“My pastor hasn’t addressed the race issue to my liking, so I don’t think I’ll go back.”
“We can’t stay in a church that supports #BLM or Marxist ideology.”
“11 o’clock on Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hour in Christian America.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
“Being in ethnic-specific context is not only permissible, it’s actually quite necessary for a lot of Christians.” — Thabiti Anyabwile
It seems just about everyone has a different view on race. Talking about race can be sensitive in today’s church, and such highly charged disputes often evoke defensiveness, apathy, rage, or fear. As a result, many avoid the matter entirely, either by treating it as taboo or by congregating only with people like ourselves. We avoid the subject until our fear of even talking about race demeans the “power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16).
Some, however, talk about race so often it consumes our thoughts and overshadows our identity as followers of Christ. Such conversations rarely happen face-to-face within the family of Christ’s church. Instead, we fling assumptions and accusations from afar.
Both sides start posting sound bites and social media blasts as the entirety of people’s views. We listen mainly to our chosen tribe instead of fellow believers who can entrust us with their stories. We distance ourselves from those who address race issues either too much or too little for our liking. Yet such division should never happen among those united in Christ’s body.
Instead, the story of good news in Jesus must transcend each one of our personal stories. As Paul declared of the church, “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all” (Colossians 3:11)1. Fellow believers learn to share our varied stories from the common ground of gospel unity and testify to God’s greater story of sinner, sufferer, and sovereign Savior. So let’s show grace to one another as we ask each other’s stories, address our conflicts in the context of community, and affirm before the world the greatness of God’s glory. We share our stories to convince each other of a better way, to depict the beauty of a biblical worldview, and to display the glorious diversity within Christ’s church.
Ask Each Other’s Stories
Jesus loved to help people tell their stories even though, as their Creator, he already knew them intimately. Our Savior knows us each by name (Isaiah 43:1-2; John 10:3) and discerns our inmost thoughts (Psalm 139:1-4; Acts 15:8-9). Yet still, he delights to hear us share about ourselves. He listened to rabbi Nicodemus (John 3) just as he listened to the woman from Samaria (John 4). Likewise, he urges his church to listen well today. In the words of Dr. King, “People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.”
Stories have the power to break down walls, so let’s start talking about race and culture:
- How has your family upbringing influenced you to think and talk about ethnicity?
- When did you first become a follower of Christ? How has gospel grace affected your interaction with God and with each other?
- What blessings or struggles have you encountered because of diversity in your church or in the community where you live?
Members of the church I pastor have begun to share their testimonies of seeing Christ and culture come together in their personal life experiences. Each storyteller claims a relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord (Romans 10:9, 13) and affirms that the biblical story of God’s Word continues to shape our individual stories. Each of us are destined for the glory of God’s eternal kingdom, but we all enter the conversation at different places in the journey. I encourage you as well to share your story one person at a time with others in your church.
Let’s affirm when we have heard each other clearly and resist the temptation to judge with haste (Matthew 7:1-5). Let’s also clarify our definitions and begin the conversation in the spaces we agree. We honor our fellow believers by listening well as they honor us by sharing (Romans 12:10). Stories teach us, as C.S. Lewis wrote, “to steal past watchful dragons.” So let’s surprise each other with God’s grace as he blends our storied lives like brush strokes in his masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10). We can rejoice when our Creator wields such different shades and textures in his artistic palette.
Address Your Conflicts in Community
As followers of Jesus share our stories, we address any conflicts which might arise in a community bound by grace and peace (Galatians 1:3). Our God has made us each uniquely in his image and he receives all glory when peoples, nations, tribes, and tongues declare his praise as one (Revelation 7:9-10). So let’s remind each other often, especially in conflict, that we are brothers and sisters committed to community. Let’s take each other by the hand instead of by the throat, for Jesus calls us to the “ministry of reconciliation” where genuine change takes place (2 Corinthians 5:18).
This past year, our church has gathered at the One Table Family Fellowship in Watts, California, with 15-20 Bible-believing, Christ-exalting churches. We have fellowshipped over food, worship, and conversations about race. We have met individuals from different ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds and listened to their stories as we shared ours. We took these tiny faith-filled steps toward one another to proclaim the gospel which unites as stronger than any differences which divide. In this way, our minds have gradually been transformed not just through additional information, but by investing deeper in community. We’re learning to walk with empathy in each other’s shoes and to share each other’s burdens. We’re asking questions even as we disagree and have allowed Christ’s strength in us to bear the weight of our differing views.
May Christ’s church continue to speak and act toward one another with the grace that God has shown to us (1 Corinthians 1:3-5). Then even as we disagree, let’s do so with the goal of gentle restoration (Galatians 6:1). Let’s address our conflicts in community until our stories speak forth life instead of death (Proverbs 18:21).
Affirm God’s Greater Story
As Christians tell and retell our stories within the context of God’s greater story, we affirm the Bible’s overarching narrative: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Consummation. Racial strife and injustice are not how God created this world to be (Genesis 1-2). Yet the story of human suffering explains each conflict from the fall of man (ch. 3) until the present day (i.e., Cain and Abel, the tower of Babel, the enslavement in Egypt, the Jerusalem Council, the Galatian controversy). God’s all-sufficient grace in Christ then becomes our starting point for addressing race in the context of community (Ephesians 2:11-22). Thus, we are united not only by the fallenness of our hearts, but also by Christ’s forgiveness of our sin and his promise of eternal life (Galatians 3:28).
As we listen to each other’s stories, we will find that many were first introduced to an imperfect, yet loving, representation of a local Christian church through ethnic-specific ministries or unique cultural experiences. In those churches, we then learned the gospel which transformed our understanding of racial identity. Culture brought us before the throne of Christ, then Christ renewed the ways we interact with culture.
So let’s affirm God’s greater story and care for one another by graciously asking, “How does your story fit into our Creator’s? How does your life bring him greater glory?” (Colossians 3:17). We then minister to one another as we build their trust, listen well, and ask good questions. Some may want us to lament (Romans 12:15b) and others to stand beside them (Ecclesiastes 4:12). A few will seek our counsel from the Scriptures (Romans 15:14), while others need Christ’s comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3-5). Whatever role we serve as we affirm God’s greater story, let’s tell it through his voice (John 10:27). Let’s be like Jesus as we explore grace, race, and the church together.
- God’s Word teaches that all of us belong to a single human race descended from Adam and that our Creator has distributed different people groups (or ethnē) throughout the earth (Acts 17:26). Racial prejudice, however, as depicted in the Bible, creates a socially constructed divide outside of our Creator’s sovereign plan. As sinners discriminate against each other on the basis of class, gender, age, or cultural background (e.g., Esther 3), racism is one more egregious example of prideful partiality (e.g., James 2:1-9).