DISAPPOINTMENT WITH ATTEMPTS AT “RACIAL RECONCILIATION”

How do we build up our brethren? By sticking to the milk and meat of the Word – what is clearly taught and profitable:

·       As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions… For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking [and of quarreling over opinions] but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit…. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. (Romans 14:1, 17, 19; ESV)

While everything that Scripture contains is profitable, some of its meaning is now uncertain. Therefore, elsewhere Paul warned against teaching myths and genealogies:

·       Which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. (1 Timothy 1:4-7)

If our teachings and discussions do not promote “love…and a sincere faith” but dissension, we have to question whether we are going in the right direction. However, sometimes dissension is unavoidable. The Church cannot tolerate sin without the leaven of sin corrupting the entire loaf (Gal. 5:9).

However, other issues are not so critical or clear. I’m thinking about discussions over racial reconciliation. My experience is that these discussions upset the unity of the Church rather than bringing harmony. In this area, our politics, experiences, and the news we follow are so different that my experience with attempts to bridge the gulf has been disappointing.

Nevertheless, I must admit that the performance of the White Church during the years of segregation has been a great embarrassment to me and to other sincere Christians. I continue to hurt when I read the words of Martin Luther King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail”:

·       “In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churches stand on the sideline and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard so many ministers say, ‘Those are social issues with which the gospel has no real concern.’”

Are we still confronted with the “blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro?” This is the critical issue. We cannot close our eyes to victimization without incurring the displeasure of our Lord. However, I think that the situation has been reversed. All of the laws that had supported segregation have now been struck down. From my perspective, laws that favor one race above another now serve to favor people-of-color through affirmative action initiatives.

However, this is where we will experience severe contention. Whites are told that this is still a racist society characterized by “White privilege” and “systemic racism.” However, many of us do not see this at all. Instead, we see the progress. Yes, we see divisions, suffering, and even racism, but these occur among all peoples.

Meanwhile, many Black people regard the White refusal to acknowledge “White privilege” as denial and a sinister attempt to hold on to this “privilege.”

To pursue this debate further seems to inevitably result in bad feelings and divisions. As Christians, I now think that we can make an end-run around these divisive issues. How? We have the resources to overcome these divisions without laboring in hope of reaching agreement. What resources?

·       Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:29-32)

It is my prayer that we will fulfill Jesus’ prayer:

·       “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)

If we are Christian, we know that there is something greater in our lives than our ethnicity. As a Jew, I had wanted to even-the-score with Germans. However, my Lord has opened my heart to sincerely love my German brethren. All the praise belongs to Him.

BETRAYAL OF THE GOSPEL AND THE SEEKER-SENSITIVE CHURCHES

In his famous "Letter from the Birmingham Jail," Martin Luther King, Jr. lamented the fact that Southern White pastors had failed to join the Civil Rights Movement:

·       “In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have

watched white churches stand on the sideline and merely mouth pious

irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty

struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard

so many ministers say, ‘Those are social issues with which the gospel has no real concern.’”

Evidently, these Southern White churches were Seeker-Sensitive Churches

(SSC). They refused to preach an unpopular message, one which might turn

away the seeker and even the attender. They had forgotten the first great commandment to love the Lord with all our hearts, souls, and minds (Matthew 22:37) by abiding in His Word (John 15:7-14; 14:21-24).

However, these SSCs have now been joined by a wide range of brethren. Their message might be different, but the principle of political correctness remains the same - to not offend the prevailing culture, even if it means ignoring wide swaths of the Gospel.

However, we cannot ignore any of the Gospel, lest we incur the wrath of

God. Paul had been concerned about this very thing. Therefore, he testified

of his faithfulness in this regard:

·       “Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of

all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.”

(Acts 20:26-27)

This is the very error of the SSCs. Please understand. I am not suggesting

that we should be sensitive to seekers. In fact, we must be (1 Cor. 9).

However, we must not be "sensitive" to the extent that we refuse to preach

the doctrines of the faith. The is not sensitivity but deadening silence

about some of the very things that should be screamed out from rooftops.

What doctrines are being left out? Many! Here is a partial list:

·       Creationism: SSCs avoid this subject because they are afraid of seeming

to be science-rejectors.

·       The children of the light vs. the children of darkness (2 Cor. 6:14-16):

In the eyes of many, this distinction seems overly harsh, culturally

insensitive, and divisive. Professional Christians want to be able to

embrace the cultural, and preaching such a radical distinction between

saved and unsaved makes this difficult. It is also potentially embarrassing.

·       The role of women in the church: In SSCs, you will not find any

discussion about women in the pastorate.

·       Sexual sins: As social sexual standards have changed, SSCs have gradually

ceased mentioning any form of sexual sin. This omission tends to

communicate that sexual sins really don't matter.

·       Eternal Punishment, the Depravity of Man, and Salvation through

Jesus alone: These teachings are so integral to the Gospel that they are

only silenced as the SSCs approach an advanced stage of apostasy.

·       The plight of the Christian refugees: The silence of the SSCs in this

area is perhaps the most disturbing silence, especially since the world is

supposed to know us by the love we have for our brethren (John 13:35;

17:20-23; Galatians 6:10). Yet I have experienced hostility from SSCs when

I have pointed out their dereliction in this area. SSCs claim that we

shouldn't be showing favoritism.

The Gospel was never intended to make us friends of the prevailing culture.

It's message will always offend.

What would Martin Luther King have said about our SSCs? I suspect that he

would have seen them in the light of the Southern White churches of the Jim

Crow days.

Compassion: Its Philosophical Basis

No matter how diverse our philosophies, everyone seems to believe in the need for compassion. However, while some base compassion on our instincts/feelings alone, others regard these as inadequate. Rather, we need to extend the circle of our compassion beyond the limited circle defined by our feelings, our affiliations.

Therefore, it is not enough to simply feel compassion; we need to also believe and think compassion! But what beliefs will promote compassionate behavior?

Several very popular worldviews deny that humanity is responsible for any wrongdoing. If this is so, then we can’t hold people responsible and therefore resent them for their misdeeds. Instead, compassionate becomes the most appropriate response.

According to one such worldview, we are exclusively the product of nurture and nature. Humanity is basically good and would do the good if we could. Why then do we do badly? Because we are irresistibly driven by these deterministic forces to act badly! Consequently, instead of punishing the wrongdoer, society needs to treat him and eliminate those factors that drove him to do badly.

Closely allied to this worldview is the denial of freewill. If we cannot act otherwise, then we should not be held responsible if we hurt others.

Both of these worldviews also tend to be pragmatic, recognizing that dangerous people must be restrained in prison. However, it is not because they deserve this but because society needs protection.

However, this gives a contradictory message:

• Society must punish you even though you do not deserve this harsh treatment. 

Hence, these worldviews eliminate any concept of justice. Justice is thereby reduced to expedience – what works for the majority. In other words, “We are merely punishing you for our own welfare!” However, this can only breed cynicism, division, and ultimately decay. There is nothing to prevent the outcast from then thinking:

• Well, if you are going to punish me because of your welfare, then there is no reason for me to not punish you for my welfare! 

Besides, without the concept of justice, there remains no way to win hearts and minds. What can we say to those who want to fight for ISIS? “You must not go and fight with ISIS because of our benefit?” When we sacrifice justice, we sacrifice any rationale to appeal to anything higher than base instinct.

These two worldviews also un-dignify humanity. They proclaim:

• You are not a free moral agent. You are not responsible for your actions. In essence, you are no more than a sophisticated bio-chemical machine, something that can easily be discarded if it fails to perform a designated function! 

This opens wide the door to abuse. To un-dignify humanity is also to deprive humanity of compassionate behavior. We might instinctively love animals, but we also eat and cage them. If humankind is just another animal, what then is to protect them from the way we treat other animals? Even the honorable Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Homes, Jr. admitted:

• When one thinks coldly I see no reason for attributing to man a significance different in kind from that which belongs to a baboon or a grain of sand.

However, we walk on grains of sand and use them in the production of concrete. So much for a philosophical basis for compassion!

Serial killers have also figured out that, if we are no more than animals, then the law of the animal kingdom prevails. Instead, of evolution providing a basis for compassion, Jeffrey Dahmer protested, “I would argue that understanding evolution has the opposite effect, let me explain”:

• As far as we know, we only have one life and we share this planet with billions of other life-forms that have the exact same purpose as we do. We're no better or no worse than any other individual, ESPECIALLY not other human individuals.”

It was this understanding that enabled him to kill and cannibalize others.

Moral relativism is another closely-related worldview. It too maintains that our concepts of justice, right and wrong are just human inventions, without any existence apart from our own thinking. We merely invented these concepts because they are useful.

Consequently, this worldview also degrades humanity, even our pursuit of virtue and compassion. After all, if virtue is just someone’s invention, why take it seriously – more seriously than my own inventions?

Serial killer Ted Bundy understood this:

• Then I learned that all moral judgments are ‘value judgments,’ that all value judgments are subjective [it just depends on how you think about them], and that none can be proved to be either “right” or “wrong”…I discovered that to become truly free, truly unfettered, I had to become truly uninhibited. And I quickly discovered that the greatest obstacle to my freedom, the greatest block and limitation to it, consists in the insupportable “value judgment that I was bound to respect the rights of others. I asked myself, who were these ‘others?’ Other human beings with human rights? Why is it more wrong to kill a human animal than any other animal, a pig or a sheep or a steer? Is your life more to you than a hog’s life to a hog? Why should I be willing to sacrifice my pleasure more for the one than for the other? Surely, you would not, in this age of scientific enlightenment, declare that God or nature has marked some pleasures as ‘moral’ or ‘good’ and others as ‘immoral’ or ‘bad’? In any case, let me assure you, my dear young lady, that there is absolutely no comparison between the pleasure I might take in eating ham and the pleasure I anticipate in raping and murdering you. That is the honest conclusion to which my education has led me – after the most conscientious examination of my spontaneous and uninhibited self.” (Christian Research Journal, Vol 33, No 2, 2010, 32)

Clearly, moral relativism cannot serve as a basis for compassion. When feelings fail, this philosophy offers no resistance to our selfish instincts. However, these worldviews argue that if there is objective moral law and if we do have freewill, even in the midst of powerful deterministic force, then we re-establish a basis for moral contempt and undermine compassion.

However, the Reverend Martin Luther King argued that there is another solution. In a sermon entitled “the American Dream,” he stated:

• You see, the founding fathers were really influenced by the Bible. The whole concept of the… “Image of God,” is the idea that all men have something within them that God injected… every man has a capacity to have fellowship with God. And this gives him a uniqueness, it gives him worth, it gives him dignity. And we must never forget this as a nation: There are no gradations in the image of God. Every man from a treble white to a bass black is significant on God’s keyboard, precisely because every man is made in the image of God… This is why we must fight segregation with all of our nonviolent might.

For King, the image of God meant compassion for all. But doesn’t it also mean that some are moral outlaws who deserve punishment and not compassion?

When I was a probation officer, supervising offenders, I would always attempt to treat them with respect, although also with firmness. I knew that I had been forgiven a tremendous debt and was therefore required to treat others with the compassion with which God had treated me.

As any parent knows, compassion also requires correction, even punishment. To raise a child without correction is not compassion. Meanwhile, to reveal to the child your freewill-denying worldview is to teach your child wrongly. It is to say:

• Because you don’t have freewill and could not have done otherwise, I should not punish you. You do not deserve it. However, I must punish you to correct your impulses, which are neither right nor wrong but merely useful or un-useful. But of course, these assessments must change as society changes.

Instead, we need to know that there are considerations and values that are more important than our feelings. Consequently, maturity requires that we restrain the immoral expression of these feelings.

When I wrong my wife, I must take full responsibility and humble myself by confessing my wrong. A morally relativistic confession would not work. I could not say:

• I am truly sorry that I hurt you. However, I did not really commit a wrong, because there isn’t any objective right and wrong. However, you feel bad. Therefore, I am apologizing, even though I haven’t really done another wrong. 

Such an apology is as useful as the freewill-denying apology:

• I am really sorry that I hurt you, but I don’t have freewill and could not have done otherwise. Therefore, you have no right to be upset with me.

Compassion requires taking full responsibility for our actions. Instead, worldviews of mitigation or complete denial are only superficially compassionate. They may look compassionate, but they are unable to achieve the reconciliation required in meaningful relationships. If my wife loves me, her compassion will ask me to take full responsibility.

The Bondage of the Self

In a speech of August 16, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. identified the most powerful and pervasive form of slavery:

• As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free. Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery.

Without a stable and assured source of self-esteem, we condemn ourselves to psychological slavery. This is because we all need to believe that we have value, but we relentlessly pursue this by trying to prove ourselves. In order to believe that we are good and even superior to others, we become obsessed with ourselves, comparisons with others, money, success, popularity, and power – by whatever standard society grants worth.

In the pursuit of these, we deny our faults, rationalize our failures, become dependent on the opinions of society, and ultimately become alienated from both self and others in the process. We convince ourselves that:

• If I could only have this mate (or house, or job, success or money, or…), I will have arrived and will be able to feel good about myself.

However, this moment will never arrive. The richest man in the world, John D. Rockefeller, was asked:

• How much more money will you have to make in order to be happy? 

His answer was very revealing:

• Always a little bit more!

We never arrive! We desperately pursue an unattainable goal. Is there any answer to our internal prison, our morbid self-obsessions?

We must find our worth outside of the arbitrary, changing, and often uncaring standards of society, even outside of our desperate selves! As strong as we might be, there is no way that we can lift ourselves off the ground. We need someone else to do this for us, but a someone who possesses the strength, gentleness, wisdom, and authority to define us in absolute and unchanging terms. Jesus assured His followers:

• "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32)

We are enslaved by the need to relentlessly prove ourselves. Instead, Jesus invites us to define ourselves by His unfailing love and forgiveness. Consequently, it no longer matters what we or others think of us. Instead, if Jesus accepts us, we can begin to accept ourselves and find liberation.

The Reality of Moral Law

Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws.”

Raping babies is more than a cultural convention that changes as our culture changes. It’s also more than our biological conditioning. Rape is a transgression that doesn’t depend on culture or the way we feel about it. In our heart, we know that it is objectively wrong.

Our conscience is an alarm system. It not only tells us that rape feels wrong, it alerts us to the objective reality that rape is unchangeably and universally wrong! It violates moral law that transcends our feelings.

Politics, Christianity and Cal Thomas

 Should Christians abandon the political arena? To put this question another way – Is there any arena where the light of Christ shouldn’t shine? Evangelical Christian and widely read columnist, Cal Thomas, seems to answer “yes.” For one thing, he claims that Christian attempts to bring about political change have been for naught:

• We’ve tried to change culture through government for thirty years, since the forming of the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition and all these other religious/political groups…and what happened? Nothing. (Salvo, Spring 2013, 29)

Even if Thomas is correct about the “nothing,” this shouldn’t represent a reason to abandon politics. Perhaps instead, our failures might serve as a call to reexamine ourselves, our methods, and the need to better prepare the societal ground through reasoned argumentation.

Besides, perhaps we use an unbiblical measure to assess “failure” and “success.” Fundamentally, for the Christian, success is a matter of faithfulness:

• This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. (1 John 5:3-5)

The world’s response should not govern our assessment of success and failure. Instead, we should measure it in terms of our responsiveness to our Lord, and this might be a matter of being the light, whether individually or corporately.

If we are to use Thomas’ measure of success, then the Prophets of Israel were utter failures. Ultimately, Israel rejected their measure and Israel went into captivity.

Thomas’ measure of success is extreme in other ways. He argues against political involvement because it fails to change hearts:

• You cannot convince the unredeemed to behave in a way that is pleasing to God absent conversion. (29)

Although conversion is the optimal change-engine, we shouldn’t disdain more modest changes. In this regard, I like what Martin Luther King stated:

• “It may be true that a law can’t make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.”

There are many things that are important that fall short of conversion. In another breath, Thomas admits this:

• People talk about William Wilberforce [and how, as an MP, he was instrumental in outlawing slavery] and use him as an example. But what they don’t really focus on is that Wilberforce prayed for hours every day…That’s why he was effective. (29)

I certainly agree with Thomas, and for this reason, we can and should infiltrate all areas of society with the light and in prayer!

When Thomas was asked about same-sex marriage, he responded:

• I think they ought to fight harder to protect their own marriages. (28) 

This is certainly true! Our morality begins at home. If we leave our wives, we have sacrificed the right to speak out against same-sex marriage, and we also make the church look like a hoard of hypocrites. (However, once we confess and renounce our sin, we then can speak.)

However, Thomas seems to want to restrict sexual issues to the home and church:

• Even if we could organize and harness the entire Christian population of America and even if they all agreed about everything – which they never would…- this still wouldn’t achieve the goals we seek, because such goals are not reached through the political system…You don’t cure societal breakdown through the government. You cure it through the life-changing message of Jesus Christ. (28-29)

However, I wonder if people will listen to us after we show them that we are utterly uninterested and uninvolved in the social-political arena – the horrors of slavery, communism or National Socialism come to mind – and thereby confess that the Christian faith is irrelevant to these public matters?

While it is true that our detractors deplore our involvement in politics, they also hold us accountable for our non-involvement! One atheist wrote:

• “European Christianity failed to prevent the mass slaughter between the faithful in the Great War and actually contributed to World War II, insofar as conservative churches supported fascism. The failure of the churches to provide sound moral guidance may help to explain the [European] Continent’s postwar lack of enthusiasm of religion.” (“The Big Religion Questions Finally Solved,” Free Inquiry, Jan. 2009, 29)

Darned if we do; darned if we don’t! Perhaps instead, we need to refocus on what our Lord would have us do. Perhaps we need to revisit the Hebrew Prophets and their prophetic calling before Israel.

Even today, many point the indicting finger at the Evangelical Church for its silence in the face of injustice and victimization. This shouldn’t be! We have a mandate to expose evil (Ephes. 5:11) and to be the light and the salt of the world (Mat. 5:14-16) not only within our own homes and churches. Meanwhile, many evangelicals are understandably praising the Catholic Church for its public stand on various social issues.

Sadly, our silence has given the Muslims ample political and religious capital. With some justification, they point to the moral decay of the Christian West – condoms, pornography, sex-trafficking, abortion, promiscuous sex, single parent families, drugs, crime – as evidence of the failure of Christianity.

Even when conversion is not in view, we still have the obligation to pursue what is right, irrespective of the arena:

• Amos 5:14-15 Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts…

I wonder if some of the weakness of the church is the result of abandoning our responsibilities. Amos promises that if we seek what is good – and this even includes “justice in the courts” – “then the LORD God Almighty will be with you.” This principle is true even apart from the likelihood of conversion!

Today, there is much talk about partnering in politics as opposed to oppositional politics. This seems to be Thomas’ favored approach. He has just written a book – Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War that is Destroying America – with his friend, the liberal Democratic strategist Bob Beckel.

While partnering – you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours - might be an answer to the “Partisan War,” it also presents many dangers to the Christian witness. I cannot imagine Elijah partnering with King Ahab and his wife Jezebel. Nor can I imagine Jesus partnering with King Herod or Agrippa. How could we resist the temptation to compromise our message and calling and become “unequally yoked” in the context of such partnering?

Although there are Biblical precedents for partnering – Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah – and opportunities to promote the Gospel (Daniel’s witness before Nebuchadnezzar), too often, we send Christians into these trenches without adequate preparation. We send our children to “partner” with the university, and they return as their clones - not partners - while the university remains as secular as ever. But even the trenches belong to our Lord and are places to illuminate with His light.

Lord, grant us wisdom:

• Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)