Barack Obama’s speech in Philadelphia today focused on racial divisions in America:
Obama expressed understanding of the passions on both sides in what he called “a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years.”
“But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races,” he said in a speech at the National Constitution Center, not far from where the Declaration of Independence was adopted. …
Obama said the sermons delivered by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright now circulating on the Internet and television “rightly offend white and black alike.” Those sermons from years ago suggest the United States brought the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on themselves and say blacks continue to be mistreated by whites.
A Reformed pastor who is also African American responds at Blaque Tulip:
As far as I can remember not one republican presidential candidate whether he was conservative, moderate or rino ever thought to address the nation on the issue of race during his run for the White House. And as far as I can remember not one of my evangelical friends, their evangelical political leaders (e.g. James Dobson and others) or the well known evangelical pastors ever pushed for a republican candidate or sitting president to raise and address the issue of race and ethnicity in this country. I do know that when President Clinton encouraged a dialogue on race in the mid-nineties the religious right shot it down with all the fervor of the army’s conquest of Bagdad. I know this because I was a part of a white evangelical church in VA and constantly listened to white evangelicals tell me that race was not a problem, that black folks just need to get over slavery and segregation and that if we were really smart we’d ditched the donkey and pony up to the GOP. …
Now trust me folks, I’m pretty well aware that Senator Obama knew of Pastor Wright’s feelings toward white people and America. And though you do not want to hear this many (not all) of pastor Wright’s views are held by a great majority of black people. Does that shock you? Probably and it’s more than likely because you have few relationships with black folks who will tell you the truth about our ambivalence as Americans. Look, most black people I know don’t tear up and get misty eyed when the national anthem is played as this country’s multi-billion dollar air force flies overhead including yours truly. Most of us treat July 4th as another day off and reason to cookout, not as a celebration of our freedom because the last time we checked General Washington’s black chattel were confined to the slave quarters when the declaration of independence was drafted.
These issues are not confined to African Americans. I know people of many different races here in Hawaii who feel the same way. The volume of their voices might go up and down (the Hawaiian sovereignty flags that disappeared after 9/11 are popping up again), but the issue itself never really goes away.
So how can we think biblically about these things? A few thoughts pop into my head:
- We need to remember that while healthy patriotism is never condemned in the New Testament, it’s clear that the body of Christ transcends nations. For Paul, Roman citizenship was to be used to serve the cause of Christ (Acts 22), not the other way around.
- We need to do a little log-pulling before we go speck-hunting. As Lance mentions, many white evangelicals deplore the victim mentality they see in minorities and wish they would just be quiet (pieces like this one, saying that the person who’s been the most victimized would make the best president, don’t help). But evangelicals rarely recognize the victimhood we all like to claim whenever it suits us. I wrote about this tendency here.
- We need to consider the fact that most of the heroes in the gospels were of the minority race, not the majority. The wise men who worshiped Jesus after his birth were not Jewish, but Persian (Matthew 2). The one who showed compassion on the beaten and robbed man was not Jewish, but Samaritan (Luke 10). The man who had more faith than anyone in Israel was not Jewish, but Roman (Matt 8). Of the ten healed lepers, the only one who returned to praise Jesus was not Jewish, but Samaritan (Luke 17). There’s gotta be some significance to that pattern.
- We need to recognize the culturalism that still shades our thinking. Most people would say, “I am not a racist,” but we’re all culturalists. We look down on people of other cultures (even those who share our race) as inferior in some way. We need to see that there are major parts of every culture (including our own) that need to be redeemed by Christ. And we need to remember that God himself was the creator of all different cultures when he scattered the people and gave them distinct languages (Genesis 11).