Atlanta pastor apologizes for wanting to replace ‘white privilege’ with ‘white blessings’

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A prominent pastor from an Atlanta megachurch pastor has raised some brows after telling his congregation that they should start using the phrase “white blessings” instead of “white privilege.” Pastor Louie Giglio has since apologized for his choice of words.

According to Newsweek, Sunday during an online church service featuring rapper Lecrae and Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy, Giglio opined that Americans needed to “get over” the phrase “white privilege.”

Giglio, the founder of the Passion Movement, joined Lecrae and Cathy in hopes of having “an open and honest conversation around how racism has plagued our city for generations, and the steps we can all take to confront it head-on in our church, our neighborhoods, and our hearts.”

“I feel like on the inside of the church we’re fighting this historical context you [Lecrae] talk about,” he said 20 minutes into the discussion. “In other words, we love the blessing of the cross but we don’t love to sit in it and realize this is what gods asking me to do, to die to myself, and live for him, whatever context that’s going to look like for me.”

Pastor Louie Giglio, rapper Lecrae and Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy “had an honest conversation about race and the Church” on June 14.

Here’s an example of why words and their meanings matter.

“White Privilege” vs. “White Blessings” pic.twitter.com/VkSP6RP0t1

— Nicola A. Menzie (@namenzie) June 16, 2020

“But I want to flip that upside down because I think the other side of it is true with our nation’s history,” he continued. “We understand the curse that was slavery, white people do, and we say ‘that was bad,’ but we miss the blessing of slavery that it actually built up the framework for the world that white people live in and lived in.”

Giglio then speculated that since white people are resistant to the term “white privilege” it may be time for some new verbiage.

“And so a lot of people call this ‘white privilege’ and when you say those two words it’s like a fuse goes off for a lot of white people because they don’t want somebody telling them to check their privilege,” he explained.

Not surprisingly, the clip of Giglio proposing the use of “white blessing” instead of “white privilege” was met with criticism once it was shared on social media.

Lecrae has since taken to social media to further explain his comments.

My response to #whiteblessing pic.twitter.com/KrPAd217Iv

— Lecrae (@lecrae) June 16, 2020

Giglio apologized for his choice of words as well and captioned the post as a “message from my heart”. He asked for prayers and that we could all move forward together.