RACIAL ONENESS AND ITS MEANS

The Church must pursue racial oneness because oneness is central to our Lord's purposes (John 13:35; 17:20-23). But how? There are many prescriptions, including the Church compensating for past wrongs.

Certainty, we must confess past wrongs and our own and take personal responsibility by compensating our victims for our wrongs.

However, guilt-by-color or entitlement-by-skin-pigment does not accord with justice, even if white great grandparents had guilty hands:

• “You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving you." ‭‭(Deuteronomy‬ ‭16:19-20‬ ; ESV‬‬)

A racial “specialist” preached at my church that racial oneness can be achieved once whites are willing to surrender a large extent of church leadership to people-of-color.

Certainly, color-based bias should be removed. However, it shouldn't be replaced by another form of color-based discrimination or condescending paternalism.

The great emancipationist, Frederick Douglass, warned:

• Everybody has asked the question. . ."What shall we do with the Negro?" I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!

Besides, showing racial preference would amount to the unjust and unbiblical practice of showing partiality or favoritism:

• My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory...But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. ‭‭(James‬ ‭2:1, 9‬)

Should the poor, the female, the youth, and the illiterate also be given leadership positions to compensate for past disparities? Certainly not! Instead, we are mandated to follow Biblical criteria in our selection of deacons and elders (1 Timothy 3; Titus 1).

However, while justice is opposed to partiality, grace is not. We are free to invite anyone we wish to our party. We are also free to minister to blacks rather than whites, children instead of the elderly, and prisoners rather than the poor. Justice has nothing to say against such individual callings or choices. Meanwhile, Grace can serve whomever it chooses.

However, no house of justice can long endure racial favoritism. It will not breed trust , peace, and confidence but division and resentment. Such a house will inevitably fall.

And Christian oneness? Our tools are love, peace, confession, forgiveness, and even possibly reparations if an individual has been proven guilty in court for benefitting from the exploitation of others. Let us not exchange these biblical principles for inferior tools.