Daniel Sihombing Responds to "When God Became White" Lecture

This past summer, I was honored to be invited to give a public lecture on my book, When God Became White, at The Wesley Centre in Melbourne. Dr. Robyn Whitaker is the director of The Wesley Centre and organized this wonderful event co-sponsored with the Victoria Council of Churches. Dr. Daniel Sihombing responded to my lecture, and I deeply appreciated his reflection on my book. His response is now posted in the Crosslight Magazine and you can read it below:

On 28 July 2024, The Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy hosted a book discussion with Korean-Canadian theologian Grace Ji-Sun Kim, author of When God Became White: Dismantling Whiteness for a More Just Christianity (Illinois: IVP, 2024).

I was privileged to respond to her talk. I began by thanking her for opening up and sharing her painful experiences of racism, for being brave in confronting it, and for inviting us to reflect theologically on this problem as Christians. As I read the book, I found many stories that were moving and relatable to my own experience: being a target of ridicule to other kids because of a different physical appearance; the feeling of being a “perpetual foreigner”, no matter how long we’ve stayed in a country; being scapegoated, laughed at for our accent, and all sorts of microaggressions. Then in the church we find that we need to conform with and look up to the white people.

I grew up in Indonesia, a country that was colonized by the Dutch for at least one and a half centuries. The history of Dutch colonialism was at least as brutal as the British one. And yet, from what I experienced, Indonesians often have a very positive image about the Dutch, especially within church circles. Often there is an assumption that they are superior to us in many ways. Grace Ji-Sun Kim spoke of a particular image of Jesus as a white man which hung in the home of her Korean family, and which she found in other places, such as India, which are not predominately white. In Indonesia, we have the white Jesus image as well.

I welcome Grace Ji-Sun Kim’s call to dismantle this ideology and to liberate Christianity from its captivity to white supremacy. Some questions came to my mind as I read her book, which I was able to put to her at the event.

For example, she writes that “It is strange that throughout church history, strong patriarchal words such as King, Master, Lord, Sovereign, and Almighty are used to talk about a loving and graceful God.” Indeed, these words are problematic and perhaps have been used to reinforce bad practices in the life of the church. But some of them also seem to be central to our faith tradition. Confessing that Jesus is Lord is one example. The Apostles’ Creed begins with, “I believe in God, the Father almighty.” And we often end the Lord’s Prayer with, “For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever.” I know there are congregations which do not recite the Apostle’s Creed or the Lord’s Prayer for this very reason. But on the other hand, these also function as something that binds us with the universal church. In response, Grace reminded us that language does change over the years.  Many now object, she said, to the word ‘kingdom’, which is so prevalent throughout the Bible.  Some now replace this with ‘kin-dom’ as an alternative.

As Grace is working in America, I was curious to hear her opinions about the polarization of the so-called ‘woke left’ and ‘far right’. I mentioned the claim that despite being on opposite sides, one thing that the woke left and far right are doing in unison is suppressing the emancipatory strand that exists within the Western tradition, which was largely constructed by white, male figures. Is the white-Western(-male) tradition completely hopeless? Or is there something to salvage from it?  Grace emphasised that opposing whiteness is not about opposing particular figures, but rather about opposing the structures that perpetuate racism.

Grace-Ji Sun Kim’s When God Became White serves as a reminder for the church that unspoken assumptions about race can lead us away from the Gospel.

Daniel Sihombing is an exit candidate for Ministry of the Word in the Uniting Church in Australia and Fellow at The Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy. He holds a PhD in theology and is interested in questions around the intersections of Christian beliefs and politics. He has been appointed as Lecturer in Systematic Theology at Pilgrim Theological College, starting in January 2025.

Special Events:

1.I am honored to be a keynote speaker at the 44th Annual Asian Women’s Christian Association (AWCA) Gala. Please join me on November 1, 2024, at the Hilton Pearl River, NY.