What if the answer to the racial segregation within our churches is not diversity, but discipleship? And, what if our church’s methods of discipleship have actually contributed to our racial segregation?
In this time of racial violence and protests, what if our role, as white people, is not to become woke, but to become dismantlers, repairers, and reformers?
In this episode, I interview David Swanson, pastor of New Community Covenant Church in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago and the author of Rediscipling the White Church: From Cheap Diversity to True Solidary.
In this conversation, we talk about the how white people are often complicit to racist systems, that the answer to racial segregation in our churches is not diversity but is actually discipleship, we talk about unlearning the narrative we have come to believe in order to relearn the truth of our history so that we can begin the work to repair and reform not only the church but our society.
If you are white and someone who is a part of the Christian tradition, I think not only should you listen to this episode, and probably listen to it a couple times, but also immediately go out and buy David’s book.
I believe David is a voice that every White Christian needs to listen to. He is pastoral and prophetic, and I think he will be one of the key leaders helping White people unlearn and relearn their history as well as work to become dismantlers of white supremacy.
You can learn more about David on his website and follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Resources that David recommends in this episode include: Be the Bridge, White Awake, Trouble I’ve Seen, Roadmap to Reconciliation, Divided by Faith, and every essay and book by James Baldwin.
As you move from cheap diversity to true solidarity, being discipled so you might become dismantlers of white supremacy and systemic racism, may you have peace, may you have calm, may you have happiness.