ed feelings toward minorities, Dr. MacArthur’s statement reveals a major disconnect from the experience of his said black friends.
Yes, the Gospel enables believers to see social issues from a spiritual perspective — but does it remove social issues altogether? Indeed, do we actually diminish (or perhaps even doubt) the power of the Gospel to conquer racism if we ignore the reality of that sin?
Addressing The Gospel Coalition Council in May 2016, Mika Edmondson said this:
We have a natural tendency to actively resist dealing with racial sin… How else can you explain a theology that comfortably co-existed with chattel slavery, the lynching tree, Jim Crow, segregation, and myriad ways black folks suffer today? How else could Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield have had such great theology but think that it had nothing to say to the black suffering they saw all around them? (Edwards wrote copious notes on the duty of Christian charity to the poor on the one hand, while callously purchasing trembling little African girls off the auction block on the other.) […] Evangelicals have a social ethic, but it’s a strangely selective social ethic. We show our feelings about the Lord by how we treat our neighbors made in his image.
Furthermore, we show the beauty of our Savior’s work in making us truly one when we mingle our voices together and insist that, in the fullness of time, even racism will bow at Christ’s feet. Rather than using Scripture as a reason to dismiss social issues, we should emulate the model of Olaudah Equiano and William Wilberforce, who offered an accurate application of Galatians 3:28 through their joint address of the racial injustices of their time.
Image via The Master’s Seminary.
Note: Access to the John MacArthur video “Racism and Black Lives Matter” linked in this article is at the discretion of the original publisher’s YouTube privacy settings. Unfortunately, at present (6/26/16), it is not publicly available.
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