Pastor Matt Chandler of the Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas, isn’t shy to say what he thinks about one of the more contentious issues of our time. According to him, white privilege exists and Caucasians have a hard time recognizing it.
Chandler has taken some heat in recent months after publicly embracing and touting the existence of white privilege — the notion that the majority culture has certain benefits that are unavailable to minorities.
Matt Chandler (Image source: The Village Church)
Here’s what he had to say about the theory in a blog post last August:
The challenge with white privilege is that most white people cannot see it. We assume that the experiences and opportunities afforded to us are the same afforded to others. Sadly, this simply isn’t true. Privileged people can fall into the trap of universalizing experiences and laying them across other people’s experiences as an interpretive lens. For instance, a privileged person may not understand why anyone would mistrust a public servant simply because they have never had a viable reason to mistrust a public servant. The list goes on.
The pastor — whose five campuses stretched out across the Dallas-Ft. Worth area include 10,000 members — believes some people might not understand exactly where he’s coming from on these issues, which has led to some contention.
“I’ve taken some shots from people who I think don’t understand what I’m talking about … we’re a more diverse church now,” he said.
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