I have an issue with folks who deal with the race issue by simply talking about liberation and the end of white supremacy. This limited solution to the issue of race misses the mark in two ways. One, it doesn’t go far enough in bringing a more comprehensive solution because it keeps the issues within the matrix of race. The further development of blackness becomes the solution for dealing with the problems of a dominant whiteness. The more comprehensive solution must include pulling the covers back on both blackness and whiteness and exposing this false social construct. Blackness and whiteness must be dismantled. Ethnicity and culture are truer elements of humanity than race. Whiteness rose by making itself good while blackness was bad. Is the solution to simply reverse this and make blackness good and whiteness evil? Or to fight for the empowerment of blackness?
The second issue is that a race-based solution doesn’t work within a true biblically-based, Christian theology. Now I know that there are many who are fighting for racial justice who don’t care if the solution to racism is deeply connected to a Christian theology. Well, as a Christian, this is of utmost importance to me. Christianity works for me because it is about dealing with sin. Racism, injustice, prejudice, and oppression are forms of sin, and the God of the Bible has a solution for this. This solution is about liberation and reconciliation. Racism is truly dealt with in Christ. Not the black or white christ, but the true multi-ethnic Christ who is both Jew and Gentile. Jesus Christ walked the earth as a multi-ethnic and multicultural human being (Matthew 1). When we are reconciled to God through Christ, we are born again and given a new identity beyond the social construct of race. Until we get to heaven though, we still live in this race-based society. This is why we must dismantle the segregated state of the church so that the church becomes a true new and reconciling community. This kind of community can in part deal with the ugly and sinful issue of racism and the injustices that come from it.
The Bible is the story of God delivering a people out of oppression, and it’s also about the opportunity for reconciliation and new identity for all humanity. To separate these two critical points is to limit freedom and salvation.
