I begin with a
simple fact: Black lives matter. It
seems a simple statement but it sometimes inspires indignation and outrage. Those who respond with such intense emotion
fail to understand saying “black lives matter” no more diminishes the value of
white lives, Asian lives, or any other non-black lives than saying “God bless
America” somehow binds the Almighty to neglect the well-being of other nations.
With that in
mind and without any further effort to appease critics I (a very, very white
guy) want to offer some observations on the notion that black lives matter. Again,
I do so not to answer critics but to help those who believe black lives matter toward
greater clarity in that belief.
Black lives matter
because each black life has potential to contribute positively to our society.
I was in the
third grade when I did something (probably talking in class) my teacher
believed merited discipline. Her
favorite discipline was sending students to sit alone in the cloakroom. Isolated from their friends, errant students
would soon learn to control their behavior so they would never again face such
a harsh experience. After my first
cloakroom exile, I was eager for more of this delightful discipline.
You see, the
cloakroom held boxes of books, books a lot more interesting than those we were
reading in class. In time, I would
occasionally slip into the cloakroom when the teacher’s back was turned. There I would sit and quietly read until she
noticed I was gone. Sometimes that took
quite a while but let’s not explore what that might mean.
During one of
my clandestine visits to the cloakroom, I found a brief biography of George
Washington Carver. Born a slave, Carver
overcame adversity and prejudice to become the first black to teach at Iowa
State, a faculty member at Tuskegee Institute, and an internationally renowned
botanist. I am sure I did not understand
all the dynamics of his situation but I was impressed with this man who achieved
so much.
Carver reminds
us black lives have the potential to benefit us all.
Imagine the
advances in science, technology, and medicine we might have known had black
children not been forced to attend poorly funded public schools. Imagine the novels, plays, and poetry we might
have enjoyed had it not been illegal in some states to teach blacks to read and
write. Imagine how our cities might be
different had black voices been heard, along with white, Asian, and Hispanic
voices, in making crucial decisions.
Imagine how different our nation would be.
But what if
those whose deaths inspired the “black-lives-matter” movement were never to
have become the next Scott Joplin, Langston Hughes, Clarence Thomas, or Oprah
Winfrey? What if their now lost
birthdays had led only to ordinary lives—9 to 5 jobs, mortgages, marriages, and
children?
While the
artist, the leader, and the innovator are needed in every culture, no culture
can exist without the ordinary people.
Kipling wrote of such when he said, “The people, Lord, thy people are good
enough for me.”
Again, black
lives matter because blacks are created in the image of God.
In his message
to the intellectuals at Athens, Paul sought to lay a foundation for
communication and understanding.
Speaking of God’s creative activity, the apostle said, God “… made from
one man every race of men.” (Acts 17:26 Mounce)
Whatever interpretive scheme they may apply to the Genesis account of
creation, scholars agree the Bible sees the human race possessing an undeniable
unity. Thus, in his sermon, Paul “…rules
out any kind of racism, since all ethnic groups come from one man.”[1]
Because of
this unity, each individual, regardless of race, possesses what the Bible calls
“the image of God.”
That endows us
with distinction.
A few years
ago Pat was looking through a news magazine we had just received when she
suddenly said, “Flower died.”
“What,” I asked. “Who’s Flower?”
She quickly
reminded me that Flower was the leader of the little band of meerkats on the
Animal Planet program Meerkat Manor. The article explained Flower had died while
defending her family from a cobra.
Although we
had a tendency to humanize the little meerkats, their behavior after Flower’s
death did not mirror typical human behavior.
There was no wake for Flower. No chimps brought covered dishes to the meerkats’
burrow to help them through the tough time.
The jungle animals did not form a procession to escort Flower’s body to its
final resting place. No woodpecker carved
a placard to mark her grave. In the
weeks following her death, the lions and elephants did not convene a tribunal
to censure the cobra, to demand the snake explain its actions. The cobra certainly did not apologize or ask
for mercy, promising to never again act in such a brutal way. No, the cobra was simply acting out the law
of the tooth and the claw. When humans
act out that law, we arrest them or call them barbarians.
Only the most ardent
vegan fails to see the difference between an animal and a human; the Christian
would explain that difference by pointing to the image of God.
While Christians have not always
agreed on the meaning of “the image of God,” the fact humans are said to
possess it gives them significance.
Possessing the
image of God means we human beings were created as spiritual beings. Human beings—regardless of racial identity—were
created with the capacity to have rich and wondrous fellowship with the
Creator. The language of the Creation story suggests that once they
could walk and talk with God freely and without hesitation. Then, of
course, something happened. We don’t
like to talk about it. It’s worse than
having an uncle who celebrates Hitler’s birthday.
In a single
act of rebellion the relationship with the Creator changed. So, too, did our relationship with our fellow
human beings. Our environment
changed. Our future changed. But something did not change: we still
possessed the image of God.
This tells us
we have a special freedom. We have the freedom to respond to God’s wooing
Spirit calling us to reconciliation.
This freedom means the potential black lives have to be musicians,
scientists, poets, or artists becomes insignificant compared to the potential
they have for a vital relationship with God.
One other
thing did not change: God’s love for the rebels did not change. They still mattered.
And, then, black
lives matter because they are among those for whom Christ died.
My father,
born in 1911, once told me he could remember hearing residents of his small,
central Missouri hometown claim black people do not have souls (a notion once used
to justify slavery). Dad, who sometimes
met with an African-American co-worker for prayer and Bible study, did not
believe the claim but he wanted me to understand why some southerners might
resist integration.
Those who
imagined blacks to be without souls probably did not know America’s great
theologian Jonathan Edwards, though a slaveholder, had welcomed converted
slaves into his Northampton, Massachusetts, congregation. I doubt many people in that small town had
ever heard of Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church;
fewer still had likely heard of former slave and Moravian evangelist Rebecca
Protten. They probably did not realize
white and black evangelists had sometimes worked together during the camp
meetings that helped shape southern Christianity. Doubtless they did not know the Pentecostal movement
challenging the Baptist/Methodist hegemony in the Ozarks had been initiated, in
part, by black ministers like William Seymour and Lucy Farrar.
White
Christians, including white evangelicals, do not have a spotless record in race
relations but most saw black lives as intended beneficiaries of Christ’s
redemptive work. The Great Commission
would send the apostles out to preach the gospel to “all people in the world,”
without exception. The beloved John 3:16 speaks of how God’s love motivated his
giving his Son to die on the cross for “the world,” the whole world. Grant LeMarquand uses John 3:16 to demonstrate
how “The trajectory of Scripture is racially inclusive.”[2]
This vision
was clearly demonstrated in an incident Luke reports in Acts 8. Philip, a leader and an evangelist in the early
church, presented the gospel to an unnamed Ethiopian official (probably from
today’s Sudan); the man believed and was baptized. He returned as a Christian to his homeland
where it is believed he shared his new faith.
So, during Christianity’s first generation, blacks were invited into
embrace the gospel.
While it may
not have transformed attitudes as it should have, the little song many of us sang
in Sunday school embodies a clear truth:
Jesus loves the
little children,
All the children
of the world.
Red and yellow,
black and white,
They are precious
in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the
world.
Sure modern
versions sometimes say, “Ev'ry color, ev'ry race, all are cover'd by His
grace;” but that’s not how I learned it, probably not you either. Besides, mentioning “grace” introduces a
theological category we may have to explain.
Chances are most folks know what it means to be “precious.”
When little
children grow up, whoever they may be, they remain “precious in his sight.” They matter.
