In the first part of this four-part series on reparations, we explored some of the biblical foundations for why reparations might be an important part of bringing hope and healing to the racial issues of our time in America.  In the second part we raised the questions of rightness as well as exactly who should receive reparations for the injustices of the past and why.  Here in part three, we will consider whether or not reparations are a practical possibility.

Are reparations a practical possibility?

Inevitably, the pursuit of something of this magnitude requires a massive level of wisdom and accountability, not to mention extensive financial, legal, and human resources.  How much will go to those who don’t actually need or deserve it?  How (in)efficient will the distribution of opportunities and assets be?  Who will decide who gets what, and who will hold the distributors accountable to be fair and just in their dissemination of those benefits?

Without careful consideration, it will undoubtedly create another bloated and inefficient governmental department sucking away enormous amounts of tax dollars from other praiseworthy programs and genuine human needs.  Not only that, would there be any clear starting and ending point for making reparations?  Beginning to offer them opens the door for endless special interest groups to line up and make the case that they too should be beneficiaries.  And at what point will the government have the courage to say, “We have done enough.  There will be no more reparations given to anyone from this point forward.  It’s time to disband this department and use our resources for other things.”  History shows that the chance to create a class and voting block of long-term political dependents is very hard for any government to resist.

Because of this powerful tendency, I believe that the only practical and possible way to enact reparations must involve much more than creating another bureaucratic governmental program.  In fact, Christians and the Church are often situated in the closest proximity to the people who are in the greatest need.  This means that very often they (and not the government) are best positioned to assess the problems and offer genuinely viable solutions for them.

Putting a large part of the solution into the hands of local churches, however, means first and foremost that such programs need to be largely voluntary.  But making it voluntary means that some (perhaps even many) churches and Christians will not participate and instead ignore the golden opportunity to show Christ’s love to those who need it most.  Christians who oppose the government being involved in reparations should simultaneously be looking for ways to step into that gap and provide opportunities for those in need to experience hope and healing.  They should also seek avenues to change and restructure unjust social systems at the local, state, national, and even international level.

Sadly, I suspect that for some Christians, expecting the government to spearhead a program of reparations is really just an excuse to do little or nothing themselves since, “the government will rectify the problem.”  The fact is, people find all kinds of ways to ease their conscience that do not cost them very much.  Taxes are a relatively simple way to avoid the pain and inconvenience of more direct involvement in the lives of those who suffer from injustice.  And that is the great danger of thinking of reparations in terms of a one-off kind of payment or benefit.  Sinful human relations will continue to create all kinds of opportunities to make further reparations.

As Christians, we need to be willing to do more and give more for the sake of loving those who have suffered and still continue to suffer under the injustice of past wrongs.  This is why governments have often had to step into the gaps created by indifferent and comfort-loving Christians and churches.  If the Church was more actively and sacrificially involved in community care and change, I suspect that the demand for reparations would be significantly muted and perhaps even largely met.  Of course, this would not solve every problem.  Apart from God’s sensational and supernatural intervention, sinful human nature makes it impossible to create a paradise on earth.  But that does not mean Christians cannot and should not continue to work toward making society fairer and more just.

Therefore, rather than pointing out the ways a large and governmentally-administered program would be a bad idea (which it very likely would), Christians should be asking, “What we can do to meet social needs and rectify immoral and unjust social systems?”  Exactly how this can take place is a worthwhile and important conversation, but always looking primarily (or even exclusively) to some political party or legislative set of solutions tends to lift the burden of responsibility off of our Christian shoulders at a time when we should, more than ever, bear with Christ the burden of responsibility to do what we can, in very practical and direct ways, to turn wrongs into rights and injustice into justice.

Looking to material solutions also tends to ignore the fact that we are wrestling with problems that are not merely systemic at the political, economic, and educational level.  These are important, of course, but these problems are also deeply spiritual, moral, and personal in nature.  They can only be fully resolved in supernatural and non-material ways, making the gospel of Jesus Christ and His Church that much more necessary in any quest for genuine and lasting social transformation.

Ultimately, because the problems we are talking about involve personal and public, as well as spiritual and material aspects, it seems inevitable that both governments and churches would need to be involved and even, if possible, work in concert.  But Christians cannot wait for legislative action and let that be an excuse to slip back into letting the government do what the Church has always been called to do, even though it is extremely costly, inconvenient, messy, and heartbreaking.  It is a responsibility we are privileged to do, and we must not shrink back or excuse ourselves from it because someone else is actively trying to take it away from us.

Having said all this, we must reiterate the simple conviction that if reparations are morally right, then regardless of what the government decides, Christians ought to find ways to implement them, despite attending difficulties.  But one of the important moral aspects of making reparations is determining whether or not they are actually helpful in rectifying the problem in the first place.  This is last question we will consider in the final post in this series.

In the first post of this four-part series, I explored some biblical themes surrounding the idea of reparations.  In this second part, I take a more focused look at some of the broader moral and practical concerns raised by this increasingly popular notion.

Before we begin, let me emphasize that there are many other problems and issues deserving serious consideration and attention which will not be raised here.  Instead, I will only address four interconnected issues, two in this post, one in the third, and one in the fourth.

Here we will address two questions: 1) Is it right to give reparations? and 2) Who should receive them and why?  Let’s begin by asking the first question, namely, is it right?

Is it right to give reparations?

Of all our concerns, this is probably the one of greatest import.  If it is morally right, then some way should be found to provide the necessary resources and enact the needed changes and means to bring about a more just society.

Virtually all agree that what was done to African slaves in America (to highlight one obvious example) was utterly wrong.  Who, however, is ultimately responsible for past moral failures and today’s social systems? How has history shaped these realities and to what extent are people alive today guilty of ignoring, implicitly supporting, or even overtly promoting such immoralities?

We have already noted in the previous blog that our lack of direct responsibility for past wrongs does not fully absolve us from the responsibility to rectify the sins of our predecessors.  However, contrary to the claims of most Critical Theorists, it is not at all obvious that there is a clear class of people who are wholly innocent and in need of reparations while there is another, definitively privileged class, that is guilty of creating and/or perpetuating unjust social systems, and who is simultaneously able and obligated to seek greater justice through reformative reparations.

Reparations should not be unidirectional handouts to those minorities in the lower class on the simple assumption of their state of moral innocence.  If and when they are given, they should be given in such a way that empowers and affirms their humanity as well as their personal responsibility.  Anything else is dehumanizing and dependency-producing—both things that are morally wrong and socially destructive.

Americans, with their strong sense of individualism, tend to bristle at the thought that we are somehow responsible for the actions of a whole class of people, especially when this class of people is only related to us historically.  Do we really want to say that when my great, great, great grandfather murdered or beat or raped someone (and presumably got away with it because he was part of a privileged class), that I must now be punished or held accountable for what he did 150 years ago?  But what if he did it 30 years ago?  Or how about 3 years ago before his recent death?  Does the smaller time-gap make me more culpable, even if I did nothing to directly aid and abet his evil?

In short, how blameworthy are we today for evils, both systemic and personal, that we had nothing to do with creating or committing in the first place?  Certainly, we are responsible to try and make the social systems of our time more just, and we are personally responsible for our own wrongdoing, but beyond this, we are not directly responsible for the evil done by our ancestors any more than we can take personal credit and be rewarded for their praiseworthy deeds.

All of these concerns need to be wrestled with, but let’s just assume a case can be made for pursuing, at some level, some sort of reparations.  After all, as was emphasized in the first part of this series, Christians recognize that we do have some level of responsibility for not merely changing unjust systems in our own time, but righting past wrongs done within and because of those systems along with the choices of those who took advantage of them.  In that light, it would seem that some form (or forms) of reparation(s) should be pursued in order to try and make our society a more just and god-honoring one.

But having said that, we must raise another crucial question, namely, who receives them and why?

Who should receive reparations and why?

Who, exactly, has been wronged and to what extent?  Is it only the descendants of black African slaves who should be eligible?  What about the Japanese Americans interred during WW II, or the Irish Catholics who were deeply discriminated against when they first arrived in the US?  What about the native Americans who lived here long before it became the USA?  It is obvious that the US institution of slavery was utterly wrong, but there are numerous other racial and religious wrongs perpetrated upon our American ancestors that deserve some serious attention in these matters as well.  And what about those who are no longer “pure” in their ancestry?  History shows that determining your genealogical and legal connections to certain segments of the US population can be controversial in and of itself, especially when those connections may result in significant advantages and benefits.

For example, when the native Americans were given gaming rights in Southern California some decades ago, a big fight broke out over who exactly was a member of which tribe since the subsequent promise of major monthly revenues was directly linked to genealogy.  Another example might be Rachel Anne Dolezal who claimed to have African American ancestry and used it to her advantage until 2015 when her claims were proven to be wholly fallacious.  Inevitably, when money, power, and privilege are involved, there will always be a lot of people who make claims to their advantage when they have little or no evidence to support or commend them.  Sorting out who actually deserves reparations and to what extent are extremely knotty issues and are made exceptionally more complex when a lot of self-interest is at stake.

Again, I am not pretending to offer any definite solutions here, but I am raising the questions in order to show that the simple affirmation that reparations should be provided is not easy to fulfill in a fair and straightforward manner.  Not only that, reparations raise additional questions, two more of which I will briefly address in the next two posts.