OPENING UP THE SAINTS IN THE GODLY PLAY CURRICULUM (I)
Editor’s Note: This article is the first half of a two-part series. The second part will be released next week (Sep 18).
In what follows I would like to address two examples of racism in the materials for Godly Play — specifically, in the lessons and physical materials relating to the saints. A further example of racism and stereotype can be found in the “people of the world” figures, which I hope to address at a later time. I write primarily for my fellow Sunday School teachers and directors, but I hope my fellow assistant rectors and curates (and maybe even some rectors) are listening in.
I offer these critiques because I believe the Godly Play curriculum is a strong one, and very worth reforming. I’ve made some adaptations to these lessons so that I can keep using them; my hope is that my fellow teachers will be able to use these adaptations, and that the Godly Play Foundation will make these or even better changes themselves. I offer these, too, not only because it is part of a larger problem — I’m writing because it matters to me personally, to my and my family’s life, to the lives of my friends. I’ve been tinkering with this critique for four years; I feel pushed to share it in our current moment, because I hope now it might be heard not just as a niche interest from someone named García, but as an important focus for all of us who teach young people and young Christians.
There are two aspects of the lessons on the saints (found in Volume 7 in The Complete Guide to Godly Play) which I would like to address. The first is the representation of all the curriculum saints as white or white-passing. The second is the Anglicization of their names.
I am confident that the creators of Godly Play did not intend to be racist, but these choices participate in racism. These choices—to portray these figures as white, and to Anglicize all their names—are part of the larger picture of racism in the United States, in which preference is given to people who present as white and/or have names that are Anglo.
The Figures & Illustrations of the Saints
Careful study of children over many years has shown us that representation in children’s environments matters. We know that mirroring — being shown positive images of one’s self or someone with whom one identifies — is part of what builds confidence and contributes to a child’s sense of self. Representation in a child’s environment is what helps build the child’s sense of the possibilities of life, of their mind and heart and will. It helps them answer the questions “Who am I?” and “What could I be?”
When we talk about representation of color and feature, we rightly emphasize the need for this for children of color. Sometimes this gives the impression that wide representation matters only if you have children of color in your classroom. We can imagine the comical (or heartbreaking?) image of the white church school teacher scrambling to find a place to buy a Black doll now that she has one new Black student. All of her students had been missing out all along, but she has only noticed it now. Wide representation is important for every classroom, all the time. It has always been important, and I hope the #OwnVoices campaign will push the publishing industry so that someday, children of color will be more represented in children’s books than bunnies or talking shapes.
Even if careful academic study had not shown us that representations matter, listening to the experiences and words of people of color have shown us the same thing. For a recent example, we can look at the BBC Famalam sketch, “White Jesus.” Looking a little further back, we can hear Muhammed Ali talking about white angels and black angels, and all the white men at the Last Supper.
This leads us to the Godly Play materials for the saints stories. The Godly Play Foundation has a set of images used as both stand-up figures in the introductory lesson, and as on the individual booklets that are the primary image of the saint in each lesson. With representation in mind, looking at this collection, we will say to ourselves, “Look, a group of smiling white people!” This is especially true for those of us who habitually have an eye out for people who are not white. People who are white and/or live in mostly white spaces may not have noticed this.
This is a problem because of course, this group of people, if we were to actually meet them, would not strike us as a uniform group, and would almost certainly not all strike us as being white and/or Anglo.
“Being white” is of course a modern construct which would not have been part of these saints’ conception of the world. Some would argue that since it was not important to them it should not be important to us. However, in America, racialized identity (including appearance, heritage, and language) has real effects on people’s lives. The racialized presentation of figures in Christian history — including Jesus and even the archangels — has consequences for racial (in)justice in America today, and in the American churches. In short: even if Augustine wouldn’t have used the phrase “a person of color” to describe himself, his heritage and possible physical presentation suggests he could be described that way in America today, and so there is great value in representing him as such.
Saint Augustine (generally thought to be Berber, and from present-day Algeria) and Saint Nicholas (possibly of Greek descent, from a port city on the Mediterranean in present-day Turkey) are the two figures from among the twelve lessons who are the most obvious choices to represent as something other than white or white-passing. I admit that while one might debate the physical appearance of these saints, I feel confident in these choices because the two Berber people and five ethnically Greek people I’ve known have, in America, often been asked that most aggravating of questions: “What are you?”
My adaptation for this aspect of the saint lessons is two-fold. First, I do not use the figures of the saints, or the booklets with their images. I took them out of the classrooms and hid them in our supply closet. In their place, I’ve printed off images on cardstock that show the saints in greater variety — both in variety of expression, physical appearance, and media. These are the images I use in the individual lessons, too.
Second, I’ve added to our Godly Play shelves and to the introductory lesson a separate and special box labeled “More Holy People,” with about twenty more images of saints. In this collection there are a wide variety of Christian saints and holy people, many of whom are people of color. Their names are written on the back so that children and teachers can learn about them if they’re curious. During the introductory lesson, at the very end, I lay out these additional images all around the circle of the twelve main saints, to remind children of the truly great crowd of witnesses (as the lesson notes).
I have also written an additional lesson in the Godly Play style for Holy Martin Luther King, Jr, and am at work on lessons for Saint Mary of Egypt, the Apostle Thecla, Saint Martín de Porres, and Saint Juan Diego.
