Black History 3: Bible and Biology Erase Racism

Infants and young children often enjoy a blissful existence, oddly enough because of their ignorance.  For example, a boy baby or toddler can have just as much fun at play with a girl and her dolls as with his own toy trucks and tools.  Many a child can as much enjoy the warmth and love of a dedicated stepmother or adoptive parents as that of his or her biological parents.  And, young children can enjoy playing with other young children without being distracted by differences in skin color, hair, or facial contours.  Everything seems to fit well into a child’s simple scheme of things.

Racism is Sin We Learn to Practice
But as children grow older and learn more about the world, their understanding becomes darkened by values that run contrary to both God’s created order and His revealed Truth recorded in the Bible.  When parents or other authorities in the child’s life practice racial discrimination or racism, the child suddenly learns that their black or white friends are somehow inferior, or of lesser value, or are their enemies. 

The fact that racial discrimination and hatred are passed from one generation to the next is illustrated clearly in the movie, 42.  This 2013 film records how Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier to become the first black major league baseball player.  One scene in which Jackie was playing in a game in Cincinnati features a boy seated in the stands next to his racist father.  The boy’s enjoyment of baseball was marred by confusion over his dad’s racial slurs against Robinson.  Soon, out of respect for his dad, the boy began to chime in to express his own racial protests.  How many times has this scenario been repeated over many generations?

What happens in the human heart that transforms an innocent child who had once enjoyed play with other children regardless of ethnicity to a child that is guarded, suspicious, or resentful of another person who is simply “different?”  Racial and ethnic strife is nurtured when experiences feed our natural inclinations toward pride and spiritual rebellion against God who created us.  Meanwhile, God reveals His truth through the Bible, history, and the sciences.  For those who humbly study these sources of truth, understanding brings great reward.  Jesus promised those who will follow Him:  If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free (John 8: 31-32).

In Part 1 of this series, “Correct History Brings Light,” we considered how ethnic minorities were instrumental in America’s founding.  By the time of the American Revolution, minority Americans like Crispus Attucks were already part of a “melting pot” of ethnicities that was instrumental in the forging of the United States of America.  Attucks who died in the Boston Massacre is reportedly the first casualty of the Revolution.  Interestingly, Attucks himself was an ethnic “melting pot.”  Although he appeared to be an African American, only Attucks’ father was of African descent, while his mother, Nancy Attucks, was a Native American of the Natick tribe.  A better understanding of how Black history is interwoven culturally and genetically with American history is necessary to evaluate the notion of Reparations which we discussed in Part 2.

A correct understanding of Black history and how it is intertwined with American history, it is necessary that we consider what the science of biology is revealing to us about the human race.  As always, we must try to integrate (i.e. logically and consistently fit into a complete whole) what we discover about humankind through science with what God reveals in the Scriptures of the Bible.

Scripture Says, “One Race”
Racism is a complex issue that I am still learning to understand.  However, since I have placed my faith in Jesus Christ and in the authority of God’s Word, the Bible, I must turn to God and His Word for answers to my questions and pray for wisdom to direct my communication and behavior.  Therefore, we will begin by considering what God has revealed about His creation of humankind, His provision for all people, and His principles intended for our good.

After God had created all except humankind, we read in Genesis 1: 26-27:
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
and Genesis 2: 7,
Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Jesus Christ was with God at Creation.  “Our likeness” above suggests the Trinity. The Apostle John wrote, All things were made by Him (Jesus Christ); and without Him was not anything made that was made (John 1: 3).  Jesus in turn spoke of the creation of Adam and Eve:
“Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’?

The Apostle Paul taught both Jews and Gentiles in Athens that they were all of one race (emphasis mine):
He (God) made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation…indicating that all of humanity, regardless of “race,” gender, or origin, are offspring of the first man and woman (Acts 17: 26).  Paul adds specific reference to the man, Adam, in 1 Corinthians 15: 45-47:  So also it is written, “The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.  However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven.

Taken together these Scriptures clearly teach us that all humans are descendants of one specially created man, Adam.  So, we all comprise “one race,” not many races.  It follows that just as the “first Adam” is father of the human race, so the “second Adam,” Jesus Christ, Adam’s descendent through the line of Abraham [Abraham (Hebrew) = “father of many nations”] is the “father” of all who repent of sin and are born again by faith in Him.  In fact, Paul continued his message to Athens with these words (emphasis mine):  Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man (Jesus Christ) whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead (Acts 17: 30-31).

The Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel presents a biblical view of social justice with respect to race relations and ethnicity:
God made all people from one man. Though people often can be distinguished by different ethnicities and nationalities, they are ontological equals before God in both creation and redemption. “Race” is not a biblical category, but rather a social construct that often has been used to classify groups of people in terms of inferiority and superiority. All that is good, honest, just, and beautiful in various ethnic backgrounds and experiences can be celebrated as the fruit of God’s grace. All sinful actions and their results (including evils perpetrated between and upon ethnic groups by others) are to be confessed as sinful, repented of, and repudiated.

As the above statement clearly states, the Bible nowhere supports the notion of racism.  Instead, racism is rooted in Darwinian evolution which claims that pre-human primates evolved into different lines, or "races" leading to present day Caucasian, Negroid, Asian, and other ethnicities.  Because evolution theory assumes that natural selection leads to differences in visible and other traits related to survival, it follows that some "races" must be superior to others.  In, “World History Without HIS Story,” I explain how the Darwinian mindset provided the basis for Nazi Germany’s eugenics experiment involving the Holocaust, the aim of which was to deliberately exterminate Jews and favor the “Aryan race.”  Some educators, both Christian and secular, prefer the use of “ethnic group” or “people group” rather than the term “race.”  Biology and genetics support the Scriptural teaching that humanity is “one race” not many races.

Biology Says, “Race Is Not Rooted in Reality”
An increasing number of scientists believe the term “race” is genetically meaningless.  The American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA) has drafted an official “Statement on Race and Racism.” The statement includes the following rejection of “race” as a useful genetic concept:  Race does not provide an accurate representation of human biological variation. It was never accurate in the past, and it remains inaccurate when referencing contemporary human populations.

Interestingly, while the AAPA Statement denies that race has its “roots in biological reality,” nevertheless it admits that “racism” exists as a social problem rooted “in policies of discrimination.”  That is, racism can be attributed to “a classification system that emerged from, and in support of, European colonialism, oppression, and discrimination.”  Unfortunately, the AAPA Statement fails to identify the role of Darwinian evolution as a major cause of the emergence of ethnic minority oppression and extermination under Hitler as noted above.

Referring to decades of research by the Human Genome Variation Project, the AAPA Statement notes that a genetic comparison of all humans reveals that the genetic makeup of any two randomly chosen persons in the world will differ by no more than 0.1% (one-tenth of 1 percent) of their genes.  According to Natalie Angier (“Do Races Differ?  Not Really.  Genes Show)”, New York Times, Aug. 22, 2000), only approximately 0.01 percent of the variation among all humans involves genes commonly associated with “race-distinguishing” traits like skin color.  D. J. Witherspoon, S. Wooding, et al. publishing in the journal, Genetics (176: 351–359  May, 2007), concluded, “…most human genetic variation is found within populations, not between them.”  Rob DeSalle and Ian Tattersall, both at the American Museum of Natural History, conclude, “race is a totally inadequate way of characterizing diverse humankind or even of helping understand humanity’s glorious variety.”

We began by reflecting on the bliss enjoyed by the baby or toddler who can enjoy being at play with another child regardless of outward differences in appearance.  Meanwhile, because of human spiritual depravity, adults worldwide behave like spoiled children who learn to reject and abuse others who look or act differently.   When will we realize the sin of racism?  In so doing, we defy God’s creative purposes by wrongly dividing human beings who differ by only a few genes that determine outward appearance?  Although racism is real and damaging on a cultural level, there is not enough genetic difference to consider it real biologically.  How tragic!  

The challenge for Christ-followers is to understand the following:
a)  What the Scriptures teach about the origin of all humans from the ”first Adam” (Genesis 1-2)
b)  The reason why we are spiritually depraved (Genesis 3; Romans 1-2)
c)  Why God sent His only Son as the “second Adam” (1 Corinthians 15: 45)
d)  Our need to repent and receive Christ's free Gift of salvation and restoration (Acts 17: 30-31)
For more information on how you can receive the Gift of Salvation, CLICK HERE for "Steps to Peace with God."

Those who come to Christ by faith can fully celebrate human ethnic diversity.  That means celebrating the way in which God and "HIStory" has melted ethnic diversity for the benefit of many nations, America included.  And best of all, Christ-followers can assist in the harvest of souls of every ethnicity, all of whom God loves and invites to live with Him throughout eternity if they claim His righteousness by faith in the blood of Christ.

Are There Lessons for America from the 1950’s?

Reminders of the era of the 1950's.

I am a member of the “baby boomers,” representing children born from roughly the end of World War II to the period of the early 1960’s.  While American culture in this era was not without need of moral and spiritual revival, many would consider the 1940’s and 1950’s as one of the most favorable times in which to grow up as a child in America.   For the sake of brevity, I will refer to this era, which encompassed my elementary school years, as “the 1950’s.”

So, I was interested to learn that two university professors have published an op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer entitled, “Paying the price for breakdown of the country's bourgeois culture.”  Amy Wax is the Robert Mundheim professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School; and, Larry Alexander is the Warren distinguished professor at the University of San Diego School of Law.

Wax and Alexander open their article with what many of us would agree is a pretty accurate summary of the current state of socio-economic affairs in America today:

Too few Americans are qualified for the jobs available. Male working-age labor-force participation is at Depression-era lows. Opioid abuse is widespread. Homicidal violence plagues inner cities. Almost half of all children are born out of wedlock, and even more are raised by single mothers. Many college students lack basic skills, and high school students rank below those from two dozen other countries. 

"I don't shrink from the word 'superior'." -- Dr. Amy Wax 

The authors admit that the ”causes of these phenomena are multiple and complex, but implicated in these and other maladies is the breakdown of the country’s bourgeois culture.”  Although the term “bourgeois” generally means “middle class,” it can also suggest values of materialism, pro-capitalism, and anti-communism.  Wax and Alexander may be using the term “bourgeois” in their title to grab attention, but their intent is to call readers to consider the merits of “1950’s middle-class values” which they outline as follows:

Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.

Evidence of moral decline in America.

According to the two law professors, these cultural values “reigned” in the era of the 1950’s for two reasons.  They “could be followed by people of all backgrounds and abilities,” and they were “backed up by almost universal endorsement.”  The principle assertion of the authors is that adherence to these values and disciplines “was a major contributor to the productivity, educational gains, and social coherence of that period.”

As if to anticipate the skepticism and pessimism of our divided culture, Wax and Alexander quickly admit that not everyone of the 1950’s era adhered to these values: 

There are always rebels--and hypocrites, those who publicly endorse the norms but transgress them. But…even the deviants rarely disavowed or openly disparaged the prevailing expectations.  Was everything perfect during the period of bourgeois cultural hegemony?  Of course not.  There was racial discrimination, limited sex roles, and pockets of anti-Semitism.  However, steady improvements for women and minorities were underway even when bourgeois norms reigned.  Banishing discrimination and expanding opportunity does not require the demise of bourgeois culture.  Quite the opposite: The loss of bourgeois habits seriously impeded the progress of disadvantaged groups.  That trend also accelerated the destructive consequences of the growing welfare state, which, by taking over financial support of families, reduced the need for two parents.  A strong pro-marriage norm might have blunted this effect. Instead, the number of single parents grew astronomically, producing children more prone to academic failure, addiction, idleness, crime, and poverty.

Whether or not you agree with Wax and Alexander, most readers will not be surprised at the harsh manner in which their article was received.  And if it were not enough for the authors to laud the values the values of the 1950’s, they also claim that “All cultures are not equal. Or at least they are not equal in preparing people to be productive in an advanced economy.” 

Note that the authors are not saying one culture is better than another--only better at preparing human beings to have productive lives in the cultural context within which they will live.  Nevertheless, in several articles, including articles in the U. Penn student newspaper, the Daily Pennsylvanian, the authors are accused of using “hate speech” and preaching “white supremacy.”  One of these articles, entitled “Notions of 'bourgeois' cultural superiority are based on bad history,” was written by five of Amy Wax’s own law faculty colleagues at U. Penn.  Imagine that occurring to you as a professor at the beginning of a new academic year. 

Professor Dorothy E. Roberts and colleagues consider Wax and Alexander’s “nostalgia for the 1950’s ‘bourgeois’ culture” to be “bad history” and compare it to a defense of Confederate statues that promote white supremacy.   They add that, “nostalgia for 1950’s ‘bourgeois’ culture erases its historical context and serves as a thinly veiled argument for… Anglo-Protestant superiority….”

In defense of Amy Wax and “1950’s values,” Heather Mac Donald, asks readers of National Review:

Were you planning to instruct your child about the value of hard work and civility?  Not so fast!  According to a current uproar at the University of Pennsylvania, advocacy of such bourgeois virtues is “hate speech.”  

Mac Donald then points out the flawed and biased approach of Roberts et al and other liberal progressives who view “1950’s values” with disdain and who accuse Wax and Alexander of promoting cultural bias and racial supremacy.  Mac Donald summarizes by putting her finger on what she calls the “primary sin” of Wax and Alexander—the need to change human behavior with emphasis on individual responsibility:

The op-ed’s primary sin was to talk about behavior. The founding idea of contemporary progressivism is that structural and individual racism lies behind socioeconomic inequalities. Discussing bad behavioral choices and maladaptive culture is out of bounds and will be punished mercilessly by slinging at the offender the usual fusillade of “isms” (to be supplemented, post-Charlottesville, with frequent mentions of “white supremacy”).  The fact that underclass behaviors are increasingly common among lower-class whites, and not at all limited to poor blacks and Hispanics, might have made it possible to address personal responsibility.  That does not appear to be the case.

Some of my readers will question the notion that America ought to consider returning to the values of the 1950’s.  Questioning is a good thing--if accompanied by an objective analysis.  I hope my article does not discourage readers from doing just that. 

Some of you who may be skeptical of the Wax-Alexander assertions are not “baby boomers.” Others, like me were not yet adults during the 1950’s.  I was an elementary schoolboy who had seen little of the wider world outside my rural, farm community.  I have great memories of those years, but I was not immune from learning of moral and ethical transgressions within our family and our community.  Thankfully, God was already showing me His provision through Christ to forgive my sin, make me His child, and teach me to understand the world and His plan for me.

So, let no reader think that I look back on the 1950’s with a fog of nostalgia or with colored glasses.  Rather, I believe the articles I have cited and others are affording our nation with the opportunity to have a polite discussion and debate about what is good and redeemable about American culture of past and present, and where changes are needed.  I hope you will read the assertions of the Wax-Alexander article and of opposing articles such as Roberts et al; and, critiques such as that of Mac Donald.  I am not optimistic that a “polite discussion” will or even can happen without a moral and spiritual revival.  As long as we choose to view our history with an arrogant disdain that refuses to acknowledge the importance of individual responsibility for moral and ethical choices, there is little hope.

The Book of Proverbs teaches the connection between wise discernment by the individual and the corporate benefit of individual righteousness to the nation as a whole:

Wisdom rests in the heart of the discerning;
 it is known even in the heart of fools.
Righteousness exalts a nation,
but sin is a disgrace to any people.
                               Prov. 14: 33-34 (NET Bible)

We must realize that “individual righteousness” is not “self-righteousness.”  The Bible says that all of our self-righteousness is but filthy rags to God (Isaiah 64:6).  Therefore, God instructs us in Titus 2:  12-14 to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us [give us right standing before a Holy God] from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.”

Heather Mac Donald does not offer much optimism for American culture.  She concludes her article asking,

What if the progressive analysis of inequality is wrong, however, and a cultural analysis is closest to the truth?  If confronting the need to change behavior is punishable “hate speech,” then it is hard to see how the country can resolve its social problems.

When I read the progressive liberal critique that considers  the mention of timeless, multicultural values like hard work, moral uprightness, and civility as “hate speech,” I am reminded of the Prophet Isaiah’s warning of coming judgment:

Therefore My people go into exile for their lack of knowledge;
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;
Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
                                                        -- Isaiah 5: 13a, 20

What About You?   Do you have good memories of the 1950’s or of reading about that era?  Do you agree with authors Amy Wax and Larry Alexander that America would benefit if we were to return to some of the values the 1950’s?   What is your answer to the hope for America as a nation, and more broadly for human civilization?

Extreme Protests 2: Racism as "Corporate Evil"

Thanks to those who responded through Facebook to my article, "Extreme Protests: A Monumental Opportunity."  What follows is my response, intended particularly for my friends, Stu Zaharek and Necia Fanton Bishop from whom I have learned.  I also thank my friend and former colleague, Mark Gathany for his comment and important reference to a message by Pastor Tim Keller, referenced below.

Perhaps like those who have responded, I am asking myself what kind of response a review of human history ought to evoke in me as a sinner saved by the grace and challenged to live as a Christ-follower. As such, let me add a few thoughts that reflect what I am learning from this discussion. 

There is much about world history and American history that we can be thankful for (even be “proud of”) and from which we can all learn.  But, there is much in our history that reveals the acts of sinful individuals expressed in every generation through systemic corruption and evil.  I tried to address this in my original article when I wrote:

Dismantling of a monument to Gen. Robert E. Lee 

Some of the protesters have the false hope of producing atonement, a “perfect oneness and unity,” that only God can provide.  Perhaps they believe that if they can only get all human pride, hate, and bigotry out on the public square, including all names, symbols, and monuments they associate with them, they can somehow make atonement.  Yet even well meaning efforts to rectify a history of human sin and depravity are an affront to a Holy God.  When people refuse to repent and bow before the Cross of Christ, everything else in human history becomes an unbearable weight.  What can wash away my sin?  Nothing but the blood of Jesus. 

What I was not able to see clearly in this context seems more clear to me after hearing the message of Pastor Tim Keller, which Mark Gathany added to our discussion.  It is entitled, “Racism and Corporate Evil: A White Guy’s Perspective.”

By applying Tim Keller’s message to American history we can see that although the Founders made a noble effort to launch “the American experiment” based heavily on Judeo-Christian theism, they did not include in the U.S. Constitution the abolition of slavery. They chose not to eradicate this “corporate evil” that had fastened its hold on American morality and culture.  Yet, there was considerable anguish of soul among prominent men and women on both sides of the slavery issue, and also a sense of helplessness when they considered the immensity of the tangled web that the institution of slavery had woven, nationally and internationally.  Tim Stafford, Senior Writer for Christianity Today Magazine, has written,  “Slavery was important to the economy, both North and South.   Americans North and South also profoundly feared freeing millions of slaves. Most Americans were frankly racist; they believed Africans to be not only inferior but also dangerous if not strictly controlled.”

Most people in both the North and South wore cotton near their hearts and were therefore directly or indirectly complicit in support of slavery—what Pastor Tim Keller considers an example of “corporate evil.”  But not all Americans felt the sweat of the Negro slave against their skin when they "put on cotton."  It took the Second Great Awakening of the early 1800’s to sharpen the national conscience in regard to the evil of racism and human slavery. In spite of spiritual awakening, many people of faith in the North and South feared that Abolition was so controversial that it would tear their churches apart.  Therefore, I believe God especially prepared men in both the North and South; and among both Whites and Blacks—e.g. Lincoln and Douglass; Stowe and Tubman--who would stand in the gap in their time to lead both churches and our nation toward repentance and confession of sin, and to call for repentance and willingness to address "corporate sin."

It has been helpful for me to revisit the sin of racism and what should be done with historic monuments. Necia presented a graph of monument-building from 1870 to 1980 which has been attributed to the rise and fall of efforts to intimidate Black Americans.  Even though we know that correlation does not prove cause-and-effect, it is likely that at least some of the construction was done with intimidation in mind. However, I believe some monument construction was an expression of a nation trying find solace and reconciliation through the memory of some people and places in an otherwise painful history.  Whatever the motives of monument building, if we acknowledge the significant role of systemic or corporate sin in the history of slavery, we may also realize that truly addressing racial reconciliation requires a much deeper national effort than either erecting or destroying monuments.

Newton's life: Example of Repentance and Forgiveness

As a nation, and as individuals, we have a choice.  We can either continue our pattern of bantering back and forth, or we can recognize that racism is an expression of individual and corporate sin from which we must repent.  The prayer of Daniel (Daniel 9), referenced by Tim Keller, conveys the sincere, repentant heart of the Prophet Daniel who identified himself with the “corporate evil” embedded within the nation Israel.  Today, I believe God would have us begin anew by asking Him to give us the contrite, repentant spirit of Daniel—praying for God’s Spirit to shine the light of His Word on our individual lives and give us willingness to confess our sins; then, to recommit to love and obey God; and, love our neighbor, spouse, family, church, community, and those in authority over us.  As James wrote (5: 17),

Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. 

Greater and more lasting progress than erecting or destroying monuments must begin in quiet communion with the God of HIS-story, and the God of our eternal future.  I believe this claim is consistent with what Abraham Lincoln came to realize; namely, that racism and its expression through the corporate evil of a slave-based economy must be owned and payed for by both the North and the South. If this is true, then our only hope as a nation is to own up to and confess to the fact that we are all part of the systemic, corporate evil of racism, and other evils such as malice, envy, and greed; all of which can only be abolished by the blood of Christ's cross.

The following are Lincoln's words, spoken toward the end of his second inaugural address only a few days before his own death by an assassin's bullet:

Both [North and South] read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.  If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Extremist Protests: A Monumental Opportunity

Most people who have been following national news for the past two decades agree that America has become deeply divided morally and politically.  Last week’s violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia sparked yet another angry reaction, this time between white nationalists and those who oppose the notion of white supremacy.  This disturbing series of events poses both a challenge and an opportunity for Christians.

Making history, yet ignorant of its lessons.

The challenge of the Church is to respond in truth and in love because true Christ-followers live in daily awareness of the grace and forgiveness of God.  If the Church is to be “salt and light” (Matthew 5: 13) in this troubled world, Christ-followers must remember both human history and His-story (God’s inspired account of creation, human corruption, and redemption recorded in inspired Scripture).

Ignorance of Human History

Both far-right white supremacists and the far-left opposition (the “Antifa” or “anti-fascists”) are acting as if they are ignorant of the history of America and of Christianity.  Racial discrimination and slavery have been a blot on American history and have involved not only Black Americans but Native Americans, Orientals, Hispanics, et cetera.  American history is stained with blood spilled over enslavement, particularly of African people and their descendants, culminating in the Civil War.  The war opened the way to emancipation followed by another century of slow progress toward federal legislation of civil rights for ethnic minorities in America.

Abraham Lincoln, 186

But street protesters on the extreme right and left seem to recognize neither the costly loss of human life in the Civil War nor the role of Christianity in the healing of America that began under the leadership of men and women on both sides at the end of the conflict.  All Americans ought to re-read Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address including the following excerpt (emphasis mine), 

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Memorials are intended to remind us of our history so we can learn from both our triumphs and mistakes. Destruction of memorials to men like Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee ignores how much both men contributed to the unifying of the United States of America?  Although General Lee led the military campaign of the confederate Army of Northern Virginia, he was a devout Christian and was instrumental in agreeing to a rightful surrender at Appomattox, Virginia.  R. David Cox, in The Religious Life of Robert E. Lee (Eerdmans, 2017) writes, according to Marvin Olasky in WORLD, that Lee’s “strong belief in God’s sovereignty… influenced his strong opposition to confederate Gen. Edward Alexander when this subordinate suggested the army “’scatter like rabbits & partridges in the woods’ and begin guerilla warfare.”  Lee challenged Alexander with these words

Robert E. Lee

God has given the victory to the Yankees…As Christian men, Gen. Alexander, you & I have no right to think for one moment of our personal feelings or affairs.  We must consider only the effect which our actions will have upon the country at large...

The extremists of the Antifa who have destroyed monuments to General Lee seemingly wish to erase the memory this man of great integrity.  Lee wrote that slavery is “a moral and political evil” and said he would gladly give up his slaves to avoid civil war. 

Protesting extremists may also be ignorant of 20^th century history.  Prior to the middle of that century, many allied nations fought in World War II to deliver the world from Nazism and Fascism.  They may also be unaware that racism and the philosophy of white supremacy are rooted in a false belief in naturalistic evolution which suggests that humans, particularly whites, occupy the top rung of an “evolutionary ladder” as a result of random changes through mutations and natural selection.  For more discussion of the connection between Darwinian evolution and Nazi Germany’s eugenics experiments aimed at exterminating Jews in favor the Aryan race, please consult a previous article, “World History Without HIS Story.” 

Today, “scientific racism,” the notion that science affirms the existence of racial superiority, is denied by most scientists even though the theory that all of life originated by evolution is still viewed as “settled science.”  Yet, if all humans originated simply by random material processes and not by divinely ordered creation, then our moral standards are baseless and civil law is seen as arbitrary.  The outcome of this logic is evident in the crumbling institutions of marriage and family, the growing disrespect for law and order, and the acceptance of abortion which is partly justified by those who support human eugenics in the tradition of Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.

Finally, white supremacists seem to be ignorant or have forgotten the great progress of the civil rights movement and the preaching of Martin L. King who said,

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Ignorance of His-story, “God’s Story”

Those who are ignorant of human history are in even greater danger if they are ignorant of “God’s story” of the creation and redemption of mankind.  According to the Bible, God loves all of His creation.  His love extends especially to humans of all ethnic backgrounds because he made man and woman in His image with unique rational and emotional capacities to share relationships with one another and with Him.

The Bible has been called “God’s love letter” to mankind.  Beginning in Genesis following the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, God promised a Savior Who would one day come and “bruise the head of Satan” the tempter (Genesis 3: 15).  Although the Bible teaches that all have all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3: 23), and that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6: 23a), the good news (“the Gospel”) is that the free gift of God is eternal life (by faith) in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6: 23b).  

Amazingly, God did not simply send His “love gift.”  God came as that gift as prophesied centuries earlier (see Isaiah 9: 1-7) through His own incarnation when a Jewish girl named Mary conceived and gave birth to Jesus Christ.  Christ, the Savior of mankind, had been promised centuries earlier when God spoke to Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, saying (emphasis mine), I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse.  And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed (Genesis 12: 3).

God had chosen to reveal His salvation through the Jewish nation, Israel.  To avoid their being drawn away by heathen gods, God warned His “chosen people” not to intermarry with “foreigners.” But, it was never God’s intention to limit his forgiveness of sin to the Jews alone.  The Old Testament records many instances in which God’s mercy was extended to “foreigners.”  Indeed, the human lineage of Jesus beginning from Abraham, includes several ethnic groups.  Two examples are Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute (Joshua 6) and mother of Boaz who married Ruth, a Moabite woman, who became the great-grandmother of King David (Ruth 4:13-22). 

How fitting that the blood of Jesus shed from His cross which takes away the sin of the world (John 1: 29; Colossians 1: 20) should have a multi-ethnic lineage.  Yet, as God promised to Abraham, salvation would come through the Jews.  Jesus’ earthly ministry as well as His instructions to His disciples during their training focused on His countrymen and the Samaritans who were half-Jews (John 4: 4).

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, His instruction to His disciples was to wait in Jerusalem for the fulfillment of His promise that the Holy Spirit would come.  He said (emphasis mine), but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth (Acts 1: 8).  The Apostle Peter’s Spirit-empowered sermon on the Day of Pentecost was supernaturally translated into the languages of over a dozen different ethnic groups representing Asia, Mesopotamia, and Africa (Acts 2: 9-11).  Within weeks, one of the original deacons, Philip, was commanded to go to the desert where he met an Ethiopian on his way back to Africa.  The Ethiopian’s conversion likely allowed him to be among the first to spread the Gospel of Christ into Africa. 

Within a relatively few years after Christ’s resurrection, the Gospel had spread across much of Asia, northern Africa, and Europe.  The accounts of the New Testament provide clear evidence that Jesus Christ is Savior of the world, and not just whites or other specific ethnic groups.  The closing book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation (5:9), points to a future scene in heaven in which multitudes of the redeemed are worshiping Jesus Christ, singing (emphasis mine),

Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals;
for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood
men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

God’s aim is that members of every tribe and tongue and people and nation be redeemed from sin through faith in Christ.  The redeemed in Christ are united as one into His body, the Church, by faith in His shed blood.  Therefore, the philosophy of human supremacy based on blood lines or ethnicity is in direct opposition to God’s plan to unite people from every tribe into One (atonement) by faith in Christ’s blood.  To claim ethnic superiority in the Name of Christ, is false, idolatrous, and even blasphemous.

Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention has written an article published in the Washington Post entitled, “White supremacy angers Jesus, but does it anger his church?”  He writes,

White supremacy does not merely attack our society (though it does) and the ideals of our nation (though it does); white supremacy attacks the image of Jesus Christ himself. White supremacy exalts the creature over the Creator, and the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against it. Later Moore concludes,

The church should call white supremacy what it is: terrorism, but more than terrorism. White supremacy is Satanism. Even worse, white supremacy is a devil-worship that often pretends that it is speaking for God.  White supremacy angers Jesus of Nazareth. The question is: Does it anger his church?

How Will Christians Respond?

Although I agree with the case Moore makes for “the wrath of God” against acts of hate, evil, and lawlessness, I question his notion of an “angry Jesus.” I disagree that God’s redeemed people should beangry at white supremacists and the Antifa, or angry at any sinner for that matter.  Granted, the white supremacists and their opponents have seemingly forgotten their history and His-story (God’s story) of man’s creation, corruption, and regeneration.  But, while Christ-followers ought to be deeply concerned, the deep divisions in America and the destructions of institutions and monuments should be no surprise.  For decades, we witnessed efforts to remove spiritual monuments like The Ten Commandments and Christian crosses from public display. Regardless of whether the freedom to display these monuments continues, Christ-followers have no reason to be overcome with evil, but rather, to overcome evil with good (Romans 12: 21).   Yes, Truth and Good will triumph over Error and Evil.

Here we should pause--you and I.  Chew it over and over—“meditate” on what I have just written.  If you are a Christ-follower, meditate on the amazing Truth that you and I are God’s children by faith (John 1: 12).  And, even our faith to believe is a gift of God (Ephesians 2: 8).  By faith, I look through my “mind’s eye” upon the Cross, that monument to the utter depravity of humankind of every tribe and nation.   The Cross of Christ is a monument to the horror of what humans did to the perfect Lamb of God.  Centuries before Christ was slain on that Roman cross, the Prophet Isaiah described sinful mankind (me included) and how “God’s Lamb” would respond to the weight of all human sin (mine included) heaped upon Him on that dark day outside Jerusalem (Isaiah 53: 6-7):

All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. 

He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep
that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth.

I will admit to responding at times with resentment and anger.  But, when I remember the Cross and the Empty Tomb as two much greater monuments of God’s love, forgiveness, and hope, I can begin to view the hate-filled mob in a different light. 

Granted, some rioters overcome with hate and evil.  But I see others who have joined in the mob with well meaning intentions.  Some of the protesters have the false hope of producing atonement, a “perfect oneness and unity,” that only God can provide.  Perhaps they believe that if they can only get all human pride, hate, and bigotry out on the public square, including all names, symbols, and monuments they associate with them, they can somehow make atonement.  Yet even well meaning efforts to rectify a history of human sin and depravity are an affront to a Holy God.  When people refuse to repent and bow before the Cross of Christ, everything else in human history becomes an unbearable weight.  What can wash away my sin?  Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

In the light of the Cross and Empty Tomb, this dark hour can be a time of great opportunity for the Body of Christ.  As the Apostle Peter teaches, repentance and obedience must begin with the household of God (1 Peter 4: 17).  Christians must heed the challenge of Christ’s half-brother, James, who challenges lukewarm and carnal Christians to humbly pursue heavenly wisdom, not earthly, demonic wisdom (James 3: 14-16; 4: 6-10):

But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic.  For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing…

But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, "GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE." Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.  Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

How will we respond as God’s blood-bought children, to the divisions in America, most recently evident in Charlottesville and elsewhere?  When I remember how Christians around the world are courageously responding to hatred and evil, I am ashamed of how I sometimes tend to react.  Then, I remember the verse from 2 Chronicles 7:14 that Christ-followers have been increasingly turning to in recent years.   May these words of be our unfailing guide:

and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.