Excerpted From
Who Will Be a Witness?
By Drew Hart
On multiple occasions, I have stood before Christian gatherings delivering challenging words. This was particularly acute during a recent administration when pent-up anxieties from a corrosive partisan climate and national scandals were at their peak. When I defined racism as organizing society according to the logic of racial hierarchy, the crowds were with me. When I explained how we are often complicit in racism through our relationships, networks, and faith communities, the audience remained engaged. Even when I exposed the ‘whitened’ Jesus that has replaced the biblical Jesus, or elaborated on how colonialism shapes modern church habits, people responded with standing ovations and commitments to action. However, a metaphorical ankle always gets turned on one specific topic. With each syllable, I witness visceral discomfort and cognitive dissonance. These reactions occur when I share a deeply Christian message: the call to labor in love for our political enemies.
Typically, Christians have shallow insights into faithful strategies for social change, often debating whether we should ‘change laws’ or ‘change hearts.’ While changing laws eventually influences public views—as seen with the abolition of slavery and the Civil Rights Acts—policy change alone is insufficient. When rules change and people are held accountable, they adapt, but their underlying perspectives may not truly shift. For example, those who practiced slavery mutated their views to justify neo-slavery through convict leasing and Jim Crow laws. Throughout these eras, anti-Blackness remained prevalent within many white churches. This historical reality is where loving leadership as political action becomes a necessary framework for genuine transformation.
The 20th century serves as a testament to the power of legislation and a reminder of why it is not enough. After civil rights laws took root in the 1950s and ’60s, a new backlash arose, manifesting in systems like the prison-industrial complex. While policy changes create immediate societal shifts, deeper transformation requires something more profound. To address the harm caused by ‘death-dealing’ legislation and to reach those who ‘know not what they do,’ we must reorient our discipleship toward the heart of the Gospel. This requires us to love our neighbors and enemies concretely while fully embracing Christian ethics in politics.
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Excerpted from Who Will Be a Witness?: Igniting Activism for God’s Justice, Love, and Deliverance by Drew G. I. Hart, ©2020 Herald Press. All right reserved.
