Why White People Should Care About Race

Last week I was talking with a black friend of mine who's moderating a mixed-race discussion on race next weekend. He was asking me why I think white people (at least, white Christians) should care about this stuff.

Here's my why's:

1. There is not a book of the Bible that does not at some point deal with racial issues. Don't believe me? Take a look for yourself.

Did you know in Mark Jesus tells Jewish folks that he heals to not tell anyone about it, but he tells Gentiles that he heals to go and tell everyone? That's a racial issue. That's Jesus intentionally making something a racial issue.

But as white folks no one's equipping us to see those issues. As a result, we read our Bibles poorly. As a result, we have no Biblical understanding of issues of race and ethnicity. Therefore...

2. ...most of us adopt the most convenient-for-us posture towards race and push-back against other voices that would call us to engage issues of race.

Most evangelical Christians live in a theologically, morally, culturally and politically conservative milieu. This means that most of us react against secular conversations about race since it most often comes from more culturally and politically liberal voices.

For most of us, that means we adopt the "color-blind" position. We say that we don't see color and that God doesn't see color.

This just simply isn't true, as the example from Mark shows. God is very interested in race. He's very interested in race just as he's very interested in gender: it's part of what it means that he created us in his image.

Since we don't have any real Biblical view of race, we are ill-equipped to engage the issue well. This leaves us on very shaky ground in an area that every single book of the Bible talks about. Think about that for a second. How many other issues do we talk about in church all the time that are built on much scanter ground?

3. The Scriptures call us to bear one another's burdens. If we as white Christians are not aware of how our brothers and sisters are experiencing various kinds of discrimination, if we adopt postures that refuse to hear about it, how can we fulfill this command?

4. I am one of the least "Satan is behind every rock" kind of Christian that I know. But I think that this is a deeply spiritual issue. The amount of "push-back" that I get from white Christians is vastly disproportionate to the amount of "pushing" that I/we as a chapter do in regards to this issue. Some of you reading (if you've even gotten this far) are feeling that right now.

Issues of race are spiritual strongholds for evil. As white folks, we have a responsibility to seek after the Lord and pray hard about this. There is evil at work in our world that as white Christians we have a unique role to play in driving out.

Not that it's all "on us," but we do have a unique role to play in praying out and pushing out evil along racial lines. If we don't engage the issue on every level (from prayer to individual relationships to laws to economics) then true healing will never happen.

5. Finally, I think that all of us are racists--doesn't matter what your race. Just like most everyone has some level of greed or lust or pride at work in their hearts, I think most all of us have some level of racism at work in us. It's so pervasive in our culture you'd have to be Jesus to be racism-free.

As Christians, many of us are somewhat willing to admit that we battle with issues like greed or lust or jealousy. Why should issues of race be any different? Why are so incensed to be called a racist?

I'm a repenting racist. I pray that the Lord might be healing me here just like everywhere else. But it's not going to happen by accident, just like being freed up from jealousy or pride isn't going to happen by accident. I've got to engage with the issue, admit the problem, seek the Lord, even confess it to brothers or sisters.

But we're so locked up here, we can't make any headway. My dear friends, please, let's stop running from this. Let us instead run into it. Boldly. With great hope and faith, trusting that God is good to forgive us and heal us of ALL our sin--jealousy, lying, pride, racism, all of it.

But the first step is to admit the problem. That's why white people should care about race.