Popular and inspiring Christian hip hop artist and poet Jackie Hill Perry recently courted controversy with a tweet that was both heralded and hated.  Amidst the ongoing debate over the relationship between social justice causes and the Gospel of Jesus, Perry proclaimed:

“White people are not the curators of sound theology.”

The remark garnered a couple thousand likes but struck some as unnecessarily provocative and unhelpful to Kingdom building for Christ:

“This breaks my heart. No one claims this. Why do you have to use this kind of rhetoric?” @psk65lava

Some pointed to this statement bearing the same lack of specificity that cripples the Scriptural soundness of much of the social justice movement:

“I don’t know any white people that think they are, can you specify?” @StevePierce17

And still others challenged Perry on her premise:

“Does this work only with white people and theology or could you extrapolate the principles to say, maybe [people of color] are the curators of sound racial perspectives? Or women are not the curators of sound gender perspectives?” @wacriswellian

Personally, I have always admired Jackie Hill Perry.  I’ve recommended her writings, commentaries, and spoken word pieces to more people than I can count.  For instance, her testimony “I Loved My Girlfriend – but God Loved Me More” about her journey out of a homosexual lifestyle is one of the most Spirit-filled commentaries you will ever read on the subject. 

And since I can’t be sure the spirit in which Perry intended this tweet, as her brother in Christ I choose to extend to her all benefit of any doubt.  And in that context, I agree with her that as a collective, “white people” are not the sole curators of sound theology.  But some of them are. 

Surely Hill would agree that C.S. Lewis, a white guy, was a curator of sound theology?  And R.C. Sproul, a white guy, wasn’t he a curator of sound theology?  F.F. Bruce was a white guy whose Biblical criticism and exegesis produced sound theology, did it not?  To say that white people are not curators of sound theology discounts, seemingly on racial lines alone, the many white people who have been. 

But I don’t think that’s what Perry was saying.  I think she was saying white people alone, as a group, are not the sole curators of sound theology.  That point is as accurate as it is easy-to-prove.  Christianity, after all, is not a white man’s faith.  As Andrew Walker pointed out in a spectacular thread, the sound theology of Christianity has been curated by non-whites from the time of the earliest church fathers:

• Irenaeus was Turkish
• Tertullian was Tunisian
• Origen was African
• Athanasius was African
• Augustine, perhaps the most profound curator of Christian thought and theology since the Apostles, was African

And to this very day, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say that the most profound curators of sound Christian theology aren’t in the West, but in places like Africa, the Far East, and South America where the church of Jesus is growing exponentially. 

One of the most compelling aspects of the Christian faith is that the Gospel of Jesus appeals to all humanity, in every culture, of every tongue, in every tribe, for every age. 

Those who are diligent students of the Word, doers of the Word, and surrendered to and filled with the Holy Spirit are always the best curators of sound theology.  Regardless of their melanin count.