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
Reversing Babel
Several generations after the flood, we read in Gen 11 how humans were still living in one locale and had one common language and culture. Then someone came up with the brilliant idea that they should construct an enormous tower that would reach “to the heavens” in order to make a name for themselves and…
“…citizens of the kingdom of God need to take care to distinguish…” [Quotes]
“…citizens of the kingdom of God need to take care to distinguish between their core faith and values on the one hand and the particular way they politically express their faith and values on the other.”
Is Racism Still a Problem? Does the Church Care?
Cliff via Compfight On Friday, we posted a piece by Greg on the importance of racial reconciliation in the Kingdom of God. (Click here to read it.) This is a part of the Synchro blog for MennoNerds on Race. Watch this video for more on the topic. The following is an illustration taken from an…
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…
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…
Christena Cleveland on Practices for Sociological Imagination
Christena Cleveland recently sat down with Tod Bolsinger (Vice President for Formation and Vocation at Fuller Theological Seminary) to discuss the intersection of privilege and leadership. You can find a series of short videos capturing different aspects of this conversation here. Today we wanted to share one of these videos with you. We hope you’ll take the time to…