Good morning to my West London Alliance family. It is my opportunity this week to spend Saturday morning with you.

This morning, I am taking the opportunity to discuss matters with you which are very important and which are also relationally significant (make sure you have your coffee). Before I get to the meat of my discussion, please afford me a couple simple courtesies: 1) kindly take every opportunity to consider what I say with a view to preserve the unity of the church body; 2) where a statement is up for some interpretation, kindly opt for the interpretation which accords most closely with Scripture; and 3) kindly provide me with the opportunity to further discuss anything which you find difficult and which would require further explanation than what I am able to provide here.

What I want to discuss with you is the oft discussed topic of “Racism”. In doing so, please note that I am not expressing the position of West London Alliance Church.  Also, please note that spiritually, Jude speaks from the pulpit with authority. I am just a member of the board of elders working through Scripture as I seek to understand how I walk with my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and how He leads me to understand the issue of Racism.

Before we go any further, I think it would be a good idea for those of us who have not been the victim of oppression to step outside of our comfort zone (I am speaking primarily to myself). I would note that Christ did this throughout His ministry and, to the extent I do not, I have missed a call to understand the darkness of the world and to exhaust every effort to exhibit the light of the Gospel.  As I will explain further, meeting with victims provides an opportunity for us to listen first and to respond with Gospel truth and not to engage in a discussion seeking agreement over anything other than Gospel truth.

In keeping with that, let’s start with God’s order. In Acts 17:26 it says:

And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;

So, our expectation should not be to coalesce unity to understand God’s Word but to understand that God’s Word begins with unity and it is from this foundation that I begin this discussion.

In recent days, society has been burdened by the recent events highlighting “Racist” acts involving white individuals seemingly acting on and evidencing prejudices against black men in the U.S. I will not recount them here as I will presume that you are aware of them. Just to be clear, I am an American citizen and, when my family left the U.S. for Canada, I would routinely state that I was happy to avoid the poverty and racism in the U.S. but sad to miss the political culture and free speech. It seems that, those things which I was happy to leave behind still remain while those I missed leaving have been eliminated.

Firstly, in order to address any topic coherently, it is a good idea to define what it is that you are addressing. Certain terms lend themselves to aberration and the term “Racism” or “Racist” is not above such manipulation. So, without attempting to cherry-pick a particular definition, I went to the dictionary we commonly use as a base source of definitions in North America: the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. It’s definition of “Racism” reads as follows:

Definition of racism

1: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

2 a: a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles

  b: a political or social system founded on racism

3: racial prejudice or discrimination

We see that Racism is first and foremost a personally held belief. Secondarily, it is the foundation for a doctrine or political program, a political or social system or the basis for any prejudice or discrimination. 

In order to determine what the response of a Christian or the church should be to Racism, I sought out Scripture in order to identify any biblical references to “Racism”. To my surprise, there was no specific biblical references to “Racism” (because this term is a modern construct). Probably the closest reference would be in John 7:24 where it says:

Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

However, when looking for a particular sin, there were numerous references to the sin of “Partiality”. Here are some of the more prominent ones:

1. Romans 2:11 ESV

For God shows no partiality.

2. 1 Timothy 5:21 ESV

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality.

3. James 2:8-9 (ESV)

8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

So, essentially, it is the sin of Partiality which we should seek out in Scripture in order to act accordingly.

There are many scriptural warnings and prohibitions against Partiality, but the 3 that I chose above speak to 1. God’s standard for himself (Romans 2:11); 2. Christian’s conduct amongst each other (1 Tim. 5:21); and, 3. Christian’s conduct within the world (James 2:8-9). It is clear that, in all circumstances and situations, there should be no Partiality.

My struggle with these verses is that it generally refers to “showing” Partiality. Does this mean that it is ok for me to be Partial … I just should not show it or act on it? I think James 2:4 gives good instruction in this regard.  It says:

Have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

So, showing Partiality is a sin and thoughts entertaining such distinctions which form the basis for Partiality are evil. Therefore, Racism in my mind is the sinful thoughts that lead to the sinful act of showing Partiality. Therefore, the more I pursue righteousness, the less distinctions I make in my thinking. The less distinctions I make in my thinking, the less Partiality I would show. 

To be clear, Partiality is broader than Racism. Therefore, for us as Christians, Racism is one example of Partiality. It is Partiality which should be addressed as a sin in our lives.  Practically speaking, Partiality would cause a Christian to make certain assumptions about people which would cause/encourage that Christian to treat those people differently. For the early church it was often referenced between religious and national distinctions (Jews and Greeks or Jews and Romans). In such situations, Paul instructed the church to avoid treating others differently because of their religious and national affiliation.

In what ways do Christians show Partiality in today’s culture? In addition to race, there are often assumptions made about others based on age, wealth, gender, health, schooling, dress etc. I have been both the victim and benefactor of such assumptions depending upon who I was interacting with and how they perceived me. You too can think about times in your life when you were treated in a certain way by someone who had made an assumption about you and led them to treat you differently as a result. 

As an example, and much to my surprise, people assumed I was a lot smarter after I graduated from law school. The same things I said and did before graduating with a law degree were given much more respect and deference after I received a law degree. I was the same person; others just perceived me differently. 

However, even after I had a law degree, I was not received so deferentially by clients who assumed their lawyer should be older and more experienced than I appeared. There were many appointments and phone calls when I would use a lot of Latin phrases from law school to convince my clients that, even though I was young, I knew the law (disappointingly, I don’t need to use Latin phrases any longer as my more mature appearance conveys a level of experience that it did not before).

Please understand that the focus on Partiality is not intended to diminish or distract from the issue of Racism. Rather, Racism is particularly important for the church today because society now sees a particular form of Partiality that Scripture has called sin for millennia but that society has regularly embraced until lived out in the lives of visible minorities. Not only can we as Christians speak to the ills of Racism, we can speak to Partiality in all of its forms (examples include Social Stratification, Economic Issues, Social Disorganization, Misogyny, Ageism, Social Inequality and Educational Inequality). Today’s twitter-world existence regularly seizes upon such condemnations. And for that reason, the Church should be prepared to respond with a biblical response. 1 Samuel 16:7 explains what this looks like in God’s world (when considering David). It is of great instruction to us and how we should look upon each other. It reads as follows:

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Apparently, David’s looks and height did not meet with Israel’s expectations for what a king should look like. God had to instruct his people to avoid the assumptions they would make about David in order to provide them with the most influential leader Israel would ever have. How did God determine who was to be king? He looked at David’s heart. That is because in God’s judgement of people that is the one and only discrimination. In 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 it says:

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³ For we were all baptized by^[a] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

So, when dealing with people in our lives, it is of utmost importance that Christians avoid the sin of Partiality by only considering others on the basis of whether or not they are part of God’s family. Every other distinction to which we give value is evil. Every other distinction we impose on others, whether part of the Church or not, is sin. Equality is not sameness and to the extent we live in a world which makes such delineations, we are subject to the sin of Partiality.  How that is lived out practically becomes very difficult and the instruction in Ephesians 4:13 becomes crucial in the Church:

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

So, how do we address the plight of Racism in our society? What is the role of the church in a modern-day world where Racism is set apart a national disgrace? Should we as individual Christians, or as a church, respond to it politically or legally? Martin Luther King Jr. probably said it best when he stated as follows:

Now the other myth that gets around is the idea that legislation cannot really solve the problem and that it has no great role to play in this period of social change because you’ve got to change the heart and you can’t change the heart through legislation. You can’t legislate morals. The job must be done through education and religion. Well, there’s half-truth involved here. Certainly, if the problem is to be solved then in the final sense, hearts must be changed. Religion and education must play a great role in changing the heart. But we must go on to say that while it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that is pretty important, also. So there is a need for executive orders. There is a need for judicial decrees. There is a need for civil rights legislation on the local scale within states and on the national scale from the federal government.

What he so eloquently lays out is the difference between a standard that society demands (good acts or, at a minimum, the absence of bad acts) and the standard that God calls us to (good heart). It is this divide that we as Christians and the church should fill in. Martin Luther King Jr. states that the solution rests with changed hearts and only God (not legislation) can do that. That is the mission of the church … to present God’s Word and have it change hearts and, as a result, solve Partiality and, in particular, Racism.

            So, how do we handle all of what we hear in the media and on social media? While we have the answer (God and the Bible), I am not sure that the world actually wants to hear it. It appears that everyone is filtering the message through their own eyes. Without God’s truth, there is no other way to see it. Accept what I agree to and reject what I don’t is the common retort from both sides. Right now, this paper could be seen to be written by an older white male and discounted on that very basis. 

            When I lived in New York City back in the late ‘70’s, I lived 3 blocks North of Harlem (181^st Street). I went to a primarily black school and rode the subway through Harlem to and from my apartment building. One time, while I was riding in the middle of the day in an empty subway car I had a switchblade pulled on me by 2 African American kids my age who entered the car. They asked me a number of questions one of which was whether “I was proud to be white?” (given the circumstances, I quickly answered that I would rather be black). They let me go. Another night, my brother and I were surrounded by a gang (15-20 African American guys carrying baseball bats and clubs) who took my brother and me to a vacated building and told us to go under it. Just before the “moment of truth”, a couple of 20 year old African American guys came and took the leader of the gang and pushed him up against a car, told him to “stop beating up white guys” and told my brother and I that we could go. My brother and I ran as fast as we could to get to our building before the gang caught up with us and, thankfully, we made it.

            As I tell this story, you may be focusing on the use of the words “African American” and parsing out the meaning behind the story. Assumptions and inuendo often form part of how we treat this type of story. However, to do so, once again elevates the issue of race and serves only to further a divide. Without those details, on the subway car, there were two guys who focused used differences to dominate. With the gang, there were a bunch of guys who used differences to dominate. With the two 20-year-old guys, they didn’t identify any difference and offered to help to avoid any confrontation (even while acknowledging that there were differences). To this day, my brother and I don’t know who those 2 guys were but we sure thank God for them.

The foregoing are just moments in time. How about lives lived where every day someone experiences actions by others which utilizes differences to justify dominance.  Whether it happens or not should not be the question. We know that Partiality is commonplace in the world’s relational currency. The question for a Christian is for what purpose do we seek to understand Racism. Learning what life is like as a minority could look like the two 20-year-old guys (who acknowledge Racism) and confront the practical implications of it or, it could be that we don’t engage in battles over Race to combat Racism (we would only see Christians and non-Christians) and address Racism and Particularity only the spiritual implications. So, what are a Christian’s obligations to others in society. Here are some references from Scripture:

• As a Christian, how do I treat others around me?  We all know what Luke 6:31 states about how I should treat others:

Do to others as you would have them do to you.

This my responsibility to others and how I treat them.  I should show no Partiality or, in particular, Racism

• As a Christian, what is my responsibility to those that society treats unfairly? Galatians 6:2 says:

            Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

This is my responsibility to those who bear the burden of Partiality or, in particular, Racism.

• As a Christian, what is my responsibility to those who are oppressed/overcome by unfair treatment?  Proverbs 31:8-9 says:

Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.

To those who can’t defend themselves against Partiality or, in particular, Racism, my responsibility is to defend them and take up their rights.

            As you can see, the response to Partiality and Racism is more clear within Christ. Treat everyone with no consideration for anything other than our relationship with Christ and preserve the unity of the Spirit. However, outside of the body of Christ, it becomes more difficult … primarily for 2 reasons: i) individuals no longer determine their value from God but their value is determined by the opinions (as expressed through the words and actions) of “others”; and ii) those “others” are un-Godly in those judgements and actions and are not accountable when confronted in any event. In other words, without God, charges of Racism become hopelessly circular because the argument is filtered by the minds of both the oppressor and the oppressed.  With God, all Partiality become wrong because everyone is guilty of replacing God’s value of a human with a human’s value of another human.  Acts 17:28 says:

For in Him we live and move and have our being …

            So, let me go back to the beginning. Why should we go to those who are the victims of Racism? Because we can understand the effect that sin has in the world we live in (a message to ourselves). Also, because we bear up with those who are the victims of that sin or defenders of those overcome by that sin. Most importantly, we should go to those who are the victims of Racism because it is only the message of the Gospel which can end this battle by directing everyone’s attention heavenward. To the extent that our socially conscious Twitter world uses limited characters in social media to levy charges against people (“Racist”, “Misogynist”, “Ageist”, “Sexist” etc.) for exactly the same sins that society continues to exhibit, the message of Christ may take too much time to communicate. However, it is the only message of Christ which can bring this to an end and it is only the Church that can bring that message. Christ told us we have the message, Paul reminded the early church of that message, Martin Luther King Jr. acknowledged the need for the message. Now is our time.

            That is our call.