Race
RACE
Another Cause of Sin—Race Prejudice
Amos 9:7; Luke 4:22-29; Acts 10:84-85; Colossians 3:11
Race prejudice is self-starvation. . . .
[In India,] I opened the door of my heart to the people of another race and of a different color of skin, and outside of the influence of Christ. It has proved to be the most enriching experience of my life. What love, what friendships, what wisdom, what Christlikeness, what nobility have come to me during these years through that open door!
Victorious Living
(Week 23, Sunday)
Concerning Class and Race Relations
Colossians 3:10-11; Acts 10:34-35; 17:26
[Regarding] your class and race relationships. Perhaps class feeling and race feeling, not Christ, have been determining your conduct.
The Way
(Week 12, Wednesday)
Unity of All Races
Ephesians 2:11-13; Acts 10:28
Unity of all races: “All who believed were together” (Acts 2:44). If we look at the races present in that “together,” we will see that the whole of that ancient world was represented: Mesopotamia, Africa and Europe (see vv. 9-11). All races and all colors were represented in that togetherness. Under the Spirit’s touch, humankind felt its essential kinship and its essential oneness. They looked on people of another race, not as a problem, but as a possibility. A new sense of the worthwhileness of a person as a person had come into life.
We are now discovering that the differences between races is not inherent, but cultural. Given the same stimulus, the races will come out at about the same place. The differences are in the cultural inheritance and the response to that inheritance. There are no permanently superior races, and there are no permanently inferior races.
The Way to Power and Poise
(Week 20, Sunday)
Not Solved, but Dissolved
Acts 19:18-20
Lord, I thank you for the fellowship of those who care, care without regard to race or class. Help me to find such a fellowship, or make one, by caring beyond race and class. Amen.
The Way to Power and Poise
(Week 48, Saturday)
Genesis 3:8-13
The laws of God don’t listen to our attempted evasions. They are color-blind, class-blind, race-blind, religion-blind. We don’t break them; we break ourselves on them.
How to Be a Transformed Person
(Week 1, Wednesday)
The We in Race Relations
Galatians 3:26-28
We continue to look at the transformation from the they−I relationship to the we relationship.
This is at the basis of our race difficulties; we are trying to live on a they−I basis instead of a we relationship. We are prepared to be kind to other races, but not to be just. To be kind keeps up the they–I relationship; you’re the bountiful patron, and they are the recipients. To be just would put both on the same footing, set up a we relationship.
Even in Christian missions, this they–I relationship is sometimes continued. In Africa, at a tea party, the white missionaries sat on one side and the Africans on the other. I couldn’t stand this they–I business and went over and sat with the Africans. One of them said to me afterward, “You’re a white native, aren’t you?” With a lump in my throat I replied, “I’d like to be.” . . .
The race problem is no longer a problem if we inwardly say we instead of they–I. The problem then is not race, but in our attitudes toward race.
How to Be a Transformed Person
(Week 37, Saturday)
The Mastery of Race Distinctions
Matthew 23:9-10; Luke 2:28-32
The coming of the Holy Spirit dissolved the distinctions based on race. The new society that emerged was color-blind and race-blind—a new race made up of all races.
Mastery
(Week 10, Thursday)
I Believe the Bible, All Except. . . .
Luke 13:28-30
God didn’t argue the equal worth of all races before him. God did something more profound and gave to all races the same gift, the gift of the Holy Spirit. That simple fact did more to abolish race prejudices and distinctions than all the exhortations of moralists and the disquisitions of philosophers put together. It was a fact that couldn’t be argued. It had to be accepted—or rejected, saying God was wrong. Some do. A friend from India was speaking in America and quoted the passage “[God] hath made of one blood all nations” (Acts 17:26 KJV). A man arose and said: “I believe the Bible—all except that verse.” . . .
God knew what he was doing in giving the Holy Spirit equally to all, for down underneath is one basic humanity modified slightly by environment.
Mastery
(Week 10, Saturday)
The American Way of Dealing with Race
Matthew 5:21-24
America’s prestige in the world will be decided by the African American’s prestige in America. They will be equal.
The church must lead the way. Now it is leading verbally but not vitally. For the greatest hour of segregation in American life is eleven o’clock Sunday morning. Churches are the greatest illustration of segregation in American life. We come together in conferences and conventions, but in the basic life of individual churches segregation is in operation—with few exceptions. For years I have been pleading that every white church have at least one African American member and every African American church at least one white member. That wouldn’t solve the problem, but it would be a symbol that we believe in and live in a kingdom that is class-blind and color-blind, seeing only persons—persons for whom Christ died.
Mastery
(Week 11, Monday)
A New Race Made up of All Races
Colossians 3:10-11
[Another] characteristic mark of the New Testament Church as seen in the church at Antioch . . . : the church was without race and class—a raceless and classless society. . . .
This church was a church beyond race. A new race was emerging, made up of all races. . . .
In the early church there was no division on the line of race—a person was a man, a person for whom Christ died. They had the kingdom of God, and we have the kingdom of Race.
A religion that is identified with the superiority or the supremacy of one race is a backward eddy in the stream of history where people of all races and all colors flow toward oneness in community.
Mastery
(Week 20, Tuesday)
Smarter Than I Am
Revelation 7:9-10
I asked a little girl of ten, daughter of missionaries in Malaya, whether she liked her school in which there were all races, and she replied, “Yes, I like it very much, for it gives me an opportunity to study along with Asian children and to know them.” And then she added, “Some of them are very smart, smarter than I am.” That child was mature in her attitudes, far more mature than many of the older generation who draw the line of fellowship with other races and narrow themselves in the process.
A white Georgia boy, when asked if he favored the coming of black children into white schools, replied, “Yes, of course. That will give us an opportunity to give them the same privileges that we have had.” That boy was more mature in his attitudes than are those who see in other races problems rather than possibilities. The future belongs to that boy and what he represents.
Christian Maturity
(Week 5, Tuesday)
Fellowship with Other Christians
Luke 9:49-50
Those who are out of fellowship with God and people are immature, undeveloped human beings. The measure of our maturity can be and is measured by the breadth and depth of our capacity for fellowship. We are as mature as our fellowships. So if we cannot fellowship with other races, we reveal our immaturity. All segregation segregates into immaturity those who segregate. The payoff is in the person.
This statement holds good in regard to our capacity for fellowship with other Christians. If we can fellowship only with those who belong to our group, our denomination, or our particular set of doctrinal beliefs, then in such measure we are immature. What, then, is the basis of our fellowship? One thing and one thing only: everyone who belongs to Christ belongs to everyone who belongs to Christ. The basis of our fellowship is not around this doctrine, that doctrine, the other doctrine; or around this group, that group, or the other group. It is around Christ and only around Christ.
Christian Maturity
(Week 5, Thursday)
Christianity and Race
Luke 4:18-21
There are many people, otherwise mature, who are quite immature in regard to race. And it is a costly immaturity.
Before we examine it, let us look at our Christian faith to see what its attitudes are, for we are taking our standards on maturity from that faith.
In the time of Christ there was great tension between Jew and Gentile. But it was said by Simeon, in his inspired prophecy, that Jesus would be “a light to lighten the Gentiles” (Luke 2:32 KJV), or “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” (RSV). This light would reveal the Gentiles and their worthwhileness and their possibilities. That was the keynote struck in the very beginning; people of other races were not to be problems but possibilities.
This was followed up by Jesus, when he announced his program in the little synagogue at Nazareth: “good news to the poor”—the socially and politically disinherited, “recovering of sight to the blind”—the physically disinherited, “set at liberty those who are oppressed”—the morally and spiritually disinherited, “proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19). This was a fresh world beginning, based on the Jewish year of jubilee; every fifty years all slaves were freed, all debts canceled, all land redistributed. The people “wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth” (v. 22). But Jesus went on and let them know how far he intended to go: there were many widows in Israel but the prophet was sent to a Gentile widow; there were many lepers in Israel but the prophet was sent to a Gentile leper. This program of total redemption was to go to a person as a person, apart from race. The atmosphere changed; they were all “filled with wrath” (v. 28). It was too big for their small hearts.
Christian Maturity
(Week 29, Thursday)
Some Doomed to Inferiority?
Luke 4:25-30
We are looking at the Christian attitude toward race. Paul, a narrow Pharisee, having inherited all the Jewish racial exclusiveness in an intensified form, comes into contact with Jesus and then writes this amazing sentence: “[In Jesus Christ] there is neither Greek nor Jew”—race distinction, “barbarian nor Scythian”—cultural distinction, “slave nor free”—social and economic distinction, “male nor female”—gender distinction (see Col 3:11; Gal 3:28). All these distinctions were wiped out, and a person was looked on apart from race, birth, color, position, and gender. A person was a person for whom Christ died. No greater leveling-up proposal and power has ever been presented to humankind than this. This is the authentic Christian position. Departures from it are sub-Christian and anti-Christian, even though they may be made in the name of the Christian religion. The burning of a cross in the name of race hatred is burning Jesus at the stake.
Some, in their desperation to find Scriptural support for their racism, turn to passages like the one in Genesis in which Noah cursed Canaan, son of Ham, saying: “A slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers” (9:25). And what had Canaan done to deserve this curse? His father, Ham, saw Noah drunk and uncovered in his tent and went and told his brothers, and they walked backward and covered Noah with a blanket. Noah awoke from his drunkenness and uttered this curse. God had nothing to do with it. A drunken man uttered the curse as he came out of his stupor. To get one’s racial attitudes from the curse of a drunken man is to gain doubtful backing. If God would doom a whole race to slavery because of what Ham did there, then that God would be my devil.
The Christian position in regard to the person of color is this: “Symeon who was called Niger” (literally, “the Black”) was a prophet or a teacher in the church at Antioch, and he laid his hands on Paul and Barnabas that they should go and preach the gospel to white Europe (Acts 13:1-3). Paul was ordained by a Black man. This is the position of Christianity; it is color-blind. Christianity sees only a person for whom Christ died.
Christian Maturity
(Week 29, Friday)
The Bell Is Tolling, the Tide Is Rolling In
Acts 10:28, 34, 43-44
We continue this week to meditate upon the text: “I saw thrones, and [people] sat upon them” (Rev 20:4 KJV).
The social revolution is on. The people as people are arising everywhere, tired of being downtrodden and exploited. The Communists did not produce that social revolution. They have betrayed it, betrayed it by turning it into channels of suppression and compulsion. We must rescue it and tum it into channels of freedom and democracy. It cannot be turned back; it can only be directed. Said a African American minister, in regard to the Supreme Court decision and the opposition to integration: “The bell is tolling, the tide is rolling in, and you can’t stop it anymore than you can stop the flow of Hampton Roads [Virginia waterway] with your two hands.”
I picked up my morning paper and read that the legislature of a certain state voted that “state funds shall be cut off from any integrated school.” My guess is that the children, or at most the grandchildren, of the people who so voted will look back with laughter on that voting, as an un-American, undemocratic, and unchristian attempt to turn back the clock.
Christian Maturity
(Week 30, Sunday)
“These Boys Right Out of the Bush”
Acts 4:13-14
We must now face a question that lies back of the unwillingness to grant equality of opportunity to all. And the question is this: Isn’t it true that there are inherently inferior races and inherently superior races and that these differences are fixed and unalterable? My experience as I have mingled with all races for many years has brought me to a different conclusion. I am convinced that there are no permanently superior races and no permanently inferior races. Given the same stimulus and the same incentive, the brain of humanity will come out about the same.
Christian Maturity
(Week 30, Wednesday)
One Blood All Nations
Amos 9:7; Acts 8:27-29
We said yesterday that there are infinite possibilities in every person, of every race; that exposed to the same stimulus and given the same incentives, the human brain will come out about the same. There is one blood in humanity: “[God] hath made of one blood all nations” (Acts 17:26 KJV). A friend from India speaking in America quoted that passage, and a member of the audience arose and said: “I believe in the whole Bible, all except that verse.” But his disbelief could not turn back the facts of science. Under the microscope there is one blood. You might have a blood transfusion from a person of another race who has the same type of blood as you have, while the blood of your biological brother might be unsuitable. So you might be nearer in blood to a person of another race than to your own brother.
Christian Maturity
(Week 30, Thursday)
This Property Not for Sale
Acts 11:8-12
To be prejudiced against people because of their race and color is as sensible as the attitude of the woman who said she would not vote for a candidate because she didn’t like the way he combed his hair. . . .
The future belongs to the white Georgia boy who said, “Of course, let the Blacks attend our schools. Then they will have the same opportunity as we have and we can help to lift them.” That boy is in line with the wave of the future. He is mature in his outlook and judgments. Those who stand against equal opportunity for all are immature.
When a respectable black man moved into a block of all white people in St. Louis, six signs went up on property in that block: “For Sale.” Then this sign went up on the largest and finest home on the block: “This property is not for sale. We welcome to our neighborhood any person who is of good character and intends to keep up his property. We do not inquire into a man’s politics, race, or religion—only his character.” In a few days all the other six signs came down. That man was mature.
Christian Maturity
(Week 30, Saturday)
A Church That Cared
Acts 15:7-11
The social prejudices die hard. A man went to his pastor and said, “If you lay off your emphasis on race justice, here is a check with five numbers.” The pastor left the man with his check and kept his soul. He was a Christian; he could do no other. For the Christian faith is class-blind and race-blind.
The Word Became Flesh
(Week 35, Wednesday)