{"id":41166,"date":"2025-03-13T16:04:16","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T23:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=41166"},"modified":"2025-03-13T16:05:45","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T23:05:45","slug":"tearin-down-the-walls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/tearin-down-the-walls\/","title":{"rendered":"Tearin’ Down the Walls"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI have a dream that one day my children will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.<\/em>\u201d-Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.<\/p>\n

The topic of race has always been something that I\u2019ve been aware of for as long as I can remember. Even though I have grown up as the dominant race in America in a community that is mostly white, I was reminded by my parents from a very early age that there was racial injustice in our country. This was highlighted by my interests in the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement, two critical moments in the history of our nation that were largely shaped by racial injustice and race-related tensions. Even one of my favorite bands growing up, DC Talk, had a popular song called, \u201cWalls\u201d that shaped my worldview around issues of race:<\/p>\n

\u201cGotta live by example, show brotherly love
\nWe’re together on Earth, we’ll be together above
\nSo we’re
\nTearin’ down the walls
\nOf segregation\u201d-Walls<\/em>, DC Talk<\/p>\n

I was further inspired by the life and leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. and his \u201cI have a dream\u201d speech. One of my favorite places in Washington DC is the steps of the Lincoln Memorial where there is a plaque that marks the spot where King stood when he gave that speech.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t really until I began ministry and started seminary that racial injustice in today\u2019s world came into sharper focus. I had believed that racial injustice was mostly a thing of the past and that, while there were still inequities to be worked through, we were making good progress. But digging deeper into the history of inequality, chattel slavery, and resistance to racial equity in evangelicalism, I realized there is much more work to do.<\/p>\n

The events and responses of the killing of black persons by police in 2019 and 2020 brought to the forefront what had been occurring for many years and raised awareness, and division, around how we as a nation are dealing with our \u201coriginal sin\u201d. What saddens me further is the way that the church has allowed political polarization and identity politics to damage its witness to be a muti-ethnic picture of what Heaven will one day look like.<\/p>\n

It is still my most deeply held conviction that the church, and the kingdom of God, is a people that works to \u201ctear down the walls\u201d of racial segregation and injustice. No matter how complicated, this is something each local church must work towards until we reach the day, \u201cwhen all of God\u2019s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the Old Negro Spiritual \u2018Free at Last, Free at Last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.\u201d<\/p>\n

Engaging Coleman Hughes\u2019 book, The End of Race Politics<\/em> with this lens and background helped me further explore and learn about a topic that is important to me as a pastor and follower of Jesus. It’s ironic that before even examining the book I highlighted my connection with the \u201cI Have a Dream Speech\u201d as this seems to be a central concept for Hughes and his book. Hughe\u2019s main thrust can be summarized by his statement, \u201cI think race is irrelevant to the things we care most about in life, and dividing people by race is an obstacle to realizing this dream. In my ideal future, the people of this country would be so busy pursuing the things that really matter that we might go weeks or months at a time without ever thinking about the concept of race.\u201d (15,16) This affirms one of my beliefs that, ultimately, this is the end goal. Where I continue to struggle is how a lack of awareness of racial injustice or my own privilege has prevented me from working towards equality for others that are empirically less privileged then I am.<\/p>\n

What was new to me was the concept of neoracism and how it can be potentially harmful to racial justice. Only seeing people, or primarily seeing people, through the lens of their race does the exact opposite of what we are working towards in racial justice. Hughes states that, \u201c\u201cThe obsession with race often causes us to ignore the things that truly matter about individuals\u2014things like character, intelligence, and abilities.\u201d A critique of Hughes text would be a need for more engagement with the inherent inequity, often around race, that exists in current structures, not just in individuals or communities.<\/p>\n

Overall, I found this book compelling. It resonates with my heart to, \u201clet justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!\u201d (Amos 5:24). May it be so in me, may it be so in us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI have a dream that one day my children will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.\u201d-Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The topic of race has always been something that I\u2019ve been aware of for as long as I can remember. Even though I have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3452],"class_list":["post-41166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp03-hughes","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41168,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41166\/revisions\/41168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}