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6
Toward Constructing a ChristianSolution to the Problem of Racism
Why have all the secular answers fallen short of solving our racial
problems? More important, is there a Christian solution that can over-
come the shortcomings of the non-Christian approaches? Does racial
conflict have a spiritual dimension that compels us to look to our faith
for remedies?
Secular approaches are adequate for some social problems. Learning
how to organize the layout of a city does not require any special spiritual
training. However, in other issues it is important that Christians contrib-
ute our unique perspective. For example, I believe that issues involving
human joy require Christian insight. Through our faith we can find the
eternal purpose and security that provides us with the foundation for joy.1
I believe that racism is a problem that requires specifically Christian
insight. In this chapter I will begin to move from failed answers toward
authentic solutions for our racial ills.
Human depravity, or sin nature, is a vital Christian concept which can
help us deal with racial conflict. Most of us do not like to think or talk
about it, but it is central to Christian belief. By understanding human de-
pravity and how it affects racial issues, we can begin to understand why
racial problems persist.
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78 B E Y O N D R A C I A L G R I D L O C K
The problem of racism originated from human depravity. Human de-
pravity makes us protective of our racial group’s material interests, and
it blinds us to other people’s points of view. Human depravity is the spir-
itual dimension that keeps us racially separated.
In my attempt to find a Christian solution for racism, I am developing
what I call a mutual responsibility model for racial reconciliation. It is a
concept that takes seriously the Christian teaching of human depravity.
Unlike the colorblindness and Anglo-conformity models, the mutual re-
sponsibility model does not ignore the historic and contemporary dam-
age done to people of color by the majority. Unlike the multiculturalist
and white responsibility models, it does not absolve minorities of re-
sponsibility.
With the mutual responsibility model, we look to Christian faith to
overcome the effects of human depravity in race relations. We work to
develop racial relationships based on our reconciliation with God.
THE FAILURE OF THE SECULAR MODELS
Before we can consider what a Christian solution looks like, we should
consider why all the secular models have failed. On the surface the four
secular models seem to have no similarity except that they do not rest
on a biblical foundation. Yet there is a significant parallel between them.
All four focus on a single explanation for why racism is a problem in
our society.
In the colorblindness model, the source of the problem is our failure
to recognize that race is unimportant. For Anglo-conformity propo-
nents, the source of the problem is the inability of racial minorities to ad-
just to the majority economic and social system. Multiculturalism holds
that the problem comes from the dominance of Eurocentric culture. For
white responsibility advocates, the majority group is the problem.
Each of the four secular models identifies one source of racial conflict
and proposes solutions to deal with that source. Certainly each source is
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at least partially responsible for racial alienation. The strength of these
models lies in their recognition of a particular cause of racial tension and
in their effort to solve it. Their weakness lies in their refusal to identify
other sources of the problem. At best, these incomplete models can help
us correct certain aspects of racial tension, but they will never eradicate
the problem.
When I listen to the proponents of the four secular models, I always
feel that I am getting an incomplete answer, even though I may agree
with certain points. I generally go away feeling that the speaker is right
in some ways but has not provided a sufficient solution. The sources of
conflict they identify are real, but they are ultimately superficial. None
of the models gets at the core of the problem.
The Bible teaches us that those who look at issues only through nat-
ural eyes will be unable to understand the spiritual dimensions of this
world (1 Corinthians 2:14). If racial conflict has a spiritual foundation,
then secular models are unable to identify the true source of the conflict.
It remains for Christians to identify the foundation of all the sources of
racial tension. If we fail to find this underlying source, we are doomed
to limited and insufficient solutions for racism.
A competent medical doctor is not content to treat only symptoms.
The doctor knows that the symptoms will return unless the cause of the
symptoms is found and dealt with. When I have a fever, it is important
that I get a lot of bed rest and apply cold cloths to my head. Doing so
relieves some of the painful symptoms. But those measures by them-
selves do not heal me. I also need antibiotics to deal with the source of
my illness. Likewise each of the secular models treats a symptom of ra-
cial estrangement. But all of them fail to locate the primary cause of our
racial illness. Racism is a spiritual and moral problem. Only if we see
how our sin nature is the primary source for all other sources of racial
tension will we be able to stop treating symptoms and tear this disease
out by its awful roots.
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80 B E Y O N D R A C I A L G R I D L O C K
The mutual responsibility model takes our sin nature into account
and puts obligations on both majority and minority group members, be-
cause the sins of both the majority and the minority contribute to racial
tension. I do not mean that the obligations of both groups are identical.
They are not. However, unless both the minority and the majority live
by Christian principles, we are doomed to live alienated from each other.
HOW OUR SIN NATURE CAUSES RACIAL PROBLEMS
A core principle of Christian faith is the concept of the sin nature.2 It is
one of the defining ways in which Christianity differs from the other re-
ligions.3 Our sin nature drives majority group members to look for both
overt and subtle ways to maintain the advantages of their racial status.
Our sin nature motivates people of color to use their victim status to gain
whatever they can.4 Our sin nature blinds us to the ways in which we
protect the interests of our own racial group.5 Our sin nature also influ-
ences us to blame others for the problems we cause ourselves.
The sin nature drives us to remake our images of God and society into
what we want, blinding us to an accurate perception of society and God.
Cornelius Plantinga contends that revised versions of God arise depending
on who we want God to be.6 Accordingly, many majority group members
latch on to an individualistic definition of racism that relieves them of any
responsibility for institutional and historic problems. They also focus on
the shortcomings of people of color and overlook the ways the majority
continues to benefit from the racial status quo. Plantinga argues that sin
can be a masquerade by which we justify our self-deception. Furthermore,
the sin nature creates selfishness which makes people of color expand
their definition of racism to the point that they make inflated economic
and social claims on the majority. They can then ignore their own respon-
sibility and focus only on the responsibility of the majority group. Plant-
inga points out that those who perceive themselves as victims often fail to
regulate themselves because of their sense of entitlement. How Christians
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define sin will determine how we try to solve social problems.7
The Christian doctrine of the sin nature rises from the belief that we
are born in sin.8 It does not mean we are unrelentingly evil creatures, but
we are creatures who fail to obtain the moral heights that God wants for
us. Our self-serving attitude is a part of us. We should not be surprised
that the apostle Paul lamented his inability to escape the clutches of his
own sin (Romans 7:14-25).
Charles Colson beautifully illustrates how our sin is part of who we
are.9 He quotes R. C. Sproul when he says that that we are not sinners
because we sin, but rather we sin because we are sinners.10 It is natural
for us to be selfish and to look at how we can benefit from a given situ-
ation.11 The doctrine of human depravity does not absolve us of respon-
sibility to grow beyond our shortcomings, but it does confirm the reality
of our shortcomings.
Plantinga maintains that the saddest aspect of sin is that it prevents
what he calls shalom. Shalom is, in his words, the way things ought to be.
Because of sin, the world is radically different from what God wants. Ra-
cial alienation is not what God wants; it is the natural consequence of
our sin nature. The root of racial strife is not overemphasis on race, ma-
terial inequity, the dominance of European American culture or the rac-
ism of majority group members. Those factors are significant, but ulti-
mately our racial problems come from the sin nature that has invaded
our souls.
The spiritual dimension provides a more complete and accurate def-
inition of racism than either the individualist or structuralist concepts.
Racism is a natural outflow of the racial divisions in our society as they
are affected by our state of moral depravity. Clearly there are individual-
istic and structural elements, but at its heart, racism is spiritual. With
this definition we see that only when we deal with our own moral de-
pravity will we have any chance of ending the evil of racism.12
Once we accept that we are morally depraved, then we can find
Yancey, G. (2006). Beyond racial gridlock : Embracing mutual responsibility. InterVarsity Press.Created from amridge on 2023-06-06 04:20:58.
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82 B E Y O N D R A C I A L G R I D L O C K
Christ’s gift of salvation. This truth is the central message of Christianity.
Try as we may, we cannot even live up to our own standards.13 I think
that I am generally an honest person, yet I know that I am not 100-
percent honest all the time. Even without the Bible, I would know that
lying is wrong; yet I find myself lying anyway. I think of my lies as small
lies that do not hurt anyone. I lie to make myself look good or to avoid
a troublesome situation. The sin nature within me has morally trapped
me into a lifestyle that I know is wrong. Only by coming to the perfec-
tion of Christ can I find the strength to begin to defeat the old self and
to put on the new self (2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 4:22-24; Colos-
sians 3:9-10). No wonder Christian theology teaches us that we are in
slavery to sin.14 Even when we know we should act better, we often fail
to do what is right. If a person understands the depth of his or her de-
pravity and comes to Christ to overcome the sin nature, then that person
understands the most vital truth of Christianity.
Salvation is the message which gives us the hope that we are not
trapped in a life of sin. It teaches us the matchless love of Christ, who,
being God, gave up all that deity had to offer to come and suffer so that
we have access to the power that will ultimately free us from our sin
nature (Philippians 2:6-11). Too often we do not consider any impli-
cations of salvation beyond our own spiritual well-being. We find in-
dividual freedom, but we do not recognize how our sin nature is the
source of many social ills. We must consider how we can bring salva-
tion to the social ills that plague us. The message of the Bible is not just
that we are fallen but that God has made a way for us to recover from
our fallen state.
OUR SIN NATURE AND RACIAL MISTRUST
Without an acknowledgment of our sin nature, we put too much faith
in our own abilities. When we examine the secular models, another
important similarity they all share is their overreliance on human abil-
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ity and their underestimate of our fallen nature.
The colorblindness and Anglo-conformity models place great faith in
the willingness of European Americans to either give up all their advan-
tages for a truly egalitarian society (colorblindness) or help people of
color gain an equal place in society (Anglo-conformity). It is reasonable
for majority group members to prefer models which show trust in Euro-
pean Americans and call on racial minorities to solve their own problems.
Since European Americans have had power for so long, and the record of
how they have used their power is questionable at best and horrendous
at worst, it is not surprising that people of color are not eager to trust
them. European Americans, like all other humans, are trapped within
their own sin nature, so racial minorities should not necessarily trust
European Americans who are poisoned by their own human depravity.
Likewise the models of multiculturalism and white responsibility ask
whites either to allow people of color nearly complete freedom to chal-
lenge all aspects of European culture (multiculturalism) or to allow peo-
ple of color to set new power rules in society (white responsibility). Nat-
urally racial minorities favor such models since they place the blame for
racism solely on the majority. People of color may not have a history of
abusing whites, but there is plenty of evidence that they are just as prone
to abuse other humans when they have the chance. To appreciate this
point we do not have to look only at black on black or Hispanic on His-
panic crime. When not painted over with a politically correct brush, the
history of different racial groups reveals atrocities committed against
other groups.15 Furthermore, people of color have shown themselves
willing to use their victim status to escape their own responsibilities.
Whites do not trust people of color to unilaterally set up the new racial
order. They should not trust us because we too possess the sin nature
that makes us look out after our own interests, not the interests of others
(Philippians 2:4).
Of course there are whites sensitive to the plight of racial minorities,
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84 B E Y O N D R A C I A L G R I D L O C K
and there are people of color who are careful not to dump unnecessary
racial garbage on whites. There are always those exceptional individuals
who bless us in this struggle with their ability to look beyond the inter-
ests of their own race. But our sin nature means that it is generally going
to be hard for whites to understand the concerns of racial minorities as
well as vice versa. Only by looking to the Christian concept of our sin
nature and by embracing the concept of mutual responsibility can we
tackle the core spiritual issue behind racism and hope to one day eradi-
cate this social sin from our churches and society.
DEALING WITH OUR SIN NATURE
Human depravity means both good and bad news for racial conflict. The
bad news is that all of us are sinners. If we are going to rely on our own
human wisdom, we are doomed to make the same mistakes we made in
the past. We are always going to have a strong affinity for solutions
which help our racial group at the expense of other races. But there is
also good news. By recognizing our sin nature, we can comprehend the
spiritual dimension of our problems. Furthermore, Christianity has not
only diagnosed the problem; it has offered the solution. The core of
Christianity is about solving the fatal illness brought about by sin.16 Our
faith promises a day when God will empower us to free us from the sla-
very of our sin nature. By looking to our faith we can offer solutions with
unique power to solve racial conflict.
Our faith has short-term and long-term implications for racism. In
the long term we hope for the New Jerusalem, where old racial alienation
will disappear forever. Only at that point will our restoration be com-
plete. Then the sin of racism will be eradicated. Only at that point will
we reach shalom.17
I know that I will not be sinless this side of the grave. Yet my faith can
help me overcome my sin nature and grow closer to Christ. Likewise, we
will probably never be able to completely eliminate racism from our so-
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ciety. Just as my sin nature will not totally disappear in my present phys-
ical life, the sin nature that is the source of our racial struggles is not go-
ing to completely go away.18 But we can move closer to the moral
perfection God wants. As Christians we are called to bring restoration
where there was none before. It is our task as Christians to do all we can
to heal our society while we wait for Christ’s return, when we will see the
end of all alienation and misunderstandings.19
I want to start what I hope will be an ongoing Christian dialogue
about how our faith can help us deal with the sin nature that gives rise
to our racial problems. I do not claim that I have arrived at the ultimate
solution. Like everyone else, I too am infected with the sickness of my
sin nature. I too have a bias to support my group over other racial
groups. What I term the mutual responsibility model is not the final
word, but I hope it is the beginning.
Mark McMinn writes that only by understanding sin can we hope to
understand grace.20 When we recognize the depth of our sin, we feel de-
pressed over how depraved we are. We want to be free of the weight of
our sins. McMinn points out how we attempt to erase our sense of sin
through self-justification and explaining away our failures. Such at-
tempts merely further the lies created by our sin nature and lead us no-
where. Only if we can be honest about our sin nature can we ever hope
to overcome its corrosive effects.
But there is a risk that comes with acknowledging our sin. If we rec-
ognize that we sin or that we benefit from the sins of others, we give the
victims of our sins tools to use against us.21 They can use our confession
to make demands on us. They can also choose to ignore their own re-
sponsibilities in our conflict. So instead of admitting our sins, we try to
hide them from God and from others.
Here is precisely where the Christian concept of grace gives us the an-
swers we need. We rely on grace when we confess our sins to God. We
have confidence that God will not misuse our confession because he has
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86 B E Y O N D R A C I A L G R I D L O C K
proven through his matchless character that his love will not go away af-
ter we confess. But when we think of confessing to fallible humans, we
cannot be certain that we will receive grace.22 Our natural reluctance to
confess is intensified by the possibility that those to whom we confess
may make us pay.23 So we lose the opportunity for grace to heal us.
If only we could be sure that others will offer us grace when we need it.
Yet we have to look at grace from the point of view of the victim. Offering
others grace is not without cost. We may fear that if we give grace too eas-
ily, we will forfeit our ability to make righteous demands against those who
harmed us. Forgiveness becomes something we are hesitant to give.24 We
want those who sinned against us to acknowledge their sins and promise
to provide true justice for us. Without their confession we are unwilling to
mend our broken relationship with the majority group. We withhold our
forgiveness so we can maintain our power over those who have wronged
us, avoiding any admission of wrongs we have done to them. Yet without
forgiveness, the sin that weighs us down will never be lifted.
The wonder of Christ is that he offers grace with such freedom that it
astounds us. His offering of grace helps us come to him with our sins and
seek his face. We can be confident in repentance because we know that
forgiveness is certain through him. However, the other side of grace is
our willingness to extend that grace to those who have sinned against us.
Christ calls us to forgive others as we have been forgiven (Matthew
6:12). When Christians incorporate the pattern of recognizing sin and
extending grace to each other, we will go a long way toward addressing
our society’s racial issues. We then take the spiritual principles on which
we base our faith and bring them into our solutions for racism.
Many Christians who seriously deal with racial issues have developed
concepts of corporate repentance and corporate forgiveness as a biblical
response to racial tension.25 Corporate repentance and corporate forgive-
ness instill a Christian understanding of sin and grace into racial issues. I
will discuss those concepts in more depth in the next two chapters.
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CONCLUSION
Some people believe that time heals all wounds. But there is no guaran-
tee that time will heal our society’s racial wounds. Unless we use repen-
tance and grace to confront our racial problems, it is not certain that race
relations will be better decades from now than they are today.
We find it hard to incorporate grace into our interactions with those of
other races because of fear. We fear that others will not extend grace to us
when we acknowledge our own failings. Our relationships are damaged
by our fear of dealing honestly and openly with our sins. Time does not
heal untreated wounds; rather those wounds fester and become worse.
Whites and people of color have mutual responsibilities that they
must fulfill. The sin nature is universal for people of all races, but how
the sin nature manifests itself is clearly different for majority group mem-
bers and for people of color. Both groups must stop going down the old
paths that their sins created. If either side decides not to participate in
repairing the damage, we will suffer the same racial alienation we have
endured in the past. In the next two chapters we will look at the unique
challenges faced by whites and racial minorities in our struggle for racial
harmony.
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