WHEN CHRISTIAN RESPOND TO BLACK LIVES MATTER with “all lives matter,” “God doesn’t see color,” “Let’s just preach love;” ”let’s not throw stones” and then cite some Scripture, I am sure they mean well, but it’s hurtful, and I think they are missing at least three important things:
1) RACISM AND PREJUDICE IS A PROBLEM WITH BELIEVERS TOO: The fact that Jesus and God don’t see race is not the point. The Bible and Jesus himself had to constantly bring up the issue of prejudice by religious people including to his own disciples because it was still a problem even AFTER they believed. Followers of Christianity and Religious people DO SEE RACE and ETHNICITY which is why Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan so that it would continue to be retold. The ethnic and religious tension against Samaritans was justified by RELIGIOUS PEOPLE and even his DISCIPLES. There was prejudice by believers against women, lepers, Romans, Hellenic Jews, and against Gentiles by Jesus’ followers. It didn’t magically disappear. And so the Scriptures are constantly having to put forth images of different ethnic groups, races, and people being equal. It would be nice if believing in God and ”loving” automatically eradicated institutional racism, but it doesn’t–not even within the church. Abraham Lincoln pointed out in his 2nd Inaugural Address that both the North and the South ”read the same Bible.”’
2) AFRICAN-AMERICANS TODAY ARE APPEALING TO BIBLICAL PROMISES FOR A PARTICULAR INJUSTICE OCCURRING NOW: African-American history includes a long history of Black Christians having to remind White Christians of the promise of Scripture—(not the happy, cherry-picked love Scriptures, but the justice and equality themes the church was not living up to 1700 years after Jesus).
At the College of William and Mary in Virginia is a document written in 1723 written by uneducated slaves trying to remind their Christian leaders and judges of the deeper themes in the Bible they were being forced to believe in. They wrote:
“Baptised and brouht up in a way of the Christian faith and followes the wayes and Rulles of the chrch of England which keeps and makes them and there seed Slaves forever. Wee doo hardly know when Sabbath comes for our task mastrs are as hard with us as the Egyptians was with the Chilldann of Issarall.”
(They also wrote that they were afraid of signing their names)
….“for freare of our masters for if they knew that wee have Sent home to your honour wee Should goo neare to Swing upon the Gallass tree.”
The Christians were their task masters and they were having to appeal to Hebrew enslavement by the Egyptians to wake them up; not using isolated cherry-picked verses, but the overall theme and meaning of the Bible.
3) PEOPLE DON’T USE SCRIPTURE TO DEFEND RACISM BUT THEY DO USE THEM TO AVOID TALKING ABOUT RACIAL PROBLEMS: While African-American preachers historically focused on grand themes in the Bible, like justice and freedom, as well as the Prophets, White preachers liked to cite short little Scriptures out of context as a way of silencing the slaves and arguing for obedience, encouraging them to look the other way, ”turn the other cheek”,”wait upon the Lord” and remain slaves. Scripture can be used to discard the issue.
I remember being told in Kenya that a road I was going to walk down was a road where people were regularly mugged and robbed daily. The story of the Good Samaritan was more real and modern to them than it is to someone living in a rich, Western country. ”That road you have to walk down daily” doesn’t exist everywhere for everyone.
In the same way that the Bibles stories about plagues, famine, pestilence, persecution, imprisonment, agricultural disaster, and stories of rural agrarian life are not as relatable to rich Western Christians as they are to the larger number of non-Western Christians who are still living lives that are much closer to 1st Century existence; Scriptures about Justice and racial reconciliation do not resonate as much with most White American Christians as they do to Africa- American Christians. Why? Because those issues are not as much a part of the road they have to walk down daily. Consequently it’s easy to throw out an isolated Scripture and try to defuse the race talk.
I get told a lot to just talk about love when I post on social media and that’s really just a way of trying to silence and spiritually shame me. (Fortunately, for every negative private message I receive, I get 10 positive messages). But I’m not going to be silenced, because it’s not about me. It’s about something bigger that will affect our children and grandchildren. It’s about the world I want my son to live in. It really is a time for white Christians and all of us to stop and learn. It doesn’t mean you are bad. But we have very clearly been living in an era recently where people have lost a sense of shame about racism. It’s practiced more openly, leaders in different countries around the world use it to win elections, racist cheers are common in stadiums around the world in a way it wasn’t before, racist groups are growing and more open, it’s enabled (even by Christians), excuses are made, and subtle and not so subtle ways of trying to silence people are practiced on Facebook and beyond. This post is to show how this is an old tactic. The question is are we going to name it, feel shame, and address our systematic sins? We have to. Quite often love is about listening and learning.