As a Christian, What's My Role in Fighting for Racial Justice? Part 2
By Ben Wenzl, Resonate Monmouth
Now that we have a firm foundation of who God is, who we are, and what the gospel says regarding racial justice, how do we engage and fight against injustice in a horribly broken and unjust world?
The Fight begins in our Hearts
The fight for racial equality for the Christian does not begin on the streets, in politics, or on the internet. Rather, it should begin in our hearts. Before we jump into activism, some of us need to take a moment to repent of the racism and sin in our own hearts. As we saw, the ultimate root of racism is pride, and we should be the first to assume that pride has not yet been completely rooted out of us. We ourselves are still in life-long progress towards becoming like Jesus, by God's grace (Romans 12:1-2).
In another part of his letter to the church in Galatia, Paul gives commentary on his rebuking Peter for not acting “in line with the truth of the gospel.” (Galatians 2:14-15) The matter at hand is one of racial equality between Jews and non-Jews. While there’s much to be said about Paul’s approach, we must recognize that we can be prone to slipping into the sin of racism and self-righteousness as Peter did. We should beware of the tendency that may exist in us to favor only those who are like us (James 2:1). Go outside of your bubble. Embrace those who have a different skin color than you.
If you’re challenged or angered by hearing the phrase “Black Lives Matter,” why? Why does it bother you? Ask God to search your heart (Psalm 139) and repent. Openly address it in community. Scripture affirms that black lives matter, have value, and are worthy of dignity and protection. Notice the Bible doesn’t say “speak up for the rich and powerful,” but it does say to speak up for the poor and weak, not because they are less important as persons before God, but because they don’t need you to do this. “All lives” are not the ones suffering. “All lives” are not the ones who are fighting to be seen, to be heard, or to have value in a society that constantly tells them that they aren’t worth anything. How do we speak up for the poor and weak (Matthew 25:40)?
If your first reaction to seeing a video of a human being killed by a police officer is to question his/her character or offer up statistics about “black-on-black crime,” you should ask God to search your heart (Psalm 139) and repent. Openly address it in community. Consider the implications of the gospel. At the very least, because of the love of Christ, our first response to the image of God being threatened ought to be mourning (Romans 12:15, 1 John 3:10, 1 John 4:8).
Maybe you recognize the evils of racism in slavery and violence but ignore the hints of pride and superiority in the jokes that you laugh at. Do the things that you laugh at grieve the heart of God?
If we truly live at the foot of the cross, there’s no room for pride, superiority, prejudice, or bias in us. The fight for racial equality must begin in our hearts. Once we see this, we can begin to move outward.
We Engage the World as Citizens of an Upside-Down Kingdom
As citizens of the Kingdom of God, the upside-down kingdom where Jesus reigns as King, we live and operate as ambassadors. We engage the world and “fight” as such: as people who trust the Lord who rescued us with nails in his hands.
Here are some practical thoughts around engaging as disciples of Jesus:
Proximity breeds compassion/empathy
Could it be that we struggle to listen, have empathy, and offer compassion because we have zero proximity with those who are actually experiencing suffering? Could it be that if we were a people who radically moved towards brokenness around us, we might actually begin to develop a heart for what God has a heart for?
Jesus says that the greatest apologetic for the truthfulness of the gospel will be the display of horizontal love in his chosen people (John 13, John 17). Christ commands his followers to radically “love their neighbors.” He was not commanding that we “feel” as if we love our neighbors. This was not instruction for our feelings. When Jesus says that his disciples should love their neighbors, no matter who they are (Luke 10:29), he’s commanding them to take loving action towards their neighbors.
What’s staggering about this is that you will begin to find that as you obey Jesus, even if you do not “feel” loving towards your neighbors, your heart will begin to follow in loving affection after your obedience.
Start with diversifying your library. Expand who you listen to. Read Deon’s story - about how from a young age he was taught to fear the police, because his mother had legitimate reason to believe that her children might be victims of police brutality. What if we’re not bothered because we’ve stood by from afar, pointing our fingers at logic that we don’t even comprehend?
If you want to begin to diversify the content you intake and take a step towards becoming more educated, go here for trusted resources.
Protest through self-sacrifice
Should Jesus-followers publically protest racial inequality in America? Should we make our signs and join what’s going on down the street? If our aim is to protest with violence and only convert others to our “right” way of thinking, then certainly not. Looting, violence, and selfish conversion is sinful. Our aim should rather be to magnify the God who has bought us, who is perfectly just, and who is gloriously good and worthy of worship. We should protest in such a way that rejects sin and injustice and points people to the healing and satisfaction that comes from Jesus and Jesus alone.
However, if we do come to the conclusion that caring for the vulnerable and the marginalized in our midst looks like self-sacrifice by way of protest, it may be time to do so. We should seek the wisdom of God in brothers and sisters that we trust. And we should be careful not to blur the lines between what Christ’s love compels us to do and what our distorted perspectives compel us to do. If we have no issue protesting on the streets or the internet but cannot stomach the sight of a neighbor that may disagree with us in doing so, we may be grabbing for our swords in a way that is counter to the Kingdom. Jesus laid his life down for his enemies, for those who vehemently opposed and disagreed with him. Even inside the Church, as we love and engage fellow brothers and sisters, may we be gracious and gentle, standing out as a set-apart community in contrast to the world.
Protest isn’t limited to marching the streets holding signs either. Protest can look like using your voice and current platform to speak up against sin and injustice while proclaiming the good news of the gospel of the Kingdom. It may look like not supporting a local business that propagates hatred and superiority.
Public influence in the public square
Should Jesus-followers pursue careers where they can hold positions of influence and be agents of change in regards to racial tension? Yes. God is calling some of you to become lawyers, teachers, politicians, non-profit starters, and more. The original vision for our church was to see college students transformed by the power of the gospel to the degree that they’d be sent into the world as leaders, heralding the gospel and having a vision for Kingdom impact. Some of us need to explore our passions and giftings and prayerfully consider if God is calling us to be used for his glory in one of these areas.
Right now, if you’re a student, maybe this looks like starting or joining a club on campus to advocate for God’s justice, which supersedes any theories of justice that come out of secular spaces. Maybe this looks like your village coming up with a Kingdom Initiative in your city to reflect the Kingdom of God. Maybe it looks like engaging in local government and voting on local issues in your hometown. Most certainly, this looks like beginning to speak and pray about what’s broken in the world with your disciples, and how the gospel of Jesus informs all of it.
Prayerful endurance
Finally, we must conclude that America is not the Kingdom of God. We should not expect a Christian utopia to emerge in our midst. As Jesus followers, we’re not blind optimists or hopeless pessimists. We’re not blind optimists, because we know that creation is groaning (Romans 8:22) and our world is not as it ought to be now that sin has contaminated everything. Any form of racial injustice should deeply grieve and anger us, and yet sadly, it shouldn’t surprise us. This shouldn’t drive us to become hopeless pessimists, either. We’ve not been called to disengage from injustice that happens around us (Micah 6:8, Isaiah 1:17), rather, God has invited us to walk back into the brokenness, heralding the gospel of Jesus Christ in word and deed as servants and agents for true redemption and transformation. We don’t hold the future, but we have access and belong to the one who does.
In all of this, may we remember our own stories. Before Jesus, none of us belonged to the family of God because of our own rebellion. We were at one point all spiritual orphans - outsiders and outcasts, without any hopes of meriting our own way into a relationship with the God of the Universe. Each of us committed the greatest injustice in the universe and worshipped created things rather than the creator of all things. And yet, in a scandal, the God we rejected entered into our brokenness and radically moved towards us in the person and work of Jesus. Why? Because of his love for us.
Every single social group, tribe, or clan in the world says that you can only belong if you meet the proper requirements. If you want to become an insider, you must be rich enough, famous enough, come from this family of origin, and so on. If you are a disciple of Jesus, however, you are a member of the body of Christ. You were invited in, not because you met the prerequisites, but because Jesus met them on your behalf.
May we, as those who are members of the body of Christ - the Church - recognize that we live only as humble recipients of grace, and then become the kind of people that extend grace to those who’ve been cast out, tossed aside, or forgotten around us.
