Last month, Baylor facilitated a panel discussion on civility, moderated by our very own President Linda Livingstone. The panel included some well-recognized names: Curtis Chang of Redeeming Babel, author Kaitlyn Schiess, and Justin Giboney of the AND Campaign.
After the panel, I interviewed Mr. Giboney on the topic of “American Civic Renewal.” Giboney was well equipped to speak to this topic: an ordained minister, Vanderbilt JD, two-time delegate to the Democratic National Convention, and Georgia community organizer, Giboney knows a lot about Christian political engagement. He also shares with many Christians today a sense of disillusionment and aversion towards politics.
“So, let’s start right there,” I said. “What comes to mind when you think, ‘American civic renewal,’ Mr. Giboney?”
“Well,” he said, “does this mean we’re ‘going back’ in a sense? To me, this is problematic for a number of reasons.”
We discussed moments when our society just didn’t get it right in the past. This is perhaps why so many Americans baulk at the concept of renewal. It seems like an invitation to repeat past mistakes.
“Well, maybe let’s use another word. Maybe instead of ‘renewal’ you’re suggesting ‘recognition’ or even a ‘realignment’ of sorts?”
“Sure,” I said, “and a recommitment to American ideals, to the principles and integrity of the Constitution.”
Giboney, however, argued that this necessarily begins with a survey of our shortcomings, or what he describes as “what we got right and wrong” in the past.
We discussed moments when our society just didn’t get it right in the past. This is perhaps why so many Americans baulk at the concept of renewal. It seems like an invitation to repeat past mistakes.
“Certainly – so where did we get it right?”
“Well, I’d look at the ‘progressive’ era,” said Giboney. “And by this, I’m not referring to the early 20th century ‘Progressive Era movement,’ but those years in which the United States made significant progress in the area of civil rights.”
Giboney then referenced, for example, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of what we now call the “protected class”: race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. But how did the America of yesteryear, stuck in the practice of institutionalized discrimination, achieve such progress?
Agreeing with me that ideology plays a fundamental role in either progress or renewal, we moved to the question of theory and practice.
“Theorizing” is what the Academy is doing today; scholars exchanging ideas in a lingua franca accessible only to those keeping up with the conversation. But whatever their activity, we agreed, it’s all for naught without practice. “So how do we marry theory and practice?” I asked. “How do we take Baylor’s panel discussion, for instance, and make it go?”
Giboney started by focusing on organizations: creating “guiding principles and a framework of disciplines” had proven to be his most successful tool. This reminded me of Baylor’s Commission on Historic Campus Representations, a 2020 campus committee that made formal recommendations to Baylor’s administration on our racial legacy and strategic future. During those conversations, many were of the belief that Baylor already had a sufficient set of guiding principles and disciplines that would animate their response to the revelation of our painful history: the Christian faith.
Yet we all know the Christian “type” who wants to marshal the whole of Christian faith not behind the truths of Christ’s sovereignty, but behind a particular candidate or cause.
According to Giboney, “Christians have to be rooted in a love for neighbor,” not just in proclamations about their faith. Yet “today, we’re plagued by a ‘politics of Christian self-interest.’” We seem to harbor hidden and unfaithful motives behind the guise of Christian conviction. Or, we use our Christianity as a Trojan Horse, an attractive outer shell in which we barely disguise our warring intentions.
But for Christians, says Giboney, “we can’t put ‘winning’ before ‘witnessing’—and it’s not just [conservative] evangelicals: those on the Left have to stop following what is essentially secular progressivism.”
Christians of all traditions—Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox; conservative, liberal, or simply jaded – cannot abandon the responsibility we have to be in the world, but not of the world. For Giboney, the Christian is the most equipped person to translate the guiding principles and frameworks of redemptive faith into organizations, and on a larger scale, into society writ large.
we can’t put ‘winning’ before ‘witnessing’
Justin Giboney
Simply put, Christians play a pivotal role in renewal.
“You cannot be a devout Christian without impacting politics,” says Giboney. “Our faith has to inform everything about our lives.”
It was all making sense. “American Civic Renewal” really means re-aligning ourselves with principle; and it requires recognizing the past (its successes and failures) in order to rise to the challenge of engagement. Who but the Christian is best equipped to inculcate the virtues of love, compassion, truth, and conviction in the conversations and movements where they matter most.
Wrapping up our conversation, I finally asked Giboney what his best advice was for Gen Z in light of that challenge.
“This is Gen Z’s opportunity to throw away the culture war,” said Giboney. “You have to challenge both sides of the culture.” Giboney credits his ability to do this to his academic training as well as his life in his church and community. “The Academy shouldn’t tell us what to believe,” he says, “but it helps us understand how to arrive at our own understanding, namely of what a civic community is. Moreover, community is not about ‘affirming you’ but about the exchange of ideas.”
Giboney’s parting encouragement was to read the words of Frederick Douglass. “Douglass did not attempt to destroy the Union; he understood that its institutions were those that would afford his rights.” Therefore, Giboney advises us to do something quite different from what so many of our peers are doing. His advice is this: “Help your institutions. Don’t tear them down.”