Shock, outrage, disbelief, and revulsion abound over the murder of nine people in Charleston, South Carolina, during a Wednesday night Bible study. The killer, Dylann Roof, is a troubled young man who has absorbed the collective hate of racism that poisons his culture. He walked into the historically black Emmanuel AME church, joined a circle of people who were studying the scriptures, and participated in their discussion for about an hour. As the Bible study ended, he pulled out a .45 caliber pistol his father had given him as a birthday gift and calmly executed the pastor and all the Bible study participants save one (whom he allowed to live as a witness to his actions) because “you’ve raped our women and you’re taking over our country. You have to go.” Roof had been bragging to friends in recent months that he was going to start a race war because “somebody has to do something for the white race.” Nobody took him seriously.
As incredible as this tragic incident is, I suspect many people are just as flabbergasted by the response of the grieving families. Following his arrest, Roof appeared in court and heard statements of forgiveness:
“I forgive you, my family forgives you. We would like you to take this opportunity to repent...Do that and you’ll be better off than you are right now.”
“I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you. And God have mercy on your soul. As we said in Bible study, we enjoyed you but may God have mercy on you.”
“Repent and confess your sins, and you’ll be OK.”
Roof listened to these words wrapped in and around expressions of inconsolable hurt and anger and appeared to be unmoved. Yet even if they make no difference to him, this powerful demonstration of Christian faith will ultimately leave an
Any question about which response represents the spirit of Jesus?
Skeptics will say that the survivors’ words of forgiveness were not genuine – only what they had been taught to say in church and believed they should say. Did they really mean it?
South Carolina is part of the “Bible belt,” where people are more than twice as likely to attend church than in other parts of the country, and where biblical literacy is fairly high. But, as I came to understand while growing up in the South, Southern Biblicism takes two vastly different forms. First, there’s white evangelicalism, which has historically emphasized personal spirituality, shunned involvement in social issues, and defended hierarchies in human relationships (thus justifying slavery, segregation, and patriarchy). Then, there’s African-American Christianity, which began among slaves on plantations. It has emphasized communal spirituality, direct involvement in social issues, and equality in human relationships. Both groups are theologically conservative. Both hold a high view of the authority of scripture. Both sing the same gospel hymns. But the expression of their faith is often quite different.
As I became spiritually and politically aware growing up in the Bible belt, I discerned points of convergence and divergence between these two forms of Southern Christianity. I came to see that for white Christians, the faith served as a source of order based on rules and propositional statements of belief, but for my black brothers and sisters, the same faith was the hope of liberation informed primarily by stories. So, for instance, both groups read the book of Exodus, but one found its climax in the giving the Ten Commandments, while the other focused on God freeing the Israelite slaves. Both groups read the gospels, but while one sought to compile a list of Jesus’ “dos and don’ts,” the other concentrated on how Jesus liberated the poor and oppressed all around him, and became a victim of oppression himself. Both groups read the letters of the apostle Paul, but one group pored over his writings to extract the rules for being a good Christian, while the other traced the struggle of a former persecutor of the church to live out the spirit of the risen Christ.
No longer a Southerner except by birth, I maintain a high view of the authority of scripture and enjoy singing old gospel hymns, but find myself to be much more a “story” Christian than a “rules of order” Christian. I’m not black, and I would never insult African-Americans by claiming to be black since I haven’t experienced their culture from the inside out. And it is also important to note that black Christianity is not monolithic. (Though bound together by a common heritage and struggle, historically black churches represent a spectrum of conservative to liberal theology, different stands on particular social issues, and stylistic differences in worship.) But I’m fairly confident in saying that my theology is more in sympathy with a lot of African-American Christianity – all of which ultimately has Southern roots – than with any other form of American Christianity. This almost certainly has something to do with my exposure to black churches when I was younger, and it explains why I am equally dismayed by the intolerance prevalent in white evangelicalism and the intellectual elitism found in so much mainline Protestantism.
None of the last three paragraphs has anything to do with the tragedy in Charleston, South Carolina, except for this: when I learned of the radically Christian response of Dylann Roof’s victims, I felt a visceral connection to them. And I can testify on their behalf that they were not simply parroting something they heard in church but didn’t really mean. THEY MEANT IT. That simultaneous expression of deep hurt and forgiveness for those causing the pain is what biblical Christianity looks like and feels like and sounds like. It’s what you get when you put yourself inside the biblical story instead of forcing the text to conform to some moral or theological system. It’s the spirituality of Martin Luther King, Jr., who taught that the way to defeat racism is not to do violence against the racist but to love him. It’s the spirit of Jesus Christ, who taught his disciples to love their enemies and pray for their persecutors, and who even forgave those who nailed him to the cross. To my mind, it’s Christian discipleship in its purest form.
©2015 by J. Mark Lawson
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