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“We’ve got the best politicians … that money can buy.”
And yet justice without grace still leaves us thirsty. Justice without reconciliation falls short of the gospel of Jesus.
I’ve heard it said, “If you want to know what someone believes, watch how they live.” Each of us is a living epistle. Our lives shout what we believe, sometimes even louder than our words. So often, people cannot even hear our words past the noise of our lives.
Ours is not a story of bitterness—it is a story of love and the triumphs of the God of love. But it is a story carved out of the realities of violence and poverty, ending not in some sugarcoated sense of brotherly love but the deep conviction that only the power of Christ’s crucifixion on the cross and the glory of His resurrection can heal the deep racial wounds in both black and white people in America.
But socioeconomic structures in Northern urban areas maintain the ghettos and white supremacy in a mechanical way, so Northern whites have never had to be open, active racists as was true in the South.
The contribution of the civil rights movement to the black man’s struggle for justice and equality is one that is undeniably great. And this is so, because those who led the movement were committed men and women. They were committed to the cause. And to the struggle. But how sad that so few individuals equally committed to Jesus Christ ever became a part of that movement. For what all that political activity needed—and lacked—was spiritual input. Even now, I do not understand why so many evangelicals find a sense of commitment to civil rights and to Jesus Christ an “either-or” proposition.
One of the greatest tragedies of the civil rights movement is that evangelicals surrendered their leadership in the movement by default to those with either a bankrupt theology or no theology at all, simply because the vast majority of Bible-believing Christians ignored a great and crucial opportunity in history for genuine ethical action. The evangelical church—whose basic theology is the same as mine—had not gone on to preach the whole gospel.
Each young person needed to know, first of all, who he is, know that he is a person. And know that, because he is a person, he is worth something.
Two-hundred years of slavery, followed by two or three generations of economic exploitation, political oppression, racial discrimination and educational deprivation, had created in black people feelings of inferiority, instability and total dependency. The implanting of such negative values in a people deprives them of any true sense of self-worth, or any real sense of selfidentity. And the end result of negative values is negative behavior that is self-destructive in its effect. Dehumanizing values only and always produce destructive behavior.
Revolution—spiritual revolution, not reform or welfare—is the only solution to spiritual bankruptcy. And that is why the gospel of Jesus Christ, with its power to transform people by the renewing of their minds (see Rom. 12:2) is of primary importance to the black community.
You see, the problem I saw was not entirely a “black problem.” White people, too, have failed to allow the gospel to speak fully to them, to lifestyles and behavior patterns that are often exploitive and unjust. If Christ is Savior, He must also be Lord—Lord over such areas as spending, racial attitudes and business dealings. The gospel must be allowed to penetrate the white consciousness as well as the black consciousness.
In situations of inequality or oppression, the oppressed group must take a stand somewhere, sometime. For until the people take that stand, there is no development possible for them. Yet when they take that stand in the face of clear injustice, an oppressed people are once again humanized. And they then become capable of a level of development—spiritual, economic, social or other—not psychologically possible for a people still in a passive, dependent state.
I want all people to come to know Jesus Christ. Nothing I do takes the place of that. But I wonder if, maybe, someone in the Billy Graham organization or some other evangelical organization had discovered the polio vaccine, would they have given it only to the Christians, or to everybody? I bet they would probably have given it to everybody. But why is it then that some Christians get all hot under the collar when an organization like ours gets out and helps the whole community?
I see economic education as a total responsibility to all people. And that responsibility is not lessened if some of those helped do not respond to our preaching of the gospel.
If sin can exist at every level of government, and in every human institution, then also the call to biblical justice in every corner of society must be sounded by those who claim a God of Justice as their Lord.
God was showing me something, telling me something. There were blacks who had accepted our message. Who had embraced the gospel. Who now knew dignity. Who now walked taller than before. And there were whites who believed in justice. Who lived love. Who shared themselves. Who joined our community.
I began to see with horror how hate could destroy me—destroy me more devastatingly and suddenly than any destruction I could bring on those who had wronged me. I could try and fight back, as many of my brothers had done. But if I did, how would I be different from the whites who hate? And where would hating get me? Anyone can hate. This whole business of hating and hating back. It’s what keeps the vicious circle of racism going.
This Jesus knew what I had suffered. He understood. And He cared. Because He had experienced it all Himself.
His enemies hated. But Jesus forgave. I couldn’t get away from that.
And it was here that he came up with the strategy to seed every neighborhood with two or three Christian families as a way to bring about community change.
This is what makes the gospel so unique. It’s how beautiful are the feet of him who brings it—that’s the lowest part of the body. The purpose of the gospel is to burn through racial and social barriers. And how beautiful are the feet of those who carry that gospel. It’s not just tell, tell, tell—it’s love. It is the creative witness and the manifestation of that witness.
People always ask me how I overcame racism and bigotry. At least the process in my life that has helped me to overcome it has been the people and the quality of my Christian friends who have embraced me and loved me. People remove racism. Good overcomes evil. In my deepest time of pain and sorrow and conflict, God has always brought somebody into my life who has loved me and embraced me at the time when it would have felt better to hate.
emerging leaders, we must exercise a great amount of patience and love and recognize we are standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before us. From this vantage point, we can look ahead to see the mountains and the valleys. While still standing on their shoulders, we can look behind and see the valleys they had to go through.
