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Faculty |
By Sheila Poole
The Christian church has a troubling legacy of exploitation and treatment of indigenous people and enslaved Africans that dates back to the early history of the United States.
In his latest book, “Reckoning with History: Settler Colonialism, Slavery and the Making of American Christianity” published by Westminster John Knox Press, Columbia Theological Seminary Professor Dr. Williams Yoo offers a deeper understanding of how that legacy is still being felt today in an unequal society and how churches are still trying to figure out ways to solve injustices.
“Christians have not sufficiently grappled with or understood the debates and questions around race,” said Yoo, associate professor of American Religious and Cultural History.
He offers a blueprint for Christians “to better understand our past and work together to practice ministries that enact racial justice and make a real difference for positive change in our communities.”
He draws from sermons, speeches and other writings from indigenous rights activists and abolitionists such as Jeremiah Evarts, William Apess, Maria W. Stewart and William Lloyd Garrison.
Stewart, a Black abolitionist, said in 1833: “These things have fired my soul with a holy indignation, and compelled me thus to come forward, and endeavor to turn their attention to knowledge and improvement; for knowledge is power.” The larger context is that Stewart was speaking about the problem of racial discrimination, and she maintained that her conviction was to proclaim the message of God’s love and mobilize people of all races and genders to get serious about living out that love in their churches and communities.
Yoo makes it clear though, that, not all congregations supported calls for reform.
“Some Christians read their Bibles, prayed to God, worshiped and looked at what was going on and said to displace and violently remove indigenous peoples from the land is wrong and antithetical to the Christian gospel and it is also wrong to enslave Black people.”
Yet, other Christians read their Bibles, worshipped and prayed, and determined it was right and divinely ordained.
This is Yoo’s third book on the history of race and theology in the United States.
He is also the author of “American Missionaries, Korean Protestants, and the Changing Shape of World Christianity, 1884—1965” and “What Kind of Christianity: A History of Slavery and Anti-Black Racism in the Presbyterian Church.”
Yoo finds that too many of the conversations around racism today unravel into two “unhelpful extremes” in which history is used as a weapon to either induce shame or conceal sin.
The book is not specifically geared toward one denomination, said Yoo, who is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA.). Rather the book’s aim is to be an informational and inspirational resource for congregations, faith leaders and educators.
“I hope readers will come away with a deeply honest and deeply hopeful view of our past, present and future,” said Yoo.
“Yoo’s ‘Reckoning with History,’ is a transformative exploration of the intertwined histories of faith, power, and oppression. With meticulous research and unflinching honesty, Yoo confronts the often-overlooked legacies of settler colonialism and slavery that have shaped American Christianity,” writes the Rev. Damon P. Williams ’12 (MDiv) , senior pastor of Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta and Columbia graduate who serves on its board of trustees.
Williams calls it a “a transformative exploration of the intertwined histories of faith, power, and oppression. With meticulous research and unflinching honesty, Yoo confronts the often-overlooked legacies of settler colonialism and slavery that have shaped American Christianity. What sets Yoo’s scholarship apart is his ability to weave historical analysis with a call to action. He invites majority faith communities to grapple with the moral and ethical implications of their history, urging a collective commitment to repair, repentance, and reconciliation.”
The book explains how cultural, economic and political motivations have shaped American Christianity and challenges the rising tide of white Christian nationalism, which some trace back to the 1600s.
Christian nationalism is the belief that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and should be declared a Christian nation with its laws based on Christian values. White Christian nationalists believe that challenges to their values comes in part from immigrants, non-whites and non-Christians.
They have largely supported the elections of Donald Trump twice to the presidency of this nation.
“My point is that the indigenous, Black and concerned white Christians promoted a Christianity that balanced the virtues of patriotism and cautions against racism and ethnocentrism.”
Yoo’s current research includes working on a religious history of reconstruction and the civil rights movement.
