Will oneness be achieved by God’s Almighty power to control everything?

Anyone who has had conversation with Christians probably has heard them say, “God is in control.”  In this saying, the Christian is expressing faith in God’s almighty power.  To them, regardless of how awful something might seem to be, God has the power to make it right ultimately, and for those who trust in him, he will.  Faith in God is a good thing, but what about faith that is based on a misconception?

To help us to answer this question, consider people who do not believe in God; occasionally you might hear them ask, “How could God, if he exists, let something like this happen?”  When there is a calamity, this is often the sentiment of people who question God’s existence – especially young people.  I heard it when the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York were destroyed by terrorists on September 11, 2001.  After asking this question, one young person added, “I want nothing to do with this kind of God.”  This comment was actually a reaction to the idea that God is in control of everything.

The dilemma here is that if God is in control and bad things happen, then it would seem to be his fault.  The reasoning is that if an almighty being can do anything he wishes, he could stop the bad thing from happening.  In this world, lots of bad things happen, so if God is supposed to be in control, either He is responsible or he is not almighty and good as he is said to be.  Which is it?

Who is God?

To answer the question above, we must understand God.  The Bible tells us in Genesis 17:1 that God indeed is Almighty.  Among other biblical identities, God is Creator (Revelation 4:11), holy (Psalm 22:3), good (Matthew 19:17), and love (1 John 4:8).  Paul, in 1 Timothy 6:14-16 (NRSV) nicely summarizes as follows: he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion.  Amen.  That’s a lot of authority and power!  Paul specifically referred to Jesus, but his statements apply generally to the high authority of God, which is elevated above all.  In modern language, he is the big boss, the CEO of everything! He owns all and has the right of complete control forever.  The question is how does he use that right? Nowhere in the Bible do we find God called “controller.”  These Scriptures support saying, “God is sovereign” but not “God is in control.”

In the next few Blogs, we will look more deeply into this misconception and consider how we should think about God’s involvement in this world.

When Jesus said, on this rock I will build my church (Matthew 16:18), he knew that some members of the Church would start off with weak faith and, in time with spiritual nourishment, grow to become strong in faith as well as every other vital characteristic, including hope, love, knowledge, and wisdom – not in any particular order. To enable this growth, as the previous Blog explained, he gave the Church spiritual shepherds, who feed the sheep of his pasture spiritual food through the Word of God. This Word, through the Holy Spirit in each person, enlightens and transforms them within.  The goal is, as Ephesians 4:13-14 states, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.  Until that goal is attained, what are Church members to do to be unified?

Before I answer this important question, I think that it is necessary to emphasize the essential role that Church shepherds play.  Preaching from the pulpit, as well as teaching in Sunday schools, classes, Bible studies, in written form, and every other way are all critical to the growth of the Church and individual members.  So is careful personal study of the Bible by each Church member.  When the Word of God is consistently received over time, Christians will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ (Ephesians 4:15).  In the absence of truthful proclamation and reception of the Word of God, immature Christians are the inevitable result.  Instead of the Church as a home of healthy and growing Christians, such churches are more like hospitals full of sick and dying patients.

Now, back to the question, how do mature and immature Christians live together in unity?

In Romans 14:1, Paul writes, “Accept…”  I stopped at his first word because by itself it is a strong statement about the relationship of Christians without regard for their spiritual development.  The word translated “accept” in the NIV means to take beside oneself or to draw to oneself. Receiving one another is at the heart of Christian relationships.  Doing so is a step toward oneness.  Paul’s statement assumes that people who are essentially alike accept each other, but where there are differences such acceptance is not natural.  Thus, he wrote, Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters.  This acceptance does not allow differences in opinions about matters such as personal scruples to get into the way of the relationship. Paul’s words are blunt, calling the faith of a person dominated by personal scruples, “weak.”  “Spiritually immature” might not come across as strongly as “weak,” but the ideas are similar.

Contrast Paul’s words here with Luke’s description of Paul in Antioch in Acts 15:1-2, where he wrote, Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch
and were teaching the believers: ‘Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.’  This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them.  In this case, the dispute and debate was not about a matter of personal opinion but a matter of basic truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Such matters are decided not by personal opinions but by the authoritative leadership of the Church.  In this instance, it was decided by a Church Council in Jerusalem, as the remainder of Acts 15 describes.  The Word of God is clear and uncompromising on such matters.  To preach or teach otherwise is heretical.  Thus we can conclude that the opinions that Paul wrote about in Romans 14 are not matters of Church doctrine.

Therefore, understand that Paul taught that Christians – strong and weak, mature and immature – are to live together in oneness.  It is in this context that we can realize how Christians can coexist, or better said, live together in harmony amidst their diversity.  Paul urged that instead of looking down on some considered weak or criticizing some considered less pious, both groups are to leave judgment to Christ, who has received both (Vv. 3-8). How then do we get from withholding judgment to unity?  The answer is in Paul’s advice that those who he called strong bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves (Romans 15:1).  He went on to explain that this is what Jesus does for all of us.  He bears our burdens – through his suffering, his crucifixion, his patience and his continual priestly intercession.  He is figuratively the adult in the house full of kids.  His mature approach toward all of us promotes unity among us.  More mature Christians are to imitate Jesus among their less mature brothers and sisters.

That may seem like a lot of responsibility to place on people, and it is.  But Romans 14:5 assures us of divine help: May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had.  The next verse reveals the beautiful outcome: so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through the Holy Spirit in us, we grow increasingly like Jesus.  Those who are spiritually mature figuratively become the adults in the room with less spiritually mature people.  They exercise endurance, or otherwise, patience along with encouragement as they live and work together with their spiritual siblings.  The outcome is peace.  In time, the whole group, sharing a climate of truth in love, grows together in unity.

Yes, Christians can live together in oneness, regardless of the differences in their maturities.

Immature Christians are much like immature children, who exhibit many beautiful characteristics, but they are still children and not ready for the responsibilities of adulthood. What does God think about immature Christians?  As I wrote in the previous blog, God the Father loves all of His children and realizes that those who are new in the faith start out immature.  God is patient with them and does everything needed to encourage their growth, of which they are participants.  Jesus said to his followers In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you (Matthew 5:48 The Message).

As kingdom subjects these followers, many of whom are new, represent God to the world around them.  Jesus challenged them to be who they were called to be.  Naturally as new disciples they were spiritual children, but Jesus called on them to grow up.  He set the bar high and established it as their goal.  The more literal translations say: Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. The goal is perfection.  But as with human growth, time is a factor and so is health.  All Christians are in the process of growing up spiritually.  None achieve the perfection of God, but as Christians grow in spiritual maturity, they increasingly exhibit the characteristics of godliness, which Galatians 5:22-23 explains are the fruits of the Holy Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, mercy, faith, meekness, self-control).

However, some Christians get stuck in immaturity. In the first letter to the Christians at Corinth, Paul said to such people: You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? For when one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are you not mere human beings? (1 Corinthians 3:3-4)? These immature Christians in Corinth were typical of some, perhaps many, Christians today, whose thoughts and behaviors are no different than ordinary human thoughts and behaviors.  These Christians portray an incomplete picture of Jesus and live in ways that are incompatible with Christ-like behaviors. Paul’s inspired comments to these Corinthian Christians give us insight into three outcomes of their immaturity: jealousy, quarreling, and division.  Let’s consider the effect of each.

• Jealousy: envy and competitive in the relationship with other Christians, seeking to have what they perceive other Christians have.  This is a problem of
  the mind and is exposed in the attitude of an envious person.  Christians whose thoughts are envious cannot be peaceful and loving towards those they envy, who might seem to be more prosperous, successful, blessed, exuberant and trouble-free and yet are less religiously dedicated.
• Quarreling: this envious relationship leads to disagreements and contention that can erupt into accusations, criticisms, and disputes.  Instead of
  thinking of each other as well-loved family members, they (to “us”) become “them” and eventually enemies.  Verbal warfare is too often the end result.
• Division: eventually these deteriorating relationships result in splits, the opposite of oneness based on love.  Splits in congregations may show up as
  cliques and even escalate into two or more opposing congregations.  Larger splits can occur among larger groupings of the spiritually immature with sectarianism the inevitable result.

To those who expect that being Christian is to be genuinely better than ordinary human beings or human organizations, these stunted Christians come up short as representatives of Christ and messengers of the Gospel.  They even damage the reputation of Christianity (2 Peter 2:2). Why do some Christians get stuck in immaturity?  Although immaturity is natural to new believers, in time, with increased knowledge and understanding, the immature grow more mature.  But such growth in knowledge and understanding is not forced; it must be sought and pursued.  In the same letter to the Corinthian Christians, Paul wrote Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults (1 Cor. 14:20).  Each Christian is responsible to act upon the lead of the Holy Spirit to resist backward immature thinking in favor of pursuit of the mind of Christ.  Peter similarly urged his readers to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18).  Human effort cannot grow into spiritual maturity, but human cooperation is essential to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. Immature Christians are those who by their attitudes and behaviors choose not to grow.

As young children are fed and nurtured, God provides spiritual nourishment for his children through ordained leaders and teachers in the Church.  Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:11-12 Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.  Ministers of Christ have a crucial responsibility.  The pulpit is an important element in individual and congregational spiritual growth.  Thus, unsatisfactory preaching and teaching directly contributes to spiritual immaturity. Without this essential spiritual nourishment, Christians are subject to false teaching and easy to believe misrepresentations.  From the early years of the Church to today, the persistent problem of failure in the pulpit has plagued the Church.  The writers of the New Testament warned of it.  The early Christian fathers fought against it.  But it has never gone away.

In the next blog, we will investigate some of the remedies that the Triune God provides for the Church to enable Christians to emerge from immaturity, and even while immaturity persists, survive and thrive in unity.

Christian is a name given to ancient disciples – or followers – of Jesus Christ.  Acts 11:26, the first use of the name in the New Testament, states that The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. Obviously, the followers of Jesus have come in all forms and stages since he called the first disciples: young and old, rich and poor, highly and barely educated, etc. Some came with deep convictions, while others were mere children when they learned about Jesus and believed.

In a letter to a group of these followers in the city of Corinth, Paul wrote, And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ (1 Corinthians 3:1 NRSV).  Paul saw the contrast between their spiritual thoughts and actions and their fleshly thoughts and actions.  He considered that contrast as indicative of the extent of their maturity in Christ.  Although Paul spoke of these Christians as not ready to receive anything but the equivalent to spiritual milk, he said, Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom (1 Corinthians 2:6 NRSV).  Not all Christians were as immature as they.  From Paul’s words, we can conclude that mature Christians are those who are guided and led by the Holy Spirit.  Immature Christians have other influences from the world and their experiences that guide and lead them.

All Christians are to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18a).  Peter, writer of that exhortation, had previously written, Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation (1 Peter 2:2).  These passages show us that the process of being a Christian is much like that of human development.  It starts small and grows toward completion or maturity.  From the beginning of becoming a Christian and all along the way, Christians are all children of God through faith (Galatians 3:26).  As with human children of sound and loving parents, they are accepted by their heavenly parent at every stage of their development and loved throughout.  Parents that have more than one child understand that each of their children is in a different stage of development and maturity.  They do not expect that all are equally mature.  Nonetheless, they love all of their children regardless of their maturity.  Our Father in heaven is the same to each of us.  Jesus Christ, our spiritual leader, is the author and perfecter of faith (Hebrews 12:2 NASB).  As such, he starts us and leads us in our faith journey.  Through the good work of the indwelling Holy Spirit, the Triune God, who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6).

Full maturity of each of us is the goal.  Between now and the attainment of the goal, each of us must grow toward full maturity.  In the next two Blogs, we will look more deeply into this reality to understand its effect.

The book Echo of Jesus’ Prayer – in the Church challenges the modern Church to consider and respond to Jesus’ prayer for oneness in John 17:20-23.  In the February 2020 Blog, I asked if it were possible for Christians to believe the same.  Common belief is an important ingredient to oneness, but is that all that Jesus implied in his prayer?   He had asked the Father that through his indwelling of his followers, Then they’ll be mature in this one-ness (John 17:23, The Message).  What did he mean by associating maturity with oneness or unity?  What is Christian maturity?  What are the consequences of spiritual immaturity in believers in Jesus?  What role does Christian maturity play in the oneness that Jesus intends?  In the Blogs that follow, we will look into and endeavor to understand New Testament passages that address and answer these questions.

Take a look at the photographs below and consider the two men.  Besides their skin color, are there any other differences?

Yes, one is wearing glasses and the other is more dressed up.  But otherwise how do these two men differ?

In many places, including in the United States of America, these two men might encounter very different reactions from people, but the truth is that they are the same person.  The photo on the left was taken in 2005.  Shortly afterward, spots began to appear on the man’s skin in several places including the face and arms and rapidly spread over his body.  These spots were where the pigment cells had died.  The man was suffering from an auto-immune disorder that destroys skin pigmentation.  This disorder, known as vitiligo, is widespread in all populations.  In most cases, the destruction of pigment cells is slow, and only rarely does it completely change skin color in the person’s face or other major parts of the body.  Instead large parts of the skin are spotted.  In the case of the man pictured above, the spots grew and spread rapidly as the man lost his pigment cells in over ninety percent of his body.  In five years, he had undergone a complete skin-color change.

The photo on the right was taken is 2019.  The slight greying of the mustache and hair suggest that the man on the right is older.  He is by fourteen years.  Otherwise, the visible change in him is difficult to see.

Let’s ask the Bible, the Word of God to answer the question in the title.  The Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to write these words in Acts 17:24-26 (NIV):

 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.”

Paul’s words are clear.  God, the Lord of creation, the giver of life to all of us, made us all from the same human parent.  The differences between black and white people are not even skin deep, only slight variations in the function of the skin’s pigment cells, in keeping with the variety in every created thing.  As proven in the previous blog posts, there are no human races; there is only one human race. The two men in the photograph above are the same person, and the writer of this Blog post is he.  So I, this man born with dark skin but now and older man without skin pigment – commonly called white skin – I appeal to sensibleness.  God granted us brains by which we can think and reason.  Let’s dispense with the nonsense and realize that we are one humankind.  Let’s consider the act of our Creator of making us of a common parent.  Most of all, let’s reflect upon the prayer of Jesus our Lord (John 17:20-23) that we all might be one.

How does Jesus Christ view a ‘vile and contemptible race’?*

Most people know that Jesus of Nazareth was a Jewish man.  Sometimes it seems that people like to forget that aspect of Him.  I won’t mention any names, but through the centuries, some of those who have loudly professed Jesus as their Lord and Savior have expressed anti-Semitism.  How ironic!  So let’s get real.  Jesus was a human being, a member of one of humanity’s nation groups.

It says a lot about God that the Father has a human Son.  It says that being human is a good thing in God’s sight, and His sight is the only one that matters.  After God created the first human, as Genesis 1:31 says, God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.  That settles it.  It is good to be human.  No vile* race here.  

And it gets even better, because Jesus is now the Head of humanity.  Here’s how: in 1 Corinthians 15:45, Adam and Jesus are compared.  It says: So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.  The Apostle Paul compares Adam and Jesus in several places of this chapter and in Romans 5, showing that Jesus effectively undid Adam’s sin.  In doing so, Jesus became the new Head of humanity, as further elaborated on by the second-Century writer Ireneaus in Against Heresies Book III “Chapter XXI.—Christ is the head of all things.”   

Jesus replaced Adam as the Head of humanity.  Let’s consider how He looks at humanity.  Here are a few things the Word of God says about Him.  John 1:9 says He is The true light that gives light to everyone.  V. 12 of the same chapter says, Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.  He does not discriminate.  The rights and privileges are equally available to everyone who believes in Him.  Anyone contemptible here?* 

He spoke of His impending crucifixion in these terms: And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself (John 12:32).  Thus, He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2).  He prayed for those who believe in Him that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. (John 17:20). Jesus wants all of us to be one.

If we are going to talk about “race,” we need to talk about the one human race, created by a loving God to be His children.  We need to talk about the one human race whose Head and Savior is Jesus Christ.  We need to talk about the one human race that Jesus prayed for that they all might be one as we see in the Triune relationship.

As a black person all my life I have “heard” a message from the United States of America.  It says, “You are not welcomed here.  At best, you are tolerated here.   It would be good if you were not here.  Why don’t you just get out!  You are not appreciated.  You are not loved.  You are a burden on the nation.  You cause many problems.  You are not equal, and you will not be equally treated unless the law forces it.”  That message may not appear in official documents, and many of the laws that previously voiced it have been changed.  But the more subtle message is still systemically voiced.  Those who have heard it all their lives have keenly tuned hearing to pick it up.  Now and then it blares out loudly in the statements of politicians, religionists, and hate groups.   

I don’t believe that black people are the only ones who have heard that message; others looked upon as different, often racially different, have heard it too.  The question is should anyone?

Contrast that message with the message of Jesus to all people, including people of color and any cast as a vile and contemptible race*: “God loves you so much that He sent Me to save you.  I want you to believe and come to Me.  You are welcomed.  You are appreciated.  You are loved.  You are wanted.  Remain in Me always.” (Paraphrased from John 3:16; John 15:9; Mat. 11:28)

What would it be like if such words were spoken to all people today?  What would it sound like to hear, “Welcome to our church all dearly loved people?”

___________________

For an explanation of * see the previous Blog

Did God Put a Curse on Africans and their descendants including African Americans?

No doubt, you are aware of the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, but did you know that Moses’ wife was dark skinned?  Zipporah was her name, a resident of Midian territory, but Numbers 12: 1 says that she was Ethiopian.  The ancient tribal name of the Ethiopian people was Cush, and Midian territory was once considered the land of the Cushites.  So it is no wonder that Jethro the Midianite priest had a dark-skinned daughter.

Most modern people familiar with the story were unaware of the truth about Zipporah, but back then Moses’ sister and brother were well aware.  They complained about it, because their Levite heritage traditionally married within the tribe.  If you read the story you might conclude that God had no problem with Moses’ wife. 

However, the writers of a modern Biblical commentary thought otherwise.  Commenting about Numbers 12:1, Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown published in their Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible the following:

1. an Ethiopian woman—Hebrew, “a Cushite woman”—Arabia was usually called in Scripture the land of Cush, its inhabitants being descendants of that son of Ham (see on Ex 2:15) and being accounted generally a vile and contemptible race (see on Am 9:7).

This statement, originally written in the 1950s but unchanged in the latest printing, mentioned “a vile and contemptible race.”  In my previous blog, I explained the origin of the use of the word race in this context, showing that it was unbiblical and from Colonial ideology.  The idea that Ethiopians were a vile and contemptible race is unsupported by the rest of the Bible including the referenced text in the book of Amos.  This popular commentary failed to mention: Ethiopia will quickly stretch out her hands to God (NASB) in Psalm 68:31 prophesying the time when all nations worship the one true God.

Yes, some biblical scholars promote racism in their highly-esteemed publications.  They perpetuate the mistaken idea that Genesis 9:25 cursed Noah’s son Ham, assigning his descendants to slavery, justifying the enslavement of Africans. 

Let’s look at Genesis 9:24-25 to see what it actually says.  When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, he said, “Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers.

Canaan was the youngest son of Ham.  It was he that Noah cursed.  His descendants became the Canaanites, inhabitants of the land that God gave to Israel, who was commanded to destroy the inhabitants because of their corruption.  Moses explained in Deuteronomy 9:4-6 (NIV):

 After the Lord your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, “The Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.” No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you. It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.

Clearly, God dealt with the Canaanites because they became a group of corrupt nations.  It was not because He loved them less than He loved the Israelites.  This judgment of God did not include the other descendants of Ham that included the Egyptians, the Ethiopians, the Philistines, and other tribes that migrated to western Africa.  

The books of Joshua and Judges detail Israel’s conquest of the land of Canaan, showing actually that they failed to complete the removal of the Canaanites but instead enslaved many of them (Joshua 16:10; 17:12-13; Judges 1:28-35).  Noah’s prophecy was fulfilled.

Dear readers, it is shameful to me that ordinary people who read the Bible for what it really says easily refute so called experts, who are responsible for misinforming large segments of Christianity, especially in English-speaking parts of the world, including the United States of America!  It is no wonder that the past 500 years have witnessed horrible atrocities in the name of Jesus Christ!  We today must not perpetuate these evils and continue the Church complicity in racism.  Instead, we must expose the lies and misconceptions that blot and blur Christian history and theology. Coming Blogs will uncover the beautiful truth that Jesus Christ taught and wants taught in the Church.

Where Did the Concept of Race Come from?

Race is such a hot topic in the USA and several other countries today.  Where did the concept of race come from?  Some think that the worldview of three races: white, yellow, and black stems from passages in the book of Genesis and elsewhere in the Bible.  But is that true?

Here are two vital facts:

Fact 1.  The English translations of the Bible only use the word race four times, and when they do the subject is running.  Two such occurrences are in the Old Testament (Psalm 19:5 and Ecclesiastes 9:11); the other two are in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 9:24 and Hebrews 12:1).

Fact 2.  Definition: According to Britannica, “Race, the idea that the human species is divided into distinct groups on the basis of inherited physical and behavioral differences.  Genetic studies in the late 20th century refuted the existence of biogenetically distinct races, and scholars now argue that “races” are cultural interventions reflecting specific attitudes and beliefs that were imposed on different populations in the wake of western European conquests beginning in the 15^th century.”

Thus, our modern worldview of the subject of race is derived not from the Bible or truth or science but from colonial ideologies!

Author Paul Harvey wrote in his book Christianity and Race in the American South, “White southern theologians also ornamented increasingly baroque exegeses of how slavery arose from God’s curse on the Negro as a race.  Passages from the Old Testament, especially Genesis 9:18-27… provided a start at a religiomythical grounding for modern racial meanings.”  Harvey, explaining that the story about Noah’s prophetic announcement about the future of his sons is found in both the Bible and Koran, goes on to say, “It was revived as a mode of biblical interpretation during the modern age of exploration, from the sixteenth century forward.”

We should be shocked by this quote.  When America practiced slavery, preachers in Southern churches from their pulpits justified the practice by misquoting the Bible.  Genesis 9 does not say anything about “the Negro race” let alone that God cursed them.  (In a future Blog, we will investigate exactly who was cursed in Genesis 9.)  This indoctrination from pulpits catering to slave owners has survived the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights Movement.  To our national disgrace, it continues to form the basis of ideological thought about race today.

The truth about Noah’s descendants in Genesis is found in Genesis 10:32, which says: These are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their lines of descent, within their nations. From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood. The Bible explains the division of humans into nations.  The New Testament passage on this subject is found in Acts 17:26, which says about God, From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth.  This biblical truth is supported by genetic science.

So we see that the Bible did not originate the concept of race, but that the concept originated in 15^th Century Europe as part of its colonial aspirations, and it was seized by American preachers to justify the enslavement of Africans.

Questions: What is gained by dividing humanity by races today?  Why even use this divisive word?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer got it! When will the American Church?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christian leader and minister known for his resistance to Adolph Hitler’s control over the German Evangelical Church during WWII, experienced a revolution in his thought when at 24, while studying at Union Theological Seminary, he attended with black fellow student Frank Fisher a black Baptist church in Harlem.  There he embraced Gospel music – “spirituals” and heard Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. preach about social justice.  Bonhoeffer observed that in that church one could truly hear and speak about sin and the grace and love of God.  Seeing from a different perspective, his faith moved from phraseology to reality.

It would bring many ministers of Jesus Christ a similar revolution to duplicate Bonhoeffer’s experience.  Think what such a revolution in ministry would mean to the Church!  But Bonhoeffer may have enjoyed an advantage over many American ministers: he was not indoctrinated in an erroneous history about America, particularly about the role, or lack thereof, of those of African descent, and especially about their God-created humanity.  Would he even have visited a black church if he had such prejudices?

In the previous Blog, I wrote about 2020 being a Nathan moment for American Christians, a moment in which repentance is the only reasonable reaction.  On the authority of the Word of God through Jesus Christ, I can say that sin is forgiven!  Jews in Jerusalem were so convicted of crucifying God’s Messiah that they were cut to the heart and, in desperation asked, what shall we do (Acts 2:37)?  The answer to them was the same as it is to those who ask that question today: repent and turn to Jesus Christ.

Turning to Jesus involved a complete turnabout even in those who at that time were practicing their faith the best they knew how.  Just as Bonhoeffer realized that his faith was more than spoken words – it had to be lived, so today Christians who have been a part of a system in which words such as “liberty and justice for all” have really not been applied must rethink and reapply.

Being a Christian involves being “transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).  The new content of such a mind is the truth.  The American church needs to be reeducated with the truth.  Bad history must be corrected!  Everywhere starting with American seminaries, including schools, and in Christian education programs true history must be reclaimed.  Pulpits must declare the truth even when some will reject it!  If it is important to change wrong doctrines – and it is – and correct errant theology – and it is – then also it is essential to correct the misapplication of the teachings of the Bible.  “Love your neighbor” and “doing unto others” applies to all.  Being one in Christ is for all Christians.

To have correct doctrine and theology but practice them only as phraseology completely misses everything Jesus Christ showed and taught.  Striving for the reality of Christianity must be the thrust of the today’s movement in the American church.  May the Spirit of God stir us to revolution.