 “What’s going on in our world? What’s happening? It seems to be coming apart at the seams.” These are some of the thoughts I hear from people these days. We see civil unrest, demonstrations, and riots. There is a lot of anger on all sides.
How should the church respond? Should we jump in with the anger, the rhetoric, the violence? Should we strategize, problem solve, and work at finding solutions? Should we educate ourselves so that we better understand what’s going on? I think before we do anything, we need to stop and lament. A lament is a passionate expression of grief or sorrow. There is so much to grieve over--to mourn, to lament. We need to take the time, a lot of time, to properly lament before we even think about solutions. Why We Lament As the Diversity Director for a national campus ministry, I often find myself crying in prayer. I am entrusted with helping our movement accurately represent our Father and his kingdom through our ministry. This is a somewhat impossible task. The church has mostly failed at this task during most of its history. Yet, we still work at it because it is our purpose as God’s people to represent him—to bear his image in this world. I am compelled to pray and to work. The gravity of the work is not lost on me. I feel the burden of it each day. I see our failures and shortcomings. I listen to the experiences of students and staff from different ethnic groups. I know we can do better. All the time, I see the many ways we can be better image bearers, show the campus a more accurate Christ. And so, I cry. I lament. I mourn. Sometimes, I even wail. When my kids catch me crying in prayer and ask me about it, I tell them, “I’m sad. Crying is what we do when we’re sad.” When there is loss, trauma, injury, and wrongdoing, crying is the right thing to do. We should be brokenhearted over these things. It should make us feel. The Father feels. In Noah’s time, the Father “regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.” He “saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time” and He mourned. The Bible is full of examples of God’s heart breaking over the wickedness of humans, over the injustices we perpetrated on each other. No, these are not new, but they are still wrong. If it hurts our God, it should hurt us as well. How can we say we are in fellowship with him, we are his children, if we are untouched by the things that touch him? What We Lament There is so much that needs lamenting that I cannot possibly do it justice in this short article. Here are just two thoughts. Take the time to think and pray through them and the Holy Spirit will bring to mind more areas that need your lament. Injustice. Justice is doing right. The wicked are condemned and the innocent are protected. Think about the history of our country in relation to African Americans, Native Americans, other ethnic groups and the poor. There is no doubt that these groups of people have not found justice in our society. From the time Europeans arrived on our shores, they have endured one injustice after another: enslavement, displacement, rape, murder, separation of families, physical abuse, torture, and dismemberment is not a complete list. Are these ethnic groups the only ones who have faced injustice? Of course not. Human beings and the systems they develop are inherently unjust. The amazing thing about our country for most of our history though, is that it has been assumed justice is primarily for Whites. For others to think they could or should have the same justice has been a foolish thought. God’s kingdom, on the other hand, is inherently just because God is the definition of justice. As citizens of his kingdom we love justice and hate injustice. Just the existence of injustice around us should break our hearts. Letting the suffering of others touch us and caring for their situations is core to the gospel. God became flesh and dwelt among us. He did not shy away from walking in the dirt of this world. He embraced our suffering. Are we not to do the same? Failure. As I mentioned before, the church has mostly failed at accurately representing our Father and his kingdom to the world. If you do not believe that, you need to study the Scriptures and history more. Most of the injustices listed above have been committed by those wearing the Christian banner, sometimes those wearing the missionary banner. We can say these individuals were not “real Christians” and separate ourselves from them like we try to do from the Crusaders and Conquistadores. But how is the world to know the difference if one group is publicly doing wrong in the name of Christ and the other is doing nothing. Of course, there are Christians we can point to in history who stood up for justice, believers like William Wilberforce, Harriet Tubman, and Martin Luther King Jr. But unfortunately, they are the minority, a part of the remnant who did not bow their knees to the idols of the time: greed, complacency, and fear. They chose courage over comfort and often paid with their lives. These are the exceptions. Where were all the other Bible-believing, Spirit-filled believers during these times? Huddled in a corner, disconnected from the world, fearing contamination? As a Pentecostal believer I don’t have to look far to identify our failures. Our movement was birthed in a revival in Los Angeles led by an African American preacher named William Seymour where those gathered were from multiple different socio-economic levels and ethnicities. For a moment we tasted of heaven as believers gathered together and affirmed that there is “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Unfortunately, it did not take long for division to arise along racial lines. Is this not something that should be lamented? When we as the church take a good look in the mirror, do we not see many ways we have been complicit with racism, ethnocentrism and white supremacy? lf you need examples of the last, just look at the pictures of Jesus with white skin and blue eyes in many churches’ stained glass or Sunday school materials. How to Lament Brokenness and humility are the words God spoke to me when I asked him four years ago, “what should the church be doing right now.” Brokenness is what happens when we look at all the evil, all the wrong, all the injustice in our world and we allow it to hurt us. We are broken with those who suffer. Humility is the posture we take as we embrace the reality that there is nothing in ourselves that we can do to bring about any change. When we are honest about our frailty and our failures, we find ourselves in place of utter humility. I believe the first way we need to lament is to repent. The main reason we have not moved on as a country or even in the church, is we have not truly repented. Every once in a while, when things happen that we cannot ignore or are hard to deny (though many still try to) we will talk about how we need move on. Many, even in the church, think the trick to moving on is to stop talking about it. If we just stopped talking about racism, it would go away. Where a Christian would get the idea that ignoring a sin causes its disappearance is beyond me. You can find no such pattern in the Scriptures. What you do find is God continually, persistently, relentlessly, sending prophet after prophet telling his people basically the same thing. “Stop worshipping idols. Stop oppressing the poor, widows, and foreigners. Do right. Keep the covenant you agreed to. Be the people you’re supposed to be, so the world knows what I am actually like.” We cannot “move on” until we admit the wrongs we have done in the past and the present. We have to humble ourselves and admit the sins of the church and the country because, as parts of both of them, we have the Biblical obligation to do so (see Daniel 9 for an example of this). We must also repent for our own biases and prejudices. I have an awfully hard time believing I’m the only one in the world with biases and prejudices. If we can be honest and vulnerable about our struggle with lust, greed, and other sins, why can’t we be honest about our struggle with prejudice? The world has made racism today’s unforgivable sin, but God does not recognize this. He offers forgiveness and deliverance from this sin, just like he does all others. Another way for us to repent is to listen. Truth is we are not very good at this. For most of our history, those facing injustice have gone unheard. Even in this time, so many have told me how they feel silenced. You may scoff at this statement as you see the world shouting. But there are many in the church that feel if they were to fully share their thoughts and feelings, even just their experiences with fellow believers they would be attacked. So, they remain silent. Listening, both personally and through articles and other media is the primary way the church needs to repent right now. Listening will open up our hearts towards brokenness and humility. Jeremiah the prophet was broken for his nation. He cared. He cried out, “Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears. I would weep and day and night for the slain of my people.” Weeping I find is a very appropriate way to lament. I do not mean to say if you are not crying, you do not care. But I do find that deep pain often produces tears. If I think about how we as believers have disappointed God and how this world is so wicked and corrupt, and how so many suffer in it, I often feel pain. I am not advocating the false production of tears, but for the genuine embracing of God’s heart for people. Jesus was once asked why his disciples were not participating in a time of fasting with other religious groups. His answer was simple, “I’m here, so it’s a time for rejoicing,” (my own paraphrase). But he did say the time would come when they would fast. Fasting in Scripture is associated with humility and mourning. We humble ourselves, deny ourselves, because it is a time to mourn. Now is a time to mourn and in place of feasting, we can fast. Isaiah 59 offers a beautiful picture of true fasting. “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-- when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Fasting is an active work of lamentation that, as Isaiah 58 points out, will lead to other works. Yes, we need to stop and lament first. Then, we need to let our lamenting, continual and growing, be the foundation for true fasting.  Note: This is written for a Chi Alpha audience, but can apply in any ministry context.
Are you dreaming of the multitude of every nation, tribe, people, and language and longing to see God’s kingdom reflected in your local Chi Alpha group? Over the next three weeks we will expound on three simple and proven ministry truths to begin and to make progress in a Holy Spirit transformation in your community. Our first ministry truth is this: you get what you pray for. #1 You Get What You Pray For Jesus said, “Without me you can do nothing.” He wasn’t referring to activity. We are very good at doing stuff on our own. He was referring to fruit, fruit that lasts. (John 15:16) To see eternal change in the lives of human beings, we need the holy sap of Jesus’ life to flow through us, and this requires prayer. The first, second, and last place to accomplish anything of significance is prayer. If you want to be a different kind of group, one that represents your campus and more importantly God’s kingdom, you need divine help. I truly believe you get what you pray for, so pray for… Pray for revelation. Before we can share the vision for diversity, we need a personal revelation of what it means. Diversity is a word that has many definitions in our world, and though we do not find it in the Bible, we certainly find the model of multi-ethnic, unified communities living out a kingdom ethic. Revelation is the product of prayer combined with reading and study. As you delve into God’s word, pray for revelation for yourself, your fellow staff members, your student leaders and every student in your group. Pray for deliverance. There are reasons our churches are racially and ethnically segregated. Some have to do with preference and tastes, but much has to do with sin. The sins of greed, lust, and power birthed the sin of racism in the United States. We cannot build communities that reflect God’s kingdom without deliverance, and we will not experience deliverance without repentance. Repent for your own prejudices and racism. It is also Biblical to repent on behalf of your nation (people group) and country (place where you live) (Daniel 9:3-19). Pray for deliverance from strongholds (entrenched ways of thinking) that influence many of us without our knowledge. Pray for freedom from the world’s ways of thinking, to no longer see anyone from a worldly point of view (2 Corinthians 5:16). Instead pray for new ways of thinking (Rom 12:2). Pray for kingdom-minded hearts. Many who love the vision of kingdom diversity don’t act on it for fear of what will happen in their groups or churches. How will my leaders and congregants respond? In a homogenous group, everything is tailored to the dominant group. How will that group feel when confronted with unpleasant truths and eventual changes? It is vital that you take the time to pray for kingdom-minded hearts. Pray in faith knowing that as you undertake your own journey of allowing God to renew your mind and transform your perspectives, you will be sowing seeds for transformation to happen in others. Pray for protection. If there is one thing I have learned as I work to see our Chi Alpha groups accurately represent God’s kingdom on campus, it is that it is a battle. Anything you do, even if all you are doing is praying (and believe me that is enough), is a direct confrontation to entrenched spirits who have controlled our country for centuries. They have kept people and more importantly Christians separated. This separation, besides maligning the name of Christ, has limited the church’s effectiveness in world missions, reaching cities, executing justice, and yes, this is true even on our campuses. Your confrontation to these powers and principalities will not go unnoticed or unopposed. Pray for protection of your relationships (for this is where retaliation tends to come), your unity, and your community. Guard all your relationships and don’t give way to misunderstandings, wounds, pride, and any kind of unforgiveness. Pray for wisdom. In addition to prayer, there will be things you will need to do and changes you will need to make to see God’s vision for your group come to pass. You can read books and get counsel, but deciding what to do and how to do it will require divine wisdom. These can be difficult waters to navigate. Everyone has an opinion on “diversity issues” and pretty much thinks theirs are right. Confronting strongholds, acting out our repentance, and making intentional changes in what you do, all require enormous amounts of wisdom. Take heart! God promises wisdom to those who ask for it (James 1:5). Pray for partners. Transforming a group from homogenous to multi-ethnic is spiritual work--a work of the Spirit. It is something He alone can and does do. But he also uses vessels like you. However, you alone are not enough. In this case, the goal is also the strategy. Your goal is to see a multi-ethnic body on campus. You must find partners from underrepresented ethnic groups. How? Pray. Pray specifically for what you need and remember you are not praying for something you want, more importantly you are praying for something our Father desires. You are praying as Jesus taught his disciples, “Let your kingdom come and your will be done.” For this is his kingdom and this is his will. You have a dream, a vision, a driving desire to see our Father’s kingdom reflected in your Chi Alpha group. I am ecstatic! I know that our Father is also pleased. After all, it is his kingdom we are representing. And that is what we must remember. It is his kingdom. He is the one who builds it, we are merely his partners and that partnership begins in prayer. This is the place we receive revelation, deliverance, wisdom, kingdom-minded hearts, and protection. This is where we pray for these for others and where God releases others to partner with us. Pray in faith! You get what you pray for.  “Who is my neighbor?” This is the question that prompted that great story we know as the Good Samaritan. You can read it in Luke chapter 10. This is how it came about:
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[c]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” I love Luke’s commentary in verse 29. He makes a point of telling his readers that the motivation behind the law expert’s follow-up question was to justify himself. How like an expert of the law to try to find a loophole in the great commandment. And how like our Lord to answer a question of geography with a story of behavior. Because, as this parable shows us, love is, after all, a verb. Jesus turned the word neighbor from a noun dealing with location to a verb dealing with action rooted in value. You see the Samaritan made a value decision when he decided to actively show kindness to the man who was robbed. He decided this man had great worth. He decided his neighbor was sacred. Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. This was due to a complicated history of abuse and oppression that caused each group to severely dislike and distrust each other. The road to Samaria was full of thieves, many of whom were most likely Samaritans. It was not unusual for a lonely traveler to fall the victim to crime. The man in this instance should really not have been traveling alone. That’s probably what the priest and the Levite who passed on the other side thought. Today we see it as a lack of compassion, they probably saw it as a sign of wisdom. If while traveling a dangerous road you come upon a victim of crime, you are left with little doubt that this is indeed a dangerous place and it is best to make good speed and get out of there fast! These two religious leaders were simply responding from the basic human instinct of self-preservation. Can we really blame them for that? Would we do any differently? Do we today? That is why the Samaritan’s behavior is so mind blowing. He does that exact opposite. He does not protect himself. On the contrary, he puts himself in danger in several ways. First, he places himself at risk by helping a Jew whose fallen victim to his own countrymen. Isn’t he siding with the enemy? Is he really thinking through what this could mean for him within his own cultural group? We think it sweet that the Samaritan showed kindness to the enemy of his people. Would his own people view it the same way? He also places his life in peril by taking this unconscious, naked Jew, putting him on his own donkey and taking him to an inn. What is to stop anyone he encounters along the way from thinking he is the criminal in this case? Here is the man on his donkey, in his possession. Think of the exact situation today. What would happen if an Israeli soldier came upon a fellow countryman naked, beaten, and unconscious in a Palestinian’s car? Would he thank the Palestinian or shoot him? Seen in this light, it seems the Samaritan could use some of the wisdom of the Levite and the priest. His actions really do not make sense. Why would he engage in such dangerous behavior? Obviously he values the life of this stranger, not just as much as his own, but more than his own. And that sounds just like the kind of point Jesus would make. After all he did say, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13)” The amazing truth here is that this man lays his life down, not for his friend, but literally for his enemy. This is so the kind of standard Jesus espouses, a truly insane--way beyond basic human instinct, reason, or common sense--definition of love. It is not the way of this world, but of our Father’s kingdom, modeled by our Lord himself. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8). The son laid down his life for his Father’s enemies. Are his followers to do less? Please hear me. What Jesus says to this expert in the law is more than a legal reply. He is not talking about how to meet conditions or standards. He is not sharing pretty platitudes regarding how we use our time and our need to make room for interruptions. He is saying to this man, to his hearers, to Luke’s readers, and to us today, that love is not a matter of geography and thus convenience. It is a matter of value resulting in dangerous, crazy actions. Of course, the parallels to our modern cross-cultural, cross-racial relationship are hard to miss. Today, in our country and our world, believers are tempted to huddle in groups under the banner of wisdom and self-preservation. We have our own histories that have resulted in dislike and distrust between neighbors and countrymen. But we are enticed to distance ourselves from them, to label them as other, and thus free from our compassion, kindness, understanding, or relationship. The world tells us to put aside our differences and tolerate each other, learn to live together. Our Lord asks us to lay down our lives and risk misunderstanding, repercussions, and even death to be a neighbor. YES, doing so will get us labeled and rejected by both our group and others. It will also put us in great company with Jesus himself. We can do no less when once we realize our neighbor is sacred.  As I interact with different people regarding diversity issues, I often come across those who tell me they are color-blind. Now, this does not mean they cannot distinguish between green and red. I think what they are trying to say is that they see everyone the same; they don’t “see color.” This, I perceive, is a response to our history as a nation of dividing people into color groups and granting them privileges accordingly. Today we recognize that such a system is evil. So the righteous response must be the direct opposite reaction -- to develop the ability to see everyone the same. But is this what Christians should do? Is being color-blind a Godly character trait? In other words, is God color-blind?
Well obviously, God is not color-blind. He sees EVERYTHING! We know that he created color, in all its endless shades and hues. He did this, we feel, because he is a creative God who delights in variety and beauty. He is artistic, reveling in splendor and majesty. It is not too much to infer that when he created humanity, he endowed it with all the variety and diversity that he gave the rest of creation. He did not desire a uniform representation of his being. Creation reveals God’s character (Romans 1), humanity his very being- “So he created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them: male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27). It is not a great leap to reason that God, who is a wonderfully diverse being, would imprint his image on a diverse humanity. One of the things I love about having a Christian family is the realization that it takes both my husband and I to even begin to represent God to our children. In the same way, it takes all the different ethnic and racial groups of our world, all the cultures, in order for us to see God in his fullness. We live in a time when our society is trying to erase the uniqueness of gender. For the most part, the Christian church fights against this attack, seeing it for what it is, an attempt to repudiate the truth that we are created in God’s image. So why would we, in like manner, join attempts to erase the uniqueness of our ethnic creation. In Revelation 7:9 John tells us, “And then I looked and saw a multitude that no man could count from every nation, tribe, people and language.” This verse makes it clear that at the end of the age, even after our physical transformation we will retain the uniqueness of our ethnicity. This means that God values who we are in this world if he will retain our external ethnic identity markers for all eternity. In like manner, we also should celebrate our ethnic distinctiveness and uniqueness. We should realize that just as it takes a mother and father to represent God the Father to children, it takes the whole body of Christ to represent God to the world. Often you will hear sermons regarding this. These are usually focused on the need to have the varieties of gifts present in a local congregation. I believe wholeheartedly that the body is diminished by any form of uniformity, whether in abilities, ethnicity, or even economically. It takes all of who we are to represent all of who God is. So, the answer to my original question is no. God is not color-blind nor does he discriminate. He makes his love and grace available to all. “He rains down on the just and the unjust.” Still, he does not see us the same, nor does he treats us the same. Just ask ten people how they came to know Christ; you will hear ten very different stories. Like a good Father, he knows we each have different needs and meets those needs in unique ways. To leave behind our country’s legacy of valuing its citizens according to their skin color and ethnicity, we need not deny that color. On the contrary, we must first embrace the reality of our history and the effects we live with today. Instead of seeing everyone the same and treating everyone the same, we should strive to see everyone as they are and treat them with the love and compassion they uniquely need. Ultimately, this will result in specific acts for each individual. Not color-blind, color conscious, nor controlled, but color aware and love controlled.  Attend and congregate—here are two simple verbs that are often used to describe what the church is or what one does in relation to church. Is the church a place we go to or something we are a part of?
Do you go to (attend) church or does your church gather (congregate) regularly at a particular place and time? Now before you dismiss this post as splitting of hairs, stick with me a minute or two. I think the difference is more than semantics. The difference between the church as people or place is crucial. If the church is a place that one attends, then how we get people to come to it becomes a real question. It deals with marketing and consumption. We want to give our attendees a great experience, a good product, so that they will become faithful customers/attenders. Is this not what we are all about in the church these days--attracting customers? Loyal customers who stay with us year after year. Even more so, we want customers who will become salespeople, like your classic pyramid scheme. This is just one of the many pitfalls of redefining church as a place we attend. Now, if the church is a congregation that we are a part of, then it would make sense that we should gather periodically. We need to gather to refresh our relationships with one another. Just like families gather; we gather not to become family, but to stay current, to stay in touch and enjoy each other’s company. But the church is more than a family. We are the body of Christ. This means we share in his vision and mission. So we also need to gather to discuss how to work together in that mission and to celebrate the reason we are one in the first place. This is often called worship. We gather to sing, shout, rejoice, and learn so that we can represent him better and better within our spheres of influence. So what does this have to do with diversity? Well, if church is something we attend, then it really doesn’t matter where we attend. We can pick the consumer experience that best caters to our own personal likes and needs. This view of the church results in a segregated church. If on the other hand, the church is something supernatural that we belong to by the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives, then I don’t get to choose who I congregate with. The reasons "I am in Chris"t should dominate the choices I make in who I congregate with- namely, to represent him well in the world as his body extended to each other and our community. This view of the church drives us towards diversity.  Let’s face it. The work of racial reconciliation is hard. We are asking fleshly human beings to reject their own natural worldview and self-interest and choose God’s kingdom instead. This is not an easy message to communicate and even more difficult to embrace and live out.
Today, fight discouragement and the temptations to withdraw from the battle with some wonderful truths right from Christ’s resurrection. 1. Embrace suffering. Jesus gave his life on the cross, not for anything that he did, but for us. In the same way, we need to embrace the suffering of others as our own. This is such a key element in being a racial reconciler. Mourn with those who mourn and, as much as is possible, empathize and sympathize with sufferings that are not your own. 2. Stay hopeful. Yes, many days it will look like we are making little progress. There may even be times that things look completely lost. At those times remind yourself that we serve a living Savior and with him there is always hope. The tomb was not the end of the story -- HE ROSE! 3. Embrace death. Everyone loves the victory of the resurrection! It is God’s triumph over sin, the flesh, and the devil that he so generously shares with his children. Yet, there is no resurrection without death. In our work of bringing reconciliation between former enemies there is much we must die to: our own desires, hurt feelings, being understood, other opinions of us, etc. These and so much more must die if we are to see Christ’s life flow through us. 4. Be a bridge. Jesus was God in the flesh. He brought heaven to earth. He made the eternal accessible. In his person he connects so many elements that do not seem to go together: justice and mercy, humility and unashamed self-proclamation, compassion and rebuking, to name a few. In the same way, although our work to see heaven on earth today may seem impossible, in Jesus it becomes more than possible. 5. Remain focused. Our work is not to build our own kingdoms but to see his kingdom come and his will be done. Just like Jesus in the garden we must respond to the difficult cups we must often drink with, “yet not my will, but yours be done." We must never lose focus and always keep what we do squarely centered in making our Father proud and our Lord famous. Photo credit: shadowgirls-stock.deviantart.com  I woke up a little after midnight unable to sleep. On Facebook, an African American student from one of our Chi Alpha groups messaged me asking for my prayers and help. The KKK is handing out flyers in his town (more flyers). I can't imagine the many emotions he is feeling, but he told me, "This really angers me, but it angers me to want to do something about it through spreading the love of Christ even more, and how we are all one blood under Christ." I am so proud of this student. In the midst of his own feelings, he is staying focused on Christ’s mission.
So, I am up praying and crying and asking myself, “How can this group still exist today?” But, of course I already know the answer. We are not a post-racial society. There is so much going on in our world, but most in the church are so very ignorant of it that I am inspired today to speak out and bring some truth to bear. Ignorance, by the way, is simply not knowing. There is no shame in not knowing, only in refusing to learn. Let’s start with some basic definitions to help us sort through some of the lies. Racism. This word gets thrown around a lot, but what is it actually? I like the clarity that sociologist Michael Emerson brings in his paper, “The Persistent Problem”. “Research consistently finds significant differences in the way that racial groups tend to define racism” (e.g., Yancey 2006). Whites tend to view racism as intended individual acts of overt prejudice and discrimination…In short, it defines the person’s essence. To be called “racist” by others then is so very offensive to so many whites because it communicates an amazing charge. It says, “You, white person, walk around holding crazy stereotypes in your head, and you then go around intentionally and directly parading your racial prejudice and discrimination against me and others. Whatever else you may be, white person, this racist label is your master status.” Ouch. No wonder the word makes the blood boil. Most people of color define racism quite differently. Racism is, at a minimum, prejudice plus power, and that power comes not from being a prejudiced individual, but from being part of a group that controls the nation’s systems. So while anyone can be prejudiced, only whites can perpetrate racism in the United States, for they hold and have always held most of the power in American institutions. Even in a nation that currently has a president as black, nearly all senators, representatives, governors, and CEOs, to name a few, are white. This view of racism is called the structuralist definition, and stands in stark contrast to the individualist definition.” Let’s be clear. Both definitions of racism are sin. The individualist definition violates the sacredness of humanity. The structural definition violates the very essence of the gospel. Those who claim the cross are called to serve and lay down their lives for others, not to use whatever power they might have for self-protection and self-aggrandizement. White Power/ White Privilege. Here are some more terms that are incredibly misunderstood. Again I turn to Michael Emerson. When trying to understand sociological concepts, turn to a sociologist. He uses the term, “structural advantage” probably to lighten some of the weight. “White Structural Advantage: As alluded to earlier, white Americans occupy the location of dominance—politically, economically, culturally, and numerically—within the racial hierarchy. They have disproportionate control of influence of political parties, legal system, government-controlled institutions, industry, and business. These structural advantages provide privileges to whites, where privilege here can be defined as benefits accrued by virtue of having a white identity. This advantage is in everyday situations and at institutional levels. Some examples, with varying degrees of significance for life outcomes: whites easily purchase movies, literature, or greeting cards with whites in them; white Americans can ignore the experiences, writings, or ideas of racial/ethnic minorities without penalty; whites are assumed to be middle class, law abiding, and well meaning, unless they prove otherwise (and they will have to work at proving it) whereas for other groups it is typically the opposite; whites have the ability to set laws and policies (in part because elected officials are overwhelmingly white)—including who is defined as white and who is not, the power to interpret what is a racial problem and what is not, who gets into the country and who does not, the ability to pass housing policies that favor their racial group, and whites shape the development of educational curriculums that emphasizes Western history and social experiences, and much more.” I find people are often offended at the notion that they might have “white power”, like they have done something wrong. Look, if you are white (actually I don’t like that term, but will use it for the purpose of this discussion), the truth is that you do have structural advantages. This does not make you a bad person! If you are a Christian, then I would challenge you to use this advantage for the benefit of others who do not have this advantage. THIS IS THE GOSPEL. Jesus shares his power, privilege, and advantage with us. He has all of these, and does not deny it, but instead uses it. KKK. I do not claim to be an expert on this group. On the website listed on this flyer they say, “Our goal is to help restore America to a White Christian nation founded on God’s word. This does not mean we want to see anything bad happen to the darker races... we simply want to live separate from them as GOD intended (Lev. 20:24-25).” A few things regarding these two short sentences. Leviticus 20:24-25 says, “But I said to you, “You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am the LORD your God, who has set you apart from the nations. “‘You must therefore make a distinction between clean and unclean animals and between unclean and clean birds. Do not defile yourselves by any animal or bird or anything that moves along the ground—those that I have set apart as unclean for you.” Regarding the scripture reference- Yeah, I don’t get it either. I guess they bank on most people not actually looking this up or they think that God’s command to the Hebrew people to live separate from idolatrous nations around them somehow equates to racial segregation today. Race is a human construct that was not part of the ancient world and that is one, among many reasons, why this Scripture is horribly misapplied by the Klan. Secondly, White and Christian are not synonymous terms, though I think perhaps the Klan thinks they are. Christianity was in Africa before it made its way to Europe. Most Europeans were idolatrous “barbarians”, much like the people Moses warned the Israelites to separate themselves from, before the gospel took root there. Christians are people who have embraced Jesus as Lord and Savior and actually live by his ways and do his will. By the way, believers were first called Christians in Antioch because their multi-ethnic congregation of Jews and Gentiles necessitated a new term. Thank you, Luke, for recording the leaders of this great church for us so that we will not get sucked into the lies of groups like this. “Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas (Jewish), Simeon called Niger (Sub-Saharan African), Lucius of Cyrene (Greek), Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul (Jew from Greek city).” Acts. 13:1. Italics are mine. Lastly, Black History Month and Hispanic Heritage Month are not racist because they celebrate the culture and contributions of often over-looked groups. Ethnic specific events, media, and resources exist because many of us feel we are completely lacking from the general culture. If we want to make these things obsolete then let’s create school curriculums, movies, and events that truly represents all of us. Here’s the bottom line, brothers and sisters. Everything that quotes Scripture and claims Jesus’ allegiance is not of God. Jesus taught us to judge a tree by its fruit. This is a good standard to apply to all of our lives. The kingdom of God is made up of every nation, tribe, people, and language. THIS IS TRUTH. As Mark Deymaz says, “if the kingdom of heaven is not segregated, then why on earth is the local church?" It is time to deal with the reality of the racial injustice in our world through a Biblical lens. Like my brother put it, "This really angers me, but it angers me to want to do something about it through spreading the love of Christ even more, and how we are all one blood under Christ." Me too. Will you join us? |
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