Introduction: Brand New Eyes
Rightfully so, everyone is talking about issues with law enforcement, police brutality, and racism. We all saw the footage of George Floyd being suffocated in the street by a Minnesota Police Officer. For many, this is the first time that they really perceived an instance of police brutality with their own two eyes. On day one, America had reached a consensus that the police officer had acted brutally, warrantlessly, murderously, and lawlessly. That was not up for debate. Since then, there have been protests in every single state of the US, mentions around the world, and riots in several of America’s cities. The presence of the riots, in particular, has started to divide the consensus we all had just one week ago. That is a different post for a different time. You already knew all of this, I’m guessing. That’s probably why you clicked on the article.
I don’t purport to or attempt to write infallibly on anything—much less this big of a topic. My goal is this: since many people (especially people my age) are beginning to really think and process police brutality, ethnicity, race, and justice in the Bible, I want to humbly encourage us to vital principles that will keep us moving in the right direction. I don’t know everything, and neither do you. But, I especially don’t know everything. However, I do think there are some very important guide rails we ought to set up before this car, well-intentioned as the driver may be, puts the pedal to the metal and drives off of a cliff.
What are the guardrails? First, the response has to be a legitimate change inside our walls. If we are truly heartbroken over violence in our land, then we ought to be moved to personally change. Second, we need to have zeal, but we absolutely must have wisdom. Third, we must be anchored to the Bible without exception. If we don’t follow these parameters, our best intentions will lead us to more heartbreak.
First, I Must Act Like A Christian and Fight for Unity.
My change must be more than posting about a change on Facebook or Twitter. I need to ask myself the hard questions. If I’m really heartbroken, am I praying more than posting? How am I weeping and fasting? How am I mourning with those in the body that mourn?
I mean, seriously, when this happens, do we pray more, or do we just talk about praying more? Do we really believe that prayer does anything? If we believe it does, then why don’t we actually do it?
Maybe we need to repent. Maybe we need to repent of callousness in our hearts. Maybe we need to repent of a neglect of caring for our neighbor or members of the household of faith. We must all be humble enough to be confronted by the Scriptures. All of us. All.
Certainly, we all need to desire meekness, in full measure. Certainly, we need to ask ourselves how we are hungering and thirsting for righteousness. We must ask ourselves how we will be the peacemaker that our world needs.
We must not neglect fighting for the unity of our church. We all just spent three months apart from each other, which stretches our unity pretty thin to start. Now, with this issue arising, it is stomping on already raw nerves. Do not allow this to ruin your local church. Fight through these things together, in love, in the scriptures. We have been reconciled in Christ. There is no greater ethnic or racial reconciliation we can hope for than that. What we’re trying to do now is to implement and realize the unity we already have been given. That means we approach these issues as brothers and sisters, not adversaries. We do all the fighting we can to love, love, and love some more.
The world must see local churches demonstrating the ethnic reconciliation and peace they suddenly realized they don’t have.
Second, We must have wisdom and zeal
Zeal without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.
Proverbs 19:2
I am glad how much zeal we currently see in the church. Yet, I am saddened by how little discernment I see in the church. This lack of discernment has been the frog in the boiling pot for decades, and I think it’s past time that we jump out.
All of our passion for justice means nothing without wisdom and discernment to guide us—God’s guidance. Perfect sincerity means nothing unless it’s channeled to biblical wisdom and action. This is a simple, irreducible truth, but zeal has a way of helping us forget it. Even in the face of evil, like a man being killed on a sidewalk without cause, zeal and wisdom have to work together to overcome. Otherwise, all of our protests and activism and activity and attempts will simply “miss the way.”
We need wisdom. And we need to pray, earnestly, for wisdom.
Third, We Must Be Biblical and Only Biblical
Christian, this is the type of thing that puts our belief in God and the sufficiency of His scriptures to the test. Your only anchor is the scriptures.
“But even the compassion of the wicked is cruel.”
Proverbs 12:10
Even the compassion of the world is cruel. It might have great intentions, but if it isn’t from God, it is not good for humanity. Hopefully, we all believe that. Perhaps one of the most dangerous beliefs most of Christianity functions with is the belief that the Bible teaches us about salvation, as well as some basic do’s and don’t’s—but has little to no function beyond that. In the words of the apostle Paul, let that thinking be anathema.
The scriptures, all of them, teach us about all of life. Beyond that, whatever it teaches, it does so with the absolute authority of the sovereign God. He inspired every word. He breathed them out. (2 Timothy 3:16) What do we need? What tools do we really need in the church? The same things we have always needed: The Spirit and the Scriptures.
I know that it is in vogue to recommend or begin reading any number of books from the bestseller list on the subject of ethnic or racial reconciliation; but, can I submit to you that the most important thing you must read today is the Holy Bible? What does God say in Ephesians? In Acts? In Exodus? In Leviticus (yes, Leviticus)? “What does God say?” is the fundamental question. The day that we get too tired or too ashamed to ask this question is the day that we condemn the world around us to being lost without a hope of finding the real answers.
No, that doesn’t mean you should avoid reading any book with a human author. However, I would be wary of several of the popular books out there, even ones popular within the church. Many of them hold a worldview that is subtly heterodox to the scriptures (insert that verse about zeal without knowledge: good passion, bad facts). In our passion to see action taken, and changes made, we must not surrender our worldview to the world’s for the sake of fixing the world’s problems. Below, I will include a list of reviews about works that have recently shot to the top of the charts. Even if you are fans of the books mentioned, do not take my inclusion of them as a personal attack. Just because they are reviewed doesn’t mean that it is pure garbage, it is just a help to always stay thinking critically. Please consider the biblical counterpoints offered.
As a side note, I heartily recommend the work of Neil Shenvi on the topic of ethnicity, race, reconciliation, Critical Race Theory, and the Church. In all of his writings and speaking on the subject, I have seen a man committed to progress and to doing it Biblically.
Do we believe that the only hope the world has is Christ and His just, perfect law? Do we believe for a second that the world can come up with some kind of solution to somehow lighten the yoke that is upon our neck? Hasn’t our human history, or even our history as a country, proven that humans are very bad at solving these issues?
We would say, “no,” by instinct. But, in our zeal, it can be easy to swallow a new worldview, especially if we believe that somehow it has the corner on the market of the justice conversation. After all, the last generations all had the Bible, and this injustice still exists. We obviously need something else. Right?
Don’t Give Up On The Scriptures
We need to be clear, the past generations had the scriptures. Like all humans, they failed to know and apply them in truth. However, if our frustration with past generations’ failure to properly apply Scripture to our society leads us to uncritically imbibe the world’s Critical Theory and ideologies, then we have committed the exact same sin as those who have frustrated us. We have doomed another generation to a failed experiment at fixing our problems.
Start with the scriptures. Start with Biblical anthropologies. Start with Biblical categories and definitions of sins and terms. For example, with the term of racism itself. If you believe it is a sin (hint: it is.), then you ought to define that sin exactly how scripture does. Why would we want to call something a sin only to let a world who rejects the idea of sin create a definition for it?
Let me take a whack at this, just as an example. Racism, in the scriptures, is skin-based pride and/or skin-based animosity and hatred. I include this definition in the article to demonstrate the fact that the Scripture’s perspective, even on “just” the definition of racism, may not jive completely with other definitions we hear around us. That doesn’t mean we ignore any issues raised that seem to be outside of this definition, it just means we ought to be very careful as we draw the map, so that we make sure North always stays pointing to True North.
Further, the word, “injustice.” If injustice is a sin (hint: it is), and it is happening around us (ditto), then we only want to say injustice where God says injustice. We don’t want to commit a second injustice by falsely labeling something injustice or someone unjust (unless warranted through the counsel of scripture). I don’t believe our problem is that the Bible fails to speak with fullness or clarity on these topics, I think our problem has been our failure to study the scriptures.
We let God define murder, we let God define jealousy, we let God define covetousness, we let God define greed, we let God define theft, we let God define racism. That’s my desire.
If all of our solutions sound exactly like the world, the college professors, the Democrats, or the Republicans, with just a little bit of Jesus slapped on top of it, then have no reason to boast—and many reasons to repent in dust and ash.
A Final Plea
Why do we think we can do better than God? The thought that we can figure things out ourselves is what gave us all this pain in the first place. We must humble ourselves under his word, be repentant of our sin, our callousness, and move forward as He guides. Somehow, you may presume that this article is downplaying the need for action in the vein of police brutality or society. Far from it, I am saying that these matters are of so much importance that we absolutely must go about solving them by the only ultimate standard.
Do we really need anything more than the words of God to move our hearts to be peacemakers for the cause of justice? Do we need anything other than the very words of the Creator to save us, to reconcile us in the perfect Redeemer?
God has done it. God can do it. God is doing it. God will do it.
Recommended Resources:
- An Intro To Critical Theory (this explains so many of the conversations we have today, and how we have them:
- The Gospel of Antiracism: A Short Review of Kendi’s How To Be Anti-Racist
- A Long Review of Crenshaw’s Critical Race Theory Part 1
- The Worldview of White Fragility (Robin DiAngelo)
- A Short Review of Cone’s The Cross and the Lynching Tree
- A Short Review of Smith and Emerson’s Divided by Faith
- Compromised? A Long Review of Tisby’s Color of Compromise
- shenviapologetics.com
The Author:
David Appelt is husband to Rachel and serves at Maranatha Community Church in Pickerington, OH. He graduated from Capital University with an emphasis on Music Ministry. He plans on pursuing church planting and academic ministry in the future.