Many people of faith today have many opinions when it comes to issues of race. But what is the perspective of Scripture? Human sinfulness is one of the most elemental foundations of Christian faith, most simple captured in Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” But how we understand human sinfulness has a lot to do with how we approach the issue of race. Is sin defined as individuals making wrong choices that rebel against the will of God? Or is sin defined as the accumulation of human decision-making that leads to patterns, policies, and systems that pervert justice and hurt the most marginalized? For a student of the Bible, the singular answer to both questions is “yes”: it’s not an either-or, it’s a both-and.
A scriptural understanding of sin is both individual and systemic. Bedrock texts such as Exodus 20 and the ten commandments make clear that individually committed acts like murder, adultery, and stealing are indeed sin. Yet corporate policies of the nation of Israel that exploit laborers, oppress the innocent, and deprive the poor of justice in court are also sin, and are cause for God’s anger and judgment.
“You levy a straw tax on the poor and impose a tax on their grain…There are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes and deprive the poor of justice in the courts…Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you just as you say he is. Hate evil, love good, maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.” Amos 5:11-15
Christian faith doesn’t call people to believe that sin is either individual or systemic, but that sin is both individual and systemic. Therefore, in offering good news for a sinful world, we who are Christians are to seek victory over both individual and systemic sin. This means that we can and should take seriously both the issues and inequalities related to race, and the need for the saving power of Christ. Both-and, not either-or.
But in truth, our own racial backgrounds tend to shape which understanding of sin we have. Seattle Pacific University Professor, Dr. Brenda Salter-McNeil has spent a lifetime consulting churches and Christian organizations, working to help them reconcile racial divisions within the church. And she has consistently seen a pattern among Christians in the United States: white Christians tend to primarily see sin as an individual act, while folks of color tend to understand sin as something corporate and systemic. Both are true.
The early church knew this. While memorable stories in the book of Acts show the consequences of individual sin—the death of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 as a potent example—the story of Acts 6 is one we would do well to consider today. In the first verse of the chapter, we learn that the Hellenistic Jews were complaining against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food. The Hellenistic-Hebraic division was a cultural division and offers a helpful parallel to the racial divisions within the US and the Christian church today. Within the early church community, those of Hellenistic descent were looked down upon by those of Hebrew descent.
There are three crucial lessons for us today as we look at this conflict and how the early church leaders responded. First of all, when they got wind of this complaint, they didn’t look the other way or take a colorblind approach but addressed it immediately as the race-related problem that it was. Second of all, early church leaders did not single out any one individual for instigating the neglect of these widows: they saw a consistent pattern of unfair food distribution that was favoring one group above another and treated it as a corporate, systemic issue of sin. How do we know? Because third of all, the solution that early church leadership offered was a change in the system of food distribution that involved appointing seven Hellenistic leaders—each of the seven names of the new leaders is a Hellenistic name—to join church leadership. The early church leaders took racial tension seriously, they saw it as a systemic problem that needed a systemic solution, and rather than looking the other way when it came to race, they took it seriously by elevating people from the marginalized group to positions of leadership. As an aside, these newly appointed leaders, many scholars agree, are the reason why the early church soon began expanding to include gentiles.
If sin is both individual and systemic, and Jesus is to be good news for a sinful world, then those of us who consider ourselves Christ-followers cannot overlook the racial inequities of the world. We need to take them seriously, in fact, and to join the Holy Spirit in opposing them. Jesus announced the intentions of his life and ministry very clearly in his first sermon in Luke:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:18-19
Racial inequalities are a very real form of oppression underneath which many people of color struggle. To not discuss them, to turn a blind eye—to make race and faith an either-or—is to limit the good news of Jesus Christ to only be a personal story of salvation, and to turn the message of Christ into bad news to those suffering under racial inequalities and oppression.
The clear witness of Scripture is that the intention of God through Christ is an enormous BOTH-AND that has good news for a world struggling under both individual and systemic sin. We who are Christians must not overlook issues of race, but must let our mission be as big as the mission of Christ that he proclaimed in his last words of the Scripture, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
Thank you for listening!
-Scott Hall
Scott grew up as a white kid who lived on the wealthy side of town but was always aware of racial divisions. He didn't know what to do about that until he was in a black studies class at UCLA during the LA riots of 1992, when he saw the brokenness caused by racism, the teachings of Jesus, and his academic pursuits all converge. He changed his major to black studies and launched himself on a journey of learning from leaders of color and finding his place in the mission of Jesus to restore the shalom of God's kingdom.
