The Gospel as the Foundation for Racial Reconciliation - final version

Scriptures

Genesis 1:26–31 NKJV

26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. 31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Acts 17:26 NKJV

26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,

Acts 6:1–5 NKJV

1 Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. 2 Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. 3 Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; 4 but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” 5 And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch,

Overview

Underrepresented groups continuously cry against injustice and inequality throughout our societies. Sin is the cause of injustice and inequity. Beginning with my story, I will share how I learned about racial injustice and inequality in the USA. We will seek to lay out a pattern for racial reconciliation and justice based on our dependence on God's word. First, we will look at the issue by addressing the:

· A pattern of racial reconciliation in the Scriptures

· The Rise of the Inferiority Myth

· The Black Church and The Backdrop of the Black Experience

Then we will suggest some ways to address systematic injustice and racial reconciliation by:

· Addressing the Biblical Kingdom Agenda

· Prophetically declaring the Kingdom Impact in the Culture

· Incorporating Urban Apologetics in our theological discipline

· Practically addressing Structural Changes that are needed

No matter where we emigrate and what injustice we face, God has provided the right balance to deal with these issues. We are all made in the Imago Dei ("image of God"). We are recipients of reconciliation by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We, therefore, have the suitable characteristics to lead reconciliation.

Foundation based on Scriptures

Define some words

My journey

UBIC History

Biblical examples of racial reconciliation

Results of a broken system

Legacy of slavery

Inferiority myth

What can we do?

Kingdom Mission/agenda

Urban Apologetic

Suggestions/Resources

Definitions

Liberty - the quality or state of being free; the power to do as one pleases; freedom from physical restraint

Identity - the distinguishing character or personality of an individual

Justice - Dictionary: the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments

mishpat - to treat people equitably, rendering right judgement, protecting those who are marginalized, acquitting or punishing every person on the merits of the case, regardless of race or social status.

Micah 6:8 NLT

8 No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

Zechariah 7:9–10 NLT

9 “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Judge fairly, and show mercy and kindness to one another. 10 Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners, and the poor. And do not scheme against each other.

tzadeqah - right relationship with others (generosity)

Matthew 23:23 NKJV

23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.

Dignity - the quality or state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed

Any attempt at racial reconciliation without understanding the context of God and his creation will fall short. Let us then begin at the beginning, we are all made in the image of God!

Image of God: God is the father of all human beings

Imago Dei ("image of God"): first, God's own self-actualization through humankind; and second, God's care for humankind.

Genesis 1:27 NKJV

27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Introduction: Who I am

(picture of my family)

Christian Husband Father Pastor Business Executive

Jamaican born came to the use at the age of 17 and a proud citizen of the USA.

Premise of my presentation is that only the foundation of the Gospel rooted in Scriptures can lead the changes necessary for racial reconciliation and restoration in our culture.

My journey into understanding race relations in the USA

Education:

We grew up understanding the nature and history of slavery.

We were told that we drove out the slave master and took charge of the country.

We were not just given freedom we took it.

Nanny was a leader of the Maroons at the beginning of the 18th century (First Maroon War from 1720 to 1739).

Samuel Sharpe was the main instigator of the 1831 Slave Rebellion We grew up understanding the nature and history of slavery.

We were told that we drove out the slave master and took charge of the country. We were not just given freedom we took it.

In the face of such difficulties, a “new Negro” developed during the 1920s—the proud, creative product of the American city. The growth of racial pride among African Americans was greatly stimulated by the Black nationalist ideas of Marcus Garvey. Born in Jamaica, he had founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association there in 1914. He came to the United States in 1917 and established a branch of the association in the Harlem district of New York City.

History of the UB Church & Core Values

“That all slavery in every sense of the word be totally prohibited

and in no way tolerated in our community...But in no case shall a member of our society be permitted to sell a slave.

----1821 General Conference

“Resolved, that if any member of this society shall publicly transgress as aforesaid, such member shall likewise be publicly reprimanded, and in case such member shall not humble, the same shall be publicly excluded from the congregation.”

1837 General Conference

“We may be bound by a man-made law, but we are more bound by a Lord-given conscience.”

William Hanby, bishop 1845-1849

We rejoice in the historic position of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ against human slavery. We thank God that all slavery in every sense of the word was totally prohibited. And now in the good providence of God, after this great evil has ceased to exist, we wish to reaffirm our faith in the sacredness of human personality in all men, regardless of race or color.

Believing, as we do, that of one blood God has made all nations to dwell on all of the face of the earth, we lift up our voice in protest and declare our active opposition to every influence

of evil, be it economic, social, moral or spiritual, which would

in any way debase, impair, or bring into bondage all that

---1969 General Conference

Addressing racial hindrances based on the scriptures

“In the beginning, God created a man. Within the seed of that man rested all of the components, DNA, and characteristic trademarks of all people today. In the beginning, we were one. Scripture tells us in the book of Acts, “He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26). Thus, sharing a common origin in Adam, any form of division or oppression predicated on race is illegitimate, because we all emanate from the same source.”

-----Evans, Tony. Oneness Embraced (p. 57). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

...some African-American Christians so amalgamate the tenets of black culture with their faith that they frequently fail to make the necessary distinction between the two when it comes to critiquing ourselves.

...Anglos will often leave the Bible when it is culturally convenient to do so in order to protect their traditions.

------ Evans, Tony. Oneness Embraced (p. 58). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

Beginning and End - God's Image

Genesis 2

What we have in the Bible is that in the beginning (Genesis) God made man in his image.

Revelation 7:9 NKJV

9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands,

In the end of time (Revelation) we see the unity restored around the throne of God.

Examples & Pattern from the Bible

1. We need to get onto God’s agenda!

Be willing to walk across the (Peter and Cornelius )- Acts 10:11-29

2. Refuse to Allow Culture to Interfere with Truth of the Gospel

Recognize Common Ground (Woman at the well) - John 4:6

3. Elevated and Empowered the Marginalized

Choosing of the 7 Deacons- Acts 6:1-7

Results of a Broken System Trying to Fixed Itself Without God.

Examples of Man’s attempt at racial reconciliation

Efforts to reconcile a broken system

Problem: The Legacy of Slavery (began 1619)

Efforts to reconcile a broken system

Constitution - counting each enslaved individual as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of taxation

On September 17, 1787, after three/June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document,

Denmark outlawed slave trading by its citizens in 1803, Great Britain in 1807, the United States in 1808, Sweden in 1813, the Netherlands in 1814, and France (for the second time) in 1818.

Results of a broken system trying to fixed itself without God.

Slavery - Timeline

However, many consider a significant starting point to slavery in America to be 1619, when the privateer The White Lion brought 20 African slaves ashore in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia. The crew had seized the Africans from the Portugese slave ship Sao Jao Bautista.

Throughout the 17th century, European settlers in North America turned to enslaved Africans as a cheaper, more plentiful labor source than indentured servants, who were mostly poor Europeans.

some historians have estimated that 6 to 7 million enslaved people were imported to the New World during the 18th century alone,

Between 1774 and 1804, all of the northern states abolished slavery, but the institution of slavery remained absolutely vital to the South.

Though the U.S. Congress outlawed the African slave trade in 1808, the domestic trade flourished, and the enslaved population in the United States nearly tripled over the next 50 years. By 1860 it had reached nearly 4 million, with more than half living in the cotton-producing states of the South.

USA History of Slavery & Racism

1619 - Beginning of the African Slave Trade

1774 - 1804 - Northern states abolish slavery

1808 - U.S. Congress outlawed the African slave trade

1830 - 1860 - Abolitionist Movement

1862- Emancipation Proclamation

1865 - 13th Amendment - End of legal institutional Slavery

1868 - The Fourteenth Amendment granted African Americans citizenship,

1880 - 1968 - Segregation – Jim Crow south (https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/jim-crow-laws)

1870 - Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed their right to vote.

1960s - Civil Rights Movement - Segregation – Jim Crow south

1875 - The Supreme Court and Segregation

1917 - Housing Segregation

1930 - Red-Lining

Housing Segregation - In 1948,

1954 - Segregation in Schools

The Rise of the Inferiority Myth

The American myth of the inferior nature of African people began when the European slave traders subjugated Africans and exported them to the New World without having any understanding of this previously unknown people.

2. The Curse of Ham

Because Ham was the father of black people, and because his descendants were cursed to be slaves because of his sin against Noah, some Christians said, “Africans and their descendants are destined to be servants, and should accept their status as slaves in fulfillment of biblical prophecy.”4 Due to the curse of Ham theory, there now existed a myth of inferiority with apparent biblical roots.

—-Bible places limitations on curses—only three or four generations at most (Exodus 20:5).

—-God says that curses based on disobedience only extend to three or four generations at most and are reversed when people repent and turn again to obedience (Exodus 20:5–6).

—-slaves submitting to their masters (e.g., Ephesians 6:5–8; Colossians 3:22)

—-Paul told masters to treat converted slaves as equal brothers in Christ (Philemon 1:15–16).

The Impact of the Inferiority Myth

—-The perpetuation of the inferiority myth is as much psychological as it is theological, because myths affect the way people think.

educational system

The first thing blacks were taught about our history in school is that we were descendants of slaves who arrived in America from the West Coast of Africa. In contrast, whites were the creators of Western civilization—in Greece, Rome, France, England, and America

—-Rarely were our children taught about the great nations of North, East, and Central Africa, and if they were, they were never taught that all of Africa, including Egypt and Ethiopia, was initially occupied and dominated by blacks.

Churches

—-The Church Perpetuated the Myth The church became another major contributor to the expansion of the myth on both sides. Hiding behind a biblical interpretation based on cultural expediency rather than exegetical integrity, the white church endorsed society’s accepted status of Anglos being superior to African-Americans.

—-Because many Christians presumed that paganism was inherently part of the African’s religion, they looked to the Bible, the sourcebook of the Christian religion, to authenticate the slave industry.

Sociology Reinforced the Myth

—During the era of slavery, landowners granted greater privileges to house slaves who were of lighter skin color than field slaves.

The Family Perpetuated the Myth

—The myth made blacks, at times, wish they were white, and it produced a path of self-destruction and character ridicule within black culture. As a result, African-Americans began to view large noses as a sign of ugliness and natural black hair as unkempt.

Innocent white children were fed the myth of the innate superiority of their own race and, conversely, the ipso facto inferiority of the black race.

The Media Perpetuated the Myth

in the silent film era was The Birth of a Nation. This film unashamedly endorsed white supremacy, portraying the members of the Ku Klux Klan as heroes.

The Church Fathers

Augustine, who was by far the most scholarly and influential of all the church fathers and is known as the Father of Theologians, was not only African, but was most probably also black.

—-Evans, Tony. Oneness Embraced (p. 122). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

What Can We Do?

The Kingdom Agenda Throughout Scripture

Mission of the Kingdom

Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37-40) Matt 22:34-40

Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20)

Great Compassion (Luke 4:18-19)

Kingdom Impact in the Culture – Prophetic

In order to understand the potential impact of the church in a community, we need to look more deeply at what the Bible says about the cause of social upheaval in the life of a community or nation.

1. A national and localized solemn assembly among churches

2. Community-based good works done collectively for greater impact

3. Churches speaking publicly with one unified voice on the significant cultural issues of our day

4. Elevate everyone around the table, given authority, responsibility, accountability

5. Collective Community Impact

• To awaken and initiate the desire for national revival, personal responsibility, spiritual integration, and progressive reformation.

• Developing a national strategy of social impact, scalable and implementable across cultural, geographical, and class lines.

• To increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the mobilization and management of American Christian resources for national kingdom impact.

• Developing a national ongoing prayer movement to support the initiatives.

• Building and promoting collaboration among churches, nonprofits, training institutions, and agencies.

• Facilitate research and discussion on national trends within the various mediums in order to stimulate strategic influence.

• To reduce wasteful duplication of efforts.

• To create a forum for the sharing of strategies and techniques while providing responsible forecasting.

• Producing artistically excellent, compelling means of storytelling to encourage kingdom thinking and personal responsibility through mainstream distribution channels.

• Leveraging social media and YouTube to transform thinking toward national renewal and kingdom values.

• To devise a corporate approach to deal with collective felt needs.

• To encourage thinking about community and national impact as also a local church strategy rather than solely a parachurch strategy.

——-Evans, Tony. Oneness Embraced (pp. 291-292). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

The necessity of urban apologetic

Consider the following quotes from proponents of what are commonly called “Black Conscious” communities:

The so-called Negro must awaken before it is too late. They think the white man’s Christianity will save them regardless of what happens, and they are gravely mistaken. They must know that the white man’s religion is not from God nor from Jesus or any other of the prophets. It is controlled by the white race and not by Almighty Allah (God).

500 years after white slavery, 1,000+ years after Arab slavery it is still evident today as people of African descent are still subjected to more social, economic, and political oppression than any other race in the world. Arabs and Whites today have been known to call black people “monkeys” and “slaves.” 3

Urban apologetics is doing the work of sharing the gospel by giving an answer and a defense of Christianity to Black people in light of the intellectual, emotional, and ethnic identity concerns of minority communities.

And at the core of urban apologetics is a restoration of the imago dei . Racial injustice and inequity have created a complex need to affirm humanity while challenging human sinful pride. Scripture demands that we treat all people as bearers of God’s image (Gen. 1:26–27; James 3:9).

We live in a world of bootleg truth where Black Religious Identity Cults (BRICs) peddle pieces of the truth or promote material they try to pass off as truth.

Most of the ideologies or cults out there have a foundation in the Judeo-Christian worldview.

When BRICs suggest that Christianity is a white religion instituted by white Europeans, many Blacks believe them. Yet in reality, Christianity spread from Jerusalem to Africa and then to Europe. Christianity’s headquarters were in Alexandria, Egypt well before Christendom formed in Rome.

—-Mason, Eric. Urban Apologetics (pp. 32-33). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

After the hopeful promise of freedom from 250 years of brutal enslavement gave way to the nightmarish reality of segregation and racial terror, African Americans in the early twentieth century fought for the survival of their people.

Structural Changes

1. Office of racial reconciliation

2. Ongoing conversation

3. Urban church planting Center

Resources

Evans, Tony. Oneness Embraced (p. 275). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

Mason, Eric. Urban Apologetics (pp. 62-63). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Baucham Jr., Voddie. Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism's Looming Catastrophe (p. 151). Salem Books. Kindle Edition.

The Whitewashing of Christianity: A Hidden Past, A Hurtful Present, and A Hopeful Future Hardcover – June 28, 2021 - by Jerome Gay (Author)