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one race

In a June 18, 2020 letter to students, staff, alumni and their families, Hillsdale College wrote:

“There is a kind of virtue that is cheap. It consists of jumping on cost-free bandwagons of public feeling—deeply justified public feeling—and winning approval by espousing the right opinion. The fact that very real racial problems are now being cynically exploited for profit, gain, and public favor by some organizations and people is impossible to overlook. It is a scandal and a shame that compounds our ills and impedes their correction.”
The church is far from perfect. Yet it must insistently proclaim divine grace is the only remedy for the destructiveness of sin in the world. The church, though it often manipulates sociology in pursuit of success, must pursue the apostle Paul’s radical egalitarianism which set aside race and wealth and gender. Christianity identifies all followers of Jesus as children of God. We are one race—brothers and sisters, equal before God.

Voddie Bauchman claims our culture’s concept of race is artificial, pointing out that in the Bible there is only one race—the human race. Indeed, our cultural concept of race is the residue of slavery and colonialism.

Especially in the Christian West, colonialists and slave-holders shared a problem. They needed to justify their injustice. Colonialists needed an explanation for controlling other ethnic groups. Slave-holders needed an explanation for enslaving humans. Race was the argument they developed. Africans were a “slave race” who thrived best under masters. Asians and Native Americans were “inferior races” needing to be controlled.

I’m confused why advocates for justice insist on using terms and identities born out of injustice.

The apostle Paul wrote that in the church ethnic and cultural differences are inconsequential. In the church the master serves along side the slave, kosher is ignored, patriarchy is left at the door.

What to do?
Bethany Hamilton writes, “In difficult times like these, God calls us to pray. Prayer is calling upon our gracious & powerful God to heal brokenness, to bring justice where it is needed, and to bring equality. Prayer is not a last resort, it is what we should be doing at all times.”

Prayer changes things. Prayer changes the person who prays. ~

Blessings,
Dan Nygaard