The Problem with Gradualism: Rethinking the Pace of Social Change
Whether it is concerning the current movements growing to resist racism in America and around the world, or whether it relates to my own advocacy on behalf of LGBTQ+ people (especially in the Christian community), a common theme comes up in conversation: a reminder that people (namely those subject to oppression) need to be patient and understanding because change takes time and that, in the end, justice will prevail. This is a common call for those who advocate for gradualism.
In this context, the term gradualism refers to the idea that social change comes as a result of slow and small increments rather than through means aiming for immediate change, such as protests and revolution. Those who advocate for it may not entirely dismiss the legitimacy of protests or revolutionary action (though some explicitly do) but rather center gradualism as the primary means of change in social contexts.
I first came to understand these ideas clearly while reading James H. Cone’s ground-breaking book “The Cross and the Lynching Tree”. In the book, Cone contrasts the response to racial segregation by two men, Reinhold Niebuhr (the most influential Christian theologian in America at the time) and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Niebuhr was deeply sympathetic to the plight of African Americans but did not support the movements on…