Race and Grace

It seems like I’ve been in discussions about race and diversity my whole life. It’s only in recent years, though, that I’ve been actively engaged with discussions about race in the church. 

The discussions, I believe, are important—and they are also filled with landmines. It’s very easy for emotions to get out of hand and for false accusations to fly, generating more heat than light. (I know this is mixing a lot of metaphors—but if the apostle Paul can do it, so can I!)

What follows are some principles I’ve penned as a guide to my own soul in how to talk about race with other believers. I often fail in applying them, but I believe they are basically right and helpful. I don’t know if they will be helpful to others, but I’ll reproduce them below and let you decide!

1.      Commit to loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind.

2.      Commit to loving your neighbor as you love yourself.

3.      Commit to following and teaching truth, even if it is unpopular or will be misunderstood.

4.      Look for evidences of grace in others.

5.      Give others the benefit of the doubt.

6.      Employ your moral imagination in attempting to place yourself in the position of another.

7.      Don’t assume the worst—either in the congregation as a whole, or with those with whom you disagree.

8.      Seek understanding before you criticize; i.e., do not critique another’s position until you can state it in their own words in such a way that they would say, “Yes, that is exactly what I mean.”

9.      In disagreements, look for and celebrate common ground, and seek to build from there.

10.  Do not teach that there is a universal biblical mandate for all churches to be multiracial.

11.  Define the term “racial justice.”

12.  Work against the tendency to speak in vague generalities instead of using concrete examples and definitions.

13.  Avoid the phrase “You just don’t get it.”

14.  Avoid talk of “institutional racism” until the meaning of that concept is defined and its presence is demonstrated by rational argumentation and evidence.

15.  Realize that racialization (wherein race is elevated to a central role and all things and people are viewed through the filter of race) often creates more unhealthy tension than it relieves.

16.  Be slow to use the terms “racist” and “racism,” and don’t use it as a label everything you disagree with in race discussions.

17.  Draw your definition of sin and guilt from Scripture, not from culture.

18.  Reject the theories of collectivist sin, guilt, or exoneration when dealing outside of a covenantal context.

19.  Avoid motivation based mainly on guilt.

20.  Remember that while situations and circumstances provide the context for sin they do not determine sin.

21.  Make distinctions and employ nuance.

22.  Seek clarity before agreement.

23.  Temper an “in your face” boldness on this issue with empathy, meekness, and understanding.

24.  Recognize that the criticism we employ against church-growth strategies may sometimes also apply when we are seeking to have church growth among minorities.

25.  Reject cultural relativism.

26.  Don’t assume that criticism of a cultural practice is necessarily insensitive, ethnocentric, or racist.

27.  Recognize that the doctrine of proportional representation [i.e., the racial makeup of institutions must necessarily reflect the racial makeup of a surrounding culture] is based upon a theory of cultural relativism.

28.  Critique sinful patterns in all cultures, not just the dominant one.

29.  Beware of criticizing so-called “western,” “white,” “linear thinking.”

30.  Insist that whites turn to the cross for atonement, and not to horizontal acts as a means of atonement.

31.  Insist that blacks—and others—turn to the cross for power, and not to the use of white guilt as a means of power.

32.  Don’t always speak of our seek diversity only with regard to African Americans.

33.  Recognize that historically and globally affirmative action consistently fails to achieve its aims and often makes problems worse.

34.  Teach the biblical idea, encapsulated in Martin Luther King’s vibrant, colorblind dream, of judging people on the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

35.  Think of unbelievers in the category of “Creatures created in the image of God” before you think of them in terms of race.

36.  Think of fellow believers first in the category of “Christians in the image of God being conformed to the image of Christ” before you think in terms of race.

37.  Consider the interests of others before the interests of yourselves.

38.  Outdo one another in showing honor.

39.  Do not practice groupthink, and do not presuppose that others think the same because they are members of a group.

40.  Draw a distinction between actual colorblindness (wherein one’s race is not noticed) and functional colorblindness (wherein one’s race is neither used as a basis of exclusion or acceptance).

41.  Draw a distinction between objective reconciliation (whereby Christ unites all believers of all races through the cross) and subjective reconciliation (whereby believers who have wronged or been wronged by other individual believers must seek the restoration of their fellowship).

42.  Draw distinctions between race and culture.

43.  Draw distinctions between historical causation and present-day perpetuation.

44.  Listen carefully to experiential testimony.

45.  Refuse to absolutize experiential testimony.

46.  Discourage the sin of hypersensitivity.

47.  Discourage the sin of callousness.

48.  Discourage a victim mindset.

49.  Fear God, not man.

50.  Pursue creative partnerships with theologically likeminded leaders within minority communities.