Bishops Tackle Racism as Long-Term Project

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Dismantling racism in church and society isn’t a “one and done” task, say United Methodist bishops who are preparing a multi-faceted project intended to help them lead the denomination in anti-racism efforts.

Hard conversations about white privilege and institutional racism are already happening in many annual conferences in the United States, said Bishop LaTrelle Miller Easterling, chair of the council’s anti-racism task force. Yet those efforts and others are being met with resistance from those in the church who don’t want to take up the “deep dive” into white privilege that makes them feel vulnerable, she said.

Bishop Cynthia Fierro Harvey, outgoing president of the Council of Bishops, affirmed Bishop Easterling’s comments. “The work of anti-racism isn’t a ‘one and done;’ it’s continuous.”

Their comments came toward the end of a 45-minute anti-racism presentation at the Nov. 2 session of the Council of Bishops meeting being held virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic. The morning session was livestreamed on Facebook and drew some 75 watchers.

Off-camera discussions

Prior to the livestream, the bishops had engaged in off-camera discussion groups at which they shared their own stories of racial discrimination and white privilege. When the livestream began, Bishop Easterling asked selected groups to share their “most poignant” stories from those discussions.

Speaking for Group 9, Bishop Julius C. Trimble (Indiana Area) said that the pain of racism is “contemporary” and “real-time,” not just in history such as the slavery era, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights movement.

“Some systems have perpetuated the notion that white culture is normative and everyone else is added to it,” Bishop Trimble said.

Speaking for Group 1, Bishop Thomas Bickerton (New York Area), the incoming council president, said he has been engaged in a “decades long journey” of becoming aware how much he has benefited from white privilege as a white male.

“Decades ago, I didn’t understand or embrace the concept of white privilege,” he said. “When the light bulb came on, it was a sobering moment of conversion for me as a white male of the privilege offered to me because of my whiteness and maleness. That realization sent me on a decades-long journey discovering how unknowingly I’ve benefitted from being a white male.”

White privilege deeply ingrained

Over the past 20 months following the violent deaths of Black people such as Ahmaud Aubery, Breonna Taylor and especially George Floyd, “we’ve all discovered how deep the problem of racism is,” Bishop Bickerton continued.

“White privilege is so deeply ingrained into our culture that there’s a continuing great reluctance to deal with it,” Bishop Bickerton said. “We experience frequently those who want this problem to go away quickly because they don’t want to deal with how they’ve benefitted from white privilege.”

“Our very discipleship journey depends on us doing this work,” said Bishop Cynthia Moore-Koikoi (Pittsburgh Area) in describing the theological framework that an additional task force and its writing consultants will build. She outlined a plan containing several elements:

  • Why? (A pastoral letter);
  • What? (A historical perspective on the UMC’s racial past and previous anti-racism efforts);
  • How? (Relevance to the current state of church and society);
  • Theological task, a reference to that section of the Book of Discipline;
  • Invitation to Respond, addressed to annual conferences and local churches; and
  • A tool kit of resources such as sermon prompts, group studies, and other materials.

The theological framework has a tight timeline, said Bishop Moore-Koikoi, with a final draft of the project expected by the Council of Bishops’ meeting next spring.

The Council of Bishops initiated the Dismantling Racism campaign in June 2020 after videos circulated of then-officer Derek Chauvin killing George Floyd in Minneapolis by pressing his knee against Floyd’s neck for nine minutes. As they’ve proceeded to address racism in their respective areas, the council set up a task force to further the work. The task force includes Bishop Easterling, who along with other Black bishops has been pressing the Council to deal with racism in church and society for several years. Also on the anti-racism team are Bishops Karen Oliveto (Mountain Sky Area), David A. Bard (Michigan and Dakotas-Minnesota Areas), Bob Farr (Missouri Area), Cynthia Moore-Koikoi (Pittsburgh Area), Harald Rückert (Germany Area), Hee-Soo Jung (Wisconsin Area), Leonard Fairley (Louisville, Ky., and Raleigh, NC, Areas), and David Graves (Alabama-West Florida and South Georgia Areas).

Erin Hawkins Smith, former top executive of the General Commission on Religion and Race, is serving as consultant to the bishops’ anti-racism task force.

Watch a recording of the Council of Bishops’ Nov. 2 meeting on Facebook.

Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011.