Jemar Tisby and Tyler Burns: Black Christians ‘Cannot Do This Alone’

(RNS) — Jemar Tisby and Pastor Tyler Burns, co-hosts of the five-year-old Pass the Mic podcast, are used to dispensing their views on black Christian life from behind the microphone.

In the wake of the death of George Floyd under the knee of a white policeman, the leaders of the nine-year-old The Witness: A Black Christian Collective find themselves trying to speak to white believers.

On Thursday (June 4), Tisby, the author of “The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism,” and Burns, lead pastor of New Dimensions Christian Center in Pensacola, Florida, talked to Religion News Service about race relations and policing and what people — including white evangelicals — need to do differently as the country faces these issues anew.

“A lot of times white people, in particular, like to treat racial justice like a light switch that they can flick on and off,” said Tisby, who hopes this time around that won’t happen.

“It is not enough for us to simply say nice things at this moment,” added Burns, who has taken to the streets in protests in Pensacola. “Black people are tired and we’re going to continue. That’s just the history of who we are. But we cannot do this alone. It’s impossible for us to do this alone. And so we need co-laborers and we need allies.”

The interview, a portion of which is set to be featured on Religion News…