“From Words to Work: Dismantling Racism”: YDS faculty panel Thursday, June 18, 2020.

Willie Jennings, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies

Transcript:
The problem is, is that managing anger, especially in this moment can be more problematic than the anger itself. That is to say it could be more damaging than the poor use of that anger. I am encouraging everybody to be angry right now, and to find a way to see the anger as a shared project that binds us to God's righteous indignation. The challenge is not to let anger move into hatred.

And that's always the difficult thing to be angry but not to hate because once we enter hatred then we open ourselves up to violence. Of course, hatred and violence have been part of the common currency of this country from its very beginning. And one of the disciplines that's always been inside of Christianity, especially the Christianity practiced by most people of color, most African Americans is a discipline in which we live with anger, but we fight against hatred and we shun as best we can violence.

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