“Is the situation hopeless? If white
evangelicals continue to travel the same road they have traveled thus far, the future
does indeed look bleak. This issues are far too complex to be addressed by a
homogenous subculture that tends toward high-energy, but simplistic and
unidimensional solutions to complex social problems. . . .To address
successfully the complexity of American race relations, [the] evangelical
tendency toward quick-minded activism should be modified. With a few
exceptions, evangelicals lack serious thinking on this issue. Rather than
integrate their faith with knowledge of race relations, inequality, and
American society, they generally allow their cultural constructions to shape
one-dimensional assessments and solutions to multidimensional problems. This
will not do.”
Christian
Smith and Michael O. Emerson, Divided
by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 170-171.
[Read the
Introduction to 95 Theses for Christian Racial & Ethnic Unity here.]
No comments:
Post a Comment