6th
Deadly Vipers, White Captivity and Real Reconciliation
In response to all of you who have e-mailed, sent texts, Facebooked and called me regarding the controversy surrounding Professor Soong-Chan Rah and the Deadly Viper Character Assassins project, here are thoughts on what I understand has happened and how I am connected to this.
Monday I was sitting in my library with Phileena reading. Occasionally I’d pick up my phone and review my Twitter feed. I noticed something that immediately caused me concern. It made me sick in my stomach and told Phileena, “oh no… this isn’t going to end well.”
What I read were tweets from Professor Soong-Chan Rah regarding the offense he had taken to Zondervan’s promotional material for a book called Deadly Viper Character Assassins by Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite. Prof Rah’s blog quickly moved from articulating his offense, to posting personal e-mails (something I don’t condone, but something he is addressing) he had received from Mike, to the following day’s open letter to Mike, Jud and Zondervan (an important letter for all people who care about issues of race and Christian community).
Why I felt such concern is that I know all these guys, love all these guys, and totally believe in (and stand behind) the messages they embody.
Mike and Jud’s book on character, integrity and leadership has challenged me to continually name my own short-comings in these areas and find practical and creative ways of growing in them. The book is thoughtful, creative and captivating. It’s very honest. It’s full of tangible suggestions and real-life scenarios. I first found it in 2007 and have read through it at least a half dozen times since then. But more than the content of the book, I am inspired by the ways that Mike and Jud embody the material in the intergrity of their own lives. After reading Prof Rah’s blog posts, I was saddened because though Prof Rah’s concerns regarding race are legitimate, the content of the book has really helped a lot of people and I would hate for the positive impact of the material to be diminished.
An important evangelical reformer, Prof Rah recently published a book The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity, that, among other things, speaks of “white captivity.” Something that our Word Made Flesh community has grappled with and continues to keep at the forefront of many of our conversations regarding mission. Several years ago we came to the sad realization that we were victims ourselves to our own malformed and unnamed white, Western captivity and have since made very deliberate, theologically based commitments to submission in a multi-ethnic, multi-national and multi-cultural formation of community. I respect and admire Prof Rah and believe in his message. It’s been a challenge to our whole community, one that has offered us crucial direction in who we want and need to become.
In addition to Prof Rah’s message being important for those of us who make up, and are, enslaved to the dominant consciousness of whiteness, his message has named, given language to, and touched on a very sensitive nerve for many people who are marginalized by white captivity.
Within a matter of 20 hours from Prof Rah posting his first blog, the backlash escalated at a furious pace. The real wounds of Asian Americans (and others) who have experienced voicelessness and offense at the (intentional and unintentional) expense of the comodification of their culture, found a symbol to rally around. Sadly (and understandably), Mike and Jud found themselves caught off guard and ambushed by all this.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto (Program Director for Urbana 09), knowing that I was friends with everyone involved, Facebooked me to see if I could help broker an introduction. I was glad to.
My sense was that the tone had escalated in ways that did not invite real dialogue, but had created a platform for people to voice their frustrations (which is a legitimate need). It seemed there were many assumptions made about Mike and Jud that excluded them from dialogue and turned them into the face of the problem. Sadly, many of these frustrations seemed to come in the form of accusations that weren’t entirely fair or should not have been aimed at Mike and Jud. Though their book touched a nerve, I was concerned that it may have been the wrong symbol to target.
I was also concerned that part of the breakdown in dialogue was that the real people and voices involved (Mike, Jud and Prof Rah) were objects in a conversation where the subject wasn’t entirely understood by everyone. I hoped, making an introduction would allow real people to be the subjects in dialogue toward the object of much-needed understanding, sensitivity and reconciliation.
By Wednesday publications like Sojourners and Mother Jones had picked up on the controversy. Anger around the issue (not only by Asian Americans) was simmering. I got a text from Nikki who asked if I’d be willing to join a conference call later that afternoon.
The virtual table included Nikki, Mike and Jud, Prof Rah, Eugene Cho (Pastor of Quest Church), Kathy Khang (InterVarsity Regional Multi-Ethnic Ministries Director) and myself. I wasn’t sure why I was included, other than I was a common friend that Mike, Jud and Prof Rah seemed to share.
The conversation was marked by a beautiful spirit of honesty, humility and openness. It was a safe place for the beginning of dialogue. It gave me a lot of hope that there is a real expectation for deeper understanding and reconciliation among some great people who all have crucially important messages and live them beautifully.
On Thursday there was a joint statement posted on several blogs that I hope will de-escalate some of the unconstructive tone that has fueled some of the backlash and flurry of activity on the blogosphere.
I realize there are, and will continue to be, a multitude of competing perspectives on this. But I trust that all sensitive, sensible and reasonable people who have the courage and thoughtfulness to engage this conversation will concede that these issues necessitate grace for growth. At points we may all need to agree to respectfully disagree, while working toward a collective affirmation of the divine imprint of God in all humanity inviting us to a greater sense of oneness, unity and solidarity.
Today I have hope that this will end well. The trajectory is headed in a hope-filled placed.
In the meantime, my respect and admiration has only grown for Jud, Mike and Prof Rah as I see them further humanizing and loving one another toward a real unity and an embodied example of what reconciliation looks like among brothers.
