Beneath Racism: Power, Polity, and Our Problem with Work(ers)

To what world do the most thoughtful and effective responses to racism belong? Perhaps it is the world in which attacking the roots of racism can look like picking up a shovel and honoring the Lord’s Day. Racism continues to be a very important and urgent matter being discussed in our population and in our part of the world, but it is also a question which invariably pushes us to consider the bigger questions of who we are, Whose we are, and what we are for. According to the well-known agrarian and novelist Wendell Berry, the root of our racial problem may be in our inordinate desire to be superior—not to a group of people, but to our condition. That is, we wish to rise above the sweat and bother of taking care of anything: of ourselves, of each other, or of our country. We have a problem with care-taking, and this yields many evils.

In stark contrast, the Christian faith commends to us all the life-giving, humanity affirming cadence of work and rest, work and festivity, work which does not look down on those God-given labors which sustain his handiwork and serve our neighbors. This is a work followed by rest no longer defined by the absence of labor, but as the fullness in provisional form of the heavenly life to which we have been called and for which we have been redeemed. That life- and neighbor-affirming rhythm and cadence can look like picking up a shovel and honoring the Lord’s Day, pointing to a different way of life for a people which can in its own way be the counter-cultural kingdom and city the Church has been called to be. But this might mean the Church should reconsider its messaging about certain kinds of work.

To discuss this and more, Dr. Mark A. Garcia, President and Fellow in Scripture and Theology at Greystone Theological Institute, sits down with Dr. Alan D. Strange. Dr. Strange is Greystone's Fellow in Christian Tradition and Associate Director of the Reformed and Presbyterian Studies program at Greystone. Dr. Strange is also the Professor of Church History and Registrar at Mid-America Reformed Seminary in Dyer, IN. Joining the conversation is the Rev. Jesse Crutchley, pastor at Severn Run Evangelical Presbyterian Church (PCA). Both Dr. Strange and Pastor Crutchley are also members of Greystone’s Presidential Ministerial Council.

Dr. Strange’s Greystone course on Advanced Polity will be offered in August 2020 and then made available to the public and to all Greystone Members at Greystone Connect. Become a member today for unlimited access to the growing Greystone Connect library.