Racism and the Church
On occasion we get the question “Why do we talk about racism so much at DSBC?”
This brief article lays out a brief answer to that question and gives the ‘why’ behind the reason why we frequently engage this topic head on.
1. Jesus’ vision and design for the church is that it would be a diverse, multi-ethnic community, with members serving as ambassadors of the Kingdom of God, living in accordance with Kingdom values and to providing their community a “taste” of what the Kingdom of God is like. [1]
2. Racism is a demonic force designed to, among other things, propagate division and inequity within a given culture and is a direct assault on the mission and purposes of Jesus’ body, the church.[2]
3. While many Jesus-followers have fought against it, many in the American church have propagated this great evil through apathy, passivity, compromise and frequently in our history, outright endorsement.[3]
4. For those of us that come from a culture that has tolerated, endorsed and even propagated racism, we must humbly recognize that we too, are not above the sin of racism.[4]
5. Though the church is, by design, an ethnically diverse organism, the American church continues to be segregated[5] and homogenous[6]. One of the chief causes of this continued failure to reflect the Kingdom of God in the local church of America is racism, whether it be systemic or individual.
6. It is therefore good for us to consistently renounce racism in all of it’s forms, and pray that God would “search us and know us” and convict us of sin, whether sins of commission or omission[7] as it relates to this great evil.
7. It is good for us to be a people of confession and repentance. This includes confession and repentance of the ways our church family, and the Christian community within Phoenix, has been either actively or passively involved in the spread of the evil of racism.[8]
8. The local church can and should be a space where, by the power of the Spirit, Jesus followers pursue the ministry of reconciliation around ethnic/racial divisions in our community, the church family and the broader church in Phoenix.[9] This process requires patience, humility, truth-telling, confession, repentance and forgiveness.
Which is why we talk about it so much.
Resources
The Way of the Reconciled: A seven part sermon series
Conversations about Race: A four part series.
Ethnicity in Acts: A study by Pastor Caleb
Racism Question and Response: By Pastor Caleb
[1] Genesis 1:26-27, Romans 4, Galatians 3-4, Colossians 3, Ephesians 2, Revelation 5:9, 7:9, 10:11, 11:9, 13:7, 14:6, 17:15
[2] 1 Cor 1:10-13, I Cor 11:18, Titus 3:9-11, Rom 16:17-18, Acts 10:34
[3] Tisby, Jemar. The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism. Zondervan, 2019.
[4] Galatians 6:3, Jeremiah 17:9, 1 John 1:8,
[5] Emerson, Michael O., and Christian Smith. Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
[6] Edwards, Korie L. The Elusive Dream. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. p8
[7] Psalm 139, James 4:17, Luke 10:30-37, Matthew 25:44-45, 1st John 3:17-18
[8] 2 Chron 6 & 7, Daniel 9, Nehemiah 9, Ezra 9 & 10, James 5:16, Hosea 14:2
[9] 2 Corinthians 5:11-21, Ephesians 3:2-13, John 17