Christina Edmondson's "Faithful Anti-Racism": Your Debt Is Insurmountable, Now Pay Me

Dr. Christina Barland Edmondson explains what "institutional repentance" for racism looks like in an interview with Noel Snyder of the Calvin Institute Of Christian Worship. This interview is to promote Dr. Edmondson's upcoming Intervarsity Press book, "Faithful Anti-Racism: Moving Past Talk to Systemic Change," co-authored with Chad Brennan.

In short, she says, institutions that have been tainted by past discrimination have accrued a debt that can never be paid, i.e., even if they start cutting reparative checks (and they must, she insists), it will never be enough.

Relevant portion begins at 5:16, but the full answer to the interview question has been included for context.

—TRANSCRIPT HIGHLIGHT—

We have to reckon with the toll, the consequences, the expenses, the cost of the dehumanization. These are social, moral costs that we cannot pay within ourselves. But also the economic, reparative costs, and we need to think about how to repair that, recognizing that we don't have enough.

Most institutions, they don't have enough moral integrity. They don't have enough financial resources. Doesn't mean they shouldn't try to actually pay the debt and toll of racism on the lives of their neighbors. That doesn't mean they still shouldn't do the math work. That doesn't mean they still shouldn't sit down with that number and they need to reckon with it and weep over it. And that allows us to throw ourselves before God. We realize that we have sinned or been complicit in a sinful situation, country, nation, institution, and we don't have enough within ourselves to pay that debt. We look to Christ.

This is really at the heart of Christianity, I would say, that we come to the end of ourselves when we realize I don't have enough to make this right, even when I realize I ought to make it right. And so my repentance is a turning to God, making amends as best I can in tangible, practical ways, according to the satisfaction of my grumbling neighbors, to refer to the biblical passage. But also to reckon with the fact that it’s so big that we need God to lift it. We do need God to lift this debt. It is insurmountable. And with that said, I still believe we need to get a number on a piece of paper.

Source video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWyVEVbZ-Ro