One In Jesus

Background

Two open letters addressing racial injustice were recently published in the Christian Chronicle:

• An open letter to members of the Churches of Christ -ministers, scholars and thought leaders within the fellowship
• Speaking Up on the Issue of Race in America – from Harold Shank and Robert Solomon

These were accompanied by an article including interviews with some of the authors.

The letters were, of course, inspired by the current controversy regarding the Black Lives Matter movement.

Blue Like Jazz

On the other hand, I can think of one thing we can do today to improve race relations. Donald Miller tells this remarkable (true) story in Blue Like Jazz — Continue reading →

Background

Two open letters addressing racial injustice were recently published in the Christian Chronicle:

• An open letter to members of the Churches of Christ -ministers, scholars and thought leaders within the fellowship
• Speaking Up on the Issue of Race in America – from Harold Shank and Robert Solomon

These were accompanied by an article including interviews with some of the authors.

The letters were, of course, inspired by the current controversy regarding the Black Lives Matter movement.

Objections

There is a rebuttal argument, of course. Let’s consider it briefly: Because the church loves its neighbors, and because the victims of illegal police shootings are our neighbors, shouldn’t we do something to help protect them from illegal police violence?

Of course.

Shouldn’t we then do what we can now, rather than waiting the decades it would take to clean up the church’s internal racism?

No. Because the solution is Jesus, and we have no credibility to make that claim until we’ve allowed Jesus to defeat our own racism. Continue reading →

Background

Two open letters addressing racial injustice were recently published in the Christian Chronicle:

• An open letter to members of the Churches of Christ -ministers, scholars and thought leaders within the fellowship
• Speaking Up on the Issue of Race in America – from Harold Shank and Robert Solomon

These were accompanied by an article including interviews with some of the authors.

The letters were, of course, inspired by the current controversy regarding the Black Lives Matter movement.

A little theology

As stated by James Davison Hunter,

The proclivity toward domination and toward the politicization of everything leads Christianity today to bizarre turns; turns that, in my view, transform much of the Christian public witness into the very opposite of the witness Christianity is supposed to offer. A vision of the new city commons [in which the church participates] … leads to a postpolitical view of power. It is not likely to happen, but it may be that the healthiest course of action for Christians, on this count, is to be silent for a season and learn how to enact their faith in public through acts of shalom rather than to try again to represent it publicly through law, policy, and political mobilization. This would not mean civic privatism [permanent withdrawal from the public square] but rather a season to learn how to engage the world in public differently and better.

To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Kindle Locations 3876-3882). Kindle Edition. (Emphasis in original.) Continue reading →

Background

Two open letters addressing racial injustice were recently published in the Christian Chronicle:

• An open letter to members of the Churches of Christ -ministers, scholars and thought leaders within the fellowship
• Speaking Up on the Issue of Race in America – from Harold Shank and Robert Solomon

These were accompanied by an article including interviews with some of the authors.

The letters were, of course, inspired by the current controversy regarding the Black Lives Matter movement.

Before discussing such a controversial issue, I thought it might be helpful to deal with some over-arching concerns. Continue reading →

Background

Two open letters addressing racial injustice were recently published in the Christian Chronicle:

• An open letter to members of the Churches of Christ -ministers, scholars and thought leaders within the fellowship
• Speaking Up on the Issue of Race in America – from Harold Shank and Robert Solomon

These were accompanied by an article including interviews with some of the authors.

The letters were, of course, inspired by the current controversy regarding the Black Lives Matter movement.

Imagine

Imagine that the members of the church were so well schooled in matters of God and race that they considered racial division within the Kingdom unthinkable – even revolting. And imagine that our revulsion at racism were to become routine teaching – because converts to Jesus have to be taught to no longer be racists just as they must be taught other Christian ethics. That is, imagine that “to be a Christian” came to mean, among other things, “to no longer tolerate racial division of any kind.” Continue reading →

Background

Two open letters addressing racial injustice were recently published in the Christian Chronicle:

• An open letter to members of the Churches of Christ -ministers, scholars and thought leaders within the fellowship
• Speaking Up on the Issue of Race in America – from Harold Shank and Robert Solomon

These were accompanied by an article including interviews with some of the authors.

The letters were, of course, inspired by the current controversy regarding the Black Lives Matter movement.

Before discussing such a controversial issue, I thought it might be helpful to deal with some over-arching concerns.

The definition of “racism”

I should have defined “racism” at the beginning of the series to avoid the ambiguity increasingly being imposed on the term.

I am writing and thinking in terms of the Christian worldview — in standard English. I’m not writing in academic language, nor do I have Marxist view of class or Post-modern bias toward defining everything in terms of power and oppression. Continue reading →

Background

Two open letters addressing racial injustice were recently published in the Christian Chronicle:

• An open letter to members of the Churches of Christ -ministers, scholars and thought leaders within the fellowship
• Speaking Up on the Issue of Race in America – from Harold Shank and Robert Solomon

These were accompanied by an article including interviews with some of the authors.

The letters were, of course, inspired by the current controversy regarding the Black Lives Matter movement.

Before discussing such a controversial issue, I thought it might be helpful to deal with some over-arching concerns.

Church growth theory

In fairness to today’s membership, today’s segregated churches do not reflect today’s attitudes so much as the consequences of racism of prior years. That is, white and black congregations, once formed, tend to retain their racial characteristics long after the leadership is open to having a racially mixed church – due in part to location and to the fact that people naturally tend to join a church with a membership that looks like themselves. It’s not only about race but also the natural human tendency for people to socialize with people much like themselves. College-educated people tend to join college-educated churches. Wealthy people tend to join wealthy churches. Continue reading →

Background

Two open letters addressing racial injustice were recently published in the Christian Chronicle:

• An open letter to members of the Churches of Christ -ministers, scholars and thought leaders within the fellowship
• Speaking Up on the Issue of Race in America – from Harold Shank and Robert Solomon

These were accompanied by an article including interviews with some of the authors.

The letters were, of course, inspired by the current controversy regarding the Black Lives Matter movement.

Before discussing such a controversial issue, I thought it might be helpful to deal with some over-arching concerns.

The current racial mix in Churches of Christ

The Pew Research Center recently published a study of the racial breakdown of American Christian denominations. The Churches of Christ were among those that most closely reflected the racial make up of U.S. Here’s the graphic from the Pew Research Center: Continue reading →