Jesus calls us to be his disciples, or learners. Mennonite Church USA has commited itself to become an antiracist church. How do we, as Jesus’ disciples and members of Mennonite Church USA, learn to become antiracist?

Racism, we’ve learned, is a systemic reality, one of the “powers” the Bible mentions that we are to struggle against (Ephesians 6:12).

Part of being a disciple of Jesus is being involved in that struggle. And part of that struggle is acknowledging our bias.

Ask just about anyone if they’re a racist, and they’ll say no. We try not to have an explicit bias. We confess, with Scripture, that all humans are created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27).

But, as humans, we all have an implicit bias; we just may not realize it.

Chris Mooney, in his article “Are You Racist?” (Mother Jones, January/February), writes about research being done that shows “the bigot inside your brain.”

Mooney talked with David Amodio of New York University and sat for an Implicit Association Test (IAT), which Mooney calls “extremely simple and pretty traumatic.”

The IAT asks people to rapidly categorize images of faces as either “African American” or “European American” while also categorizing words (such as “evil,” “happy,” “awful” and “peace”) as either good or bad.

Mooney learned that “racially biased messages from the culture around you have shaped the very wiring of your brain.”

As humans we constantly categorize. The problem occurs when we essentialize human attributes (gender, age, sexual orientation, race).

“This means,” writes Mooney, “that when you think of people in that category, you rapidly or even automatically come up with assumptions about their characteristics, [ones] your brain perceives as unchanging and often rooted in biology.”

According to research at Tel Aviv University, “Essentialism appears to exert its negative effects on creativity not through what people think but how they think,” writes Mooney.

The point is, while it is good to work at changing overt, conscious racism, we also need to address implicit bias, which is more hidden.

How do we do this? Studies show that at least for a relatively short time, “there are cognitive ways to make people less prejudiced.” You can trick your brain, says one researcher. “By deliberately thinking a thought that is directly counter to widespread stereotypes, you can break normal patterns of association,” he says.

This isn’t the same as cultural bias, but both need to be addressed. “A good start,” writes Mooney, “may simply be making people aware of just how unconsciously biased they can be.”

As disciples we can work at changing the cultural biases while also working on our own implicit bias. Bias rears its head in many ways, and as a result, when conflicts occur in the church, we may tend to categorize people and essentialize their characteristics.

Last fall, our pastor preached on Daniel 2. In that chapter, King Nebuchadnessar is going to have Daniel and “the wise men of Babylon” killed because they cannot interpret his dream. But Daniel tells the king’s executioner that he will interpret the dream. “Do not destroy the wise men of Babylon,” he says.

That seems a good example of Jesus’ teaching to love one’s enemies (Matthew 5:44). And can we not, then, love our brothers and sisters in the church and believe the best about them (see 1 Corinthians 13:7) instead of assuming the worst about the people we disagree with?

As disciples we can learn to acknowledge our implicit bias and seek to change it. At the same time, we can work together at struggling against the powers that seek to divide us.