Racism

I grew up with an awesome grandfather. He could build anything. He could solve any problem. He could tell stories like no other. It was just a minor wrinkle that he smoked so much that he died from emphysema, he drank so much that he permanently smelled of alcohol, and he never saw a black person who he did not call the n word.

I grew up in a world quiet different from the world my grandfather grew up in. He was born just around the time of  World War 1 and grew up in a very segregated society. I grew up in an inner city neighborhood in Fort Worth and attended schools that were racially diverse. My friends at school were white, latino, black, asian, middle eastern, and who knows what else.

I remember the first time I began to realize that my world view was significantly different than my grandfather's when he picked me up from middle school when I was in 6th grade. I jumped up into his '73 orange and white Chevy truck and he began to go on and on about how many n...'s there were at my school and making sure I knew how worthless they were. I remember not knowing what to say because I loved my grandfather but I was also shocked he was assigning a stereotypical value to everyone with dark skin at my school when I knew for a fact that some of the black kids were awesome while some of them were bad news just as was the case with my white, latino, asian, and middle eastern friends.  

Racism is assigning a stereotypical value to an entire group of people which typically denigrates that group allowing justification for inferior and inappropriate treatment. Traditionally we have associated racism as something done by a white person toward a black person as I observed at a church I served with in  in 2002 when an elder of that church told me how wonderful it was that my youth group had experienced dramatic growth but I needed to make sure the black teens didn't come to 'our' church but went to church across town because that's where 'their kind' went.

However we often forget that racism can flow in any direction.

My father was a public employee with the city of Fort Worth when I was growing up. We were dirt poor because of his job with the city. The goal within the city of Fort Worth at that time was to hire people based upon the color of their skin and the preferred color was black. Since my father was white he was bounced lower and lower within the ranks of city employees with consequent pay decreases. The only reason he stayed on his job was because he didn't have enough confidence to go find another job and he knew he would have good retirement benefits if he stuck it out. Consequently I have had an intuitive sense for most of my life that racism is something that can flow any direction.

But racism does not stop at the color of skin.

I have been shocked the last few years at the aggressive stance people are taking toward Christians and Christianity. I was reading a news story earlier this week and the comments at the end of the story contained people ranting about how Christianity needs to be stamped out because all it has brought us is the Crusades and Nazi killings. Let's not kid ourselves, coming to believe that all Christians are lunatic killers like the Nazi's is racism. In the same way belief that all Muslims are terrorists is also racism. We supposedly live in an enlightened culture but in reality all that is occurring is that we are switching racism from one group to another. It's a most confusing and challenging proposition to keep from becoming mired in the muck of racism or from allowing the pendulum to swing so far that in order to avoid racism we throw out all rational thought and discernment.

Racism is now no longer limited to beliefs but also behaviors.

Our culture has begun to view sexual issues as something in which discrimination can occur in ways that it did not do in previous generations. This stretches the idea of racism to be more than simply stereotyping people based upon race but upon behaviors as well.

The Christian response to sexual issues has traditionally been to reject any behavior that was understood as sinful and consequently to reject anyone who continued to engage in this sinful sexual activity. This stance in the past was accepted and/or tolerated by society but we are rapidly moving into a time period in which our society no longer is willing to allow Christians to reject someone based upon their behavior.

What is funny to me about the issue of the acceptance or rejection of sexual behaviors by Christianity is the manner in which it has been applied. There seems to be a different set of rules based upon whether something is public or private. Through the years I have observed that anyone in the church who publicly proclaims they are engaging in sexual behaviors that are not Biblically acceptable are condemned while anyone who privately engaged in these behaviors without public proclamation are viewed with an attitude that says we don't like it but it's ultimately between you and God. To illustrate, two of the churches I have worked with in the past knew of sexual behavior of a member that violated Biblical standards but was not publicly known. The response of the leaders of those churches was to take aggressive steps to keep that behavior secret (primarily to protect their own reputation), not to exclude that person or to work to bring about transformation in their behavior.

My hypothesis is that the tension being created in the Christian community today about accepting certain sexual behaviors/lifestyles are actually centered around the desire for these lifestyles to be known in the public arena instead of being held in the private arena. In that sense nothing has changed because people, Christians and non Christians alike, have always engaged in behavior that was not accepted or acceptable. The reality is people, Christians and non Christians alike, will do what they want to do regardless of  what anyone says. Do we then exclude everyone except those who are living 'right'? Hmmm... If we reject everyone who is not living perfectly then ultimately every single person, both in the Christian community and outside the Christian community, would be excluded because none of us live perfectly. That is why Jesus Christ did what he did- we can't be good enough to redeem ourselves from sin, that's his job.

Perhaps there is no need for the Christian community to panic about the possibility of being accused of being  racist toward someone based upon their sexual orientation or practices. Perhaps instead of condemning people because they want to live a certain lifestyle publicly we treat them the same way we did when they lived that lifestyle privately- we offer them grace and mercy acknowledging their life is ultimately something that is between them and God. Perhaps we should stop thinking we are god and allow God to be God by trusting that the Holy Spirit will work in and through the lives of those that seek Him. Perhaps the Christian community should work to privately connect one one one with people, both Christian and non Christian alike,  allowing the Holy Spirit to guide our hearts and actions and words to that person instead of speaking publicly a message of condemnation.  Perhaps racism in all of its various forms is a profoundly confusing problem indicating the evil one is actively at work bringing confusion to everyone- Christian and non Christian alike.