Evangelicals and Racial Equality

John 14:6

"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

I was recently given this verse as the defacto word of Jesus promoting color blindness in his followers. My interpretation of the reason is that Jesus says that it doesn’t matter who you are. Jesus will love you and accept you into the fold and grant you eternal life as long as you come to God through him. Jesus says this regardless of race, gender, or nationality. As the followers of Jesus are called to be more Christ-like they are also called to accept all others as brothers and sisters in Christ regardless of who they are or what they look like. 

On the surface this seems like a kind and inclusive view of the followers of Christ accepting everyone. The problem here is that a leap of scriptural interpretation is made. That leap is that the differences aren’t worthy of perception. You could just as easily read this to mean that we should honor and respect the differences of all coming to God through Christ. You could say that those differences are to be celebrated as we weave a tapestry of different people together in the love of Christ. 

There have been many interpretations of the Bible in the past that have served to harm so many people justified by the inspired word of God. I think this is one of them. 

To sum up, Jesus said differences don’t matter for inclusion but did he say to ignore them or to celebrate them?

Another argument under this umbrella of color blindness is Philippians 4:13.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” 

If you try to say that humans cannot be 100% objective and can’t help but notice differences and build internal bias you can be shut down with this verse. It’s building on the assumption made in the first scripture and then backing it up with the power and obvious will of the Father.

The final argument for someone so ingrained in their interpretation of the Bible over may years is that they are simply right and that the Devil is using my words as his instrument. Honestly there is nothing I can do but turn by back on this level of hubris and intolerance. I can’t combat someone who thinks God is speaking obvious truth directly through them. They are closed off to conversation and any suggestion that they could possibly be wrong. 

These are dangerous tactics utilized by so many evangelicals who can justify that they have no place in racism while simultaneously using this strategy of denial to maintain the status quo and keep the money and power where it has been for so many years. I’m not saying most of them do this consciously or maliciously. However, most of them sit in all or almost all white churches claiming they are not racist. Of course they would accept a black family that came through the door to worship. However, they don’t look internally and ask what are we doing and how can we change so that a black family feels comfortable coming into our church to worship?

It is this inward look that we are all being asked to take right now. As my Mother once told me, “The first step in fixing a problem is realizing that it exists.” We have to all recognize and accept that at some level we ALL have a problem that needs attention. Don’t hide it with the Bible. 

The Desire for Color Blindness Regarding Race

I understant the desire to ignore a person's color and just see them as a person. I used to yearn for this and thought of it as the obvious, right path in working to see all people as equal. Generally, this desire not to see color comes from a place of love and kindness. It comes out of a desire for equality. That is a good thing.

The problem with color blindness though is that it is a form of denial. It is a subconscious tactic to maintain the status quo. If I as a white man can look at my black brothers and say "I see you as an equal and just as worthy of success as I am" then I can pat myself on the back. I can go back to work in an office mostly filled with white faces and feel good about my view of equality. I don't feel the need to think about my place in the system and question whether I have advantages that others don't have because of my gender and skin color.

What I need to do is walk into my office and wonder if the racial distribution of my office mirrors the distribution of the racial population in my community or does it skew in advantage to one side? If it does skew then why? Is it simply the way the chips fell and that the qualified people were hired for the positions regardless of skin color? Good question. Is it also possible that there are unidentified areas of management with harmful bias that are keeping certain people out of the office based on skin color? Again, good question. If I see the differences and entertain these thoughts then I can have the conversations that work to find the answers. If I ignore the differences then I stay off that critical path of evaluation and problem solving. Only by owning my place as a white man in the system can I truly look at the place of my black brothers and try to figure out how I can serve them.

If I work not to see my black brothers as different then I also work not to see the current inequalities and problems facing them. Don't work to be color blind. Work to uplift and cherish the differences in others. Work to find ways to serve those that are different. You are not doing them a service by simply saying "We are the same" because we are not.

I implore you to read this book. It covers this topic much better than I can.

White Fragility

Is Calling the Coronavirus a "Chinese Virus" Racist?

My perspective right out of the gate is that calling the coronavirus a “Chinese virus” is tone deaf at best. However, does that mean that Trump should be crucified in the public court for referring to a virus by its origin?

COVID-19 Emergence

My rational mind says no.

Then again I would much rather see a leader who understands the nuance of the situation and focuses on the important matter at hand in that this virus affects us all. “Blaming” China is not productive and neither is a casual mention of the origin of the virus.

“It’s not racist at all,” Mr. Trump said, explaining his rationale. “It comes from China, that’s why.”

I could imagine anyone making that kind of mistake and then graciously accepting responsibility for the perception and offering an apology. Unfortunately that is not the kind of man we have leading our nation and unfortunately too many people lack the empathy to accept responsibility for the perception of what they put out there. A much better bellwether of Trumps racism would be his reference to the belief that “you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides” when talking about white nationalists in Charlottesville, VA.

I see people on the right flabbergasted and the idea that anyone would malign Trump for referring to the origin of the virus. Those groups don’t understand the nuance of grace and those who see it as utterly racist lack some grace themselves. Where does that leave us? Still divided.

In my perfect world those who disagree with Trump inform him that it could be offensive to some that he calls it the “Chinese Virus” and that he graciously accepts the constructive criticism, apologizes, and moves forward without doing it again. I know that world does not exist so where does that leave us? At odds I guess. We have to keep challenging those who think racist references are not a big deal. Especially if they will not listen to constructive criticism. Then again, how much of the criticism has really been constructive? How do we meet in the middle and understand each other?

I don’t know and I worry we are not capable. I just ask that you think about this as we interact with each other in the world. This tragedy is pushing us more and more to online interaction and if we can’t be kind to each other we do nothing more than increase the divide.