Called to Lead, Bank Accounts Be Damned

SHE WAS MAD—fuming.

Thirteen black evangelical leaders rolled across Southern states on a speaking tour of historic black colleges and universities. On a mission to call forth the next generation of black leaders, we traversed the land where our ancestors had worked fingers to bone, drank from separate fountains, and cut loved ones down from trees like dead fruit.

But this is not what made Vera mad.

For the last hour a crowd of black leaders sat, stood, and leaned in as we shared our stories of barriers to advancement within white evangelical organizations. It wasn’t a mean-spirited conversation. It was a needed one—a healing one. Our stories were strikingly similar, even though none of us had worked in the same organization.

Within well-meaning white evangelical missions agencies, we had all been told that confirmation of our call to leadership would be discerned in part by our ability to raise money for the organization. Mind you, most of us had taken on debt to accept the low salaries offered by the white agencies. And most of us suffered economic isolation as we watched our white peers accept the same salaries but somehow take vacations and buy homes while we scrimped to pay rent.

Now, as our chartered bus eased its way through the narrow, tree-lined lanes at Dillard University in New Orleans, Vera said: “I’m mad at this conversation.”

Vera (we’ll call her that) was new to our traveling village, so I didn’t know how to read her anger. Did she feel our gripes were unjustified?

“I’m mad that this is exactly what I have been experiencing inside my own organization,” she continued. “I’ve tried to explain it to our leaders, but no one has heard me.”

Vera’s organization trains evangelicals to partner with under-resourced communities. Vera grew up poor. Though she holds a mid-level administrative position now, she entered the agency as a trainee. The high training fees, coupled with her current low salary, present ongoing barriers to social inclusion among her white peers and threaten her family’s economic stability. To boot, the organization’s bent toward male dominance has further jeopardized Vera’s economic health. A male peer was offered a scholarship to supplement the cost of his training fees; Vera was denied. She was told the limited resources had to help men first.

Vera’s struggle is not unique. While serving as Greater Los Angeles director of racial reconciliation for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship from 2000 to 2005, I discovered that most black and Latino/a InterVarsity staff were going into debt in order to work for the ministry while white staff leveraged the benefits of inherited wealth and financial gifts from family to buy homes and build personal wealth.

A recent study by the Pew Research Center crystalizes the structural inequity baked into organizations that assess leadership by one’s ability to rake in cash. According to the analysis, in 2013, whites in the U.S. enjoyed a median net wealth of $141,900—more than 13 times the $11,000 median net wealth of African Americans. Worse, this gap has been widening since 2007.

By a monetary measure, white Americans appear far superior to blacks in their capacity for leadership. Yet this measure pays no consideration to centuries of structures built to protect white supremacy on a sloped U.S. playing field.

But here’s the kicker: Money has no place in the discernment process for leadership. In the first chapter of Genesis, God called all humanity to steward, serve, and protect—the calling to exercise dominion. What we need are level playing fields.

Unmoored from its theological roots, white evangelical homage to a Calvinist work ethic trusts in monetary success as a sign of divine election to lead. This trust is in weighted scales. And it continues to reinforce economic structures that cripple the church and disfigure the world.

Our preaching was fiery that night. We called Dillard students to stand in their God-given call to lead, bank accounts be damned. Money is no indicator of election. The fact that we are human—fully human—is proof enough. We, too, were created to lead.