In an interview published in The Atlantic, T.D. Jakes, the bishop of The Potter's House megachurch in Dallas, Texas, opened up on what he saw as the moral failing of white evangelicals.
"It is amazing to me that we can live in the same city and have two completely different experiences," Jakes told The Atlantic's Emma Green. "You can kind of be willfully blind to the pain of the people who are in your own city and have ladies' meetings and come together to solve poverty around the world and not think a thing about poverty right in your own city."
"You know, when I hear you say that, I can't help but hear an implication about the way certain other Christians — maybe white Christians in particular — live, with a kind of international orientation toward helping kids in Africa but not caring that much about helping people who are their neighbors in their own city," said Green. "Am I hearing you right?"
"I think that's true in some cases, but I don't think that they are a monolith," said Jakes. "I've met pastors who cared, and who have joined hands and tried to help and serve, and who were first responders in times of crisis. But by and large, it makes people uncomfortable to look at complicated problems. And the problems in underserved communities are complicated by poor education, poor access to medical care, crime, and the distance in culture. As a whole, I think white evangelicals lost sight of 'What would Jesus do?' because they only define Jesus in very narrow terms."
Jakes said that his experiences with the pandemic, and the similarities to the suffering of ancient peoples in the Bible, have reinforced for him that real Christianity doesn't fit with "the contemporary theology of just blessings and gifts and promises," and that "suffering is center stage to our faith."
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