For many Americans, politics is everything. Which is why so many, Christian and non-Christian alike, give a sort of religious devotion to their political causes, and why they put biblical-like faith in political promises. This is also why every four-year election cycle—this one included—is such a big deal, why it takes on messianic and apocalyptic urgency.
There are three distinct, though interrelated areas that need to be addressed: understanding, reconciliation and justice. Some quarters of the Christian Church may attend to one or the other of these, but we need a full-orbed approach, with pastors leading the way.
We must reckon with the truth of who we are and who we have been as Americans, and American Christians.
It would be ignorant and abusive to suggest that every democrat is an ardent supporter of late-term abortions, or that every republican is xenophobic. Might that be true of some democrats or republicans? Of course. But the sweeping partisanship and vitriolic landscape that is the present political climate need not also describe our conversations within the church. To label and dismiss anyone with whom there is an apparent disagreement is to identify more with the pharisee than it is to identify with Christ.
One layer in the complexity of race in the American social fabric lies in the tension between what we can term the color-blind thesis and the anti-color-blind thesis. How do we navigate these waters as a church?
Virtuous love, over against apathetic or paternalistic love, seeks to embody the love of Christ. This is a love that, in part, sacrifices self in order to seek the good of another.
The truth is that race is a complex issue. And race in America—and in the American church—is surely among the most complex of issues we confront today.
Acknowledging this should be uncontroversial. For the history of race in America has been convoluted, at best. So, too, the Evangelical church’s part in that difficult story—at times courageous, at times complicit, all the while complicated.
Is there something about human beings considered together that communicates something more about who we are as image bearers? In other words, what if it takes more than the individual to communicate the fullness of God’s image? This is precisely Herman Bavinck’s (1854-1921) provocative suggestion: the image of God is too rich to be confined to the individual or even to the human family.
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