capacity to have control, authority, or influence over others . . . social power refers to the capacity of the dominant (white) culture to have control, authority, and influence over people of color. Social power plus prejudice equals oppression.”4 This definition allowed me to identity the individuals at LC who were exercising control, authority, and influence over others. Kujawa-Holbrook’s definition of power also helped the people at LC understand that reverse racism was not possible because, as Kujawa- Holbrook states, “social power refers to the capacity of the dominant culture to have control, authority, and influence others”5 and people of color are not the dominant culture here in the U.S. Kujawa-Holbrook’s definition also includes the comment: “Social power plus prejudice equals oppression.”6 Oppression? I suspect that no one at LC would ever consider that their friendly welcoming congregation was oppressive by any stretch of the imagination. However, 3 Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook, A House of Prayer for All Peoples: Congregations Building Multiracial Community (Bethesda, MD: Alban Institute, 2003), 15. 4 Kujawa-Holbrook, House, 15. 5 Kujawa-Holbrook, House, 15. 6 Kujawa-Holbrook, House, 15. 4