The Lord is really messing with me right now on two fronts: gender and race. The gender issue will have to be for another day, but yesterday I posted a blog about an article I read on CNN.com about race and the church. And boy did I open up a can of worms for myself!
After reading that article, I revisited a sermon I listened to from Thabiti Anyabwile about this very topic. As I listened to it again, I began to hear his message afresh, and realized just how revolutionary it is. Dude is a revolutionary! No joke!
I will not outline his entire sermon on this blog. I really encourage you to listen for yourself – and listen more than once. It is linked in yesterday’s entry. Give yourself time between each hearing to absorb and process…it’s that deep! I will just touch on a few key points that are framing how I view this CNN article.
He starts by saying something quite provocative – the concept of “race” as we understand it does not in reality exist. It is not a biological or theological fact. Because of that, we have built our lives and identities on an unbiblical set of assumptions. Now, it is important to note that he is not saying that differences do not exist, or that they do not matter even. But they do not matter in the way that we have come to understand and order our lives. The better term to explain our differences would be ethnicity, which is a more fluid concept, and includes things like language, nationality, citizenship, etc. It is not rooted in biology – it is rooted more in cultural constructions and understanding.
Now, after he explains this, he goes on to drop the big bomb, the atom bomb of the entire message: Since race in truth does not exist, we must abandon our use of race as a foundational aspect of our identity. Broadly speaking all people are united by our common ancestry – we are all descendents of Adam. Adam and Eve are our parents, regardless of people group. Speaking more directly to believers, we are all united in Christ – our ultimate identity lies in our union in Christ as His body. God’s people come from every tribe, tongue and nation (notice that race is not a category that is used), and our common bond is faith in Christ. We are one body in Christ.
So, how does this relate to the article in CNN? The article highlights an important, and I feel deadly flaw in our understanding of how to “integrate” churches. We begin with the premise of race, and the assumption of beginning there is that race is a reality. By doing this, we focus on how we accommodate for all of our differences instead of focusing on those things that unite us as one people in Christ. If what Thabiti is proposing is indeed true, then we are doomed from the start if this is our beginning point. For the record, I happen to agree with him, although the implications of that agreement scare the daylights out of me.
This is truly a revolutionary idea. How else do I identify myself if I don’t have race as a category? The idea of racial identity not being a category leaves me feeling quite disoriented as I seek to explain myself to myself and others. And it leaves me with one foundation upon which to stake my identity – that of my union with Christ. Which is where the starting point should be in the first place. Racial identity will never unite us…the “trajectory of race”, to use his term, leads us to racism, not racial unity. So, when I read something like the CNN article, I should not be surprised by it.
How do I put all this together in my head? That is the question. Quite frankly, I’m not even close to forming those thoughts, so that will be another entry for another day. A swarm of questions flurry about – race may not be a biological reality, but it is indeed a social one. How do we navigate that? How do we deal with injustices that have been perpetuated against particular people groups on the basis of “race”? How does this change how we view “racial reconciliation” in the church?
All I can say is the Lord is shaking me up on two identities that are foundational to my self-understanding, my race and my gender. And even as I write that, I realize that I must abandon the use of the term “race” in that understanding, which is so very difficult for me. Lord help me as I walk this terrain.
Grace and peace…
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