The events in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 12 shocked most Americans as the despicable evil of racism burst back into the headlines of America’s news outlets. A demonstration ostensibly called to protest the removal of Confederate monuments in Charlottesville’s Emancipation Park turned into a rally for white racism.
Before the day ended one was dead, 19 critically hurt and scores injured.
Racism is not a new plague. Fifty years ago the struggle to overcome this sin engulfed much of the nation including Alabama. More recently racism has been witnessed in places like Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland. It has been seen in Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit. The evil seems to live in many of society’s structures as well as in the minds and hearts of individuals.
Southern Baptists added another dimension. In 2016 Southern Baptists publicly acknowledged that racism also exists in “our churches.”
Racism is not a uniquely American problem. It is a worldwide dilemma. Humans everywhere seem intent on defining themselves by race, ethnicity, country of origin, tribe, religion and more. The human race seems uniquely gifted at building walls to separate and particularly clumsy at tearing down walls of division.
But pointing to problems in other places does not diminish the predicament faced in this nation. Nor does it lessen the problem of racism in the South and in Alabama.
Race relations in the South
According to the 2010 national census, 55 percent of African-Americans live in the South. A total of 105 southern counties have black populations of 50 percent or more and 300 southern counties have black populations ranging between 25 and 49.9 percent. In terms of numbers alone, race relations is an issue which those of us in the South must face.
The 2016–2017 demographics show African-Americans make up about 26 percent of Alabama’s population.
According to a June 2015 article in al.com, the state is also home to at least 18 separate white supremacy groups. Those two facts alone indicate racism is something Alabama must face no matter what happens in the rest of the nation.
Thankfully, Southern Baptists are on the right side of history and, more importantly, on the right side of scriptural teaching as Baptist Christians and others work through this Gordian knot of race relations. That has not always been the case as admitted in a 1995 Southern Baptist Convention resolution in which Southern Baptists apologized to African-Americans “for condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism.”
Messengers that year denounced racism, in all its forms, as “deplorable sin.”
That point cannot be over emphasized. Genesis 1:27, 3:20 and Acts 17:26 make it clear that God created all people in His image from the first couple. All bear the image of God and deserve respect. 1 John 2:2 teaches that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world. Revelation 5:9 says God is reconciling to Himself people from every tribe, tongue and nation.
The apostle John wrote, “For God so loved the world … .” The apostle Peter said, “God doesn’t show favoritism but in every nation the person who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him” (Acts 10:34–35).
In Galatians 3:27–28, the apostle Paul reminded that justification before God is based on faith in Christ alone, not in ethnicity. In Ephesians 2:15–16, he wrote God has made believers one in Christ and that believers stand together in faith.
‘Of every nation’
According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus’ final words on this earth charged His followers to make disciples “of every nation.”
Southern Baptists said in 2015 that “racism is sin because it disregards the image of God in all people and denies the truth of the gospel that believers are all one in Him.” It is idolatry because racism elevates part of creation (pigmentation of skin) to a place belonging only to God.
Our world has witnessed the horrors of racism. In World War II the Japanese called themselves a “divine race” free to abuse and enslave all they could conquer.
Germany called itself the “master race.” It wasn’t white supremacy. It was Teutonic supremacy. Other whites — Sloves, Anglo-Saxons, etc. — were inferior and deserving of rule by their “masters.” It would be interesting to see how many of today’s Neo-Nazis Hitler would have carted off to concentration camps.
History is filled with examples that ideologies based on racial superiority lead only to wreck and ruin.
Racism and white supremacy are wrong. They are wrong theologically. They are wrong morally. They are wrong socially.
SBC resolution
That is why Southern Baptists earlier this year condemned “every form of racism, including alt-right white supremacy, as antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ.” The resolution went further. It called racism and ethnic hatred “a scheme of the devil intended to bring suffering and division to our society.”
Alabama Baptists have not been silent on this subject. Through resolutions messengers have called “racism in all its forms contrary to the gospel” and condemned racism as sin.
Condemning racism is not enough. Alabama Baptists urged fellow believers to “work for reconciliation and healing.”
Another resolution urged Alabama Baptists to “intentionally seek to destroy barriers of racism and build bridges of racial reconciliation to unify the Body of Christ.”
Southern Baptist resolutions urged members to overcome intimidation and be “ambassadors of reconciliation in their personal relationships and local communities.” Southern Baptists should be committed to “eradicate racism in all its forms,” the resolution said.
Southern Baptists, Alabama Baptists, all Christian believers are called to be “doers of the Word” (James 1:22). We are to pursue racial reconciliation because it is the teaching of Scripture and the will of God.
Racism is wrong and it must be resisted. Reconciliation is possible through the grace of God and the love of the Savior. That is the position of the Alabama Baptist State Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention, and it should be the position of every follower of Christ.
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