Thoughts on Recent Racial Tensions
by Darren Moore
Initially, I considered it best to write nothing. Partly for fear of saying the wrong thing. Partly all the useful things have been said by those with direct experience and with greater eloquence. Partly because many of us have tried to do more listening. But, as has been pointed out silence also has consequences. Especially given what we at GR-UK have said before: that the Reformed faith embraces all of life. That being so the area of racism, which affects so many, would be wrong to ignore. Typically, we’re offering nothing original here.
For most racism is so obviously wrong, that we don’t really need the Bible to tell us. Well, given it’s still happening other fixes are wanting, perhaps the Bible may give us some reasons as to why it happens and why this issue doesn’t just go away.
Racism makes a nonsense of Biblical reality.
Logically, racism makes no sense. Biblically, it’s contradictory: as Voddie Baucham puts it with clarity, humour and warmth here we must try to think through ideas from the Bible to the situation, not read our cultural problems into the Bible. He explains that we are one race, Adam’s, and if we are Christians we are redeemed into one body, Christ’s. For this reason, some Christians have laid the blame at Darwin’s door. After all, part of Darwin’s thesis was to show the superiority of some races over others. The Bible rejects even his vocabulary. Nonetheless, we know that the Church, including Reformed and Evangelical, has not always been the place it should be in this regard.
It has saddened me to hear (from people of different ethnicities) that Christianity is a white man’s religion. A read through the Bible sees us as coming pretty late to the party. Originating in the Middle East, those who are among the earliest, outside of Israel, to be blessed include: Moses’ second wife, who was Cushite (Nu 12), The Queen of Sheba, Simon of Cyrene (in modern Libya), The Ethiopian Eunuch and two of the four leaders in Antioch: Simeon called Niger (reference to his dark skin) and Lucius of Cyrene. At Pentecost the languages spoken fan out in the directions of the compass. A significant number of the first big thinkers in the Church were African. We who call ourselves Calvinists, know that Calvinism stands on the shoulders of Augustinianism (the French thinker stands on an African’s shoulder’s). Northern Europeans are the new boys.
An interesting difference between Christianity and Islam is that the latter claims a monolithic uniformity, whilst the former has unity in diversity. It’s interesting that rather than enforcing one language, on the day of Pentecost the gospel comes in many. That pattern is seen again in Revelation 7, many languages worshipping. Nations bringing in their wealth. You’d expect Christians to have many things in common across time and the globe and rejecting aspects of the cultures where we live, but it seems to be a Biblical expectation that we should be a mixed bag in every sense. What do you expect from a those who worship a God who is Trinity, not an undifferentiated monad?
Does the Bible have any answers?
Jonah was written because he didn’t want the Ninevites to know God’s forgiveness. Ephesians and Galatians tackle the churches failure to allow the world’s divisions to intrude on Church’s oneness. The Bible plumbs the depths of our depravity. It starts with relationships fractured between us and God, and between each other. The gospel resolves this, but, like any moral issue there is rarely a quick fix. Think of someone steeped in any sin. Sometimes repentance brings quick change, but often it is slow. We just keep applying the gospel and its implications. One soul at a time, slowly, people change. David Prince wrote a helpful piece that is both shocking in racist attitudes he’s found in “sound” churches, but how perseverance brings remarkable fruit. And, as with any Bible teaching, for it to be affective, there has to be much prayer for the change that the Holy Spirit brings.
Wisdom and patience.
I love to read and hear lateral thinking (distinguished from conspiracy theories). I’ve seen some articles posted (usually written by Black conservative thinkers) challenging the narrative. Now might not be the time to point out a counter-narrative, but to listen to why people feel afraid and angry. These other view points may flesh out a larger picture. Right now, it might be better to listen, empathise and pray.
Similarly, to Black Christian friends, please be patient with us if we’re slow, but also, please do help us see things from your point of view. I’ve heard “white privilege” explained so many times (by well-meaning white people, suggesting they may not understand it either), but it was only hearing a black person in the past week that it (properly) sunk in for me. A good example of why we need to listen is given by Jackie Hill Perry, she is also a model of gentle firmness. But this needs to come with grace. I’ve written about his before here. Don’t assume the worst of someone in the first instance. If someone says something wrong, tell them so, but don’t assume more than their words allow. In a conversation recently, someone dropped in two phrases in close succession: “all lives matter” and “colour-blind”. They had no idea of the White Supremacist connotations these phrases have in the USA (neither did I at the time), nor the reasons why many Black people (particularly) find such remarks unhelpful. When this was pointed out, he took this with grace.
In pastoral ministry, a balance I have found I need is acceptance with determination. Acceptance: the world is fallen and people are slow to change. Determination: we each need to tirelessly work towards forming Christ in us and not accepting where we are right now. In that respect, this situation needs what every other problem we face does, the gospel of Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
