These are slides I used in a presentation at Trinity Lutheran Church in Eau Claire, WI on April 23, 2023

1. Becoming a white anti-racist
Presentation to Trinity Lutheran Church
Eau Claire, WI
23 April 2023
Mary E. Hess, Luther Seminary

2. perhaps a few ideas to start with, but I’m happy to
throw out this entire slide deck if you know what
you want to talk about!

5. fi
ve basic understandings
• We need as white people to confront racism because it’s morally wrong AND
also because it’s in the interest of our own mental health to do so.
• We need to take responsibility for doing the work of white antiracism and not
asking people of color to educate us about how racism works.
• We need to work out how best to use the strategic advantages conferred on us
by a white identity to push for change and racial justice.
• We need to understand racism as a system that works to secure the continued
dominance of one particular racial group, rather than the expression of
individual prejudice.
• We need to challenge the way that the mythical but powerful idea of white
supremacy keeps this system in place by explaining it as a “natural” ordering of
the world.
(Brook
fi
eld&Hess)

6. perceived theologically…
• God incarnate in the Christ draws us ever towards our neighbor, whether
perceived as friend or enemy. Ever sinner/saint we open ourselves to God’s
grace which is in
fi
nitely liberating.
• We are freed by grace to do this learning, and gifted with unique vocation by
God to live into beloved community.
• A preferential option for the poor (the anawim) points the way, as does the deep
conviction of God’s agency within our personal speci
fi
cities.
• Original sin invites us to recognize how we, as white people, are born into a
system of power that we can both lament and seek to resist and repair through
the power of our God.
• God’s love is “already/not yet” and while the world may tell differing stories
about the “natural” way of power, we know differently.

8. what supports us in opening up in compassion?
“com” “passio” / suffering with

10. Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann views hope as trust in
what God has done and will do, in spite of evidence to the
contrary:
“Hope in gospel faith is not just a vague feeling that things will work
out, for it is evident that things will not just work out. Rather, hope
is the conviction, against a great deal of data, that God is tenacious
and persistent in overcoming the deathliness of the world, that God
intends joy and peace. Christians
fi
nd compelling evidence, in the
story of Jesus, that Jesus, with great persistence and great
vulnerability, everywhere he went, turned the enmity of society
toward a new possibility, turned the sadness of the world toward
joy, introduced a new regime where the dead are raised, the lost
are found, and the displaced are brought home again.”
Walter Brueggemann, A Gospel of Hope, compiled by Richard Floyd (Westminster John Knox Press: 2018), 104–105.

11. transformation rooted in hope will be…
• radical (both in dependence on God and in radical availability)
• embodied (called to be agents of of transformation … [which]
requires encounters with others who will stretch us and
change us)
• imaginative (transformation will be beyond what we can even
imagine, because hope and transformation are creative)
• relational (God’s ongoing relationship with us, inviting a
response, and our response in relationship with others creates
not only the possibilities but also the conditions for
transformation)
Cimperman, loc 644 of 3914

12. “Instead of patriarchal stories of domination, Jesus taught and embodied service,
reconciliation, and self-giving.
Instead of stories of violent revolution or revenge on the one hand or compliant
submission on the other, Jesus taught and modeled transformative nonviolent
resistance.
Instead of the puri
fi
cation stories of scapegoating or ethnic cleansing, Jesus
encountered and engaged the other with respect, welcome, neighborliness, and
mutuality.
Instead of inhabiting a competitive story of accumulation, Jesus advocated
stewardship, generosity, sharing, and a vision of abundance for all.
Instead of advocating escapist stories of isolation, Jesus sent his followers into the
world to be agents of positive change, like salt, light, and yeast.
And instead of leaving the oppressed in stories of victimization, Jesus empowered
them with a vision of faith, hope, and love that could change the world.”
[1] Brian D. McLaren and Gareth Higgins, The Seventh Story: Us, Them, & the End of Violence (Porch: 2018), 79.
Richard Rohr's daily meditation for January 13, 2021

13. biblical texts and reconciliation: 2 Cor
• 2 Corinthians (see Enter the Bible for background)
• 2 Cor 5:19 is the shortest description of reconciliation: “in
Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not
counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting
the message of reconciliation to us”
• recognize the complexity of both “vertical” and
“horizontal” reconciliation
• recognize that this is God’s work and God’s agency

14. Haga offers a de
fi
nition of reconciliation in equation form (I like his
footnote version best):
forgiveness + accountability = reconciliation
where forgiveness is (understanding + grief) and accountability is
(remorse + insight + amends)

15. a few ideas for continuing learning… (see also
meh.religioused.org)

16. citations:
Image of the cross / heart on the Bible (https://pixabay.com/photos/love-died-cross-thorns-
crown-699480/)
Trinity knot (http://rapgenius.com/Action-bronson-the-come-up-lyrics#note-1452273)
Gratitude/grief quote (https://www.facebook.com/photo/?
fbid=10159555029226125&set=a.82638921124)
Pema Chodron quote (https://www.facebook.com/elephantjournal/photos/
a.192928654222/10159420694029223/)