Lisa Sharon Harper is a founding member and board member of Evangelicals4Justice and is currently Director of Mobilizing for Sojourners. She is the author of Left, Right & Christ: Evangelical Faith in Politics and Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican or Democrat.
KW: In what ways is racism still an issue in our country?
LSH: It’s common to assume that ending racism in America or the church really only involves ending individual prejudice. But racism, by definition, is the use of one’s power to actively or passively keep another group down. Our most common picture of racism is the guys in the pointy hats who live in a black-and-white world. But the problem of race in America has shape-shifted since then. Now it’s not only about people’s individual prejudices—though that is still an issue—but it’s also about unjust systems and structures that have been put in place over time.
Sometimes the crafters of these policies, laws, and structures intentionally created systems to make life easier for some over others. Other times inequity was an unintentional result. What’s important, though, is that these structures are still in place. They have not yet been dismantled. So we might be living our lives not knowing that we have benefited from stuff put in place a long time ago that just never got taken off the books or dismantled. And at the same time, the person of color who sits next to us in the pew might be struggling to navigate the obstacles, hurt, and pain that are the products of those same systems.
Until we dismantle policies, laws, and structures that intentionally or unintentionally result in inequitable access, race will still be a problem in America.
And I’m not talking about equality of outcome. No one is saying that every person in America should or will have the same salary, or that everyone wants and deserves a two-car garage and a home in the suburbs. Some want to farm, and some want to live in the city. We want to work at different things. But I am saying that our policies, laws, and structures must call for equity of access to the dream for everyone. We are all, after all, created in the image of God.
KW: How does following Jesus change how we love our neighbor?
LSH: If we say we are followers of Jesus, we must say that we are trying to love our neighbor. But that begs the question, which neighbor? Is it my neighbor next door or the one who lives on the other side of the tracks? Is it only my neighbor who is middle everything— middle-class, middle America, middle-aged—or is it my neighbor who is poor as well? And it has to be a both/and! We are all created in God’s image. So when we say we follow Jesus, and we say we are trying to love our neighbor, we have to look at how our hands and feet and votes are affecting our neighbors. Jesus talks about this in the parable of the good Samaritan. He talks about costly love, love without limits. Sometimes we’re content to hold the living water Jesus promised in our own personal cup. But that living water is supposed to be a geyser, gushing out into all of life, with the intent to love not only the people who are like us, but people who are unlike us, and even our enemies. I think we can measure the volume of our love by how far our love reaches from our own spheres of concern.
KW: What encourages you when you think about race in America?
LSH: I am genuinely encouraged by many of the young people I meet in our country. They are the most diverse generation in American history and, as a result, they’re having more interactions with people different than themselves. They have an openness and they care about poverty and immigration and the victims of sex trafficking and creation care. They care about all injustice, and that gives me hope. They know they are part of systems that are unjust, and they understand that those systems need to be confronted. They genuinely want to be among “the just ones,” even if it comes at a cost.