A Biblical Response on Race

And your identity in Christ should allow you to empathize with the plight of others. Nobody said for identity to be wrapped in race. In response to the OP, I said that a lot of white Christians were not loving their neighbors as themselves because of a lack of or in many instances a complete disappearance of empathy.

You think it's racist to let people at the table because of the color of their skin. I think it's racists to not make an effort to correct 400+ years of non-consideration because of skin color with consideration because of skin color. No one else has been excluded. But an effort is required to consider folks of color.

And I didn't say that I disagreed with the pastor in the OP. I simply said that part of the reason is what I stated earlier.

What is disconcerting for me is when professing Christians (1) misrepresent what I DID say and (2) act as though , as evidenced by this board, that there is not a problem within the church.

A lot of white Christians marginalize the lives of non-Whites. They dismiss their lives and their experiences. And then they pretend like 400+ years of privilege has not left them more privileged than everybody else.

And then the same folks want to tell the folks who they enslaved, obstructed and stole from in terms of invention, creativity and otherwise what they should be doing to "overcome". All the while supporting a man and legislative policy and a form of policing that leaves them dead with no due process of law.

So as I said, and I know it's somebody else's words, but people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

You can talk about AA and racism and all other sorts of things that Christians shouldn't be doing. But in addressing the OP, you can't give a Biblical response to race without acknowledging the construct and the fact that it is STILL a factor in how folks in the church treat others. I spoke to an aspect of how a lot of white Christians can't respond without acknowledging some other things.

This is dealing with reality. You want to give a Biblical response to race. Then deal with the reality of what folks are experiencing from the church about race.

And I look at what you said and the state of race in the church, and I say you're being ignorant of the reality when it comes to how race is dealt with in the church.

It remains the most segregated period of the week in many regards. Yet folks want to act as though race is not an issue in the church.

On this board and throughout SBC, I hear the same stereotypical WRONG things about how churchfolk feel about black people or black lives and it always seems to be congruent with what Fox News has said.

White Christians can't give a Biblical response to race without acknowledging that this whole skin color thing IS an issue that often dictates how they respond. A lot of the Black Christians do seem to get this, but it's perhaps because they have been on the receiving end of the very things that white Christians continue to act like are a non-issue.

So I say again, the Christian response to race has to be one of empathy as seen in the Second Greatest Commandment. You are my neighbor and I care about what you're experiencing because I'd want someone to care about me the same way.

But rather than extend empathy, again as witnessed on this board and throughout the church, a lot of white Christians extend the same dis-attached, lack of empathy that was present during Jim Crow and slavery.

Take that and place it on top of a majority white run policing and judicial system that has discriminated and jailed disproportionate numbers of minorities while taking a lesser tact with their white counterparts, and the murders of unarmed black and brown people where the officers have been trained to portray the black people in an almost Huckleberry Finnish like stereotyped way, and then try to turn around and say that AA is racist because it is giving the recipients of 400+ years of injustice a chance to be considered...

Well it sits right up there in big bold letters as to why a lot of white Christians can't give a Biblical response on race. A lot of white Christians don't think there's an issue where there is. And they think there is an issue where there isn't.

I've seen it time and time again where when Christians ( Black, White, Brown,etc.) talk about the things of God, they are civil and generally in one accord.

But the minute they are asked to apply what's in the word to what is going on in the world, there comes a political division right along race lines.

And without fail, one group thinks there is a problem while the other thinks there isn't.

 

I have never heard any racist statement or indication of blacks not being welcome in any predominately white church I have ever attended. Predominately white churches are not guilty of segregation.

Blacks, though, are guilty of segregation. Some of it just cultural preference. A lot of it is racism. Even as a black man, I don't want to attend predominately black churches and deal with their racial obsession and racism every single Sunday. In most white churches, race is a complete non-issue. If race is an issue, it's a weak white pastor pathetically apologizing for 400 year of oppression of blacks and falsely accusing the whites in his church for the lack of blacks in the pews.

 

There are a lot of predominately white churches you have NOT attended.

.
Yes because you have now attended them all and know that they don't. I have attended some that do so your statement is false.

So you can bring yourself to understand that Blacks segregate. But can't find it in yourself to comprehend that Whites segregate too?

You've obviously attended very few predominately black churches.

yeah right.

 

I've attended a good random sample of churches. Also, if some white preacher were spewing the same kind of racism that black preachers normally spew, there would be youtube videos exposing and denouncing the racism. But, for a a black to be racist, it's not matter of course.

.

 

Sampling is a science that involves doing certain things so that you may say that your sample is representative of a whole.

It might just be best to say that the churches you have attended were like this.

Such as?

There's quite a bit out there. Who knows? Maybe you haven't been looking in the right places.

Not sure what you're trying to say with this comment.

What's the definition of racism that you're using to make your statement?

 

Racism is an issue of power and the right of one group to exercise that power over another because of their believed superiority.

I don't think it's necessary to divide anyone. But the racists within the church do.

 

Spoken from the perspective of privilege. An opportunity to advance doesn't mean we all have the same opportunity.

Good job Tim Wise. In that same vein, it's no wonder why folks who don't spend much time with folks who don't think and look like them would assume everyone has the same opportunity just because everyone has the same opportunity to advance.

Guess that explains why there were hardly any black CEOs (5)in the fortune 500 as of Jan 2015.

 

I think again that you miss the fact that it's many in the Body of Christ who have done the holding back just as they did during slavery and Jim Crow.

And until everyone in the Body of Christ accepts that there are racial bigots within the church who are just fine advocating all sorts of racial stereotypes about those who don't look or think like them, and who indeed think themselves superior, then you're not working to advance the Body but people.

How do we speak of race not being an issue in the Body of Christ when you've got evangelicals supporting the racism and racial prejudice coming from Fox News and ,i.e. the Trump campaign?

Because I'd really like to know what solution those folks are advancing, and why some seem to take issue with calling their vileness out?