It happened, again. Senseless violence in America ending the lives of nine people. This time, it happens to be racism. In other instances we chalk it up to mental illness or some other notion of intolerance we've set up, and we begin to stand on our soap box and declare why we should take steps A-Z to fix the problem. 'Gun control', 'changing media bias', 'changing the conversation about race' or 'changing the conversation about mental disease'... it happens every time, the people who are leaders in the various spheres of influence in this country come up with their program that's going to solve the problem, and the huddled masses follow after them like sheep, blindly repeating the rhetoric.
I want to share two words, one which addresses a very serious criticism of the American church in light of this specific tragedy, and then one that builds on that to flesh out what the root of the problem actually is. So first, let's look in the mirror. The church that this murderer stepped into is 'historically Black'. Why? Well, a big part of the reason why that is the case is because white, conservative, Christians were racist for a very long time. I'm a white, conservative, Christian so that really resonates at my core. On the other hand, as racial wounds have begun to at least somewhat heal in this country and Christian groups (such as my own Southern Baptist Convention) started to own and take responsibility for their dark, racist pasts, there is very little effort on the part of most churches, especially where I am from in the South, to integrate racially.
This is ridiculous. We're supposed to be part of the same body, right? When this murderer (and no, I don't plan on using his name because I don't think he deserves to have it mentioned) walked into a Bible study to kill people of a very specific skin color, why on earth were there not White and Hispanic and Native American brothers and sisters in the Lord there to either stop him, or at least share in the sufferings as one body. This man was able to select his target so easily precisely because even after all this time White folks and Black folks can't seem to get over their own comfort zones and racial biases enough to worship their common Savior together. That is a tragedy in itself on top of the terrible grief we already experience as a country because this sort of thing still happens.
But why does it happen? This division within the body happens for the same reason why the secular society around us can't get the solution right. It all stems from having too weak a sense of human sin and and the role of the Gospel in every possible human good. First of all, man does evil things because man is evil. Without the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, the 'righteousness' of man is filthy rags. This means that whatever strategy man comes up with to solve these problems, if there' no Holy Spirit, it's not a righteous strategy, it's insufficient, it's God-less, literally. The fact that our strategies to overcome issues like the murders in Charleston are pretty obvious. However, what is less obvious, but still as vital, is that the segregation in our churches just as driven by the fact that we don't put the Holy Spirit in the middle of how we build our churches and how we address the race problems in our church.
If our solutions God-less, what hope do we really have for it working? We don't. So what do we do instead? Well, quite simply, the answer is we share the Gospel. It may sound simple, but if our problem is that our solutions are not righteous without God, then the key has to be getting God into the lives of the people, and sharing the Gospel, and making the Gospel truly central to our churches. If you're listening to your preferred pundit and they are rooting the problem in 'media bias' or 'racism' then they're deceived, and they are missing the true issue. We should address racism, we should address fair-minded media coverage, but we don't truly fix these things without the work of the Holy Spirit and the Gospel message. Any solution without that, is a lie. We as Christians shouldn't promote it, and we as Christians should be critical of those among us who try to do so.
When the Holy Spirit renews us, and makes us new creatures, only then do we have any hope of making real changes to our society. Promote the Gospel, not the lies of our society that try to fix things through secular activism and legislation without the necessary foundation of the work of the Holy Spirit.
I want to share two words, one which addresses a very serious criticism of the American church in light of this specific tragedy, and then one that builds on that to flesh out what the root of the problem actually is. So first, let's look in the mirror. The church that this murderer stepped into is 'historically Black'. Why? Well, a big part of the reason why that is the case is because white, conservative, Christians were racist for a very long time. I'm a white, conservative, Christian so that really resonates at my core. On the other hand, as racial wounds have begun to at least somewhat heal in this country and Christian groups (such as my own Southern Baptist Convention) started to own and take responsibility for their dark, racist pasts, there is very little effort on the part of most churches, especially where I am from in the South, to integrate racially.
This is ridiculous. We're supposed to be part of the same body, right? When this murderer (and no, I don't plan on using his name because I don't think he deserves to have it mentioned) walked into a Bible study to kill people of a very specific skin color, why on earth were there not White and Hispanic and Native American brothers and sisters in the Lord there to either stop him, or at least share in the sufferings as one body. This man was able to select his target so easily precisely because even after all this time White folks and Black folks can't seem to get over their own comfort zones and racial biases enough to worship their common Savior together. That is a tragedy in itself on top of the terrible grief we already experience as a country because this sort of thing still happens.
But why does it happen? This division within the body happens for the same reason why the secular society around us can't get the solution right. It all stems from having too weak a sense of human sin and and the role of the Gospel in every possible human good. First of all, man does evil things because man is evil. Without the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, the 'righteousness' of man is filthy rags. This means that whatever strategy man comes up with to solve these problems, if there' no Holy Spirit, it's not a righteous strategy, it's insufficient, it's God-less, literally. The fact that our strategies to overcome issues like the murders in Charleston are pretty obvious. However, what is less obvious, but still as vital, is that the segregation in our churches just as driven by the fact that we don't put the Holy Spirit in the middle of how we build our churches and how we address the race problems in our church.
If our solutions God-less, what hope do we really have for it working? We don't. So what do we do instead? Well, quite simply, the answer is we share the Gospel. It may sound simple, but if our problem is that our solutions are not righteous without God, then the key has to be getting God into the lives of the people, and sharing the Gospel, and making the Gospel truly central to our churches. If you're listening to your preferred pundit and they are rooting the problem in 'media bias' or 'racism' then they're deceived, and they are missing the true issue. We should address racism, we should address fair-minded media coverage, but we don't truly fix these things without the work of the Holy Spirit and the Gospel message. Any solution without that, is a lie. We as Christians shouldn't promote it, and we as Christians should be critical of those among us who try to do so.
When the Holy Spirit renews us, and makes us new creatures, only then do we have any hope of making real changes to our society. Promote the Gospel, not the lies of our society that try to fix things through secular activism and legislation without the necessary foundation of the work of the Holy Spirit.
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