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World Vision Teacher Suggests Churches are White Supremacist by Default, Must ‘Name’ and ‘Balance’ Power Dynamics

Continuing the trend in the wikification of World Vision, Dr. Soong-Chan Rah interviews Dr. Korie Little Edwards, who joins Dr. Soong-Chan Rah for their “May We Be One” course.

Dr. Korie Little Edwards is perhaps the most radical progressive and given over to a racialized mindset as they come. While she teaches some relatively benign (for this crowd) bad advice about race and power, she is listed as a recommended resource, and her other works include some incredibly divisive and destructive teachings. One example is on her Elusive Dream podcast where it is asserted that if you’re on this side of the grave, no matter who you are, “you most assuredly have something to repent of as it relates to white supremacy in this society, and if you think you don’t, well, hmm hmm hmm.”

In this case, she explains how because “there are power dynamics outside the church, and those come into the church” the church can’t help but be a racial minefield where persons of color will in some way be subjugated.

Pastors of color have to really deal with people considering them being legitimate authorities. And that white pastors, that is not something they have to really navigate, they are perceived and understood as being legitimate authorities, people that they should be listened to, and followed. It’s not to say that white pastors don’t have a problem to they do [sic]. I mean, they still have to navigate white hegemony or white supremacy, they still have to navigate that in the church. But one thing they do have, is they’re perceived as legitimate authorities.

Unlike white pastors, black pastors have to deal with the emotional impacts of not being viewed as a legitimate authority, and this sort of reality “also extends to congregants. Even congregants of colour deal with similar kinds of pain, where what it means to be and how to express yourself in the worship context, is not considered Christian.”

So one of the key things that happens in multiracial churches is that white supremacy and what I broadly and more generally call ‘white hegemony’ begins to really dominate the space. And that is so powerful. It’s so powerful. And if pastors and leaders are aware of that, it will continue to manifest and really hinder the ministry of the church…what happens often in multiracial churches is you want to ignore the power dynamics that happen outside the church and pretend that it doesn’t matter for with what’s going on in the church. And then what happens is we (believe), everybody’s on equal, everybody’s on equal stand. And that’s just that’s just not true. Everybody’s not. Everybody’s not on equal standing in multiracial churches, white people have greater power outside the church, and they have it in the church.

In order to combat the white supremacy that infiltrates and permeates churches, especially ones that are considered multiracial, Edwards gives her solution:

And I would suggest that one of the key things that multiracial churches have to do is name that immediately and deal with it. Don’t pretend it’s not there, because it’s hurtful to people of color. I’ll tell you that’s number one. Because whenever you don’t name it, whenever you don’t speak the truth about a social fact, it will continue to have power in that space. So the first thing is to name it and to acknowledge it and to talk about how are we going to bring balance to the power imbalance. What are we going to do?



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Church Critical Race Theory Featured Heresies News Social Justice Wars

The Wokefication of World Vision: Whites View Black People as Either ‘Pets’ or ‘Threats’

Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, Professor, North Park Theological Seminary, is leading the way in demonstrating the extent that Critical Race Theory is spreading throughout World Vision. Parks is the moderator and one of the leaders of the May We Be One: Pastors pursuing Racial Justice course, whose stated goals are to have church leaders “be prepared to lead conversations about racism in America,” and to “engage with one another to dismantle racism and change the landscape of the church.”

From remarks he made at a Black & Asian Christians United Against Racism conference on April 5th 2021 at the Apostolic Faith Church, and also reiterated in Session 9 of the course, Soong-Chan Rah explains that by default and intrinsically, white people view black people and Asians as either “pets” or “threats” and view Asian women as invisible or sexual jezebels.

For African-American communities, I’ve often described how the spiritual demonic power of white supremacy, the gaze of the dominant culture defines the black community, so that the rest of us have to play along.

So that when the white male looks at the black male, the black male is either a pet or a threat. The black male is a pet because the white community wants you to entertain them, wants you to be their comedians that make them laugh, the musicians that make them dance, and the sports athletes that make them jump up and clap.

But they also see you, if you’re not the pet, you become the threat. You are the unidentified black male that commits every crime in our city. You are the individual that is seen as the unsafe person in our society. And even worse, if you are the pet that becomes the threat.

Hypothetically, it could be an athlete who takes a knee. That pet has become a threat. Hypothetically, it could be pastors who decide we’re not going to play the game anymore – we’re going to stand against injustice. You’ve gone from a pet to a threat.

And it is the same scenario that Asian-Americans often find ourselves in. The gaze of the white dominant culture looks at the Asian male and says: you are a pet or a threat.

…They are the Chinese virus. They are the Kung flu. And how easily and quickly it became for that pet to become a threat. And we’ve seen this on the gendered side, as well. Bell Hooks says that when the white male gazes upon the black female, he categorizes the black female in two ways: the Jezebel or the Mammy.

The Jezebel, that is, the sexualized fantasy of the dominant culture, and the mammy that takes care of you and gives you what you need. You see that same paradigm now play itself out in the Asian community, as well.

…because you are seeing the Asian women as disposable and invisible. The ones that pick up the towels after you. The ones that feed you. The ones that take care of you. That’s what you’ve seen, the Asian women. You have sexualized or you have made invisible the Asian-American woman. This is the reality of white supremacy.

This is what world vision is teaching thousands of pastors and tens of thousands of people each week. It is not an unknown program.

To give one example, Willow Creek, the multi-campus 20,000 member church founded by Bill Hybels, announced months ago that they were participating in World Vision’s May We Be One year-long conference “in an effort to help equip all our staff to better engage justice and racism from a biblical perspective.”

Sadly, we have only scratched the surface of how deep this all goes.

h/t to @wokepreachertv for the find.

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Church Critical Race Theory Evangelical Stuff Featured

The Wokefication of World Vision: Jesus and Paul were ‘Code-Switching’ to fit into 1st Century ‘White Spaces’

Continuing our series in the ways that World Vision has gone woke, we bring you Session Nine of their May We Be One curriculum. Moderated by Dr. Soong-Chan Rah and Rev. Sandra Maria Van Opstal on May 20, 2021, it featured Dr. Michelle Ami Reyes speaking on the Asian American Pacific Islander Experience and why Jesus was “code-switching.”

In this session, Van Opstal introduces her guest by explaining that she can teach us all the ways “in which we have participated and or not known how our country has participated in the pain of the Asian American community and in being complicit…with the things that have happened to them.”

This is after Dr. Soong-Chan Rah explained that white folk use their “white gaze” to view Asian people as either “threats” or “pets” and gave us the helpful diagram below:

She then introduces us to guest Dr. Michelle Reyes. She’s a speaker, author, activist, and the Vice President of the Asian American Christian Collaborative who has written for TGC and the ERLC. She’s all in on Critical Race Theory, writing in a blog post on her website:

White privilege relies on racialization, a system of values that says one group of people is superior to all others because of the color of their skin. This system has been weaponized to justify the cruel treatment of and discrimination toward non-white people throughout American history

….White privilege is both a cause and legacy of racism. It is a conscious act rooted in historic inequities, and it continues to reinforce systemic racism today. When it comes to racial trauma, displacement, the cruel treatment and discrimination of people of color, or the country’s history of slavery, we have to acknowledge the role of white privilege.

….But if we aren’t willing to sit with the weight of guilt when it comes to the sins of racism, we will never understand that we are the problem. Unless we acknowledge the existence of white privilege, we can’t understand our own complicity in it.

Each of us needs to do the hard work of examining our own biases and actions. We cannot separate the past from our present. They are interconnected. Repenting for the sins of historic slavery and its current iterations in our society is a necessary step in beginning to work toward a more equitable and just future, both inside and outside the church. 

It is on this note that she tells thousands of pastors and tens of thousands of laymen listening in all about “code-switching,” explaining that Jesus and Paul did their own version of this in the first century.

All of us code-switch in different ways at different times. Sometimes it’s just about putting our best foot forward, like that the first time we go on a date with somebody, or we have a job interview or something like that. We’re trying to present ourselves in the best possible light. So the other person will like us, want to hang out with us, hire us, fill in the blank.

When it comes to minorities, when we talk about code-switching, this is that thought that pops into our brain, like ‘you’ve got this, just act white.’ It’s this way of saying, ‘I’m going to hide my own ethnicity, or my ethnic heritage, my cultural expressions. I’m gonna hide the way that I perhaps act at home so I can fit in within this majority of whitespace.’

And usually it’s not just about fitting in, it’s about trying to survive. It’s trying to not be made fun of, to not be shamed, to not be bullied verbally or physically. So there’s a lot of fear, and trauma that goes into code-switching, as well.

And so, as a caveat, and what I argue in that chapter of my book is that it’s important for historically disempowered minorities to understand that the Bible is not calling us to hide who we are, to be ashamed of who we are, to code-switch merely as a means for survival, and to sort of give in to the status quo.

She concludes by explaining that Jesus would code-switch in order to ensure that he doesn’t come across as “offensive” or so that people will be able to fully hear and receive his message.

But rather, I think we see in the life of Jesus, we see in the life of Paul, that they are able to code-switch. And by that, as I mentioned, they know that they are studiers of people.

They understand how people think, how people tick, theological difference, world differences, a worldview, even just sort of social norms, what’s appropriate, what’s inappropriate. When they step into a room or they step into a new town, they have those ideas at their forefront and say, ‘Okay, if I’m going to connect with this person, I need to shift in this way, or I need to adapt myself in this way so I don’t come across as offensive or that my message will be heard.‘

The original video can be seen here.