I have been writing about and trying to convey a certain perspective on racial tensions in the United States and the response of the American Church to those tensions, but I fear I haven’t done the subject justice. An article I read today on the Resurrecting Orthodoxy blog[i] clarifies some of my thoughts and prompts this article. The author’s subject is the book by Esau McCaulley, Reading While Black: An African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope. (I have the book and intend to read it myself.)
To be clear, when I speak of the “American Church”, I am really thinking of my own tribe – the evangelical church in the United States. My tribe are the people who the political pundits label “white evangelicals”. I don’t like the label, but these are “my people”.
That doesn’t mean that “we” don’t have African Americans, Mexicans and Latin Americans, and other ethnicities in our churches. We do. We are predominantly white, though, in the evangelical circles in which I have grown up as a Christian since my college days.
Regardless of the pews where people sit on Sundays and who sits next to them, political pollsters separate “white evangelicals” from their black counterparts. This distinction has bothered me because it suggests a false dichotomy.
Theologically, we agree on primary beliefs. The article on Reading While Black describes those beliefs as follows:
“(1) The importance of a ‘born again’ experience, (2) The demonstration of the Gospel in missionary and social reform efforts, (3) The upholding the authority of Scripture, and (4) The stress on the sacrificial death of Jesus as what makes redemption possible.”
On this point, Joel Edmund Anderson, the author of the article says:
“… I couldn’t help thinking as I read the book that the book’s title is actually misleading, for I didn’t see McCaulley’s black ecclesial interpretation of the Bible to really be a black interpretation at all. It was a faithful Christian interpretation.” (Emphasis in the original)
This observation underscores the main point of my article today: white Christians and black Christians agree many things at the heart of faith. We agree on the necessity of being born again, the missionary nature of the Gospel, the authority of Scripture, and the redemption from sin through the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross.
We don’t agree, though, on politics, and we vote very differently. Polls clearly show that white evangelicals voted about 80% in favor of Donald Trump, while black “evangelicals” voted just the opposite – about 80% against Donald Trump.
It’s tempting to try to explain that difference away on the basis of conservative and progressive/liberal ideologies and miss the clear common ground in our biblical beliefs. It’s also tempting to blame this difference on race alone. Race surely is a key distinctive. But why?
I wrote about A Mic Drop Moment in First Century Galilee back in March of 2020, referring to the passage in Luke 4 in which Jesus read from the Isaiah Scroll in the synagogue in Galilee where he announced his public ministry. I have been focused on that passage since the spring of 2019, when I was drawn to it for a talk on doing justice.
The world changed dramatically between March 2020 and July 2020. COVID shut down commerce and isolated people. The George Floyd killing happened in June, and we were embroiled in nationwide unease and unrest. The need for justice in a spiritually dry and parched world was quite evident, then, as the scabs of centuries of racial injustice were torn open and bleeding.
The focus of my writing has been on my fellow evangelicals. They way I have phrased this introduction may strike discord among my church family (or so I imagine as I write this).[i] I am convinced, however, these things are centrally important to God and how the body of Christ lives out the Gospel in the world.
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of God’s throne. Mercy and truth go before Him. (Ps. 89:14)
If we want to get closer to God, to know Him better and to be like Him in this fallen world, we need to focus on these: righteousness and justice. They are the twin pillars of God’s character.
This morning, Jeff Frazier’s sermon at Chapelstreet Church in Batavia, IL was on the same passage in Luke 4 that I have been reading periodically since 2019.[ii] I focus on a particular emphasis today that prompts this article, but let me set the scene first.
The entirety of the passage is found at Luke 4:16-30. I encourage you to read it now or read my mic drop description of it (as if Jesus read from the Isaiah scroll in a neighborhood church today).
The key points for this article are that Jesus went to his home synagogue and read from the Isaiah scroll to his “own people” who knew him well. When Jesus said the messianic message of that passage was being fulfilled in their hearing, the people asked him, “Aren’t you Joseph’s son?”
Still, they spoke well of him and marveled at his “gracious words”. (Luke 4:22) Then Jesus made them uncomfortable by foretelling that they would taunt him and reject Him, adding, “[N]o prophet is acceptable in his hometown.” (Luke 4:23-24)
I imagine the synagogue went quiet quickly. They probably looked at each, thinking or saying things, like,
What is he saying?
Did I just hear him right?
Weren’t we just saying how he has grown up into a fine young man?
Did he just accuse us of rejecting him?
We haven’t done anything!
We weren’t even thinking those things!”
But Jesus didn’t stop there. He turned the heat up a notch! This is where things really got dicey in his hometown synagogue. This is the point I am seeing in this passage today – something for us to think about in the American Church today.
Jesus referenced two passages of Scripture and two stories of revered Hebrew prophets. His citation to Scripture may not have raised eyebrows. It was the application of them that riled up his synagogue audience.
Reading in Exodus today, I observe that two passages in the first two chapters have poignant application to the Body of Christ in the United States today. I see two predominant lines of injustice in the United States to which the Church collectively has given its attention that are identified in these first two chapters of Exodus.
At the same time, the Church is divided on justice issues. I don’t say this to condemn or to be judgmental. It’s simply a fact that I think we need to recognize soberly, honestly and humbly.
We might find many examples, but the one that comes to mind – the one that is, perhaps, most poignant in this given time – is the division between black and white and the division between supporters and and non-supporters of Donald Trump.
I know: I said one example, and it seems I given two here. These are two examples, but they coalesce into one. The proof for that is in the statistics that show that approximately 80% of white evangelicals support Trump, and approximately 80% of black “evangelicals”[i] do not support Trump.
Now, I recognize that these statistics are sweeping generalizations, but generalizations do tell a story. There is some reflection of truth in them. I also don’t mention Trump to be divisive here. The example simply is provided for illustration.
Churchgoing African Americans can be as theologically conservative on things like what it means to be born again as white evangelicals, but their individual and collective experiences give them a different perspective on life. Their view of the world and injustice is different than their white, evangelical counterparts, for the most part, and influences them to have different political affiliations.
My reading in Exodus (which I will get to) is timely because today is Sanctity of Life Sunday. I didn’t even realize it when I did my daily reading after I woke up this morning.
I didn’t realize it until I tuned into the Manchester (NH) Vineyard Community Church service this morning. I have never tuned into their services, until today, though I know people affiliated with them. When I set out to participate in a more local church service, I believe God drew my attention away to this one.
It was a great message, and I gained some perspective from it that, perhaps, God wanted me to have in writing this. With that introduction, let me explain the passages in Exodus that prompt my writing. Those texts include Exodus 1 (about the killing of babies) and Exodus 2 (about slavery).
I will take these things one at a time and draw some conclusions consistent with the burden God has placed on my heart over the years. In another article, perhaps, I will explain how my perspectives have changed and, hopefully, shed some light on how the church can come together in the full council of God to advance His justice and righteousness.
Before I get into my immediate thoughts, though, I need to say that I speak with no condemnation in my heart
Just as Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery that he did not condemn her, I am reminded that God sent his son into the world not to condemn the world; God sent His son into the world so that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:17)
I do not say these things to condemn anyone because Jesus has redeemed us!
In the story of the woman caught in adultery, the Pharisees and Sadducees brought her to Jesus to challenge him because the Law required her to be stoned. They wanted to see what Jesus would do, but Jesus seemed to ignore them and began writing in the sand.
Some people believe that Jesus may have written the Ten Commandments out in the sand. When he looked up from from writing, Jesus “invited” them, saying, “He who is without sin may cast the first stone.” Then, he continued writing in the sand.
Some people believe he was writing down the sins those men had committed. They would say the men walked away silently because they realized that no one is without sin.
The wages of sin for every person is death.
Whatever he wrote, we know how the dialogue went next. “Jesus stood up and said to [the woman], ‘[W]here are they? Has no one condemned you?,” John 8:9) When she replied, “No one”, Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.” (John 8:10)
Jesus didn’t condemn the men either, because he told us he came not to condemn, but to save. I imagine that, Jesus would have received, forgiven and invited the men to follow him, if they had stayed and repented.
God desires to save us, to have relationship with us, to renew our minds and to conform us to His image. Our sin is the reason God became flesh and died for us. He came not to condemn, but to demonstrate His great love for us and to save us from the sin that enslaves us.
One last thing before I get into what I believe God has put on my heart to share: salvation and sanctification is a process. It starts where we are. When we are born again, God begins to work in us to will and to act according to His purposes and to conform us to His image, but we start that process in different places.
One point made in the sermon today, is that “a person doesn’t have to be pro-life to be saved”. People are saved by grace; it’s a gift that we haven’t earned. There will be no exam in heaven we must answer satisfactorily for salvation. It’s already been accomplished for us by Christ’s death and resurrection.
At the same time, if we are born again, God has begun a work within us. He has begun to renew our minds, and change our hearts, and we have begun to learn to think God’s thoughts after Him and become like Him.
With that said, I will address the two texts I read today in Exodus 1 and 2 that speak to me about the Church, collectively, in the United States. In writing this article, my hope is to provide some biblical basis on which we might begin to bridge the divide along racial and political lines and come together as the body of Christ. I hope to provide some perspective and understanding that will bring us together in Christ.
“Some [people] object [to the idea of God’s anger] strongly: ‘…. If there is a God at all for me, it’s not an angry God. My God is loving. My God would never lash out or punish or judge or get angry at people.’ When I hear someone discount or downplay the biblical idea of God as a judge, whose holiness sometimes includes expressions of anger, I wonder if they have ever been the bullied kid, or the abused woman, or the oppressed slave, or the assault victim? I wonder if they have sat down and listened to the story of a holocaust victim, or of someone whose child was kidnapped, or of a woman whose husband abandoned her for a younger mistress?’”
I have heard Tim Keller talk on the subject, and the most poignant source of his ideas that he quoted was writings by Miraslov Volf, the Croatian theologian, professor of Theology and Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale University.
Volf was influenced by his own experience with the Yugoslav Wars, characterized by the ethnic cleansing that raged in what is now known as Croatia in what is, perhaps, his most influential writing: Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (1996). According to Wikipedia, “Exclusion and Embrace deals with the challenges of reconciliation in contexts of persisting enmity in which no clear line can be drawn between victims and perpetrators and in which today’s victims become tomorrow’s perpetrators—conditions that arguably describe the majority of the world’s conflicts.”
That context might represent a large portion of the world we live in at various times and places. Think Hatfields and McCoys, for instance. In a later work, Volf reflected:
“I used to think that wrath was unworthy of God. Isn’t God love? Shouldn’t divine love be beyond wrath? God is love, and God loves every person and every creature. That’s exactly why God is wrathful against some of them. My last resistance to the idea of God’s wrath was a casualty of the war in former Yugoslavia, the region from which I come. According to some estimates, 200,000 people were killed and over 3,000,000 were displaced. My villages and cities were destroyed, my people shelled day in and day out, some of them brutalized beyond imagination, and I could not imagine God not being angry. Or think of Rwanda in the last decade of the past century, where 800,000 people were hacked to death in one hundred days! How did God react to the carnage? By doting on the perpetrators in a grandparently fashion? By refusing to condemn the bloodbath but instead affirming the perpetrators basic goodness? Wasn’t God fiercely angry with them? Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love.
“Once we accept the appropriateness of God’s wrath, condemnation, and judgment, there is no way of keeping it out there, reserved for others. We have to bring it home as well. I originally resisted the notion of a wrathful God because I dreaded being that wrath’s target; I still do. I knew I couldn’t just direct God’s wrath against others, as if it were a weapon I could aim at targets I particularly detested. It’s God’s wrath, not mine, the wrath of the one and impartial God, lover of all humanity. If I want it to fall on evildoers, I must let it fall on myself – when I deserve it.
“Also, once we affirm that God’s condemnation of wrongdoing is appropriate, we cannot reserve God’s condemnation for heinous crimes. Where would the line be drawn? On what grounds could it be drawn? Everything that deserves to be condemned should be condemned in proportion to its weight as an offense – from a single slight to a murder, from indolence to idolatry, from lust to rape. To condemn heinous offenses but not light ones would be manifestly unfair. An offense is an offense and deserves condemnation…” (From Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace pp. 138-139)
These poignant reflections work toward the “appeal”, or at least makes some sense of, the idea of a wrathful, but loving God. I sense, though, that people of modern sensibilities may still be reluctant to credit the goodness of a wrathful God. This is where Miraslov Volf brilliantly exposes the faulty thinking of the western mind that has been largely untouched by evils that are reality in many other areas of the world: Continue reading “Toward an Understanding of the Wrath of a Loving God”→
“Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares….”
Thus, said the Prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 59:14 ESV) to the nation of Judah approximately 700 years before the new millennium that begins at 1 AD. Thus, might a modern prophet say today, over 20 years into the new millennium beginning with 2000 AD. Justice is still turned back while truth stumbles today in the public squares.
Fake news is the story of our times. We can’t trust anything written or said in the public squares. Never has so much information been available to people; but the glut of information comes without a guaranty: Buyer beware.
Indeed, information has become a commodity that is bought and sold. We get to choose our own facts. We can take our facts from Fox News, CNBC, Dailywire, Buzzfeed, and hundreds (probably thousands) of sources – served up just the way we like them.
We’ve also dispensed with the distinction between fact and opinion. Facts now are served up with ready interpretations. We used to call it “spin”, but we don’t even bother anymore. Facts are sorted for us as well, packaged together in neat bundles, with the pesky counter facts removed for our convenience.
Have you ever considered how vital truth is to justice?
Should there be any wonder that justice is turned back as truth stumbles in the public square?
“Behold, the Lord ‘s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear…. No one enters suit justly; no one goes to law honestly; they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity…. [W]e hope for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us. For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities: transgressing, and denying the Lord, and turning back from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words.”
Isaiah 59:1-2, 4, 11-13 ESV
The way to justice is the way back to God. The way to justice requires truth, honesty, integrity and righteousness.
Navigating by Faith 