Equality is Part of God's Dream for the World

Over the past couple of weeks, we have all grappled with the sensitive subjects of race, equality and justice in the light of the George Zimmerman verdict that has captivated our nation. I have been reading your thoughts and feelings through your letters to the editor, various comments and through social media. Many people have opined on the merits of our justice system, the status of racial equality in our nation, and the realities of living in community with one another.

So where does faith come into this situation? How do we react faithfully, and find the hope of God in the midst of such a climate of polarization?

First, let’s establish that it isn’t faithful for us to be “colorblind” as some people have suggested. To ignore our cultural, racial, and ethnic identities is to ignore a beautiful gift our creator has given us all. We all have to come to a realization of how we enter into the dance of life. For instance, I am a white man and I have to acknowledge that.

However, I can’t suggest that I know what it’s like to be a woman, or a person of color, or other backgrounds other than that of my own. I come to the conversation with my own identity, and we must all strive to be like that.

Secondly, while our race is a gift from God, the gifts that God has given us have not been treated equally in our collective history. We cannot be faithful by simply saying that since we were not around during the Civil War, or for some of us during the racial tensions of Jim Crow South, we are somehow not responsible for the implications of the past. Since the dawn of humankind, God has been about reconciling, God has brought the people who often fell wayward back to God’s self. But God was also clear that we are on this journey together, we are a chain that stretches throughout time, and we cannot ignore the past simply because we weren’t there.

So how can we be faithful? How can we address the tensions of our time and find grace in the midst of it? The reality is that we must recognize our differences, and celebrate them! We must work with organizations in our community such as Habitat for Humanity, Iredell Christian Ministries and others that reach across socioeconomic, racial, ethnic and political bounds to give and receive the love of Christ. For it is Christ who reminds us that our neighbor isn’t always the people who look like us or sound like us. It could be a boy on his way to get Skittles, it might be a man who is on trial, or someone so foreign from us we couldn’t comprehend God loving them.

God is all about making the circle wider. God is all about grace, and reconciliation and redemption. So when we are faithful to the conversations about race and the dignity of human life, we are faithful to a God who loves all of us as his own.