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: How First Century Jews Came to Worship a Man
“Legends do not generally arise in contradiction to fundamental convictions held by the culture of those who create and embrace them. Yet if the Jesus story is largely a fictitious legend, this is exactly what we must suppose happened. We submit that the initial historical implausibility of this supposition should be enough for us seriously…
Part 9 (of 15): Peterson on White Privilege
Assessing Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life by Greg Boyd “The degree to which the terrible part of the world manifests itself in your life is proportionate to how insufficient you are….If you got your act together completely, maybe all the suffering would disappear from your life, or at least all the unbearable suffering.” Jordan…
Why Racial Reconciliation Matters
In Psalm 72, the author prays for a day when “all kings” would “bow down” to God’s anointed and when “all nations” would “serve him” (vs. 11). At this time, the Psalmist continues, God’s king will deliver “the needy who cry out” and save “the afflicted who have no one to help.” He will “take…
Quotes to Chew On: Religious Violence
“The myth of religious violence promotes a dichotomy between us in the secular West who are rational and peacemaking, and them, the hordes of violent religious fanatics in the Muslim world. Their violence is religious, and therefore irrational and divisive. Our violence, on the other hand, is rational, peacemaking, and necessary. Regrettably, we find ourselves forced to bomb them into the higher rationality.” ~William Cavanaugh,…
The Coming Kingdom & Racial Conflict
In the book of Revelation, we see a glimpse into the future. John says he saw, …a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And…
Jesus & Racial Reconciliation
Lorenia via Compfight If you were to read an account today of a white man offering his front row seat on a public bus to an elderly African American lady, you’d probably think this was a nice gesture, but nothing more. However, if you learned that the event happened in Birmingham Alabama in 1955, you’d…