About Racism

The ultimate solution to our national racisms lies in the Church, in who we are in Christ. We are not called to uncritically support the current social order, no matter how unjust. We are called to show how social divisions are overcome by the Holy Spirit among us.

This is a crazy world. I am called upon to renounce the proposition that #AllLivesMatter, stated as a hashtag because it has become a social movement in which the words do not mean what they say, in order to prove my solidarity with another hashtag social movement, #BlackLivesMatter (in which, once again, the words do not mean what they say). If I fail to do so, I will be condemned as a “racist.” But the truth is, before God, all lives DO matter, including, equally, black lives.

This is not by any means the first time social or political movements have appropriated words, and invested them with emotional “knee-jerk” meanings very different from their ordinary meanings. It happens all the time, unfortunately. Take, as a very explosive example of this, the words “choice” and “life”, as in “pro-choice” and “pro-life.” Many in the “pro-life” camp historically have seemed to favor fighting wars whenever our leaders say our “national interests” (meaning the interests of our large corporations) will be benefited, favor expansion of capital punishment, and are dead-set against any “socialist” reforms that might extend the lives of the poor. (I would say that, though this function is now held mostly by government, the time when the Church will need to step up to preserve the lives of the poor to replace failed government efforts is coming soon, as I have said elsewhere.) Thus, for many in the “pro-life” movement, “life” seems to begin at conception and end at birth? Once you’re born, you’re on your own?

I personally believe that life begins at conception, ends in this life at death, and then goes into eternity, where the things that happened in this life determine one’s eternity. Therefore, for me, my “pro-life” commitment includes things that preserve born lives like opposing racism and violence.

And, coming from the other side of the abortion rhetoric, the fact that someone is “pro-choice” doesn’t mean they necessarily support my right to choose what I will eat for breakfast, and it most certainly doesn’t mean they support my right to choose to say something that opposes their position. The words “choice” and “life” were long ago appropriated by the parties to the abortion issue as emotional buzzwords, and no longer mean what they say in that context.

The same kind of semantic specialization (or “narrowing”) into buzzwords is now happening to any statement that that all lives matter (even without the hashtag). Instead of being given their apparent dictionary meanings, these words are being turned by both sides into emotional triggers asserting that black lives don’t matter, at least not nearly as much as “law and order.” This polarizing linguistic change is dangerous. It is useful to political entities in that it helps them create emotionally-driven, unthinking masses of loyal followers and (most important!) to continue to raise lots of money from those followers. Nothing does this quite as well as attacking a credible human “enemy.” But it is dangerous because it obscures the real issue of the human heart involved in racism, and because it (deliberately!) feeds the hatred and violence it claims to be fighting.

As those of you who have read the previous installments of this blog will know, after I came to know Jesus in 1971, God had to use a long process of bringing the right friends into my life to work the veiled white, conservative, southern Kansas, “genteel” racist mindset and emotional baggage out of me. I won’t repeat that story; you can read it here: Friends, Angels, Perspectives, and Overcoming My Prejudices. Most of these prejudiced reactions were invisible to me, just a part of the way I was raised, and I denied them until friends patiently pointed them out to me.

It’s not that I didn’t understand, intellectually, that racism–and any other prejudice against a group of people–is totally inconsistent with the Gospel. For instance, I came quite early to be aware of these scriptures that condemn such prejudices:

 I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me,  even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.

John 10:14-16

Here, speaking to Jews, Jesus said he was going to bring in sheep from another fold–the Gentiles–and make them part of “one flock” with his Jewish flock. He has torn down this Jew versus Gentile ethnic and religious barrier–and every other, less significant, barrier between us–and made us one flock. In the Body of Christ, these distinctions do not exist, and should not be honored.

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.

Galatians 3:27-29.

Here, again, those who have put on Christ are Christ to the world. Ethnic and religious distinctions (Jew vs. Greek), distinctions of social class (slave vs. free), and distinctions of gender, should not be honored as divisions between us. We are inheriting the same promises together.

Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him— a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.

So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.

Colossians 3:9-13

In this passage, we add to our previous list distinctions of education and culture or the perceived lack of them (barbarians) and of being foreign enemies to our country (Scythians) to the list of distinctions that make no difference in Christ–Christ is all and is in all of his. This passage also tells us how to live toward each other–with truth, compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience and forgiveness.

My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism.  For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives? Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called?

If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

James 2:1-10.

This passage speaks to the unfortunate tendency of Christians and churches, particularly those composed mostly of “haves,” to favor the rich over the poor to gain advantages and offerings. But in doing this we become judges with evil motives. This favoring of the wealthy is a form of favoritism that certainly overlaps greatly with racism, because the “haves” are, historically, almost always taken mostly from a dominant racial or ethnic class. This was true in the ancient Roman empire, and it is true in modern America. As is frequently pointed out, we may have freed our slaves, but we did not give them equal access to the means to acquire wealth and social standing. But in our churches, and their outreach to the community, wealth should not matter.

 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Matthew 5:43-48

In this passage, what is expected becomes very hard–we are to show equal love to our enemies. This includes enemies that we oppose only because they are members of groups we–or our own social groups–do not like. These class “enemies” are actually the easiest “enemies” to love. But we are also to love people who actually hate, wrong, or persecute us, and people who belong to groups (for instance, racial, ethnic, religious or national groups) which share a mutual hatred with groups to which we belong. In the church, these hatreds should not matter.

Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.

Romans 12:9

 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 12:14-19.

So, Lord, I am to sincerely bless those who mistreat me, leaving any vengeance to you–if you choose to show vengeance rather than mercy? I am to do all I can to maintain peace, even with my persecutors, and to show them equal love in their times of need? And there are the”lowly” again, with whom I am to associate–as an equal, not a moral superior? Instead of fighting evil on its own terms, I am to overcome evil with–good?? This is very hard, Lord.

I became aware of these Scriptures very early in my Christian walk, 49 years ago, and started to move in the right direction. But it has taken God all of the 49 years to get me part of the way I should be in living as he says in these matters.

On reading these passages, you will note that they speak to racism, and much more. They speak to favoritism in general–favoritism based on race, gender, ethnicity, religious background, education, culture, or the perceived lack of culture, social standing, wealth and even status as an “enemy.” All of these forms of prejudice work together. And they are all to be shunned by Christians and opposed by the Church. This is a very hard thing to do–impossible without God.

I will now address three Scripture passages that have consistently been used to teach that Christians must support the current social order unquestioningly, including its racial and ethnic arrangements, and fight all attempts to change it. The first is taken from Paul’s sermon to the Athenian Areopagus in Acts 17:

The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation

Acts 17:24-26 (emphasis added).

Note first what this passage does not say. It does not say what racists trying to justify themselves have always insisted it says–that is, that the allocation of the earth among its various people is static, ordained by God forever, and therefore must be preserved from change by our efforts at all costs. Rather, it suggests that the state of the human world is changing–it has “times” as well as “boundaries”–but God oversees it all. He doesn’t leave the oversight of the “times” and “boundaries” of the peoples to us. We have no obligation to try, in vain, to preserve the present order. It will change.

But, even more important, is what Paul’s sermon did say about God’s purposes. God, the sermon says, made all of these peoples and nations from one man–so we are all relatives–and is guiding the times and places of all of the peoples with his own purpose in mind: “that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him.” Acts 17:27a. He then explains that God has been nearby all along, but we have been ignoring him: “though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’” Acts 17:27b-28. But now our time of ignorance is over: “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” Acts 17:30-31.

The focus of Paul’s sermon is on the end of our time of ignorance, now showing us who we can all become through Jesus’ resurrection. It asserts God’s superintendence of human history only to argue that God has a purpose in it–our salvation. It does not at all support social or racial conservatism–God does not expect us to do anything at all to preserve the current unjust order of things. In a world of sinful people, the current order is always unjust in some way. But, as with the crucifixion of Jesus, God makes the evil in our world ultimately work for our salvation. Jesus arose!

The second passage often used to teach that Christians must fully support any existing social order is found in Romans 13:

Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.

Romans 13:1-7

Again, first note what this passage does not say. It does not say that everything those in authority do is right. Often they are wrong, and must be opposed, as we are able to do without joining them in evil. It says only that we must obey rulers, acting within their authority, again with the limitation that we may only obey them as we are able to do so without doing evil ourselves. If we owe taxes, pay them. If we owe obedience, pay it. If we are to give honor, give it. But the emphasis is not on obedience, but on avoiding the appearance of evil and trusting God to keep even bad rulers generally doing their function of restraining evil.

Then notice the words of the passage that immediately follows, which is part of the same context:

 Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Romans 13:8-10.

The underlying rule is not obey and support the government in whatever it says, because it speaks for God. In fact, it often doesn’t speak for God (it merely maintains order, which is a very limited function). The Scriptures, the followers of Christ, and the Church speak for God. No, the underlying rule is love.

The very similar passage Peter wrote on submission to the authorities is, if anything, even stronger in its insistence that its purpose is not to require us to be political conservatives (in any and every culture, regardless of its evils), but to show that we are first of all God’s servants:

Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.

1 Peter 2:13-17.

But, in 312 C.E., the Western Church, as a human organization, allied itself with the Roman Imperial throne. Christianity, in one specific form, the (Old) Catholic form, became first a lawful and favored religion (313 C.E.), then the only religion lawfully permitted in the Empire, the religion to which all citizens must submit or face official persecution (380-381 C.E.). From that time on, most churches in the Western tradition have taught that belief in Christ requires political conservatism. Jacques Ellul explained how the organized Church was required, by its decision to ally itself with political power, to incorrectly convert Romans 13:1-2 and these other scriptures into a command to blindly support any social order that actually exists, no matter how unjust:

But what has been the result? A Christianity that is itself a religion. The best, it might be said, the peak of religious history. (The bothersome thing is that Islam comes after it!) A religion classed as monotheistic. A religion marked by all the traits of religion: myths, legends, rites, holy things, beliefs, clergy, etc. A Christianity that has fashioned a morality–and what a morality!–the most strict, the most moralistic, the most debilitating, the one that most reduces adherents to infants and renders them irresponsible, or, if I were to be malicious, I should say the one that makes of them happy imbeciles, who are sure of their salvation if they obey this morality, a morality that consists of chastity, absolute obedience (which in unheard of fashions ends up as the supreme value in Christianity), sacrifice,  etc. A Christianity that has become totally conservative in every domain–political, economic, social, etc.–which nothing can budge or change. Political power, that is good. Whatever challenges or criticizes it, that is evil.

Christians, for the sake of their consciences, have to obey ruling powers. Not only that, they must actively support such powers. They must fight against all that threatens these powers. The same with the social and economic order. God has willed the hierarchy. The poor are poor by God’s will, the rich are rich for the same reason. To question this is to go against God’s will. Christianity has become a constant force of antisubversion. It has been put in the service of the state… It has been put in the service of capitalism by the nineteenth -century middle class. It champions the moral order…

Constantly in the Christian world there would be tendencies toward anarchism, rejection of the political alliance, but these were at once condemned.  The emperor needed the church’s unity to ensure that of the empire.  He used the church as an instrument of state propaganda that would diffuse simultaneously the good news of Christianity and the will of God expressed by Caesar.  The church does not see how this contradicts the life and person of Christ.  Undeniably subversion by the exercise of power is what takes place with the kings and emperors.  It has sad and ridiculous consequences.  The church is a political power but it is always at the service of the political power that is either in place or in course of being installed.  It goes on to serve the Holy Roman Empire but also the kings of France who split off from it.  It will bless all the monarchs who seize power in ways that are tragic, tempestuous, and often bloody and unjust.  It legitimizes everything.  This is logical once it associates itself with the existing power.

It will be republican in a republic as it is monarchist under a monarchy.  Irrefutable theological arguments are always found.  A monarchical regime reflects the monarchical unity of God.  A republic reflects the people that God elects for himself on earth.  Democracy shows that God associates himself with the will of the peoples.  The tradition was already well-established when in the sixth century the idea was formulated that the acts of God in history were performed through the Franks (the gesta Dei per Francos).  The church could then become National Socialist (the German Christians) when Hitler came to power.  It could become Communist (with notorious figures like Bereczki and Hromadka) in communist countries.  Each time it develops a theological argument to show that the power that has been set up is good.  The church’s shifts and turns are not the scandalous thing.  They simply represent an expression of human weakness, showing that Christians like other people are always ready to adapt to whatever may come.  Once the church is ready to associate with instituted power it is obliged to associate with all and sundry forms of the state.  The scandal is that each time the church seeks to justify both its adaptation and the existing power.  It continues to legitimize the state and to be an instrument of its propaganda.

Jacques Ellul (G.W. Bromiley, Tr.). The Subversion of Christianity (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock 1986; 2011 reprint), pp. 17, 125-126

So, to the extent that we accept the argument that Romans 13:1-2 (taken out of context) commands us to fully support the existing social order, whatever it is, we will not look to the Church to do anything to end racism. But this is actually sufficient to prove the interpretation incorrect, because it makes God’s will for the church and the followers of Jesus in it hopelessly contradictory–i.e., we must act without favoritism in our love toward the oppressed, while simultaneously fully supporting the oppression! But the underlying principle of the Law, as of the Gospel, is not order, it is love.

On the other hand, we should not expect political action to overcome racism, or any of the other forms of prejudice condemned in the Scriptures. Government regulation is based on at least an implied threat of violence (arrest, incarceration, forcible appropriation of property) that will be inflicted on the non-compliant. Laws are, in this sense, fighting evil with evil. This is often necessary. Fear of punishment will keep most people from doing the prohibited evil acts. Government inhibits evil from being expressed much more than it already is expressed. In the area of racial prejudices, the implicit threat of force and punishment can open some doors to minorities that would otherwise be shut, and should inhibit most overt racial violence.

The problem, though, is that law cannot change our hearts. Even God’s perfect Law could not change our hearts. Instead, law, without true repentance and God’s power within, can only make us begrudgingly compliant. But it also awakens the desire to disobey the spirit of the law, to comply without obeying. “I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead.” Romans 7:7b-8. It is only by God’s mercy that things are not much worse, as Christian philosopher Dallas Willard well explained:

Our “Why?” in the face of evil, then, signals a lack of insight—willing or unwilling—into the forces that inhabit normal human personality and thereby move or condition the usual course of human events.  Above all, it shows the failure to understand that the immediate support of the evils universally deplored lies in the simple readiness of “decent” individuals to harm others or to allow harm to come to others when the conditions are “right.”  That readiness comes into play whenever it will help us realize our goals of security, ego gratification, or satisfaction of bodily desires.  This systematic readiness that pervades the personality of normal, decent human beings is the fallenness of human nature.  To understand this is the first level of understanding the “why” of the evil people do. 

This ever-present readiness fills common humanity and lies about us like a highly flammable material ready to explode at the slightest provocation.  Here is a main part of that deeper level of reality into which the prophetic vision reaches as it reads the times.  Isaiah’s exquisitely penetrating analysis of his society was:  “The man of high estate will be tinder, his handiwork a spark.  Both will burn together and no one will put them out.” (1:31 JB).  Paul sees the unregenerate aa s “vessel of wrath” (Rom. 9:22) and as “children of wrath.” (Eph. 2:8).  Human wrath is an explosive, unrestrained impulse to hurt or harm. And it is a fact of life, especially associated with that very wantonness and chaos that so impresses us in the more shocking monstrosities that occur.  It is a brother of revenge and almost always supports itself upon the self-righteousness of having been wronged.  Thus it can “justifiably” cast off all restraint…

The level of this deadly readiness to do evil in all of its forms is variable from individual to individual, but it is very high in almost everyone.  It is no mere abstract possibility but a genuine tendency, constantly at work.  It does not take very much to get most people to lie, for instance, or to take what does not belong to them, and shamefully little to get them to think of how nice it would be if certain others were dead.  Thus if in our lives we are not protected by a hearty confidence in God’s never failing and effective care for us, these “readinesses” for various kinds of wrongdoing will be constantly provoked into action by threatening circumstances.  And when we act, others around us will certainly react.  And then we will react to them, and so forth, until we and others are stunned into quiescence by the spiraling disasters.

We can daily observe these downward spirals at all levels of life from international relations to the individual locked into his or her own little cell of wrongdoing and suffering.  Only the common grace of God toward us and the presence in the world of the Holy Spirit and the institutionalized church prevents our daily lives, resting upon the edge of the volcano of readiness, from being unbearably worse.

Once we see what people are prepared to do, the wonder ceases to be that they occasionally do gross evils and becomes that they do not do them more often.  We become deeply thankful that something is restraining us, keeping us from fully doing what lies in our hearts.

Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives (NY:  Harper Collins, 1988, paperback ed. 1991), 225-227.

Only God can change our hearts. It is something he does one person at a time, as he did with me. He does it through the work of the Church, the Body of Christ, bringing his life, his Holy Spirit and his voice to people one at a time, and teaching them to live in his strength. But the Church can only do this if it itself has repented of favoritism and embraced its mission of love.

So the ultimate solution to our national racisms lies in the Church. It lies in who we are.