Race and Redemption

The death of George Floyd has shaken our nation’s foundations. Our churches are rightly trying to respond with compassion. But in pursuing that admirable goal, many church leaders and parishioners are adopting a race narrative that is empirically and theologically suspect.

Protestants and Catholics alike are affirming the mainstream media’s explanation for Floyd’s brutal killing: systemic racism in police departments and society as a whole. Some Anglican pastors have written that since America is “structurally” and “systemically” racist, catechesis, preaching, and evangelism must now focus on race and racism. J. D. Greear, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and Jamie Dew, president of New Orleans Baptist Seminary, decried the tragedy as evidence of “racial inequity in the distribution of justice in our country.” The Catholic bishop of Bridgeport, Connecticut, said Floyd’s death is evidence of “systemic racism, bigotry, and discrimination in our country.” White Christians, many influenced by Critical Race Theory, are eager to demonstrate their virtue by confessing their “white privilege.”