Trying to hold an ongoing conversation about race and justice feels like trying to navigate a rhetorical minefield. Watch out. You never know if that next step is going to explode. But it is a conversation that needs to continue. I believe it is a conversation that especially needs to continue in the Church. The question is: “How”?

Here are four principles that recently came to me via an email:

First, you clarify what the Scriptures teach about justice and how God intends for people of different ethnic backgrounds to treat one another. 

Second, you highlight the aspects of your theological tradition that illuminate what the Scriptures teach about “race” and justice. 

Third, you examine the unvarnished history of how your religious tradition has contributed to or resisted racial injustice in the part of the world you live in. 

Finally, you sit with the sociological impact of your religious tradition’s actions to pursue or deny racial injustice.