D. A. Carson: church must not be “kicking and screaming” against racial reconciliation

D. A. Carson is acknowledged widely as one of today’s foremost conservative evangelical scholars, certainly in New Testament scholarship, and certainly among Reformed Baptists. His commentary on the Gospel of John is considered among the very finest. His book Exegetical Fallacies and collaborative Introduction to the New Testament are required reading for seminarians all over the world, probably even at The Master’s Seminary. He has authored so many books I will not even try to list them all.

But Dr. Carson is no mere academician. His grasp of the gospel and teachings of the New Testament are strong and he has applied them in various works again too numerous to mention. In some cases, he is downright challenging and perhaps a little ahead of the conservative status quo.

I was certainly surprised, happily, at his comments on racism and social justice in his book Love in Hard Places. I’d like to cover a few of the more pressing ones briefly here with you.

Love demands self-control

Carson’s concluding comments need to be emphasized here at the outset: “certainly we must not be perceived to be knee-jerk reactionaries who are dragged into racial reconciliation kicking and screaming, bringing up the end of the pack, the last to be persuaded” (p. 107). The sad truth is that for the majority of their existence, the conservative Protestant and Evangelical churches have only arisen to the level of being dragged kicking and screaming at their better moments. Much of the time was instead fierce opposition.

Carson’s elucidation of the problem answers those who would argue that “slavery ended 150 years ago!” and “Jim Crow ended 60 years ago!” so why should racial healing be any concern of ours today? Carson answers with good insight:

Because of the many legal sanctions now in place, some forget the bitter degradation of the Jim Crow culture. The attitudes wedded to the Jim Crow culture have not everywhere been expunged. I suspect that most European-Americans have very little understanding of the cumulative destructive power of the little degradations that almost all African-Americans, especially older African-Americans, have experienced—to say nothing of the less common but still too frequent threats, racial profiling, and frankly illegal (to say nothing of immoral) injustices they have suffered (p. 94).

This is crucial for two reasons. First, it acknowledges that while some laws ended, the attitudes and hatreds and feelings of white supremacy or superiority did not always end. These attitudes not only continued throughout that generation, but are stoked and still glow hot with some people today. The recognition that while the laws changed many hearts have not focuses us on a real source of real problems which in many cases is situated right in our pews on Sundays.

Secondly, these resonating attitudes can manifest within the same power structures as before, only now surreptitiously under the color of legality. These are very difficult to detect, and even more difficult to prove and to root out. Carson acknowledges this when he lists the “racial profiling, and frankly illegal . . . injustices” minorities suffer today. These, again, are real problems that only allow for the continuance of resentment, and that only breeds even greater social and political problems down the road.

For these reasons, among others, Carson’s discussion calls us to intense self-reflection. This will include reflection of how we ourselves speak and act, but also how we view the continuation of a variety of social ills which originate in pervasive racial attitudes in positions and structures of power. Dare we use the word “systemic” here? Because that’s exactly what is meant by it.

The church must lead

Since the church possesses the oracles of God, the promises of God, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, it would seem natural that changes begin here. Yet Carson must devote considerable space to problems of racial unity that not only took place there historically, but which persist there. Even in cases where churches show more integrated diversity, it still seems that the world is ahead of the church in this regard, and the church is merely following.

Discussing why some churches are already well integrated and others are not, Carson adds,

Not for a moment am I suggesting that no racism operates in our churches. . . . But the issues are complex, and the relationships between the culture and the local church have many layers. There is an urgent need for fresh biblical and theological reflection on many of these questions (p. 97).

This need is especially apparent when many churches are so far behind that even the most fundamental questions might raise eyebrows:

[M]any a white church in a mixed-race community is full of people who honestly think they are above racism and yet who have people who have never once fully tried to understand what it would be like for a black family to come into their church. “Of course they’re welcome,” these fine folk might protest. “Anyone is welcome here.” But all it takes is for one member to say something really insensitive, and all of the courage it took to walk in the door dissolves in disgust and a sense of victimization. Would a white member who indulged in such condescending malice face church discipline? Would the black newcomers be invited to white homes and treated as peers? And if there are economic disparities as well, would there be any reflection on the fact that some white/black economic disparity is a function of years of discrimination that, morally speaking, ought to be vehemently opposed by concerned Christians? Moreover, if the black couple visiting the white church has a teenage boy who asks a white girl out on a date, what will be the response? (pp. 100–101).

Carson’s suspicions here are, sadly, not ill-founded. Is our love cold? Is our view of the gospel so perverted that we think our blood is more powerful than Christ’s? Are our obedience to the Great Commission and our love for the brethren really so weak as to fall powerless at the Great Wall of ethnicity?

Power and a passion for justice

Carson’s conclusion of the need for greater love finds application in the need for those of us in position of greater power (majority) to lead the charge for greater justice:

I doubt we shall improve much in Christian circles until the parties with the most power reflect a lot more than in the past on matters of justice, and the parties most victimized reflect a lot more than in the past on forgiveness. . . . All of us need to return to the cross. For the cross teaches us that if all we ask for is justice, we are all damned; it teaches us that God himself is passionately interested in forgiveness and its practice. . . . Both justice and mercy cry out for more examination. . . . (pp. 101–102).

People can haggle over the finer points of the definition of the word “racism,” but what really matters now is whether those who have more power are willing to serve and sacrifice for those of our brethren who don’t. What matters is whether we have a passion for justice, and are ready to turn that passion into real, physical, relational solutions.

Thus, when Carson discusses the need for a passion for justice, he does not hesitate to acknowledge it has real, practical manifestations:

Most discussions recognize the distinction between retributive justice and distributional justice—the justice that punishes the miscreant and the justice that tackles structural evils that control and manipulate the weak. . . . But whatever our disagreements on the pragmatic outworkings of justice, the passion for justice must characterize all who claim to serve a just God . . . . and we had better be more interested in effective results than in the slogans of the party faithful (p. 102).

I certainly won’t follow Carson if he thinks any kind of government program of redistribution of wealth is the answer, but it certainly does not scare me to discuss “distributive” justice in general, for that can simply mean the need for private, charitable solutions from Christian individuals and churches. This most definitely is God’s law for us today.

Do we have a “passion for justice,” and are we willing to get pragmatic about it, to the point we see results?

This will be a difficult question and meditation for many people, and that fact in and of itself is unfortunate. The fact that this last sentence or its conclusion are even remotely controversial lead me to embrace, strongly, Carson’s closing thoughts for his section on race:

[W]e who are Christians must be constantly on guard against all forms of cultural and ethnic pride (especially in our own hearts) that mark out others as intrinsically inferior. . . . And although the ways in which we will live out the gospel mandate of becoming one new humanity may take somewhat different shapes in different subcultures, we must be doing something to realize that gospel goal; certainly we must not be perceived to be knee-jerk reactionaries who are dragged into racial reconciliation kicking and screaming, bringing up the end of the pack, the last to be persuaded (pp. 107, 108).

If the church—you and me—remain last on such an obvious issue, I wonder what good we are to begin with, really. Are you ready to take this issue seriously?

Continuing to say, “Let’s just preach the Gospel,” “That’s outside the concern of the Gospel,” or, “Those are worldly concerns,” would indicate that not only are we are not, but the have not yet even willing to listen and learn. Love demands more of us.

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Joel McDurmon is president of American Vision and author of The Problem of Slavery in Christian America.

A longer version of this article appeared previously here.

Notes:

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American Vision’s mission is to Restore America to its Biblical Foundation—from Genesis to Revelation. American Vision (AV) has been at the heart of worldview study since 1978, providing resources to exhort Christian families and individuals to live by a Biblically based worldview. Visit www.AmericanVision.org for more information, content and resources