Wednesday, August 5, 2015

We must not become Insensitive to Racism





While speaking at the Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Miami, Florida, Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader, said that blacks "must" rise up and "kill those who kill us" if the federal government does not “intercede in our affairs" (The Blaze):

  • [Allah is] “looking for ten thousand in the midst of the million, ten thousand fearless men who say death is sweeter than continued life under tyranny. Death is sweeter than to continue to live and bury our children while white folks give the killer hamburgers.”
  • He continues, “Death is sweeter than to watch us slaughtering each other to the joy of a four hundred year-old enemy,” … “The Koran preaches persecution is worse than slaughter. Then it says, retaliation is prescribed in matters of the slave. Retaliation is a prescription from God to calm the breast of those whose children have been slain.”
  • “So if the federal government will not intercede in our affairs, then we must rise up and kill those who kill us. Stalk them and kill them.”
How absurd! The federal government has been regularly interceding in favor of alleged Black victimization! According to Frontline Magazine:

  • The country has a black president; its justice system is run by a black attorney general (not for the first time; it is represented at the United Nations by a black ambassador (also not for the first time). The nation’s national security adviser is black; the president’s chief of political operations is black.
  • When Obama and Holder gave a pass on voter intimidation to the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia, it was blatant racism. When Obama and Holder intervened in Ferguson to prosecute a racial agenda while trying to cover up the actual facts of the case, that too was racism. 
  • Blacks have a lot of power beginning with the White House. Blacks control major American cities like Baltimore. 
Does Farrakhan really believe his charges, or is he purposely pursuing a racist war in order to promote his own Islam? Why isn’t our President intervening against such racist and incendiary comments?

I will not attempt to answer these questions. Instead, my concern is this: “What happens to the church and Christian unity when such racist, inflammatory thinking enters into the church, and what are we to do about it?”

Well, for one thing, I think we have to expose and confront it in order to maintain the unity that Christ has bought:

  • Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit-- just as you were called to one hope when you were called-- one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:2-6)
How do we “keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace?” Through love! What form does this take? By going the extra mile! How? No one wanted the black family to buy into the white neighborhood. It wasn’t about racism. Instead, it was about the lowering of the value of their properties. However, one Christian homeowner went the extra mile by extending hospitality to the black family and then by advocating on their behalf with many of his neighbors.

However, love means other things as well. It means taking other risks, like talking about racism and challenging the racial divisions. Why? We must build a unified community for Christ’s sake. He prayed:

  • "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one:  I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20-23)
This must also be our prayer!

No comments: