Christianity | Racism

Have I Crossed the Line By Suggesting Jesus Might Have Been Racist?

How to read the Bible in ways that challenge rather than promote racism

Allow me to begin by saying the focus of this article has less to do with making claims about Jesus and more to do with examining how the Bible is interpreted and used.

As a biblical scholar and an ordained Christian minister, I’m concerned about what I consider to be appropriate and inappropriate uses of the Bible, especially uses that promote racism and maintain privilege for some people at the expense of other people.

Defining privilege

In my article, “The Perils and Promises of Privilege”, I define privilege as “a special advantage granted or available to a particular person or group of people that results in an inequitable disadvantage being experienced by others.”

The last part of this definition is crucial because people often wrongly identify measures designed to correct group inequities as measures that unfairly grant “privilege.”

Corrective measures do not award “privilege.” Corrective measures rarely result in “inequitable disadvantages” being experienced by an entire “group” of people. Corrective measures seek to eliminate inequitable group advantages and disadvantages.

Is there such a thing as “earned” privilege?

In 2019, the Association of Teaching Theologians hosted its annual convocation. The theme that year was “Unearned Privilege as Cheap Grace.” I presented a paper at the convocation titled, “Challenging Privilege through the Preaching and Teaching of Scripture.” Before beginning my presentation, I felt compelled to state that I had a problem with the convocation theme.

While I understand and appreciate Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s critique of “cheap grace,” I found the convocation title problematic because it seems to me equating “unearned” privilege with “cheap grace” implies that “earned” privilege represents a better type of “grace.” I find this problematic because my understanding of “grace” rejects any notion of an “earned” status.

A more appropriate title might have been “Privilege as a Form of Cheap Grace.” I realize, however, that in a society built upon false notions of meritocracy, such a title might have been problematic for some people attending the convocation.

Many people believe they have “earned” the privileges they possess. They believe they and their families have “worked hard” for what they have. This is one of the reasons people often desire to make a distinction between “earned” and “unearned” privilege.

While I do not wish to deny that many people have “worked hard” for what they have achieved (I believe I have worked hard), this does not change the fact that many people have also been afforded opportunities “to work hard” that other people born in different places and into different circumstances have not been afforded.

The opportunity to “work hard” can actually be a privilege. Furthermore, “hard work” does not yield the same results for everyone. Opportunities to parlay “hard work” into some sort of personal/social gain are not a “privilege” afforded to all people. For many people, “hard work” is what’s required for daily survival. These people are rarely afforded the privilege of “earning” personal/social gain from their “hard work.”

The belief that people “earn” the opportunities, advantages, and privileges they experience often leads to false distinctions between “earned” and “unearned” privileges. The truth of the matter is that “privilege” most often (if not always) is “unearned.”

Challenging Jesus’ racism

I presented my paper at the conference as part of a panel discussion. The title of our panel was “Proclaiming and Interpreting Privilege.” In preparation, panelists were instructed to reflect upon various ways we address issues of privilege and marginality through our preaching and teaching.

As a biblical scholar, I base my preaching on close readings and contextual interpretations of biblical texts. Such readings and interpretations often focus on exposing privilege through the proclamation of “good news to the oppressed” (Luke 4:16). This is how I understand Jesus’ ministry, and it is how I understand my vocation of “proclamation” and “interpretation.”

To illustrate how I expose privilege through my reading, interpretation, and preaching of biblical texts, I unpacked a passage of scripture from the New Testament Gospel of Matthew.

In chapter 15 of the Gospel of Matthew, the author gives an account of Jesus encountering and interacting with a Canaanite woman. The privilege associated with Jesus’ biological and ethnic identity is on clear display in the passage.

Matthew 15:21–28 reads,

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But Jesus did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” Jesus responded to the woman, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But the woman came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” Jesus answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” The woman replied, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

Unfortunately, because of the inability or refusal of many Christians to recognize and acknowledge the humanity of Jesus, they often fail to consider the possibility of Jesus operating from a space of biological and ethnic privilege. Because of this failure, Christians often interpret and proclaim this particular text in ways that preserve and promote advantage (i.e. privilege) for some people and disadvantage for other people.

The author’s identification of the woman in this story as a “Canaanite” emphasizes the significance of privilege in this text. The Bible has a long history of divinely sanctioned violence by Israelites against Canaanites.

In the ancient biblical story of Yahweh (the god of Israel) giving the “Promised Land” to the Israelites, Yahweh is depicted as giving instructions to the Israelites to enter into the homeland of other people, to take their land, and to utterly destroy and kill every living being in the land.

The people to be killed are identified as Hittites, Amorites, Perizites, Hivites, Jebusites, and Canaanites (Deuteronomy 20:10–18). The story reveals the way “foreign” others were thought of by Israelites. It also illustrates how people have used “God” throughout human history to legitimate hatred and violence against other people by claiming such violence to be God’s will.

Fast-forward approximately 1200 years to the time of Jesus. The author of Matthew invokes the memory of this violent historical past between Jews and Canaanites by identifying the woman in the story as a Canaanite. The author’s identification of the woman as “Canaanite” is significant because, in the version of the story found in Mark (which is considered to be older than Matthew), the woman is identified as “Syrophoenician.” The author appears to have deliberately changed the woman’s identity from Syrophoenician to Canaanite.

By the time of Jesus, people in this region were no longer called “Canaanites.” It would be like Americans today calling someone from New York a “New Amsterdamian.” While New York used to be New Amsterdam, it ceased being New Amsterdam hundreds of years ago. The people from there are now known as “New Yorkers,” not “New Amsterdamians.”

The author’s decision to identify the woman as a “Canaanite” not only emphasized her ethnic “otherness,” it also challenged the author’s audience to reflect upon their long history of ethnic hatred of “others.”

As in the story of Joshua and the Israelites entering into the Promised Land 1200 years earlier, Jesus and his male followers are now entering into another people’s land (i.e. the non-Jewish territory of Tyre and Sidon). Once in the region, Jesus and his male entourage are approached by a woman. Her character is doubly marginalized because she is a woman and a “Canaanite.”

After Jesus initially “ignores” the woman and the disciples urge him to “send her away” (even though she is an actual resident of the region and they are the ones who are visiting), Jesus tells the woman, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Jesus informs her that he was not sent to help her, her daughter, or her people. Here we see what it looks like for a group of people (not simply an individual) to experience an “inequitable disadvantage.”

After the woman continues to beg for his help, Jesus replies with a response that reveals his understanding of his ethnic privilege. He tells the woman, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

Now, I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t know how any reader — especially an African American and/or female reader — can read this story and not be troubled. As an African-American man who has and continues to experience the pain and humiliation of racism, this particular passage has always been problematic for me. I am uncomfortable, therefore, with anyone trying to defend and/or make theological excuses for Jesus’ behavior.

While I find Jesus’ comparison of this woman, her daughter, and their people to dogs extremely disturbing, I believe part of the message of this text is actually found amidst this disturbance.

It is believed by most biblical scholars that Matthew was written for a predominantly Jewish audience during a time when Gentiles (i.e. non-Jews) were beginning to join the community of “Jesus-followers.” This is why throughout Matthew the author alludes to the inclusion and faithfulness of Gentiles.[1]

A story about the faithfulness of a “Canaanite” woman would have not only highlighted the non-Jewish identity of these new members of the Jesus-following community, but it would have also caused the original audience of Matthew to reflect upon its deep-seated hatred of and prejudices toward ethnic (and religious) others. I argue that Matthew’s text intentionally stresses the then-current realities of ethnic and biological privilege in order to challenge such privilege.

While the author was not writing from my twenty-first century “liberal” perspective, the author does reveal how common it is for people with privilege to use their privilege to preserve longstanding advantages for themselves and their group while promoting and maintaining longstanding disadvantages for other people and groups.

If Jesus can change so can we

Matthew’s version of the story reveals an attitude of ethnic and patriarchal privilege that this version of the story seeks to problematize and challenge. The story reveals how easily people can be influenced by the prevailing racist, sexist, and ethnocentric views of their time and their culture. Even Jesus is influenced by such views.

Jesus initially uses his privilege to preserve an advantage for himself and his people while promoting and maintaining a disadvantage for this woman and her people. When challenged by the woman, however, Jesus realizes the arrogance of his position and grants the woman’s request, declaring, “Woman, great is your faith!”

I realize this is a difficult interpretation for many Christians because it calls into question the image of Jesus held by most Christians and challenges the very notion and practice of Christian “privilege.” Christian privilege is the privileging of Christianity above every other religious tradition, thereby creating “a special advantage” for Christians, resulting in an “inequitable disadvantage” for people of other religious traditions.

In Matthew’s version of this story, a Canaanite woman — a marginalized ethnic other — challenged the ethnic privileging of the author’s time. She advocated for herself, her daughter, and her people, even though it meant confronting and challenging more than a thousand years of prejudice. While much more needs to be said about other troubling aspects of this story, those aspects will have to be addressed in a future article.

I conclude simply by asserting that while Jesus still has a LONG way to go in this text, the challenge posed to Jesus by this “Canaanite” woman forces him to at least reflect upon his own cultural privilege and consider how he uses that privilege.

Preachers, ministers, teachers, and Christians in general need to reflect upon their cultural privilege and how they use that privilege, especially when interpreting and proclaiming biblical texts. In particular, they need to consider whether they interpret and proclaim texts in ways that preserve advantage by promoting and maintaining disadvantage or challenge advantage by seeking to reduce and eliminate disadvantage.

[1] See Matthew 4:12–17; 8:5–12; 12:15–21. Matthew also includes Gentile women in the genealogy of Jesus (Matt 1:3, 5, 6). It is also Gentiles who travel from the east following a star to find the one born “King of the Jews” (Matt 2:1–2)

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