Jesus and Racism

 Call me naïve but I am completely sold on the idea that Christ is still the best solution for the present day issues that seem to assail us as citizens of this country that we love. Wait… Before you heap a load of dirty laundry on my stalwart Christian head and bemoan all the evils committed in the name of my cherished religion, I’d like to begin with a happy memory. It is a memory etched as far back in the recesses of my mind as 20 years will take me (1995). I was in a jam-packed café in Durban CBD watching on TV as Francois Pienaar and Nelson Mandela embraced in the middle of a rugby stadium filled with impassioned Springbok fans celebrating their victory of the world cup. Only a South African could have appreciated what it meant for a black struggle veteran (Mandela) to be sharing in the joy of that victory with an Afrikaans rugby player. It was a miracle.

When we refer to the “the South African miracle” I have no doubt that most people use the word “miracle” euphemistically, but it is a good choice of a word all the same. What happened in 1994 with the transition from the oppressively racist rule exercised by a privileged minority to a democratically elected multi-racial new government was nothing less. Thousands of South African’s stood together in prayer for peace, and God answered. As wonderful as that was (and I think we would do well to marvel at that miracle more often) isn’t there even more that Christ can do in South Africa than avert civil war when the Christian’s scramble together to pray? And don’t Christians have more to do to bring this change in South Africa than pray?

Christ has the power to transform race-relations in a manner which is unique to God himself. I have experienced this transformation personally and I think it’ll be helpful to speak from the context of my marriage. As you may know, I married inter-racially. Marrying Zandi was a very big decision for me but that was for all the usual reasons. Her being black wasn’t one of them (although if I’m honest, lobola did come into my financial considerations…) It only occurred to me how unusual it is to marry cross-culturally in South Africa afterwards, as I have experienced the varied and surprising responses of other South Africans when they meet my wife and I together. Maybe you were one of the perplexed onlookers? If so then you are quite clearly a racist.

I have since thought long and hard about how Christ brought about this “new normal” in us. I am not suggesting that I was at one time a raging racist and that when I prayed God made me colour-blind. I think God’s kingdom often comes more gently than that. Our children will hear racist talk from others, but in our own homes they must see something different. As a child whenever we discussed racism as a family it was spoken of as something unloving and un-Christ-like. More than that, people in our church family who were browner than us were no less family because of it, they were around our dinner table as much as any other. As a consequence of this it is when I encounter racism that I am surprised and dismayed, not the reverse.

It’s more than race though. I think it’s the things that make us different from each other as people which have great potential to divide us. This is the crux of the matter and it is on this point that I must be vulnerable and share my own short-comings. Sometimes as I travel down the street or look out of my apartment window and I see a man with scraggly hair and smelly, tattered clothing rummaging through the bins and eating whatever tossed away food that he chances upon, I look into his puffy, sun-burned face and see the wildness in his eyes and for a brief moment I am revolted and scared and I think of myself as more valuable and more important than he is. After a few moments I become aware of what I have done and I am ashamed. God’s Spirit reminds me that I am looking at a brother. I am looking at a man created by God with infinite loving care and finesse. Immediately I repent towards God and something wonderful begins to happen. My heart fills with love and compassion and I begin to think of how things could be and should be and I am grateful that I am thinking as Christ does once again.

This is the power of Christ for change in our societies. It is when I as a child of God am able to recognize the infinite worth and beauty in someone so different to me not because they are familiar or because I understand what it is like to be them or to be in their culture but because I recognize a fellow child of God. I attribute worth to people who are different to me because God has declared that they are valuable to Him.

That is not to say people will not and do not use religion to justify their own prejudice. However, whatever masqueraders have gone about inflicting violence and spewing hatred in the name of God have failed to recognize that we are all descendants of the same two parents and we are all made in the image of God – with no distinction. We are all saved through the sacrificial death of Christ and ransomed to spend an eternity in heaven as one giant mixed family. There is no zoning according to the Group Areas Act in heaven, just one massive house with many rooms.

As Christians we have much work to do in our country which is increasingly being torn apart at its racial seams. There are dark under-currents of hatred brewing. Our task is more simple than it might seem. We need to pray. We need to pray for strong leaders to rise again who exemplify the kind of Christ-like love that Madiba displayed. More than that we need to pray for our own hearts to be transformed in the way we value people who we don’t yet understand. We need to be radical in our repentance when we allow fear to motivate our actions toward others rather than the love of our heavenly Father. I am very encouraged at how often Church is a place of true family but I am pressed by the urgency that, now more than ever, we need to truly represent heaven on earth in the way that we relate to our brothers and sisters no matter our socio-economic, racial, cultural or whatever other differences we may have.