“Hi, my name is Roy, and I’m Biased”
Over the last year, I helped with the chapel service for the local college football team. As I got to know one of the coaches who attends our church, he told me about his first seven months in the area. After playing in the NFL, he joined the coaching staff to work with the running backs. He got pulled over by local police four times within those first months. He never received a ticket since he committed no violations. He was an African-American driving a Mercedes. Sometimes bias (in this case, racism/profiling) is easy to see, but Pragya Agarwal believes the issue exists in many ways, far beyond the obvious.
Sway includes Agarwal’s personal experiences but mostly presents research in a popular scientific style, to unravel the issue of unconscious bias. This book, categorized under the social sciences, examines social processes. She states her thesis early when she writes, “In this book, I am looking primarily at examples where a bias is misdirected and creates prejudice and discriminatory behaviour through a negative association with a certain group or community.”[1] Agarwal, a data scientist, details the social implications of the extensiveness of biases beyond what we often believe to be the apparent components of race and gender. “Disability, sexuality, body size, profession and so on all influence the assessments we make of people, and form the basis of our relationship with others and the world at large.”[2]
Her book divides into four main sections. She relies heavily on evolutionary psychology and the development of the human brain to explain the emergence of bias. She writes, “Our brains have evolved to reason adaptively rather than rationally or truthfully.”[3] By this, she means that we tend to bypass cognitive processes in a way reminiscent of Daniel Kahneman and his ideas about heuristics (mental short-cuts based on assumptions) and System 1 thinking that does not involve significant careful reasoning. This book also reminded me of Kathryn Schulz’s Being Wrong and the influence of confirmation bias we all carry. The reality and the presence of bias come to people naturally. Agarwal argues that “stereotypes are acquired effortlessly” and become even more attractive options when tired or stressed.[4] She cautions against putting hopes for objectivity into technology as the biases exist in that realm also.
I confess, this reading left me overwhelmed at the reality of bias. The Epilogue offers suggestions on tackling unconscious bias. That closing section is three and one-half pages, while the part of the book that examines bias is four hundred and nine pages. As an observation, not a criticism, there is a lot more diagnosis than cure in Sway. I am not much of a Calvinist, but I embrace “total depravity” as a reality of the human condition. That doctrine asserts humanity’s brokenness in every part of its makeup. It does note mean the extremes of that brokenness manifest at all times. Agarwal does not sound like a person of faith but I assume she would agree with the all-inclusiveness of human brokenness as revealed by pervasive bias.
So, what are we to do in light of the sobering reality of bias? Since my leadership context is the local church, I look there and to its early history once again. A Time article on the early church relates a statement made at baptism: “You are all children of God; there is no Jew or Greek; there is no slave or free; there is no male and female; for you are all one.”[5] That statement conveys the vision of Galatians 3:28 and stood in direct contrast to the common distinctions embraced in Greek culture. The article goes on to state, “Sameness wasn’t the point. The point was ‘oneness’ – solidarity that transcended race, class or gender.”[6] It is not hard to imagine how a community so positively different than the surrounding culture reached its culture. Sadly, the article goes on to show how that oneness dynamic got lost early on. Is it any wonder that the similar, more recent words of Martin Luther King, Jr. still cast such a compelling vision for the value of one’s character and not one’s color? Will we do the hard work to produce needed change? I don’t want to quickly offer the obvious answer to that. Virtue-signaling is much easier than adaptive change. It’s also easier to see bias in “those people” rather than myself.
A few questions came to my mind about our context during this reading: Does our church’s demographics reflect those of our community? Do our leaders represent the makeup our community? Who gets to speak into a microphone? Who gets to make the important decisions? May leaders heed Agarwal’s call to “activate our logical and rational thinking and actively bust any biases that can affect our decisions.”[7]
[1] Pragya Agarwal, Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias (London: Bloomsbury Sigma, 2020), 13.
[2] Ibid., 18.
[3] Ibid., 44.
[4] Ibid., 106.
[5] Stephen J. Patterson, “The Early Christians Were Focused on Solidarity Across Race, Class and Gender. Then Things Changed.” Time https://time.com/5410308/early-christian-solidarity/ accessed March 9, 2022.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Agarwal, Sway, 411.
About the Author
Roy Gruber
Husband, father, pastor, student, and sojourner in Babylon15 responses to ““Hi, my name is Roy, and I’m Biased””
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Hi Roy, my name is Michael, and I am bias. I really like your post here. Thanks for such an honest reflection of your church context. From a macro level, what are the primary mechanisms of “sameness” propagated by evangelicalism? In other words, what are the unseen biases held within evangelicalism that prevents “oneness”?
Michael, I believe the primary mechanism of “sameness” in evangelicalism is a culture that self-perpetuates itself. Life in Utah has shown me how subtle culture can be with the LDS faith. Of course, I believe all people of faith have a culture that is like the air we breath – it’s all around us but we don’t see it in ourselves. We simple believe “that’s just the way it is.”
Roy: Great post like usual. Your leadership role as a pastor in a local church enables you to see first hand this issues of bias play out. Do you consciously try to make your church “seeker friendly”? Does a church sacrifice maturity when the church tries to be so evangelistic? Biases are a tricky thing, that’s for sure. This weeks book was a little disheartening for me too, in this respect. We are all so biased, is there any hope to escape? Being aware is the first step, but also education. Then there is our faith that has to come along side and guide us.
Troy, the term “seeker-friendly” is such a loaded term – we don’t use that. We are intentional about engaging our culture primarily through acts of compassion that we believe show the love of God in practical ways. We also try to make the church experience understandable to people not familiar with it as we have many people around us who have no church background. I don’t think you have sacrifice maturity in that process.
Roy: I think your questions at the end of your post could be applied to any vocational context. We are often asking similar ones in higher education. When reflecting on those questions, did any areas pop up that you’d want to focus on with your church this coming year?
Kayli, yes, one item that I noticed in asking those questions is how we do not reflect a growing Latino presence in our area. We have people of several different groups in our area, but noticeable absent are folks primarily moving here from two states in Mexico. I want to understand why that is so this year.
I love the selection of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. It is so layered and complex. Paul wasn’t just dealing with Jewish-Christian biases but also the Greco-Roman elitism and cultural patriarchy.
How do you, as a pastor, task with preaching the world while translating it to the existing culture, wrestle with the culture the Bible was initially written for with grace and honesty?
Andy, your question taps in to the area of my schooling for which I am very thankful. As I reflect on seminary, there is so much I wish I had been taught, mostly about the realities of leadership. The one thing I did get was a serious approach to hermeneutics that allow for application to the present day by understanding the context. Galatians 3:28 presents the three big cultural distinctions of Paul’s day – Greek culture. What are those today? That’s probably open to some interpretation, but the application begins by understanding what it meant to the original readers.
Excellent post, Roy.
Boy, that comment on “sameness” vs “oneness” is a big deal, I believe. I am working on a new housing project right now called Tapestry. I love the idea of different fabrics woven together to form a beautiful creation. In a similar fashion, this is how I think of the Kingdom, thus, the Church. A Tapestry. The differences are what make the Kingdom so incredible.
You raise good questions about the Church, too, as to whether or not they reflect our communities. I have been among some church leaders who believe our segregration is NO GOOD, but others believe it is essential. Where do you fall in that camp?
This reminds of the importance of knowing the difference between unity and uniformity.
Eric, I believe a church should reflect its community. The picture of heaven in Revelation 7 tells us a vast crowd of “every tribe, nation, and tongue” will be there. I believe if we want more up there to come down here (i.e. “your kingdom come, your will be done, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN”) that will be our goal. I also think in a divided time like this one, a real picture of oneness, not sameness, can speak with a powerful voice.
Roy, my theology professor started her theology 101 class by asking, “who are we to say anything about God?” Seriously profound question. She then goes onto say, “and yet, we are still called to speak about and reflect on God.” As leaders I think it behooves us to be ever mindful of the position we are in…”to whom is given much, much is required.” Luke 12:48 What does it mean that it is required of us to boldly peer into those places that Christ the Light illuminates? How does the Light of the World challenge our “definitions” of unity or diversity?
I read from John 8:12-20 (The Message), and this hit me hard, “But even if I did, my judgment would be true because I wouldn’t make it out of the narrowness of my experience but in the largeness of the One who sent me, the Father. ” WOW…the ways we judge (or our biases) out of the narrowness of our experience….this should stop us in our tracks. I think practicing self-regulation (as Friedman calls it) is key.
Nicole, a Friedman reference – how out of character for you 🙂 My understanding of how any of us speaks about God or things of God has to do with a high view of the Bible. In Bebbington’s term, I am a biblicist. If the Bible is God’s Word, then we have the ability to speak of God’s light when we follow a solid hermeneutic of interpretation.
Roy, great questions! I too was overwhelmed by the diagnosis. You are so right about the ease of virtue signaling without authentic change or in many cases any change. How do we get those we lead to see everyone in our community as God’s masterpiece? When they have experienced hurt, pain, loss by a particular group or individual, how do we facilitate healing so that that person can be free to forgive? How do I encourage and inspire others to really see, and hear those who are around them, so that they can respond from a position of love and compassion?
Denise, you ask good but difficult questions! What I’ve seen produce some good fruit in those areas is simply people modeling it to others. In a day when everyone is talking, actually “doing” our faith is such a key. As I learn about the early church, their impact was largely a result of their actions that expressed their faith in real, observable ways. In my opinion, too many people want to write or rant but are not living out a joyful, compassionate faith.