Racial justice – it is today’s burning issue (literally burning in some cities). Should Christians stay clear or find a way to respond? Some Christians found their voice and the results were seen in Minneapolis this week.
Salvation in Minneapolis
The place where George Floyd was killed has “become the site of an outpouring of God's love and salvation as hundreds of people have gathered to glorify God through worship, evangelism, and baptism.”1 Joel Bomberger, a preacher with Circuit Riders, wrote:
Dozens and dozens of people healed, filled with hope, changed, and born again by the power of Jesus this weekend in Minneapolis!2
Thank the Lord for Christians who are not afraid to be seen among racial justice protesters for the sake of the gospel!
So, how do we address racism in the UK? Primarily, by the preaching of the gospel. But are we being called to more than explaining personal salvation? It is a minefield issue and many of us feel unqualified to speak. Part of our reluctance to get involved is to do with our perceptions of both victims and authorities, evidenced in the responses to the killing of George Floyd.
Saint or Sinner?
Some said he was a sinner, others that he was a saint. However, his moral and spiritual state was irrelevant. He was killed unlawfully by the upholders of law and that should disturb everyone.
It is wrong to beatify him. It is also wrong to demonise him by reference to his criminal record. When you have served your sentence, you should be free to start again, which apparently, he had attempted to do.3
Had he returned to crime? According to the Snopes website, which specialises in debunking internet myths, that is uncertain.4 He was said to have been high on ‘meth’ at the time of his death, but his toxicology report is not straightforward. A group of emergency room doctors and psychiatrists, wrote in the Scientific American: “When Black people are killed by police, their character and even their anatomy is turned into justification for their killer’s exoneration.”5
Cognitive Bias and Situational Ethics
We like to rationalise injustice into comfortable frameworks. Finding just cause in what happened to the victim and explanations for the perpetrators’ actions helps (this is known as ‘situational ethics’). Kevin O’Cokley, a psychology professor at the University of Texas, writes:
It fits into what psychologists have called the just-world hypothesis, which is a cognitive bias where people believe that the world is just and orderly, and people get what they deserve. It is difficult for people to believe that bad things can happen to good people or to people who don’t deserve it. This is because if people know that these things do happen, they have to decide whether they want to do something about it or sit by silently knowing that there is injustice happening around them.6
How do we address racism in the UK? Primarily, by the preaching of the gospel. But are we being called to more than explaining personal salvation?
Political Hijack
That is all very well, you may say, and we agree with racial justice in principle, but Christians cannot join current protests because they are being run by Marxist groups who seek the destruction of Judeo-Christian values. They also have anti-Israel/anti-Semitic members (ironic, considering they are anti-racist protestors), which we deplore. And now, lawlessly, they are desecrating statues representing our nation’s history.7
Damage is done to the fabric of our society by unbiblical social justice changes. This movement is: “inciting revolt and oppression, uttering lies our hearts have conceived” (Isa 59:13).
Good points. But why has social justice been hijacked by reprehensible ideologues?
Because the voice of the Church is silent.
At best, we are followers, not leaders. At worst, we are just bystanders. Those Christians who support Black Lives Matter are doing so because there is no strong lead within the Church.
“No one calls for justice; no one pleads a case with integrity.” (Isa 59:4)
We have mostly failed to be peacemakers and change-brokers. We have allowed radical left-wing groups to take over the narrative that rightly belongs to Christians (because we know the Judge and the true nature of justice).
Where are the Wilberforces?
Where are the Wilberforces and Knibbs?8
How many black Christians have felt undefended and unsupported by white brothers and sisters? Pastor Tope Koleoso of Jubilee Church, London, said in a message about the video of the killing of George Floyd, “I don’t just see George Floyd, I see me in it…Racism isn’t getting worse, it’s just getting filmed.”9
Is racism systemic in the UK? We have legislated against it, but it is as much part of fleshly humanity as any other sin and we must each examine ourselves. The challenge for Christians is to look further than our own hearts and to see beyond politics, to be clear-sighted about injustice of every kind and address it with gospel clarity, without fear of being numbered among the (political) transgressors.
A minority of Christians opposed slavery. At the cost of his political career and health, considered to be an extremist and a danger to national security, William Wilberforce fought to abolish it. He was resisted on so-called 'biblical' grounds.10
Three million slaves were kept in a land of two million American evangelicals. Christian slave owners were apparently the strictest and most brutal masters. Christianity was used to teach slaves to know their place in society, that offending their Master was a sin endangering their eternal salvation. They were not allowed Bibles and it was a crime to teach slaves to read because slave owners dreaded the spread of the gospel among slaves.11
Were these truly Christians? Yes – evangelicals in practice, if not in truth. And they persuaded the UK Evangelical Alliance to agree that they could not give up slavery because emancipated slaves would be worse off.
The challenge for Christians is to look further than our own hearts and to see beyond politics, to be clear-sighted about injustice of every kind and address it with gospel clarity.
The Lessons of History
There were Christians who opposed Nelson Mandela and his anti-apartheid movement because he was influenced by Marxism and, although committed to peaceful protest, founded a militant group. People scoffed when public places were named after him by left-wing UK councils in the 1980s.12 His name became synonymous with political correctness.13 Today, he is seen as one of the most inspirational world leaders who ever lived and someone who sacrificed years of his life in the cause of racial justice.
Evangelicals’ social and political conservatism can be a snare, preventing us from addressing injustice because of the perceived dangers of a ‘social gospel’. Our moral conservatism is ably voiced by para-church groups,14 but our lack of Hebraic perspective has reduced the gospel to a personal salvation plan rather than a mandate for societal righteousness and justice.
Will we find ourselves on the right side of history? Will we obey the clear biblical imperatives that override right-left political divides?
If William Knibb were alive today what would he be doing? He would probably be in the thick of the Black Lives Matter protests – preaching.
After the emancipation of slaves that Knibb helped to bring about came the revival known as the Jamaican Awakening. Note the order: first the political-social action, then the revival:
Loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke...
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear. (Isa 58:6,8)
Thousands of former slaves became believers. Knibb recalled that "in those seven years, through the labour of about twenty [Baptist] missionaries, 22,000 people were baptised upon their profession of faith in Jesus Christ". Knibb personally baptised 6,000 converts and translated the Bible into Creole, the native language of the slaves.15,16
Gladys Aylward helped to end foot-binding in China; William Carey opposed the injustice of forced sati (aka suttee, burning the widow on her husband’s funeral pyre), leading to its banning.17 The gospel is not just about securing our individual place in the world to come. It is about loosing “the chains of injustice” and “setting the oppressed free” (Isa 58:6).
If we believe eternal life starts now, what are we waiting for?
“Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed.” (Isaiah 1:17)
References
1 CBN News, 6 June 2020.
2 Ibid.
3 “In January 2013, after Floyd was paroled for the aggravated robbery [see below], people who knew him said he returned to Houston’s Third Ward “with his head on right.” He organized events with local pastors, served as a mentor for people living in his public housing complex, and was affectionately called “Big Floyd” or “the O.G.” (original gangster) as a title of respect for someone who’d learned from his experiences. Then in 2014, Floyd, a father of five, decided to move to Minneapolis to find a new job and start a new chapter.” See Snopes.com.
4 There are inconsistent and embellished stories circulating. For example, he was said to have pointed a gun at a pregnant woman’s stomach (in 2007). However, there is no proof that she was pregnant (the action is, of course, still reprehensible) See Snopes.com.
5 Snopes.com.
6 Ibid.
7 We pointed out the influences behind BLM last week and other movements in our Editorial.
8 William Knibb, (1803-1845) was an English Baptist minister and missionary to Jamaica. He is chiefly known today for his work to free slaves.
9 Response by Pastor Tope Koleoso of Jubilee Church, London, 31 May 2020.
10 See this article from the EA (March 2017), also the editorial from Third Way magazine, 3 August 1978, p12.
11 Douglass, F. Slavery in the Pulpit of the Evangelical Alliance: An Address Delivered in London, England, on September 14, 1846. In Blassingame, John et al (eds). The Frederick Douglass Papers: Series One: Speeches, Debates, and Interviews. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. Vol I, p407.
12 The first known example is in the north London suburb of Brent, where the local Labour council unveiled Mandela Close in 1981. See BBC News Magazine, 7 December 2013.
13 The term entered the English language in around 1975, according to Wikipedia.
14 E.g. Christian Concern and The Christian Institute.
15 William Knibb, Wikipedia.
16 There is currently a petition to erect a statue of William Knibb in Kettering his home town -