Work on 'reparations' needs more voices of faith

Say the word "reparations," and many white people will picture handing cash to Black people as a way to make up for slavery.

There's a bit of truth in that idea, but it's so woefully inadequate that it prevents a lot of people from exploring the idea of acknowledging the destructive, bleak decisions and policies in our nation's past, then seeing the still-continuing results of all that and finally deciding to do something that can create a better, more just future for everyone.

There are many reasons why faith communities should be helping to lead the campaign for reparations. The most important one is that some of what happened in our nation's history -- from cultural and physical genocide against Indigenous people to enslavement of Black people to the later discriminatory laws and practices that kept most of them in poverty (or prison or both) -- violated a core principle found in all the great world religions: The idea that each person is of inestimable value because each person bears the image of the divine.

But in many places where communities are considering options for reparations, the work is being led not so much by people of faith who are acting as representatives of their religions but by politically appointed folks who see their work as a secular civic duty. In some cases, including in Kansas City, they are doing good work toward finding some kind of solution that can garner enough political support to be implemented. And I wish them success. You can follow the work of the Kansas City Reparations Coalition here and the Mayor's Commission on Reparations here.

But in much of this work, the voices representing institutional religion seem either mostly silent or unable to get much of a public hearing and response for their ideas.

So I was glad to see the current issue of an independent magazine, The Presbyterian Outlook, which covers my denomination (and for which I used to write a monthly column), the Presbyterian Church (USA). It has devoted nearly all the space in this issue to answering the question posed on the cover: "Reparations: How do we right the wrongs of history?"

In one of the articles in that issue, the Rev. Jermaine Ross-Allam, director of the denomination's Center for the Repair of Historic Harms, writes this: "When the Christian descendants of those peoples who committed European colonialism's originating harms finally show up in public -- locally and nationally -- to acknowledge that reparations and reparatory justice are right, necessary and possible, the church can then mobilize other community members. . ."

And William Yoo, who teaches at Columbia Theological Seminary, writes this: "My hope is anchored in my conviction that we must see our church as it is: the work of saints and sinners who did both good and evil, all in the name of God. The sinful history of racial prejudice within our Presbyterian heritage is simultaneously a sobering reminder of human fallibility and a call to enact justice by repairing relations with Black Presbyterians today."

Each faith community has its own history that is part of a larger national story about slavery and its aftermath, a story with both heroes and villains. Which means each one must take the time to understand what happened, publicly acknowledge what went wrong and take actions that can begin to repair what was broken -- often broken on purpose.

Many white Americans, like me, were born into a system that dehumanized other people and, in that process, we benefited in various ways. My job, and the job of others in that category, is to acknowledge that history and to start the work needed to repair the world.

If you are part of a faith community, ask yourself whether that community is responding to this issue in generative ways? If not, maybe you can be part of the solution.

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CAN WE CHARGE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WITH MORAL CRIMES?

Who is morally responsible for actions taken or induced by artificial intelligence? Ah, excellent question. And this RNS article wrestles with that increasingly important question. The authors of the piece write: "According to many modern philosophers, rational agents can be morally responsible for their actions, even if their actions were completely predetermined – whether by neuroscience or by code. But most agree that the moral agent must have certain capabilities that self-driving taxis almost certainly lack, such as the ability to shape its own values. AI systems fall in an uncomfortable middle ground between moral agents and nonmoral tools." It's one more reason that theologians and others who guide our religious lives should be paying more attention to artificial intelligence and both its advantages and its moral vulnerabilities.