Race, Justice and Unity
Race, Justice and Unity
By Pastor John Dawson
For some time I have followed Monique Duson on her YouTube channel: The Center for Biblical Unity. She is a Christian and a black American. Her understanding of her own situation altered as she entered into a friendship with another Christian woman, Krista Bontrager, who is a white American. At first, their relationship was typical of what happens when a white person and a black person get together. The white person tends to be extra polite, not wanting to say or do something that will offend her new friend. This does not help the relationship, because the black person feels kept at arms-length. The relationship needed to get real. They needed to say things that they really thought and felt to each other, or the relationship would go nowhere. They decided to lean hardest on their shared identity in Christ. After all, in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).
Monique and Krista found that the real basis for their friendship was their common identity in Christ. Secure in that, they found that as they shared their different lived experiences with each other, their understanding of mistrust that one group has with another is due to each group not understanding how those different life situations color perception. It may go without saying that someone raised in rural Appalachia will see the world differently from someone raised in the inner city, but it needs said. Unless people talk to and listen to each other, bridges of understanding will not be built.
Talk alone is not enough. Good intentions are not enough. These two women needed to be truly bonded together with something powerful. What they had—and what we have—is faith in Christ and allegiance to God’s Word. That faith and allegiance is at the center of their friendship. Because of this they work together to encourage others to build the bridges (in Christ) that need to be built.
Monique has recently produced (with others) a statement on Race, Justice, and Unity. The purpose of the statement is to help discussion in the church with an aim to heal wounds, build bridges, and unite the church of Jesus. Like the late John Perkins, they find the term “race,” as it is used generally, to be unhelpful and even untrue. Dividing humans, who are all of one blood (Acts 17:26), into artificial groups in order to value one group over the other, is the opposite of what the bible teaches. We are all created in the image of God. Each person shares that special designation with every other person. Of course, they recognize the reality of different ethnicities and cultures. These do matter and must be considered. But they are never the primary identity for a Christian. Our identity is in Christ, first and always.
I plan to use the Los Angeles Statement on Race, Justice, and Unity for Sunday school this month. I can supply copies of it to those who usually do not make it to Sunday school. While it does not name some of the movements in our society that discuss racism with an aim to divide people, it does expose their errors by showing what the bible teaches. Those who continually dwell on grievances never get past them to the solutions. Those who have trial and trauma in their past do need to examine and deal with those hurts, but the goal is to move beyond the hurt to healing and thriving. The biggest contribution the LA Statement gives is that it points to the only power that can defeat the sin of racism—the presence and power of the risen Christ.
There are voices in our nation which seek to heal the wounds we have between peoples in the name of Christ, with the power of Christ. I want to be among them. Join me.
Pastor John