Thank you, Rudy. You bring up many good points, one being the gravity of the sin of racism and our refusal to acknowledge it. Racism has been called our country's "original sin" because much of North American Christianity was complicit in perpetrating the Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny, American exceptionalism, genocide, slavery, and Jim Crow.
The Church is still divided and too often silent not only about our past racism, but also the brutalizing inequities that continue to this day. The Bible clearly teaches that each person is created in God's image and given equal agency to care for the earth and love each other. Racism damages all people's understanding of our God-given identities- People of color are wounded daily by overt and disguised messages saying, "You are worth less than...", while white people receive the insidiously ruinous message, "You are worth more than...".
I believe that those messages, reinforced for generations, have traumatized all of us in ways that make racism a uniquely difficult sin to face, especially for white people. This generational trauma may be why we white folks often react to talk of racism with desperation to escape any hint of the label "racist", even when we publicly confess that we are "sinners." This hyper-individualized defensiveness goes hand in hand with our blindness to entrenched systemic inequity that benefits us. I have been humbled by the many People of color whose persistent and vulnerable truth-telling stories have been gradually eroding my heart of stone that was taught to protest, "But that happened long ago....I didn't own any...We have laws now....Now it's reversed!...I worked hard....Racism is ignorance and hate, I'm woke and I love everyone.....I don't see color....I have friends..."
All those protestations can be summed up by the Luke 18:9-14 story of the one who prays, "God thank you that I am not like other people, like this sinner (racist) here." The other dude simply says, "God have mercy on me, a sinner (racist)." Jesus says he is the one justified by God.
God have mercy on me, in the mess of my sin, my racism..our country's sin, our country's racism, our church's sin, our church's racism. Thank you Jesus- death has been swallowed up in victory. The gospel invites us to follow Jesus and join God's work of "Shalom-ing"- renewing all things, including the Imago Dei in each of us, and the healing of all relationships and systems. Thanks be to God.
Posted in: Jesus’ Unbelievable Message
Thank you, Rudy. You bring up many good points, one being the gravity of the sin of racism and our refusal to acknowledge it. Racism has been called our country's "original sin" because much of North American Christianity was complicit in perpetrating the Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny, American exceptionalism, genocide, slavery, and Jim Crow.
The Church is still divided and too often silent not only about our past racism, but also the brutalizing inequities that continue to this day. The Bible clearly teaches that each person is created in God's image and given equal agency to care for the earth and love each other. Racism damages all people's understanding of our God-given identities- People of color are wounded daily by overt and disguised messages saying, "You are worth less than...", while white people receive the insidiously ruinous message, "You are worth more than...".
I believe that those messages, reinforced for generations, have traumatized all of us in ways that make racism a uniquely difficult sin to face, especially for white people. This generational trauma may be why we white folks often react to talk of racism with desperation to escape any hint of the label "racist", even when we publicly confess that we are "sinners." This hyper-individualized defensiveness goes hand in hand with our blindness to entrenched systemic inequity that benefits us. I have been humbled by the many People of color whose persistent and vulnerable truth-telling stories have been gradually eroding my heart of stone that was taught to protest, "But that happened long ago....I didn't own any...We have laws now....Now it's reversed!...I worked hard....Racism is ignorance and hate, I'm woke and I love everyone.....I don't see color....I have friends..."
All those protestations can be summed up by the Luke 18:9-14 story of the one who prays, "God thank you that I am not like other people, like this sinner (racist) here." The other dude simply says, "God have mercy on me, a sinner (racist)." Jesus says he is the one justified by God.
God have mercy on me, in the mess of my sin, my racism..our country's sin, our country's racism, our church's sin, our church's racism. Thank you Jesus- death has been swallowed up in victory. The gospel invites us to follow Jesus and join God's work of "Shalom-ing"- renewing all things, including the Imago Dei in each of us, and the healing of all relationships and systems. Thanks be to God.