ible declares that “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” And in Luke 12:6-7, Jesus adds: “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
If God remembers the sparrows, then human beings made in His image are worthy of our concern. So when blood is spilt, it’s right to grieve. Much more, when death and repression come as the result of prejudiced systems, then we lament and call for repentance (Jeremiah 7:1-7). If persons (and even nations, see Matthew 11:10-24) await the ultimate examination of a holy Judge, then Christians do well to sound the alarm when we see the sin of racism and injustice.
But instead of bold words of caution, some corners of evangelicalism saw the contention of early July and said nothing. Others, like John MacArthur, offered evasive remarks. We tend to lose our voice when it comes to the issue of race. And when we do speak, our inclination is to reduce our message to Galatians 3:28 and little else: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Russell Moore writes that some white Christians “assume that if they don’t harbor personal animus against those of other ethnicities, then there is no ‘race problem.’”
Perhaps this is Dr. MacArthur’s perspective. In the video, he implies friendship with certain black leaders and recalls holding memorial services for Martin Luther King in black high schools. Like the man who justifies himself from the suspicion of racial bias by naming the minorities he knows, this section of John MacArthur’s video sounds a bit conciliatory. He says this: “Look, I’ve been on that side of it [the racial justice side?]… But I also see the power of the Gospel and when the Gospel changes your life, you go from social issues to spiritual issues.” While he may not nurture prejudiced 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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