This may be a shock to some of my readers but I firmly believe that Gracepoint is white supremacist. How can an organization that was started by a Korean America couple (Becky and Paul Kim) and is led by a Korean American couple (Ed and Kelly Kang) and has mostly Asian Americans as their congregants be white supremacists? The answer is complex.
Christianity in Korea was introduced in the context of European colonialism and imperialism. One cannot separate Christianity in Korea from that context. Korean immigrants brought this colonized version of Christianity to America when we immigrated here and got plugged back into American/Western Christianity that gave birth to Korean Christianity. I could say a lot more about this but I am not a historian so I'll let you use google.
Gracepoint is a part of the Southern Baptist Convention. The SBC is rooted in white supremacy as an organization. Again, I am not a historian but I encourage you to learn more about the SBC and it's origins. Many Christians supported the continued enslavement of African Americans and SBC is a major part of that shameful legacy.
During my many years at Gracepoint, I read countless books and listened to countless messages by other Christian leaders that the church promoted. Who were these other Christian leaders? White men. Cis het white men. (Except for Ravi Zacharias who turned out to be a sexual predator.) Bill Hybels, Chuck Colson, John Ortberg, CS Lewis, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Tim Keller, John Piper, Philip Yancey, J.P. Mooreland, etc. etc. etc.
How many Black Christians were promoted at Gracepoint? ZERO. Not one can I recall in my memory.
How many Indigenous Christians were promoted? Zero.
How many Hispanic or Latinx Christians were promoted? Zero.
I think you get the point.
This is probably going to be a very unpopular post.
I came to this realization not that long ago but it's helped me uncover yet another layer in the multitude of ways that Gracepoint was harmful to me. My intention for this post is that it helps you think more critically about why Gracepoint promotes mostly white men. And if you did not even notice this fact until you read this post, I invite you to lean into that awareness.
As someone who personally identifies as Black, I actually think you make a good point. I attended one of the smaller branches on the East Coast for multiple years in college and experienced blatant and subtle racism by several people in the organization. Others who look like myself also left for similar reasons and the BLM advocacy felt rather performative last year.
ReplyDeleteabsolutely performative
DeleteThanks for your post, John. I never thought of Gracepoint in this way, but you give great arguments. Just to push back a tad, Glory and Remember the Titans were two of the films that were promoted back in my day. Thanks for your post though, John; it is quite illuminating, especially the point of all the speakers that were promoted.
ReplyDeleteCome on Sean. Yeah they were promoted as "good movies" that happened to have Black people in them but they were not promoted as a way of being anti-racist. And I don't think anyone would include those movies in an anti-racist curriculum in this day and age.
DeleteTrue true
DeleteJohn I respect what you've done for the online community and for former Gracepoint members and their families but I think you are way off on this one. Maybe to clear things up what is your definition of White Supremacist? Words specifically have lost a lot of their meaning and especially hot topic words such as this one and things like critical race theory have really blurred definitions so I would like a more clear answer. As I understand it white supremacy is the belief that white (usually Western European) race and culture is inherently superior to other cultures. With that comes the natural bigotry and often nationalism and xenophobia against minorities that seem to threaten that established order.
ReplyDeleteThere is no doubt a lack of leadership from nonasian members in Gracepoint but how much of that is circumstantial instead of intentional? It was not long ago that Gracepoint was named ABSK. With it came Asian in its title and while not directly exclusionary it is implicitly off putting to other groups and cultures. So for a long period of its history gracepoint main target demographic was Korean then Asian Americans and eventually it branched out more. To me it doesn't seem too crazy to think that because many of its members were Asian with few minorities under its name its leadership and member roaster would remain reflective of that on a senior level.
What I have seen however in the last few years however is that more members are coming from different ethnic backgrounds. While retention remains low, I have been seeing more staff and more senior staff on a church plant level be of a nonasian descent. And if I may I would like to offer another reason why there seems to be so few nonasians within Gracepoint circles. The culture is inherently Asian. The food they eat is Asian (KBBQ and Boba are regular past times of members), their emphasis on studying is very Asian, their activities and sports nights are Asian. Their Greetings are very Asian. You can catch my drift. As a result it tends to be that the people who are attracted are of that similar culture or interest and those who are not part of it can be put off by that fact. Just like how there are many ethnic churches who mainly cater or attract that ethnicity Gracepoint does something similar.
@Anonymous - number of asian international students is literally their #1 factor when deciding where to plant a new church. The inclusion of asian kids and exclusion of other minorities is very intentional.
DeleteIt's not "oh! We have the same culture, hehe!" It's a very deliberate choice.
Weird I just heard an npr interview that talks about this a little. The baptist church has a history with racism that it needs to confront, according to the author. Some of the politics and other stuff he touches on seem relevant to what John is describing too.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.npr.org/2020/07/30/896712611/american-christianity-must-reckon-with-legacy-of-white-supremacy-author-says
I think what you're referring to is actually a symptom of a larger issue. American evangelicalism. And that, unfortunately, is more than just the SBC.
ReplyDeleteGracepoint is the only church I've been to that has had a flag in the church. Gracepoint is the only church I've been to that has played a pro-American song during a sermon. Gracepoint is the only church I've been to that puts America before God.
But that's because I don't go to American evangelical churches. Those are exceedingly common in the USA.
I agree with Unknown 3/22/21 7:39AM. It definitely is more symptomatic of a larger issue. We have placed folks like John MacArthur, John Piper, JD Greear, Tim Keller, etc. on a pedestal as folks who have greater insight and can speak to the culture -- I don't see any BIPOC pastors. Another concept I have been thinking a lot about these days, especially with the recent shooting in Atlanta, is "white adjacent." How much have I been complacent? How many of the (very few) BIPOC pastors that we see or are held up as examples are actually "White adjacent"? Anyway, the concept of White supremacy is well and alive even in non Christian cultures - from skincare (whitening creams and ideals of beauty), immigration (America is the land of opportunity/free)... it goes on and on.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a well-written post, and that the idea that GP may be white supremacist should be discussed.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do have a question. Why is it that GP chooses to promote white voices? Is it that they are in fact white supremacist? Or are there few BIPOC Christian leaders that agree with GP's ideals? I believe both of these may be valid factors.
Another aspect of white supremacy is that people of ethnic backgrounds are constantly seen through the lens of their ethnicity for things that white people wouldn't be. At Gracepoint, it's pretty prevalent and reinforced even by people in high leadership roles. Just about everything you do can be labeled "Korean" or "Chinese", which makeup the majority of Asians at GP. For example, "this person wearing makeup make them look very Korean", "this person's so Chinese for liking deals", etc.
ReplyDeleteI was at UCI's A2F plant for a while and I left because of the insane level of control the church wanted from its members so I know the horrors of GP as a church, but you are way off with this one. I'm sorry, I can't take anyone who says "latinx" seriously. Please realize that equity is not equality, and the best person for the job might not be your preferred race.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous October 29, 2021, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you haven't actually studied this. But I suggest you do study this. I'm a manager at a major tech company, and I can tell you with certainty, you need to understand why diversity is important if you want to succeed.
ReplyDeleteLet's say we're only interested in output, and not in equality, equity, or fairness. Our only goal is to maximize an organization's effectiveness.
Did you know virtually every study of people management has concluded that increasing diversity leads to more effective teams? Diverse organizations are smarter, more efficient, more effective, and more creative. This is overwhelmingly supported in academic literature, but it's also supported from industry studies. McKinsey has determined that companies in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35% more likely to beat the industry average, and those in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to beat the industry average.
Credit Suisse concluded that organizations with at least one female board member had higher returns on equity than those that had none.
Diverse organizations create better problem solving representations, improves motivations to change and learn, and introduces new ideas to a team. This isn't opinion, this has been studied in depth again and again.
One of the most interesting studies, in my opinion, was out of Stanford about ten years ago. Socially similar groups and socially dissimilar groups were asked to perform a task and rate themselves on their perceived effectiveness. Socially similar groups performed worse than socially dissimilar groups (by objective measurements), but perceived themselves to have been MORE effective. So the issue wasn't just that they did a worse job, but the issue is also that they thought they did a good job, which prevents them from growing and improving in the future.
Even the presence of diversity has been proven to improve organizational performance by increasing capacity to deal with conflict and forcing people to seek out more varied information. Again, this isn't an opinion. This has been studied in depth.
Your post is actually an example of this. Since you are in a "similar group" that hasn't been exposed to these ideas. This is why your recommendation to not care about diversity leads to objectively lower performing teams, and your confidence is an example of high perceived effectiveness.
Again, completely setting the political stuff aside, the data from both industry and academia is overwhelming: teams are better when they're diverse from strictly objective performance measurements.
For context, I’m latinx and I attended GP Austin at UT. This was something I picked up on during my years (~8) at GP. I left years ago and never looked back.
ReplyDeleteIf you’re familiar at all with the structure of GP, you’ll know that there are tiers of ministry involvement there:
1. College ministry
2. International graduate student ministry
3. International college student ministry
4. Area wide youth ministry (This is something I’ve recently heard about, so this might actually rank higher.)
5. Praxis
a. Joyland
b. Elderly care ministry
c. Interhigh (a youth ministry)
It’s been a while since I left so some things might have changed, but probably not too much.
The reason for listing this out was because Praxis is the place you go when you are a post grad and unfit to be part of their ministries listed above. You are considered a non-team member, but are still expected to give every ounce of your life to serve in whatever way they “ask.”
What I found was that Praxis in Austin was predominantly made up of minorities (latinx, black, african). I will throw them a bone and say that there were some asian people there that either really didn’t want to do college ministry or just didn’t fit their picture perfect mold of what a team member should be. It was consistently the minorities that had what they would deem as significant “sin issues” and needed copious amounts of reflection, repentance, and soul care. I received this kind of treatment personally where I was told I wasn’t spiritual enough and too worldly. This endless cycle of not being good enough is first of all, poor representation of Christ, and second of all, a means to keep you off team. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t only minorities (non-asian) receiving this treatment, but I just saw it happen more often than not with black, african, and latinx. White people consistently tended to be good enough for team unless they had mental health issues.
Another thing worth mentioning to support this white suprematist view is an experience I had will serving in Interhigh. There’s an annual retreat in the summer where they invite all the kids from all the different Interhigh churches, except they made some sorry excuse for why a black girl couldn’t go. They said she wouldn’t fit in. Did they elaborate on why they thought this? No. The only obvious thing is that all the other kids there were asian and white. I pushed back on this saying that it felt racist and I was promptly rebuked. “How could [I] think such a thing!?”
I honestly could write a book detailing out every issue I observed and experienced, but this will do for now.
Thank you for your comment. I am not surprised that this was your experience. GP is intentionally uninclusive.
DeleteOof @ John Ortberg
ReplyDelete