Race Relations Dear American Christians, This week I attended a multi-cultural meeting of pastors and Christian community leaders at Crossroads Bible College. Although there were several hundred invited, about 50 showed up to discuss: How should the church respond to the racial tensions that have been recently witnessed in Ferguson, Missouri and elsewhere? It was appropriate that this meeting took place in the week when we celebrate and remember the contribution that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made to racial justice in our nation. Dr. Ware, President of Crossroads Bible College, began our meeting by profoundly asserting, There are those who say the remedy to the race relations is through preaching of the Gospel. The Gospel has been preached for over 200 years in America and yet the simple preaching of the Gospel did not solve the problems were facing today. One pastor explained, Youve heard of righteous indignation but I call it Riotous Indignity. Because of the indignity, the people are riotous. Im not sure I agree with his assessment, but I am glad to hear the issue from his point of view. Understanding and empathy is an important step of progress. An African American pastor said, We grew up seeing pictures of a black man hanging at the end of a rope surrounded by a smiling mob of white men. You have never seen a picture of a white man hanging at the end of a rope surrounded by a mob of smiling black men. Although these images are in the past, it was suggested that very seldom do White Christians and Black Christians truly communicate with one another on the issues of racial tensions. This is often because African Americans see the race issues from a perspective of history and experiences that come with deep emotional hurt. White Americans tend to see this issue from more of an intellectual or philosophical perspective. Dr. Ware asked, Are we better off now than 30 years ago? One pastor answered, We dont know. A lot of what is true has been hidden. Social media has brought a lot of this to the surface in recent days. Many of the issues of racial injustice are no longer a matter of law, but of practice. The status quo has power to resist change. My Mom grew up in south Texas and came to Indianapolis after marrying Dad in the 1946. Until she got here, she had never ridden on a city bus that didnt have a line painted on the inside to separate the front of the bus, where the white people sit, from the back of the bus, where the African Americans would ride…because thats just the way it is. That injustice of inequality created a systemic problem that still impacts us in our nation today. This past week I had Thomas listen in full to Dr. Kings I have a dream speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Maybe the most famous lines are, I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Dr. King is one of my heroes of the faith. I would suggest that your education is not complete until you have read Letters from a Birmingham Jail which Dr. King wrote while he was arrested and jailed on Good Friday 1963 for his part in the marches on Birmingham, Alabama. In it he lays out the righteousness of the fight for racial equality, the indecency of indifference, and the sin of racial bigotry. There are those who would say that racial equality is the law of the land and that there is no need for protest today. An African American pastor suggested that when people feel they arent being heard, the protests and riots are their voice shouting to be heard. None of us condones violence. But to pretend that all is well simply ignores the truth. Lest you think this issue doesnt involve you… You see, race is a man made thing! Race is a way of dividing people into categories based on certain physical characteristics and then assigning value or rank based on that distinction. The Bible says, From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth (Acts 17:26a, NLT). We are all a single race of people—the human race. Plus, all of us who know Christ are one body in Christ—this truth doubles our oneness. Paul said, The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ…If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it (1 Corinthians 12:12, 26, NLT). When our brothers and sisters are hurting, all are hurting. One pastor suggested that we need a healing hermeneutic meaning that we need to teach the Bible in a redemptive and therapeutic way that helps heal the hurts of the past, deals honestly with injustice and inequality and reconciles people back together. The Apostle Paul said, God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:18–20, NLT). Any reconciliation must first be Biblical—it must be grounded on Gods truth. Political solutions are weak in providing genuine reconciliation. Remember it was a Baptist preacher who led this civil rights movement in the 1960s born out of his commitment to Christ and the church. Secondly, we must be intentional—reconciliation wont happen naturally; you must be intentional about breaking down walls that divide. Thirdly, we must be relational—there cant be reconciliation without relationship. Even the word reconcile indicates that there first must be a relationship. Dr Ware said the church [must] pursue grace relations rather than race relations. Grace offers a healthy foundation for dealing with sins of the past and the alienation of the present as well. Onward with reconciliation, Pastor Gary
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 12:26:27 +0000
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