We are the ambassadors of Jesus Christ in the world today. This is our mission field, this is our time and we cannot be silent. Some thoughts on the events of the last week and the Christian’s response to racism.
Also Listen to The Reconnect’s Spotlight interview with Jemar Tisby: After Charlottesville, How will the White Church respond?
In the wake of what happened in Charlottesville, VA, and the President’s disappointing response to it, we want to discuss the reality of racism in America and the necessary response of pastors and churches. We are talking with Jemar Tisby, the president and co-founder of the Reformed African American Network, RAAN. He’s also the co-host of a podcast, Pass the Mic. His writings have been featured in a number of locations. He’s got a piece posted right now at the Washington Post Acts of Faith entitled “After Charlottesville, Will White Pastors Finally Take Racism Seriously?” Jemar serves as the director of the African American Leadership Initiative and is a special assistant to the chancellor at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. You can follow him on Twitter @jemartisby, and you can check out what he’s writing at RAANetwork.org.
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President Trumps more complete response came more timely (within a few days) than those of Obama’s and Geo.Bush’s if you look at the facts of similar situations . If one however, jumps on the fake new bashing of the media grasping at any opportunity to pummel our President here is another opportunity they did not miss.
Trump is only guilty of quickly admonishing both sides of the demonstrators “it is not fair game to carry weapons and partake in violence.” Anyone disappointed in Trump for saying that(lots of folks) are wrong. It is not OK for the side we believe in to be armed when going to a protest.
The false narrative goes on, and on, and on.
We Americans tend to think organized religion or faith a unifying or at least moderating force in public life. History does not bear that out. If you read the sermons in many New England pulpits prior and during the American Revolution, most called for resistance to British rule and not anything approaching some sort of coexistence with the Crown. If you read what was being preached in the heart of the abolitionist churches of Boston and New York in the 1840s and 50s, as well as those in many churches of Atlanta and Charleston, many were fire and brimstone calling the wrath of God down on folks they disagreed with. Church bells rang in Charleston when Ft Sumter was fired upon, as well as Philadelphia upon the new out of Gettysburg.
What is so different now as opposed the last Civil War 1861-65, is of course the presence of social media, blogs, new sites and cable outlets that act more or less as rage intensification machines for those who consume their products and tend to make very angry and unstable people, more angry and more unstable.
Paul in his leadership of the early church had the right approach. He could have very easily plunged the early church into the endless black holes of Greece-Roman politics, tribal, identity, culture wars of the era. His churches were far, far more diverse and pluralistic than anything we know today. The Christian communities of Corinth as well as Galatia, had Jews, Greeks, Romans, Slaves and Slave owners, former prostitutes, sex workers of the era, noble women, all worshiping together ,at the same time. He knew the only force in the Universe that could ever bridge the cultural as well as political divides was the Blood of the Cross of Christ, all the time. He knew nothing and preached nothing about the power of the Cross to forgive sin, heal, and reconcile that which is impossible otherwise. Outside of the Blood of the Cross, all else in noise and nonsense and doomed to failure.
Fast forward to 2017 and the PCUSA were its all politics all the time. In the PCUSA everything is politics all the time, sex is politics, gender is politics and political, identity is politics all the time. And the only hope, the only thing the PCUSA has to offer the nation and culture is you guessed it, more politics. It is any wonder you have s Stated Clerk and Co Moderators who speak and act as if they are in some Democratic primary and need to get to the Left of their opponents as quick as possible. It is what it is. Are we on the verge of another Civil War? In some ways we already are. Just how far we choose to travel down such a path is up to us. But this much is true, the only way out. Out of racial strife and racial conflict is again, the Blood of Jesus Christ, as we on our knees confessing our sins, and seeking His healing and grace. May God bless this great nation.