Christianity steeped in neighborly love ended slavery and
defeated Jim Crow. The gospel, not the BLM movement, already has what we need
to heal the nation.
JUNE 24, 2020
As churches
across America restart in-person services, Christians and their pastors are
feeling the heat. The “heat,” however, is not from the lack of air conditioning
in the sanctuary as things get hot and humid — it’s the pressure to “say
something” in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Yet just as
Christians shouldn’t feel obligated to issue “official church statements” every
time sin is committed (there would be little time for anything else), they
should oppose demands from Black Lives Matter activists to “take their
Christianity further.” Why? The gospel is already sufficient.
Believers living
out Christ’s commands to
love God and love their neighbors as themselves led the West’s push to abolish
slavery. Christians acting out a sincere application of the gospel were at the
forefront of the civil rights movement, a movement steeped in the biblical
message of neighborly love. We’re already in possession of the ultimate “user’s
manual” to bring peace to our nation and defeat evil wherever it lurks — it’s
called the Bible.
The Dangerous Retreat from The
Word
One of the most
emblematic summations of the insidious “say something, the gospel isn’t enough”
line of thinking was expressed by author and blogger Kristen Howerton. On
Twitter, Howerton implored her
fellow believers, “Do not treat the protests as a new mission field. Do not go
to ‘love on people’ or to lead people in prayer. Do not go to ‘be a Christian
voice in the crowd’ or to share God’s love or to witness to people. Go to fight
systemic racism and racial violence. The end.”
This sort of
belief is omnipresent right now among American Christians of all ages. I see it
in my social media feeds. If you’ve been on social media lately, you’ve likely
seen it too. What we need to do is live out the teachings of Jesus Christ to
the best of our flawed human ability every day. Yet the idea that Christians
need to “do more” than this has
permeated the highest, most prominent echelons of Christian ministry.
Brian Houston, a founder
of Hillsong Church, called for “radical” and “permanent” change to combat the
“systemic issues” facing black Americans, then tweeted his
disappointment when a pastor of a U.K. Hillsong Church did not express what
Houston considered sufficient solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
Houston’s apology on behalf of his British colleague ended with
“#BlackLivesMatter” and the three raised fists emoji that symbolizes BLM
activism.
It would be
disheartening enough if it were just simply that Christians felt pressured to
support a dangerous, manifestly anti-Christian movement
based on neo-Marxist ideology.
It’s worse, however, that by related words and deeds, many of these same
Christians appear to insinuate that the BLM movement can provide something that
the gospel cannot.
Christians Led the Modern Charge
to Peacefully End Injustice
The idea that the
gospel is not enough to defeat evil is a belief that could severely hamper the
work of the Kingdom. Thankfully, the history of the last two centuries is
enough to prove otherwise.
Many of the most
influential and successful abolitionists were Christians who used the Bible to
soften the hearts of men and win the fight to end the horrible practice of
slavery in the West. Picking up where Christian Quaker abolitionists left
off, evangelical Anglican William Wilberforce was
the driving force behind the British Empire’s ban on the
slave trade in 1807. Ultimately, the efforts of Wilberforce and the movement he
spearheaded with fellow Anglican Thomas Clarkson led to the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833,
ending slavery throughout the British Empire.
Deep Christian
faith was also at the heart of the work done by John G. Fee, one of the leading
Southern abolitionists. In 1855, Fee founded Berea College “in the midst of
many privations and persecutions to preach and apply a gospel of impartial
love.” Berea was the first non-segregated college in the South to admit black
and Caucasian students, and its motto — “God has made of one blood all peoples
of the earth” — was lifted directly from the Bible’s Acts 17:26.
In his autobiography, Fee writes the biblical command to “love
thy neighbor as thyself” was “pressed upon his conscience.” Throughout his
life, he strived to wholly embrace that principle and live it “in honest
practice.”
Led by Martin
Luther King, Jr. several Christian ministers including Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, and Hosea Williams joined to found
the influential Southern Christian Leadership Conference that served as the
spiritual and ideological backbone of the civil rights movement in the 1960s
and beyond. The gospel’s message of neighborly love was the forefront of their
purpose and the centerpiece of their advocacy for non-violence as embodied
by Matthew 5:38-40.
Methodist
preacher James Lawson was
called “the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world” by
MLK, Jr. and “the architect” of the civil rights movement by Rep. John Lewis.
Lawson helped organize the Freedom Rides and saw the civil rights struggle as
much of a spiritual struggle as it was a political one. “The Christian favors
the breaking down of racial barriers,” said Lawson, “because the redeemed
community of which he is already a citizen recognizes no barriers dividing
humanity.”
For both
Christian abolitionists and civil rights leaders, the words of the Bible and
abiding faith in the Almighty were all they needed to achieve victory and
justice for members of God’s family being denied their natural rights as endowed
by their Creator. If slavery and government-sponsored Jim Crow legislation
could be defeated by the irresistible love the gospel promotes, Christians
should take heart that the power of the Word can work the same wonders again
and unite a fractious nation.
The Bible Provides All the
Guidance We Need
Those who
practice authentic Christianity do not need any pointers on how to defeat evil.
They especially don’t need to borrow ideas from the Black Lives Matter
movement, which, since the tragic death of George Floyd has led to at least 24 new deaths as
a result of violent rioting, looting, and chaos. While the true cost of the
vandalism and destruction unleashed by the movement may not be fully known for
years to come, the latest estimates place property damages at more than $500
million in Minnesota alone.
Of course, much
of this could likely have been avoided if instead of encouraging and standing
with the BLM movement and other radical leftist neo-Marxists, the more
than 210 million self-professed
Christians living in America took the text of the New Testament
to heart.
Christians don’t
need to adopt the positions of BLM movement to spread a message of equality.
The instructions on how to live in harmony with our fellow brothers and sisters
are right before us. Besides the well-known words of
Galatians 3:28-29, in Ephesians 2:14 the
Apostle Paul proclaims, “For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united
Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke
down the wall of hostility that separated us.”
Throughout the
New Testament, Christians are reminded that
“sin is lawlessness” as written in 1 John 3:4; similarly, in 1 Peter 4:15, “If
you suffer, however, it must not be for murder, stealing, making trouble, or
prying into other people’s affairs.” We also see in the New Testament that the
misinformed nature of many found at riots and scenes of chaos has not changed
for thousands of years.
Just as recent rioters destroyed black-owned
businesses, while others vandalize statues of abolitionists and rock stars they
mistakenly suspect of being Indian hunters or slave traders, Luke relays a
similar scene in Acts 19. When angry
Ephesians felt Christians slighted their pagan god Artemis, a riot broke out.
Anger boiled, “the whole city was filled with confusion,” and, lo and behold,
“most of them didn’t even know why they were there.”
The local mayor
ordered the rioters to calm down, and — in this case — they listened. Instead
of stoking their rage, the mayor appealed to the rule of law. He
tells the angry Ephesians to take up the matter with official courts “to be
settled in a legal assembly.”
Paul shows the
choice is neither to dismiss the cries of the angry nor to condone mob violence
or vigilante justice. The Christian solution is to empathize with those who are
hurting and then to have faith in the fixtures of civilized society to
discharge justice as best as possible, knowing God will deliver the final
justice in the end.
The Way to Healing
As stated
in James 1:16-20, “the
wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” Indeed, James warns
against being carried away by earthly movements. The only cause we should be
following whole-heartedly is the cause of the gospel of Jesus Christ:
Don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters.
Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father,
who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting
shadow. … You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get
angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.
All Christians
can, with confidence, emphatically say the words “black lives matter,” a
statement that is resoundingly true. What they should not condone, however, is
the BLM movement that removes the forgiveness, hope, and peace of the gospel
and replaces those core values with continual protest, fear, and anger. As
Paul reminds us in
Romans 12:19, “Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous
anger of God. For the Scriptures say, ‘I will take revenge; I will pay them
back,’ says the Lord.”
The God-inspired words of the New Testament are already
sufficient. The words and deeds of Jesus Christ are already sufficient. When
before His last breath Christ proclaimed, “it is finished,” His mission was
complete.
We’ll never know
perfect human equality here on earth. But until our Lord returns, Christians
can take comfort that the Bible app on their phone, the Holy Scripture resting
on the shelf, and the Word in front of them in the church pew all contain the
only guide needed to heal our broken world.
Joshua Lawson is managing editor of The
Federalist. He is a graduate of Queen's University as well as Hillsdale College
where he received a master's degree in American politics and political
philosophy. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaMLawson.
