Racial justice rooted in Scripture, evangelical leader says

WACO—Racism permeates human history, but racial justice finds its roots in biblical truth, a national evangelical leader told a conference at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary.

The teaching in Genesis that “every single individual carries the dignity of God’s image” not only is a foundational ethical principle, but also offered a prophetic challenge to a culture that believed only the king bore the divine image, said Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

“By democratizing the image of God, by removing it from the power structure of the king and the royal propaganda of the king, this is not just a bland theological proposition. This was a revolutionary statement—a prophetic challenge to society,” he said. “It is a rebalancing of what I would call image inequality.”

Kim offered the closing keynote address at a conference on Racism in the World Church. Truett Seminary sponsored the Feb. 15-17 event, supported financially by the John and Eula Mae Baugh Foundation.

Racism—the failure to recognize the inherent dignity of each person as made in God’s image—is not just a personal failing, but also a systemic problem, he asserted.

‘A matter of cultures and systems’

“It’s not just a matter of individual image inequality. It’s a matter of cultures and systems,” Kim said. “There’s a concentration of power and imbalance of image in our personal dynamics, but also in the ways we organize culture.”

The story of the tower of Babel in Genesis is both an indictment of human pride and of cultural imperialism as seen in ancient Babylon, he asserted.

“It is the habitual sinful expressions of individuals when they get the upper hand and of dominant cultures to set the terms of what it means to be normal,” Kim said.

Because racism is rooted in human depravity and deeply entrenched in society, Christians who seek to counter racism must commit to “long obedience in the same direction,” he said, borrowing a phrase from Eugene Peterson.

God’s plan always has involved multiple races, ethnic groups and nations, he noted. The people God delivered from Egyptian slavery was “a mixed multitude” that was not limited only to Israelites.

“They had to deal with the challenges of multi-ethnicity right from the get-go,” Kim said.

When God reversed Babel at Pentecost, it involved people representing multiple ethnic and racial groups, he noted. Paul wrote many of the epistles in the New Testament “to address cultural tensions” in churches, he added.

Five factors to keep in mind

As Christians commit to the good work of combating racism, Kim offered five elements to keep in mind:

• Transformation. Changing the human heart is a “supernatural work” of the Holy Spirit. Those who want to see hearts changed about matters of race need to “humbly depend on God.”
• Trust. Shared experiences foster relationships and build trust he said. “You cannot move forward faster than the speed of trust,” Kim said.
• Time. Changing hearts and minds is a slow process that requires persistence.
• Temperature. “Know when the system is overheating and you need to slow down or when it is cooling too much and you need to speed up. That takes extraordinary wisdom,” he said. Recognize collaborative work involves all sorts of people with a variety of gifts and dispositions.
• Trajectory. “We will put into long-term plans what we think is truly important.”

Hearts can change, and lives can be transformed, Kim said, telling the story of a former Ku Klux Klan leader and neo-Nazi who developed a relationship with a Black Holiness preacher that led to his Christian conversion.

“Tell the stories of redemption,” Kim said. “And I suspect that all of eternity will not wear out our wonder at the glorious work of redemption that we—in our small way—can be part of.”

‘A comprehensive ethic’

In a dialogue with Todd Still, dean of Truett Seminary, Kim described the “compelling apologetic” of transformative relationships that bear witness to the truthfulness of the Christian faith.

Christians can persist in the work of confronting racial injustice even when they do not see immediate results if they redefine success in terms of faithfulness, he asserted.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 offers a good model for “comprehensive discipleship” that begins with whole-hearted love for God that is expressed in love for one’s neighbor, as commanded in Leviticus 19:17-18. Discipleship has both individual and social dimensions, he asserted.

“There is no bifurcation,” Kim said. “Discipleship is never just individual. … It is a comprehensive ethic.”