A QUESTION FOR MY BLACK BRETHREN IN CHRIST

 

 

Are you willing to accept me as your friend and brother in Christ if I do not agree with you about certain things? I ask this question for several reasons. Our disunity is very troubling to me, especially since it is troubling to our Savior:

·       “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34–35 (ESV)

 

Our Lord wants the world to see our love for one another so that they would come to Him. Sadly, they are not seeing this.

 

I have also lost many black Facebook friends who call themselves “Christian” because I didn’t agree with all of their political beliefs. This shouldn’t be. Instead, if we are brethren in Christ, we already agree in the most important things:

·       We agree that the Bible is the Word of God.

·       We agree that Christ had died to pay the price of our sins and that anyone who turns to Him and away from their life of sin receives His gift of life.

·       We agree that we must take of our cross daily to follow Him.

·       We agree that we are equally one in Christ, no matter our color or ethnicity.

·       We agree that we must love one another, even sacrificially.

·       We also agree that we have a responsibility to be a light and to speak the truth in love against injustice.

 

However, we tend to disagree about race in America today:

 

·       The existence of systemic racism.

·       The inherent guilt of those with a whiter skin color.

·       That blacks cannot be racist, and consequently, the same Biblical standards do not apply to them.

 

Must I agree with you to be regarded as a friend and a brother? Must I first endorse all your beliefs? Will you consider me a racist if I do not? I ask these questions because some blacks insist that there cannot be any reconciliation without agreement on all these points. However, the Bible insists that even if I am wrong in my beliefs, you are required to bear with me and I with you:

·       As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. (Romans 14:1–4)

We cannot pass judgment upon one another because of these minor details. To do so is to disregard the prayer of Jesus:

·       “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. (John 17:20–23; Ephesians 4:1-5)

 

As Christians, this prayer must also be ours. What is keeping you from embracing your white brethren? Has the inflammatory media convinced you that most of the white evangelical church is racist? Don’t you know that their message is horribly biased? They are children of the darkness (John 3:19-20) who hate the Light:

 

·       “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 0Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.” (John 15:18–20)

 

After the world succeeds in dividing us, as they already have, they will turn against any true believer, whatever the color.  Do not allow the world to divide us with their false rhetoric. Please give us a chance. I am open to sincere dialogue with those who share these basic Biblical teachings – whatever it takes to honor our Lord!