Black History Month 7: "God Made Me and You" Day Conference

Since 1987, October has been designated as “Black History Month” in the United Kingdom. This is an annual opportunity to reflect specifically on the men and women of the African diaspora, and to commemorate their courage and contributions. I have been publishing articles relevant to Black History Month - especially but not necessarily limited to short biographies of often neglected or largely forgotten black men in Britain that I hope might prompt further reading and research. Today’s post is different, as it is about an important conference I attended yesterday.

On Saturday I was blessed to sit under very helpful and practical ministry on the subject of “God Made Me and You: Celebrating God’s Design for Ethnic Diversity” at East London Tabernacle Baptist Church. The day featured sessions from Philadelphia-based poet, lyrical theologian, and author Shai Linne and Shepherds Bush church planter Reuben Hunter, and a small group discussion workshop and Q/A panel led by Lewisham pastor Efrem Buckle. I chose not to live-tweet the day, so as to better enjoy the moment, but I have recorded my notes below for those who would like to read them. 

Shai Linne Session 1

“And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place” Acts 17:26

God’s original design is creation and redemption is a diverse group of people united to proclaim God’s praises and live for God’s glory.

The division of the world’s people groups is a post-Fall reality as by sin people were alienated from God and from one another.

Genesis 6:5: “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

God reset things somewhat, starting back with one man, Noah, and his family but the reality of sin remained, as Genesis 8:21 demonstrates: “the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”

Genesis 11:1-32 shows three things relevant to the present discussion: sinful humanity is united in opposition to God, God thwarts sinful man’s plans, and God’s purposes ultimately prevail.

1. Sinful humanity is united in opposition to God

People unite around all kinds of things. Music, movies, food, sports, young and old, black and white etc. Shai lives in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl and the celebrations were marked by a large, incredibly diverse group united around love for their favourite sports team, celebrating the great victory. While nice to see such unity, it is based on something utterly inconsequential and perishing. Why is this so often not the case in the church where the basis of our unity is much deeper than a sports team?

There is a kind of unity that is opposed to God. A unity that is opposed to God is described at Babel where we see:

Works righteousness - “let’s take our skill and reach the heavens and look down on the earth like gods.” But the righteousness that is from a God does not say “who will ascend to heaven...” (Romans 10:6)

Selfish ambition. Ecclesiastes 4:4 says “all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbour”. Both self-righteousness and selfish ambition are rooted in pride which thrives off of comparison.

Cautions:

We as the church have to be careful as to who we align ourselves with. There are causes that God cares about that he has allowed in his common grace, but pursued for different motives and with ends in view that are not in keeping with Scriptural principles.

We should be intentional about what we emphasise when we come together as Christians, keeping the main thing the main thing. We are not talking about diversity because it is popular in the world to talk about it, but because it glorifies God and is a part of his good design!

We should be countercultural in how we pursue unity with Christians we disagree with. We don’t have to demonise. We can speak truth in love with kindness, gentleness, and respect.

2. God thwarts sinful man’s plans

It is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. He will show his sovereign power.

Any unity that is not of God will ultimately be thwarted by God. A group of people united around the slave trade. This and the legacy that followed was a sinful unity based on ethnic pride, ethnic hatred, and greed that sought to find justification from Scripture with bad interpretations of the cited texts. God hates this kind of religion, and we should too. Frederick Douglas wrote:

“between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference — so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels.”

The history of several American church groupings tells the story. The founding of the Southern Baptist Convention for example, as a result of attempts to justify slaveholders going as missionaries, the idea that you could divide, hate marginalise, and oppress even in the name of Christ and still share the good news of Christ.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade is gone. But what is still here? Christ’s church.

3. God’s purposes ultimately prevail.

The nations formed and ethnicities created through the disobedience of Babel would ultimately be united by the obedience of Christ.

Genesis 12:1-3: “Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonours you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Galatians 3:7-9 provides commentary on these verses:

“Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”

This does not create some notion of “colourblindness” but is precisely why the idea of “colourblindness” is unacceptable. The question is asked, perhaps by the well meaning but not alway, “does ethnicity matter”?

The appropriate response to is to ask “Does it matter for what, exactly?” For salvation? Absolutely not. That is a big part of what Galatians is about.

Does it matter in terms of displaying the glory and the beauty and the creativity and the wisdom of God that lead us into greater enjoyment of him? Absolutely!

Racism is fuelled by idolatry and apathy. It doesn’t take personal animosity to be guilty with regard to racism. All it takes is you not caring. It is not simply a question of actively participating but doing nothing and remaining silent. Christianity teaches us the importance of mourning with those who mourn and rejoicing with those who rejoice. It may not affect you personally, but if it affects your brother or sister come along side them and ask them to talk with them about their experience.

May we not be outdone by the world or seek to mimic the world but lead the way in displaying the unity of a diverse group of believers brought together by God for the glory of God.

Shai Linne Session 2

1 Corinthians 15:1-5

John 3:16

It doesn’t matter who you are, where you are from, or what your story is, whether you’re “from the ‘hood or from the ‘burbs, from the White House or the crack house”, the gospel is for you

Jesus Christ is so glorious that one people group is not enough to reflect his greatness.

Unfortunately there is this notion that “We’ve received the gospel, we’re Christians now. Just preach the gospel and ethnic divides and tension all just go away.” Actually that is not what the Bible shows us. This is a problem to which the early church speaks. In Acts 6, there is a crisis in the church, a gathering of a few thousand people who knew and believed the gospel where Hellenists were being overlooked in the distribution of the aid packages for the needy. The apostles needed to keep the main thing the main thing, focusing on their mission of proclaiming the gospel. It is the preaching of the gospel that makes the church the church rather than a mere social organisation. But they did see and recognise the problem and took steps to see it addressed. They let the church choose men to serve in a way that would address the problem. These men were Hellenists, as their names demonstrate. That is, the people appointed to address the issue were a part of the group that was being oppressed. This was not tokenism. They did not choose Hellenists with a Hebraic perspective. They didn’t select just any ole Hellenist. Rather, People with godly character, filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom.

We see it elsewhere in Acts, and in Galatians. The Jews had maintained a consistent culture and in the early days of the church some Jewish Christians pursued an assimilationist agenda. This meant that it was absolutely essential that tension be proactively worked out between the different ethnicities and cultures of Jew and Gentile. We can take cues from this Jewish/Gentile conflict and apply them to our current ethnic/racial issues. As an example, there is the story in Galatians about Peter eating and then not eating with Gentiles. Peter eating with Gentiles is saying “Christ has made us one”, whereas Peter withdrawing from Gentiles is denying the implications of the gospel. He even gets Barnabas, the “son of encouragement” in on his misbehaviour. He is roundly rebuked by Paul!

We hold to rich, robust, theological truth. And at the same time we pursue ethnic and racial harmony among Christians. These things are not to be made to compete with one another. The compartmentalisation of the gospel from its implications is what resulted in people who held to justification by faith alone being complicit in the enslavement, murder, rape, and brutalising of black men and women. It is what enabled some to self identify as “reformed” and “conservative evangelical” yet oppose the Civil Rights Movement. The justifications used back then sound frighteningly like the justifications used of police brutality and racism today. This is the mindset behind people who embrace the “5 solas” but turn a blind eye and deaf ear to the racial injustice that is still prevalent.

How can we move forward?

1. Listening is very important.

It is very important to not be the fool who delights in spouting off opinions but stop, think, and say “Can we talk about this? I just want to hear from you brother. I just want to hear your viewpoint.”

2. The context of relationships is where this is best addressed.

It is not going to be worked out on Facebook. “Come to my house and let’s talk about this over the dinner table. Let’s walk through this together and as I’m walking with you these things are going to come up because they affect you and if they affect you they affect me.” It is very common for white people in the USA and outside the urban communities of the U.K. to live their life without ever having a meaningful relationship with someone of a different ethnicity. Seek such relationships so that you can listen, learn, and grow.

3. Don’t despair

Many of us are tired with a chronic fatigue where you feel like you have to explain stuff over and over again. Keep going. Be patient. Aim for charity. Remember God has accomplished the most important thing. It has to come back to the gospel, for thereby we are empowered to begin to labour in the Spirit.

Reuben Hunter Session 3

In Revelation 5 we see a new heavens and a new earth with a gloriously diverse body of Christ-followers worshipping forever in a consummation of Christ’s and the church’s love that rests on redemption. 

1. Christ’s eternal purpose

From creation to redemption and recreation it is God’s eternal purpose to cover the earth with the knowledge of his glory through Jesus Christ. Our redemption and rule as sons of the Father comes only through Jesus Christ, and we obtain it jointly only by the merit and power of Christ’s sacrifice. We are thereby enabled by this deeper, fresh revelation of the work of God for his people to sing a new song. “Worthy are you”, we hear the voices ring. 

2. Christ’s earthly practice

Christ has ransomed his people. The Scripture’s don’t say that Christ has purchased any tribe but that he has purchased from every tribe.

Christ’s death purchased diversity. He did not purchase people from merely a handful of ethnicities but from all ethnicities. It is the blood of Christ by which we were purchased that brings us near to God and to each other.

Christ death accomplishes deep unity. Christ’s death is the high price of the reality of reconciliation with God and our fellow man, regardless of ethnicity. This means diversity and unity out of that diversity is not an issue that we can simply push aside. To quote John Piper in Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011):

Blood-bought ethnic and racial diversity and harmony is for the glory of God through Christ. It is all aiming at the all-satisfying, everlasting, God-centred, Christ-exalting experience of many-colored, many-cultured worship, an aroma that delights the heart of God.

The gospel knows no boundaries. All ethnicities are welcome at the cross of Christ.

Application

Saying “that’s the future, in the new heavens and the new earth so we don’t really need to pursue unified diversity now” is nonsense. We don’t say that about other eschatological realities, like holiness: “We won’t be perfectly holy till life after death, so we aren’t going to pursue it now.” What are obstacles that stand in the way on the path to such diversity:

The issue is too hard. Sociology means we gravitate to people like us so we stop making the effort to bless and be bless by people of other ethnicities.

Tokenism from the dominant culture. This is what is going on when people are elevated to certain places of visibility in church life because of the colour of their skin without reference to gifting, qualification, or whether they actually are representative of the church to give misleading optics and skewed vision of the reality. Their mere appearance gives the impression of “we are a diverse church”, leaving the person feeling somewhat patronised and used - and if they don’t feel that way, they are missing a good opportunity.

Ministry methodolotry. Every aspect of ministry is inescapably culturally located. When we make our way *the* way, when it is in fact only *our* way, we have made our forms into idols. You can preach, sing, and take the Lord’s Supper together faithfully in ways that are very different from what you grew up with or were born again into, and yet are still biblical. If we think otherwise it is likely that we are idolising style and the people who trained us, not learning from and respecting redeemed people outside our own church circles. Sadly because of this, people from other cultures feel they have to respond with either assimilation or cultural schizophrenia, where their “at home” culture is decidedly different from their “at church” culture because they fear the former would not be welcome at the latter, despite it not being sinful or unbiblical.

These challenges mean that some people just opt out, retreating to their own people to perpetuate the monocultural problem.

Lack of Charity. People from dominant cultures should not be suspicious or fearful of brothers and sisters from subdominant cultures.

People from subdominant cultures can help by embracing the hardship and enduring the difficulty of helping dominant culture brothers and sisters, being patient with even difficult people from the dominant culture to effect true change. True diversity, unity out of many different backgrounds, is desirable but difficult. Keep at it!

Thanks to the brothers pictured below for their contributions to the day and to those working behind the scenes to make it happen! The teaching was excellent, the interaction helpful, and I enjoyed meeting and speaking with each of you. May you know the Lord's help and blessing as you serve him.  

Also, if you can get a copy of Shai Linne's "God Made Me and You", do it. Though written and designed with children in mind, there are helpful pages at the back for parents and caregivers, and if thinking and talking about race and racial reconciliation is new or difficult for you, I recommend children's books as a good intro for anything!  https://www.amazon.com/God-Made-You-Celebrating-Diversity/dp/1948130130