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Study guide · Race, Faith & Identity

What Is It Like to Be Black at a Predominantly White Seminary

Reviewed by Jude 3 Project·5 min read

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The blog makes the argument. This study does a different job. It is not here to win a debate about seminaries. It is here to turn the question on you: where do you hold power, where are you held at the margin, and what is your heart doing in both places? Work it alone with a journal, or out loud in a group. Go slow. Self-examination is not a quiz you pass. It is a mirror you sit in front of long enough to see clearly.

Part 1: Name where you stand

Before you judge an institution, locate yourself in one. Every one of us is, in some room, the majority who sets the temperature, and in some other room, the minority who reads it.

The panel said the real issue is not representation but power. Power is just the ability to decide: what gets taught, who gets hired, whose questions count. So start there, honestly.

  • Write the names of two rooms you are in regularly. In one, you hold power. In the other, someone else does. Be specific.
  • In the room where you hold power, who is waiting for their week on the syllabus? Who shows up only to be critiqued?
  • In the room where you do not, what does it cost you to stay? Name the mask, if there is one.

Part 2: Sit with the witness of Scripture

Do not rush these. Read each one slowly, then answer the question under it before moving on.

Read 1 Corinthians 12:21-26. Paul says the eye cannot tell the hand, I have no need of you, and that the parts we think are weaker are indispensable. Question: where have you, or your church, told a part of the body it was not needed? What did that cost the whole body, not just that part?

Read James 2:1-4. The favoritism James names is not a social slip. He calls it sin. Question: think of the last gathering you led or shaped. Who got the good seat without you thinking about it, and who got overlooked?

Read Galatians 2:11-14. Paul confronts Peter, an apostle, for quietly pulling back from Gentile believers when the powerful crowd showed up. Question: where do you go quiet on people you welcomed in private once the room changes?

Read Revelation 7:9-10. Every nation, tribe, people, and language stands before the throne. Question: if that is the destination, what is a church saying when it works hard to keep one culture at the center now?

Part 3: A heart check on power and belonging

This is the hard part, so be honest. Latasha Morrison told believers worn out in white spaces, you are not alone, and you are not crazy. She also gave a test for when a space has stopped being worth your presence: if you are having the same conversations in three years, it is not your space. And she named the limit of one person's effort: you can only help or transform people who want to be helped and transformed.

  • If you are the one at the margin: is there a room in your life that has not moved in years? What would it mean to stop carrying it alone?
  • If you are the one with power: when someone asked you to share it, not just add a face, how did you actually respond? What was the first thing in you that resisted?

BJ Thompson said to study history for yourself and not put the onus of knowing all of these things on one individual. That cuts two ways. If you are at the margin, build your own footing so no institution gets to define you. If you hold power, stop making one person your translator for an entire people.

  • Which side of that sentence is harder for you to hear right now? Sit with why.

Part 4: A practice for this week

Pick one and actually do it. Formation happens in the doing, not the reading.

  • Read one theologian or author from a tradition or background different from your own. Steven Harris talked about taking solid theology and dipping it in chocolate, carrying it home to your own people. As you read, ask: who has been left off my shelf, and why? Write down one thing you would have missed.
  • Have one honest conversation in a room where you hold power. Ask one person who is usually at the margin what they actually experience there. Then do the hardest thing: listen without defending. Write down what you heard, not what you wish you had heard.

Part 5: If you are leading this group

A few notes so this lands as formation, not a debate.

  • Expect different temperatures in the room. Some will speak from years at the margin. Some will be hearing it for the first time. Both are welcome. Neither gets to dismiss the other.
  • Do not let the group turn one member into the spokesperson for a whole people. Thompson's warning applies right here in your circle.
  • If someone gets defensive, do not rush to smooth it over. Let the discomfort do its work. Galatians 2 shows even an apostle needed a hard conversation.
  • Close on the body, not on blame. The goal is a church that is whole, not a scoreboard.

A charge to close

You are part of a body that needs every member, including the ones the room keeps forgetting. If you sit at the margin, know who you are well enough that no institution can hand you back a smaller version of yourself. If you hold the power, open your hands, because a church that learns from only its own reflection stays poorer than God made it to be. Whose house are you in? In Christ, the answer is the same for all of us. It is the Father's, and there is room at the table for the whole family.

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