The Problem of White Guilt

Have you ever watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding? It's a modern classic, and a favorite in our house. The domestic misadventure of the Portokalos family is entertaining time and time again. One of the parts we particularly enjoy is this dysfunctional dynamic of emotional manipulation. They are always guilt-tripping each other, and the father is the worst. "Why you want to leave me?" he cries when Toula asks if she can take some classes at the local community college.

We quote that line a lot.

Anyway, humanity is a little like that. We have a tendency to coerce, taking advantage of one another's goodwill and using it to accomplish our own agenda. This happens not only individually, but culturally.

Fifty years ago, for example, people were often guilted into practicing traditional Judeo-Christian values, like not living together before marriage. It was a sin to avoid and, if done, would require no small amount of penance if you wanted to return to good standing with your friends, family, and community at large.

Today, however, you just as likely to be made to feel guilty for a crime you didn't choose: Your skin color.

"...it’s easy to point at a skinhead and call him a racist. It’s harder to realize that you’re one too — not because of deliberate bias, but because of the unearned advantages of being born white." - Jodi Picoult, Time Magazine

"How are you assisting in dismantling the oppression that people of color experience everyday from people who look like you?" - Reginald Cunningham, Huffington Post

If you are white, you are a racist. If you are white, you are responsible for the wrongdoings of all white people, both past and present. It doesn't matter what choices you've made. It doesn't matter what you have or haven't done in this life. If you are white, you are guilty.

Now, about half of my readership will take one look at this and declare it hogwash. And rightfully so. It's a cultural folly. And, like all such follies, it is here for a season. It will be carried away by the current in due time.

Unfortunately, like all such follies, it won't do so before making its impression on the church. Indeed, it already has. I've seen many people within the church, leaders and laymen alike, for whom I have much respect, take these claims at face value. In fact, I think this particular strain of the cultural virus is one that Christians are particularly susceptible to.

Here's why.

Christians have a heart for the broken. Scripture constantly speaks of the orphans and widows - those who are the most vulnerable. These people were central to Jesus' ministry, and God even says that treating them with justly is part of what it means to know Him.

“He judged the cause of the poor and needy;
then it was well.
‘Is that not what it means to know me?’
declares the Lord.” - Jeremiah 22:16

Part of being a serious Christian means taking seriously the cause of the oppressed. It is no wonder, then, that when someone cries foul, the church is quick to run to their aid. Their cause becomes our cause. "YAY!!! We're like JESUS!!! Our self-flagellation is really helping these poor, oppressed people!!!"

Now, on the one hand, we can demonstrate the foolishness of this via common law. Calling yourself guilty of a crime you didn't commit because it was demanded of a person against whom no crime was committed doesn't really help anybody. And if you are to be held responsible for crimes someone else committed, there's two logical questions that should be asked 1) why draw the line at race, and 2) at what point is justice finally achieved? Can I sue Jonathan Makebelieve because his great grandfather committed libel against my great grandfather? And if I succeed in suing him for the crime he didn't commit, can my children also sue him? After all, it very well might impact their names as well.

Probably not the best justice system...

Don't get me wrong. Slavery was horrible. Jim Crow laws were horrible. Both were rightfully ended. And, yes, there are still instances of racism and oppression that occur today. And when such instances occur, I'd like to link arms in opposition to them. Yes and amen. I'm just not sure that fighting particular instances of oppression with blanket declarations of guilt accomplish much good for anybody. And, seeing as freed blacks in the South also owned slaves, you'd have the extend that blanket of guilt to their descendants as well.

(Sing it with me: Everybody's guiltyyyyy! Everybody loses with identity politics! Everybody's guiltyyyyyy, when you're living for guilt-trips!)

But wait! There's more.

"It's not just about legal justice, it's about social justice," the argument goes. "Even if it's not a legal precedent, we should still, out of love for our brothers, willingly bear the mantle of guilt. Even if you haven't committed these sins, taking on the responsibility for them is still Godly and noble. It's all about racial reconciliation, baby."

The prime case brought out by the biblically savvy is Daniel.

Daniel was, by all accounts, a practically perfect figure of righteous living. Residing in the epicenter of a thoroughly pagan world, he shone as an example of what it meant to remain faithful to God. And yet, we see him go to bat in prayer for the collective people of Israel. To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame… All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice," (Daniel 9:7-11).

So, what about that?

It's true. Daniel had no qualms taking upon himself the guilt and shame of his people, even if he himself was not personally culpable for their actions.

In fact, that sort of thing happened pretty regularly. Annually, to be precise. It was the job of the high priest. Every Day of Atonement, the priest would make a sacrifice to God on behalf of the sins of all Israel. It didn't matter what the priest had or hadn't done that year - he was mediating between the people and God, presenting their collective sins to God for his collective forgiveness. And with Jerusalem sacked and the temple destroyed, Daniel does his best to fill this function.

So what? Why does this matter? Why shouldn't Christians do the same?

Well, because there's a pretty important event that happens between Daniel and ourselves: Jesus.

The whole point of the priesthood is that it would eventually be fulfilled in Christ. He is our great high priest! The whole point of the sacrificial system is that it would eventually be fulfilled in Christ. He is our atonement! We no longer bear guilt and shame because he became guilt and shame. Our guilt was nailed to a cross. Jesus died not so that we would live in guilt, but so that we would finally be free of it!

This has nothing to do with your race, your class, or your gender. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus," (Galations 3:28). This doesn't even have anything to do with your past wrongs. "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come," (2 Cor. 5:17). It's not about you. It's about what Christ has done for you.

That is the Gospel.

As a Christian, you should no more be taking on the guilt of evils done by others anymore than you should be sprinkling people with blood. It's not only weird, it's unbiblical.

Racial reconciliation is important. It's a proper goal. And it cannot be accomplished by minimizing the work of Christ on the cross. On the contrary, it can only be achieved by the work of Christ on the cross. So instead of toying around with whose ancestors are guilty of what sins, how about we just celebrate the fact that we are all sinners saved by the loving grace of a very good God.