When They Becomes We...

Christena Cleveland ends her book with more hope than I was anticipating. When discussing issues like discrimination and segregation, it is easy to find only the pessimistic outlook and stick with it to the end: “people are born like this, bred like this, live like this, and die like this”. It is easy to look for the perspective that offers no hope of change and simply sits on the sideline and condemns.

However, Cleveland refuses to do this. She takes Disunity in Christ and steadily treads down the long-suffering road of hope. Her perseverance through this journey leads to some resounding and markedly hopeful statements and sentiments about what God has equipped us – as Christians and as human beings – to do.

Throughout the chapter, she repeats a phrase that stuck with me: “when they becomes we, ___”. The word ‘we’ is not homogenous. It is not “colorblind”, as she cautions against near the end of this chapter. ‘We’ simply implies something stronger than the conflicts we attempt to create between “us” and “them”. We creates a barrier to pride and self-serving biases because there is no one left to lord-over and demand homage from. We forms a strong, unified front against discrimination and segregation and bias and all of the tools of sin and temptation.

We is stronger than us.

She uses that phrase in five ways: “When they become we, we naturally like them a whole lot more… when they become we, we’re more open to receiving helpful criticism from them… when they become we, we forgive them more easily and are less likely to expect them to experience collective guilt… when they become we, our diversity initiatives will finally begin to work… when they become we, we treat each other better.”

Each of these phrases brought a little stirring of hope in my chest as I read them.

Yes, I thought, we CAN do better.

These five expressions of unity demand action. While they may simply appear to promise a bright future, there is also an implicit demand for sharp, immediate action. These things cannot come to pass if we sit idly. If there is no end to our use of “they”, there can be no beginning to our use of “we”.

That change does not have to start at a macro level. In fact, I don’t think it should. Rather, I think these changes have to begin at the micro level. It begins at the individual, the family, the small group, the youth group, the church. Change begins at the root and spreads up the branches. It begins at the cell and spreads throughout the body.

God created humanity with a remarkable skill: the ability to change. That is amazing and marvelous. Of course, we cannot change on our own. We must first reach out to Him, so that He can empower us to reach out to others.