We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Quotes to Chew on: Racial Reconciliation
Jesus perfectly embodied God’s heart for racial reconciliation. For example, most Jews of Jesus’ day despised Samaritans as racially impure and as heretics. They avoided physical or social contact with them if at all possible. Yet Jesus went out of his way to have contact with them, even touching some who were lepers. Moreover, he consistently treated them with respect, even making them the heroes in some of his stories.
Similarly, most Jews of Jesus’ day looked down on Gentiles and had a particular distain for the Romans, the group who ruled Palestine. Yet Jesus treated them as equals. Most remarkably, Jesus was willing to interact with and serve Roman centurions. These were high-ranking officials in the oppressive Roman military and were thus despised by Jews. Jesus went so far as to praise the faith of a Roman centurion as being greater than the faith of any Jew (Matthew 8:5-11)!
This sort of behavior was absolutely scandalous and revolutionary. It reveals that where God reigns, the Powers that fuel racism will be confronted and racial walls will be torn down. Where God reigns, God’s vision for a united human race will be in the process of being reconciled.
Boyd, Gregory A., The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church (pp. 114-115). Zondervan.
Category: General
Tags: Quotes, Racial Reconciliation
Related Reading
Quotes to Chew On: Desires
Marcos de Madariaga via Compfight Here’s a quote that comes to us via Andrew Sullivan’s blog: “We are rarely presented with an authentically fulfilling trajectory for our desires… If we are created for infinite satisfaction, we really only have three choices about what to do with our desire in this life: We will become either…
A Step Toward Racial Reconciliation
In this sermon clip, Greg, as a representative of a white man in America, asks for forgiveness of people of color for all the harm that white America has done. This is not about disparaging whiteness. This is simply about acknowledging the truth of our heritage so that we can make a way for healing,…
The Destiny of God’s People
Jesus represents the realization of God’s glorious dream for humanity. In Christ, we see what we who are in Christ are destined to be. As a stick placed in a river is destined to be carried to whatever body of water the river runs to, so all who have allowed themselves to be drawn by…
Listen and Learn: A First Step Toward Reconciliation
Jesus Christ is not just the Lord, Savior and Messiah of the Jews: he is the Lord, Savior and Messiah of all people. Through Christ a kingdom is being established that tears down tribal walls between races and re-unites and reconciles people together in the love God. Paul makes the point most forcefully. In Ephesians…
Ferguson, Racism, & the Kingdom
In light of the issues that have arisen in Ferguson, Mo this last week (for more on this click here), we thought we would offer some reflections on this topic from Greg that he wrote several years ago. A version of this piece eventually ended up in Greg’s book Myth of a Christian Religion. ___________________________________ Many…
Something Further on Ferguson: I Raise My Hands
Osheta Moore is a friend of ReKnew with a unique Kingdom vision. She is a voice you will want to be listening to. She wrote this sensitive and prophetic piece on her personal response to the death of Michael Brown and the subsequent events in Ferguson called I Raise My Hands: A Prayerful Response to…