To the Executive Presbytery of the Assemblies of God,
On the week of Pentecost in May 2020 fires raged across the United States, injustice reached a boiling point, and the voices of the oppressed began not only to cry out but also to mobilize. In the wake of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, the crushed of the nation lifted their collective head from the boots of the powerful to finally say “Enough!” Meanwhile, hundreds of Christians scrambled to sift through information in order to figure out what to say or, in many cases, what to do. On June 3rd, 2020, the Executive Presbytery of the Assemblies of God released a formal statement that included its past statement from 1989. In this statement, the leadership of the Assemblies of God expressed opposition to racism in all forms, including those found in social structures and churches. I write this open letter in response to this statement as well as the brutality in our nation as a third-generation member of the Assemblies of God, a former teacher at their flagship church Central Assembly (Springfield, MO), a guest lecturer and graduate of Evangel University, current M.A. student at Wheaton College Graduate School, and current candidate for ministerial licensing. My concern is that their response comes too late, that it fails to name specific national evils, contains discontinuity with the actions taken by the fellowship, lacks concrete action, and is ultimately theologically ambiguous. These are what I hope to address below.
God the Father is the Creator of all things visible and invisible: of both human life and the tangible environments we find ourselves in (Gen.1-2). The creation of God is declared good (Gen.1:31) with humanity being given the very image of the Triune God (Gen.1:26-27). This image is the call to correspond to God’s own Triune life - an invitation to participate in the divine. Thus, all of humanity exists as a witness to the divine in such a way that precludes the racialization of human bodies to the point of oppression. Indeed, what we find in creation is true diversity held within unity of relationship. Black and Brown bodies, historically viewed by the church of the West as antithetical to the ideal human body, are witnesses to God Himself. Any ideology, institution, government, or social structure that stands in opposition to Black and Brown bodies acts against the will of God and thus moves toward the nothingness of destroying God’s very image. However, the tangibility of God’s creation requires the concrete naming of injustice and action with the world around us. The command of God found within His providential care for creation and humanity necessitates that we move beyond the mere abstractions of saying that racism is “sin” or that it “breaks the heart of God.” What is required of us is particularization and action (Micah 6:8). The EP of the Assemblies of God resolve to repent of racism as it is found in social structures and in churches, as well as to be courageous to confront it. Yet, no concrete naming of injustice has occurred nor is concrete action that follows the tangibility of God’s creation seen. In the context of the United States, the doctrine of creation necessitates that we name the injustices of historical militarization of police forces, methods of brutality, violence, economic oppression through redlining and Jim Crow, mass incarceration, tokenization, and instrumentalization as injustices, which not only are designed to target Black and Brown bodies, but also are built into the framework of our nation. Without the specific naming, we are left with abstractions that allow room for efforts of destruction to creep in. To do anything less is to accept sanitizing the sedition of our dark traditions.
Action is also required. We see the action of God for the oppressed in the Exodus narrative in which God “comes down” to enter into the struggle of those crushed by economic, political, and militaristic structures (Ex.3:1-22; 6). Additionally, we find that it is the very character of God to act on behalf of the oppressed. Thus, revelation of God is intrinsically linked to both His view of the oppressed and His action in solidarity with them (Amos 5, Is.10). We find the ultimate expression of this revelation in the person of Jesus Christ, to whom all reality has been reconciled (Col.1:15-20). There are not two realities, that of the church and of the world. All reality is Christ’s through His Incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension. The particularity of Jesus Christ in occupied land under the rule of Roman militaristic forces, economic/political oppression, and racial tensions unveils to us (Matt. 27:51) that God enters into the struggle of the oppressed in an ultimate manner. Christ’s entrance into humanity is not as an ideal, or a deliberation, or a principle, but rather as a real human. He takes upon the messiness of creation post-fall in which sin blinds individuals to the real needs of their neighbors, communities, and societies. The Incarnation reconciles the long-held tension between the world and God, giving us the command to no longer bifurcate the two but to embrace (John 6:51) both as one reality. In the context of the oppression of Black lives in the United States, the Incarnation excludes the luxury of moral deliberation in a time when sides must be chosen. Indeed, what is not in question is the fact that within the Incarnation there is a chosen side (Lk. 4:16-30). The dynamics of how Christians interact on the side of the oppressed are complex for sure, but we are prevented by Jesus Himself from centrist moral equivocation between the anger of Black lives towards oppression and oppression itself. How long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look? How long will we watch our Black brothers and sisters be killed on the streets, economically and politically targeted while we parse apart their bodies to make ambiguous statements about their value? The EP’s statement refuses to concretely name and condemn the aforementioned injustices in such a way that leaves me with the impression that distance from the real struggle of Black lives in the U.S. is the most politically expedient option for our leadership (Is. 1). If the church can make generalized statements concerning racism in the U.S. while maintaining and enjoying the privileges of distance from the struggle, it has lost its salt; it has lost its preservation of the voice of the oppressed in the world (Matt. 5:13-20).
Additionally, we proclaim to be empowered by the Holy Spirit, who spoke through the prophets. The prophets had no time for parsing out their inaction, but rather entered the fray of the oppressed and addressed the specific evils of unjust laws, economic exploitation, political oppression, and bloodshed (Is.1;10; 58; Amos 5; Micah 6). That same Spirit, on the day of Pentecost, empowered the Apostles to not only speak truth to the powers of their age but also to enact economic and political justice within their own communities (Acts 2). Woe to us should we venerate the prophets of the past, including those of the Pentecostal movement who worked for racial justice, while we are reticent to name and correct the oppression and injustices within our own communities (Acts 7:51-53).
It is the Holy Spirit that binds together believers in communion. The Holy Spirit embraces the particularities of the struggles of those within the Church universal, acting to move us together and to act in solidarity. This is expressed at the Lord’s Table, where we partake in the supper and Christ is made present among us. Yet, without correcting concrete oppression we are left with hierarchies of influence and the deepening of unjust systems found within our nation and communities (1 Cor. 11:17-34). The EP’s statement denounces racism in the church and social structures, but the concrete naming of these evils is absent. When looking at the actions of Assemblies of God institutions, universities, and churches, I cannot help but see an incongruence. Churches that in the past have mobilized their congregations to push out legislation against anti-discriminatory laws now release statements against racism while morally equivocating between oppression and anger toward oppression. While prayer meetings become common to fight racism, stories of Black and Brown congregants experiencing systemic discrimination are silenced. When faced with the question of their response, moral platitudes are fed to the oppressed. While police brutality and militarization reign in the poor communities, the churches use their influence to tokenize two or three Black members for discussions. The urgency and immanence of the cause of Black lives in the United States is treated as the backdrop for a photo-op rather than a struggle that the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ requires of us. In our universities, the experiences of Black and Latinx students harassed during the most recent election are left largely unheard and unanswered. I will not presume to share their stories in detail and thus rob them of their own voices here. The repeated inability of the fellowship and of influential churches to address police brutality in their own backyard of Missouri six years ago, as well as the deficient responses to unjust racialization of immigration, points even further to the discontinuity of statements that indict racism as sin but refuse to engage with the bodied reality of Christ in the struggle of Black and Brown bodies in the United States. The silence towards the public taking of the Lord’s name in vain during the storming of a church using militaristic brutality is additionally troubling. Lastly, the national office of the Assemblies of God, which sits among poorer communities in Springfield, MO, acts as a peaceable site of silence toward police brutality and militarization on the streets and public schools. To maintain the status quo of Springfield’s treatment of Black lives while pandering racism as a sin is to walk around with the weight of pockets full of gunshells. Where is the concrete action to demilitarize the police in our communities, to fight against mass incarceration that targets minorities? It has to start somewhere, and it has to start sometime. What better place than here, what better time than now? If the gates of hell cannot prevail against the church, we have nothing to lose but donors and our comfort of deliberation.
I call upon the Executive Presbytery, as well as leaders and pastors of the Assemblies of God, to cease ambiguous moral deliberation and enter tangibly into the struggle of Black lives in the United States. Concretely, I implore you to name the evils of the communities around you and how they target Black and Brown bodies, which include but are not limited to injustices of historical militarization of police forces, methods of brutality, violence, economic oppression through redlining and Jim Crow, mass incarceration, tokenization, and instrumentalization. I implore you to not only name these evils but to work in your communities and as an institution against them wherever they manifest (including in our attempts at “racial reconciliation” and our treatment of congregants and students). I also encourage those who have similar concerns to push and to consider your place within a fellowship that objectifies and parses your bodies for the sake of political and bureaucratic expediency. I urge you to join your voice and body in the struggle against militarization, oppression, and injustice. The time is now to enter into the side of the oppressed. Peace is dynamism - it is not the static support of the status quo. It is not passivity or distance from the struggle. It is as a result of these concerns, the lack of courage to concretely name injustices and the lack of robust theological action that I hereby remove my name from candidacy for ministerial licensing in the Assemblies of God until further explicit action is done. I am not abandoning the movement I love, but I cannot in good conscience give my name, money, and energy to a fellowship that might in twenty years finally take the side of the oppressed in a tangible way. I will continue to pray that our fellowship enters the fray as Jesus Christ did, and I will continue to act on behalf of the oppressed in whatever ways I know how.
In Christ, Cody Dean Bivins
