After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev 12:9-10)
Father, you are God of all peoples, for you made them. And people from all races and nations and languages will stand before your throne together and proclaim your excellencies. Hallelujah! May we your people see our oneness in Christ, even when we look different on the outside. Let us see race as you do.
God is the God of all peoples. Black belongs to God. White belongs to God. Hispanic, Indian, Chinese, Inuit – they all belong to God. All races belong to God because God made them and redeemed them. The blood of Christ makes worshippers of all skin colors, and one day, the redeemed of all races will stand together in one joyous throng and sing and shout and proclaim together that salvation belongs to their God and that there is no other.
This picture shows the end goal God has for all races. But right now, when you look at race, you do not always see such oneness. The picture in Revelation is of glory; the reality here on earth is broken and fallen. Racism is quite alive here on earth, and the reality is sad.
Talking about racism is extraordinarily difficult right now. Here in America when you look at the data – from income to incarceration rates to out of wedlock births to a host of other issues – racial inequities abound, and these inequities make racism a heated topic in America right now. In fact, the current conversation on race is not really a conversation. Conversations require two people to listen to each other in an intelligent way, but right now, people just want to shout. In the midst of the shouting, sometimes people excuse racist behavior and sometimes they wrongly accuse honest folks of being racist. This “conversation” is not progress, and it will not take us anywhere productive.
As a Christian, I believe we need to love the truth, and to discover the truth we need to listen. Whites need to listen to blacks, and blacks need to listen to whites. Listening doesn’t mean we accept everything everyone says, for there is a lot of nonsense out there, but we do need to understand what others are saying before we shout. America is not doing that. The irony of this situation is that if we want others to listen to what we say, we must give them the courtesy of listening to what they say – with an ear to truly understand and not just to offer rebuttal. Racial issues in America are complex, but we deal with them in sound bites. I will say this as plainly as I can: As long as America continues to deal with racial issues through sound bites, racism will get worse. If we want to heal racism, we must honor other people and not just shout them down.
I fear that what I have just said will turn some people off; they may be done listening. If that’s the case, that’s my point. Those people hurt the cause of racial justice in America.
First Grade Lessons
Let me begin with a personal story. I grew up in an America that was in racial upheaval. When I was in first grade, my teacher arranged our desks in groups of four, and in my group was a black girl. I don’t remember her name. I do remember, however, going home at night and seeing on the news images of blacks marching in protest and police beating them. I then would go to school, and here was this girl sitting next to me.
During math time, she and I would frequently talk math. I don’t remember if it was because we were both good at math and were comparing notes, or if I was helping her with math, but I know that during math time we often worked together. In addition, when the teacher gave assignments that required students to pair up, this girl was often the one I worked with.
I liked her personally and didn’t see how she was any different from the other six-year-old girls. Yet I sensed that the culture didn’t view her the same as the other six-year-old girls. Sometimes children sense things they don’t understand. I felt that within the culture broadly some kind of tension existed between blacks and whites, but when I interacted with this girl, I felt no tension at all. The undercurrent that I felt in the culture did not fit my experience.
This is my first memory of wrestling with racial issues in America, and I can remember as a six-year-old boy feeling “something is wrong here.” I did not yet know the word “racism,” and I couldn’t explain my feelings in words, but I sensed both the presence and wrongness of racism.
Today, I have a better understanding of the history than that six-year-old boy; I have had many more interactions with people of different races than that six-year-old boy; I can explain my feelings better than that six-year-old boy, but that childlike sense that began with that black girl hasn’t changed.
I don’t know what happened to that girl, but I am going to assume that she grew up and is my age, and lives somewhere in America today, and I am certain that she and her family has experienced racism in a different way than I have. I do not pretend to understand her situation. But if I could, I would like to thank her for being a normal six-year-old girl and talking with me about math and doing our projects together, for I believe she taught me something about race that I could not have learned from books or speeches, and she taught it to me without trying to teach me anything and when I was at an early and impressionable age. Believe it or not, that black girl was quite formative in my thinking on race.
A Global Perspective
Because I pastor an international church, I see the world – not just America. And one fact that is inescapable to me is that racism is not unique to America. It is an ancient and global problem. It is a pandemic of monumental proportions. Racism is more fundamentally a human problem than an American problem. Consider the following.
I have a friend here in Austin from the Karen peoples of Burma. He came to America as a refugee because of ethnic persecution of his people. That is racism. I have another friend in Austin who is Chinese-Indonesian and who also became a refugee because of the ethnic riots against Chinese that took place in his country. That is racism. I have a Japanese unbelieving friend who frequently blames the Jews for the problems of the world and who can’t accept the Bible in part because it was written mostly by Jews. That is racism. I have an Indian friend who has told me that racism is rampant in India, and a Malaysian friend who has said that he has personally experienced racism in his country.
The Bible relates racism. Between 1800 and 1400 BC, Egypt enslaved a single race – the Israelites. That was race-based slavery. Pharaoh gave orders to kill the male babies of only one race. Jonah preached to Ninevah, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t see Assyrian people as worthy. Haman exhibited what can only be called racial hatred. In the gospels you see racial tension between Jews and Gentiles, and Jews and Samaritans. One of the most divisive questions of the early church involved how to handle Gentiles who were converting to Jesus. Racial tensions are ancient.
In the Roman Empire of the first century, close to half the population was in slavery, and race was a large factor in determining whether a man was free or slave. Jews hated and looked down on Romans, and the Romans returned the hatred. They treated the Jews like dogs and eventually slaughtered about a million of them during the Jewish Revolt of 66 to 73.[1]
In more recent times, South Africa has struggled with apartheid. Persians and Arabs share a hatred for one another that may be surpassed only by their hatred for Jews. In Latin America, governmental and cultural systems have long practiced discrimination against indigenous, ethnic and tribal minorities. Chinese and Japanese have a long-standing animosity for one another. The Yihetuan Movement (Boxer Rebellion) in China saw Chinese people murdering nonChinese people simply for being foreigners. Many fled for their lives. Many did not make it. Today the Chinese prison camps for the Uigher people in Xinjiang province are racial oppression, and the fact that foreigners and ethnic Chinese must worship in separate churches is enforced racial segregation. In Nazi Germany, Hitler set out to form a state built on a superior race. In the process he massacred 6 million Jews. The pogroms of Czarist Russia displaced uncounted numbers of Jewish people, forcing many to flee the country. Australians have discriminated against the aboriginal peoples, and New Zealanders against the native Maoris.
Then we come to America. And we find race-based slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, segregation, racial inequities in the criminal justice system, suppression of voting, and so on. And that’s just with African-Americans.
We need to see a more global picture of racism than we do. Racism is universal. It is a toxic weed that grows in different soils and climates. It is not limited to specific economic, cultural, or political situations. Knowing this fact helps us approach racism with some hard realism. It helps us see how powerful a force for evil racism can be and how deeply it flows from and within the human heart. It reveals something of the depths of sin. It shows us that racism is stubborn and worldwide.
But isn’t this what Scripture says? “There is no one who does good, not even one.”
We must see that racism runs deep within the human race. Otherwise, we will think we can apply a uniquely American (or Indian or Chinese or wherever) band-aid to a cancer that flows from the human soul.
What is Racism?
Racism is a form of arrogance. All forms of arrogance share the belief or sense that one is superior for some reason – good grades, athletic ability, morals, lack of morals, popularity, politics, religion, lack of religion, education, social class, position at work, beauty, strength. Racism simply bases its arrogance on race. It is the belief or sense that a particular race is better than another. At the heart level, racism is like other forms of arrogance; it is ugly because arrogance is ugly.
In addition, racism is often a cultural sin. A cultural sin is a sin endemic to a particular culture such that the people in that culture consider the sin quite normal and often harmless. In the Old Testament polygamy was such a sin. In fact, sometimes godly men practiced it without thinking it a problem. Today in America divorce, premarital sex, abortion, homosexuality, or gluttony might be examples of cultural sins. In many places today, racism is such a sin.
Racist people are rarely aware of their racism. Sometimes this is a result of the fact that, for their culture, racism is a cultural sin. Sometimes it is simply because of the nature of sin itself. Sins are often invisible to sinners. The greedy man doesn’t see his greed. He sees only that he is being responsible and taking care of his family. The bitter woman doesn’t see the wrongness of her bitterness; she sees only the sin of the other person who needs to repent. Racism is much like this. Pharaoh sees only that he is protecting his country from a people who are dangerous.
Because racism is a form of arrogance, at its core, it is a heart issue, but when that heart expresses itself in behavior, racism can take many forms. It is a disease with many symptoms. When we see racism, we normally see the symptoms and not the actual heart itself. Jesus said a tree is known by its fruit. We see apples. We do not see the DNA that produces those apples. Racism is like this.
When secular culture talks about racism, it tends to focus on symptoms. It talks about social structures, political legislation, economic inequalities, or criminal injustices. These are all real issues, and we must address them, but we also need to see that these are symptoms of racism. These issues reveal how racism behaves when it has power, but at its root, racism is a spiritual issue and a heart issue. You can change social structures all day, but if you never change the heart, racism will rear its head in a new form. This is why America can abolish slavery and end up with Jim Crow. Why it can remove Jim Crow and still have Ahmaud Arbery.
If we never deal with people’s hearts, then we never deal with racism. A good doctor must treat the virus and not just the symptoms.
And yet a good doctor also treats symptoms. A virus causes a fever. The fever prevents the patient from getting rest. The doctor treats the fever so the patient can rest and be better able to fight the virus. Symptoms often exacerbate the problem. Racism is like this. Slavery, Jim Crow, inequities in the justice system, unequal opportunities, racial slurs, and more all exacerbate racism. Fighting these symptoms helps fight racism, but fighting only these symptoms is incomplete.
This is where much of the culture gets racism wrong. It is right and necessary to fight injustices. It is right even to think that fighting injustices helps fight racism. It is wrong, however, to conclude that changing only the outside solves the problem. In this, much of secular culture is naïve. If you want to change racism, you have to change people’s hearts. And that is much harder than changing social structures. The need to change hearts is also why the current shouting and name calling that is going on will actually hurt the fight against racism. You never change hearts by shouting people down. In fact, you only harden them more.
The fight against racism must include working on social structures, but it also must be a fight in the trenches that takes place a man and a woman at a time. It is in those trenches that you win hearts.
A Foundation to Fight Racism
If we wish to fight for equal justice, we need a foundation upon which to stand. The concept of equal justice implies two factors: humans have great value, and all humans have the same value. We don’t talk about equal justice for mosquitoes because, while we do see them as having the same value, we don’t see them as having significant value.
The Bible from the beginning addresses the question of human value.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen 1:26-7)
And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth. (Acts 17:26)
All races have come from Adam. Therefore, all races have the image of God and, thus, have great and equal value. This is the foundation for racial justice and equality in the world.
Martin Luther King saw this connection. Here is how he put it:
Our Hebraic-Christian tradition refers to this inherent dignity of man in the Biblical term the image of God. This innate worth referred to in the phrase the image of God is universally shared in equal portions by all men. There is no graded scale of essential worth; there is no divine right of one race which differs from the divine right of another. Every human being has etched in his personality the indelible stamp of the Creator.[2]
To King, the image of God provides the basis for racial justice. To King, God is the foundation for the entire house of civil rights. Remove the foundation, and the house crumbles. Too many people crying against racial injustice want King’s house, but not his foundation.
If there is no God . . . if we are not created in His image . . . if we are merely nonmoral, evolutionary byproducts, then I do not see where human value and equality come from. I see people assume it, but I don’t see them explain it. If you remove God from the fight for equal justice, you remove the rationale for equal justice, and a fight without a rationale will not get far.[3]
Throughout Scripture you find God loving different races.
- God told Abraham that he would be a blessing to all nations.
- God commanded Jonah to go preach to Ninevah because God had compassion on the Ninevites.
- God spoke through Isaiah saying that the Assyrian and Egyptian would join Israel in worshipping God.
- God commands the Israelites to treat well the foreigner in their land.
- Jesus ministered to the Samaritan woman and spent several days in her Samaritan town preaching the kingdom of God to the people there.
- Jesus healed the servant of the Roman centurion and the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman.
- Jesus commanded his disciples to make disciples of all nations.
- God corrected Peter’s racial exclusivity by sending him a dream and then sending him to Cornelius’ house.
- God told Paul He would send him to the Gentiles.
- God gave John a revelation that included worshippers from every tribe and tongue and nation.
From beginning to end, God is for all races. His ultimate goal is one body made up of many peoples who worship Him. God wants to see black and white, Chinese and Japanese, Arab and Persian come together because of Him.
God intended the work of Christ to accomplish this unity. Here is how he describes it:
Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh . . . were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:11-22)
Paul speaks of Jews and Gentiles – different races – and says that in Christ, both have been made one, both have been reconciled to God, both have access in one Spirit to the Father, both are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, both are part of the holy temple of the Lord, and that God dwells in both. He gives a picture of a building and says that these different races are like different stones that make up the same building. He says that in Christ God has made peace between these races, for Christ Himself is their peace. He says that the blood of Jesus has brought these races together and that the dividing wall of hostility is gone.
The Cross is God’s ultimate answer to racism. The Cross changes hearts. The Cross unites people of different languages, cultures and ethnicities around something far deeper than their differences. The Cross kills the virus and not just the symptoms. This fact is real, and I have seen it with my eyes.
Any attempts to fight racism that leave the Cross out of the picture are hopelessly naïve.
This does not mean that we just preach the gospel, but it does mean that we preach the gospel.
Fighting racism requires a multi-pronged approach, and preaching the gospel is an essential prong. The fight for equal justice flows out of the gospel. We must never pit it against the gospel. We must never say social justice OR the gospel. We must instead say both. If we care about the gospel, then we should also care about racial injustices.
Putting Feet to Justice
So what then do we do? Here are some thoughts:
1. We must first ensure that any words or action we take to fight social injustices genuinely flows from the love of Christ in us. The foundation for any fight needs to be Christ, not our anger. We are to build our actions upon the kingdom of God, not some desired political end. Two people can protest social injustice side by side but have very different reasons for doing so and a very different heart in the process. Remove Christ from this fight, and all you have is an angry, loud, hate-filled, power struggle. You just have a political game, and that’s not going to change the world.
Martin Luther King taught that the fight against racism must flow out of a heart of love because only love can drive out hate. The source of love is Christ. We can’t fight racism without Christ. We need Him.
2. We must listen. I said that earlier. Listening helps change hearts. When you genuinely listen, you show respect and honor, but you also increase the possibility of having others listen to you. If you will not listen, why should you expect anyone to listen to you?
3. As much as is possible given where you live, befriend people of different races. This fights racism at the heart level and fights it in the trenches – a man or woman at a time. You may not affect public policy, but if you change two hearts, that’s significant. What if 30 million people changed two hearts each? That would change public policy, and it would do so at the heart level.
In a small way, I think something like this is what happened to me in first grade. I interacted with an African-American girl up close and saw that she was much like me.
A more radical example today would be that of Daryl Davis, an African-American man who spends significant time hanging out with KKK members. He sits down with them, talks with them, has dinner with them, and invites them into his home. He gets to know them and lets them get to know him. In the process, over the past 30 years, he has helped more than 200 KKK members renounce their membership, including some who were high up in the system. Davis fights racism with friendship, and he has results to prove that that fight works.[4] Don’t underestimate the power of friendship.
4. But you ask, “What about the big news issues? What about criminal injustice or police brutality? Making friends with someone from another race doesn’t change these issues. We have to change systems.”
Before we talk systemic change, I suppose it is necessary to remind us of the obvious fact that systems do not pop into existence willy nilly. People create them, and when we change people, we change what they create; thus, we should never separate systemic change from attitudinal change. The road to attitudinal change will be harder and longer, but it will also be deeper, more long-lasting and more stable.
Nonetheless, we must change unjust systems even if people are not ready. Condemning innocent black men to death is wrong whether people see the problem or not. We act on the basis of what is right, and if we encounter an evil system, let’s do what we can to change it. Even if the people are not ready.
It is precisely at this juncture that we find the greatest shouting and disagreement. Are American police departments systemically racist? Or do they have a few bad apples that give the rest a bad name? Are economic inequities the result of racism or the result of other factors like, say, single parenthood? Should cities defund the police? Or would such defunding end up hurting minorities the most?
Typically, when people read questions like these, they feel they know the answer and have fairly strong opinions on one side or the other. Often they have difficulty imagining how someone can intelligently disagree with them. But when they stop and listen to what the other side says and begin to understand why, the conversation changes. They then begin to see something of the complexity of racial issues in America. They see that there are no easy answers.
If we are going to take steps appropriate to the reality on the ground, we need to take seriously the complexity of that reality.
I do not believe that my African-American brothers and sisters are calling for changes in the criminal justice system for no reason. I do not believe they are inventing grievances out of thin air. Nor do I believe that every police shooting of a black man is racist or that police officers are unjustified when they fear that mob anger may invoke changes in which innocent policemen go to jail simply for having the misfortune of being in a difficult situation. Both sides have real concerns that need to be dealt with. The solution isn’t simple. Instead it’s the real world. But what makes matters worse is that everyone with a thumb thinks he knows best and wants to sway public opinion, as if having a thumb somehow qualified you to make expert policy decisions in criminal justice.
Peaceful protests have perhaps brought attention to the need to do something, but violent protests have de-legitimized the position of the protesters in the eyes of much of the community and have merely fueled more racism, for if the people who disagree with you break windows, loot stores and burn buildings, why should you listen to them? They fit the stereotype you already had. They prove, so you think, that you were right all along.
I do not have policy answers for the difficult questions. In that respect, I am not as smart as the people on Twitter or Instagram. I do not know enough about law enforcement to talk intelligently about how to resolve a thorny issue that the experts struggle with. But I do believe that leaders in the law enforcement community need to sit down and talk with leaders in the African-American community about possible ways to move forward. Both communities need to listen to and understand the concerns of the other before they propose practical changes. And both communities would need to be willing to accept an imperfect solution. We live in a fallen world. A step in the right direction may be an improvement even if it is not perfect.
5. Concerning political action, it’s OK to pursue legislation if you know that it will improve the situation. This is America, and people have the right to speak and vote their conscience. I don’t want to take that from anybody. But I am not naïve enough to believe that honest Americans will agree on which legislation is best. So pursue what your conscience says but be willing to live with people who disagree. They may not be beasts.
6. God may call different people to different emphases. In Christ, we are a body. Not everyone is a hand or an eye. All believers should hate racism and be committed to fighting it wherever they find it, but this doesn’t mean that all believers fight it the same way. Some may march in protest regularly. Others may join occasionally, and still others may not be able to join at all. Some may write to congressmen. Some may speak. Some may preach the gospel. Some may confront racism in friends or relatives and graciously try to persuade them. Some may volunteer to help victims of racism. Others may be in positions at work or school where they can implement practices that respect all people. All should love.
What I have just said about racism is not unique to racism. All believers should hate abortion and be committed to fighting it wherever they find it, but that doesn’t mean that all believers fight it the same way. All believers should hate human trafficking and be committed to fighting it wherever they find it, but that doesn’t mean that all believers fight it the same way. And yet in all of these issues and more . . . all should love.
The things I have said here are incomplete. To do justice to racial issues would require a several-thousand-page tome, and even then, I’m not sure that would suffice. I don’t have that kind of time. I acknowledge that I may not have addressed the issue you wish I had addressed or that I gave it short shrift. For such sins I ask your forgiveness. I felt that I needed to say something, even if inadequately.
Yours in Him,
Mike
[1] https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-great-revolt-66-70-ce
[2] King, Martin Luther. “The Ethical Demands for Integration,” A Testament of Hope. The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King. ed. James Melvin Washington. https://fliphtml5.com/scdb/duvn/basic/, pp. 118-119.
[3] I am indebted to James Spiegel for this discussion on Martin Luther King. Here is his article. Spiegel, James. “Celebration and Betrayal: Martin Luther King’s Case for Racial Justice and Our Current Dilemma,” Themelios, Vol. 45, Issue 2. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/celebration-and-betrayal-martin-luther-kings-case-for-racial-justice-and-our-current-dilemma/
[4] https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes
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