Issues Tearing Our Nation's Fabric The Center for Reclaiming America

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Racial Reconciliation
Chapter Eighteen

Tuesday, October 3, 1995, will long be remembered as a watershed moment in American history. Traffic was stalled, airline flights were delayed, and by 10:00 a.m. Pacific time, businesses all across the country had come to a virtual standstill. Hundreds of newspapers were holding the presses for special editions, television stations had preempted daytime programming, and trading on Wall Street was officially closed until Judge Lance Ito could announce the official verdict in the O. J. Simpson murder trial.

The impact of the moment was not that a famous football hero had been charged with a brutal double murder, or even that he was found "not guilty" by a jury, after one of the longest and most sensational trials in history. It was that, in that one split second, as the verdict was being read aloud and the cameras captured the eyes of Simpson and his lawyers, the true depth of the racial divide in this country was finally visible for the entire world to see.

In that instant of unguarded emotion, as black Americans leaped to their feet in jubilation, white Americans, most of whom believed that the prosecution had proved its case and the evidence of guilt was overwhelming, realized in some innate but unspoken way that forty years of social programs designed to remove the barriers separating the races had utterly failed. At that moment, whites and blacks were as divided emotionally as they have ever been at any time in our history.

The Simpson verdict was a moment of truth. But today, looking back at it, perhaps we will see there was another aspect to that watershed experience that could turn out to be much more important in the long run. For, in recognizing the failures of sociology and the top-down bureaucratic directives of the civil rights era—policies that have polarized the races—we may find ourselves compelled to come back to more basic resources.

If there is to be healing of the racial tensions in this country, it will not come from government, but through a new commitment to live by God’s standards of reconciliation. It will come when we learn to forgive, to encourage one another, to speak the truth in love, and to assume the roles God ordained for us as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Equal in God’s Eyes

The Bible addresses the idea of racial and cultural divisions in terms of "partiality." Partiality means showing undue favor for one person or group over another. The books of the law warn against showing partiality in legal decisions (Leviticus 19:15; Deuteronomy 1:17; 16:19). The Bible’s prohibitions against this type of judgment are based on God’s own character; for He does not show partiality toward any person (2 Chronicles 19:7), and He will not allow those who follow Him to judge others on the basis of external factors such as wealth, cultural background, or ethnic identity.

This view of impartiality was the foundation of the Great Commission. The book of Acts speaks of Peter’s discovery that Christ had intended the Gospel for all men, regardless of race or culture. As he was trying to be faithful to the practice of exclusion taught by the Pharisees, Peter was shown a vision of "wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air," which traditional Judaism had declared unclean. When Peter refused to "kill and eat," God said to him, "What God has cleansed you must not call common" (10:15).

This was yet another epiphany for the headstrong apostle. Luke writes, "Then Peter opened his mouth and said: ‘In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him" (Acts 10:34-35). And later Paul confirms that message: "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:27-28).

The apostle James later warned that any attempt to show partiality or judgment against those of other races and cultures, particularly because of economic status, was inconsistent with the teachings of Christ (James 2:1). James declared partiality is a sin (2:9). Paul also warned the Ephesians who held slaves to be fair in their dealings with their servants, for God Himself is impartial and, for those who are in Christ Jesus, the master is no better than the slave and the employer no greater than the employee (6:9).

The Social Legacy

Social historian Christopher Lasch made a biting analysis of the legacy of modern liberalism and concluded that racial antagonism on both sides was facilitated and provoked largely by the failures of the liberal social programs that have devastated black communities and driven a wedge between the races.

In his discussion of the book Closest of Strangers by Jim Sleeper, Lasch writes,

The social engineering initiated in the mid-sixties . . . led to a rapid deterioration of race relations. Busing, affirmative action, and open housing threatened the ethnic solidarity of neighborhoods and drove lower-middle-class whites into opposition. In the face of their resistance, liberals ‘reacted with self-righteous indignation,’ in Sleeper’s words. Black militants encouraged racial polarization and demanded a new politics of ‘collective grievance and entitlement.’ They insisted that black people, as victims of ‘white racism,’ could not be held to the same educational or civic standards as whites. . . .

The white Left, which romanticized Afro-American culture as an expressive, sexually liberated way of life free of bourgeois inhibitions, collaborated in this attack on common standards. The civil rights movement originated as an attack on the injustices of double standards; now the idea of a single standard was itself attacked as the crowning example of "institutional racism."

The real irony of the social liberal perspective was that it had, in fact, created a double standard which provided an excuse for black culture to deny its common heritage and common goals with whites. The idea of a just society for all Americans was abdicated in favor of a bitter race feud designed and provoked by liberal ideologues in the name of "social justice." This was the real beginning of today’s racial polarization.

Lasch says it should be a sobering experience for the liberals, now, as they see the campaign they created devolve into media manipulation—using politics as "racial theater." While Al Sharpton, Alton Maddox, and others grab headlines and rise to prominence as defenders of the poor and defenseless, living conditions for most of the black people in Sharpton’s own New York neighborhoods have declined to the lowest level in that city’s history. "Affirmative action," says Lasch, "gives black elites access to the municipal bureaucracy and the media, but leaves the masses worse off than ever" (Lasch, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy, 136f).

The Moral Opportunity

Social scientist Glen Loury, a distinguished black professor at Harvard and Boston University, is one who does not accept the liberal interpretation of America’s race crisis. The truth of our condition, he believes, demands a hard look at ourselves. Government’s attempts to prevent both blacks and whites from taking responsibility for their own behavior has only made the situation worse.

Institutional barriers to black participation in American life still exist, but they have come down considerably and everybody knows that. Everybody also knows that other barriers have grown up within the urban black milieu in these last decades—and not only there—which are profoundly debilitating.

Neither the social scientists nor the politicians know what to say, or what to do, about this disintegration. The analysts cannot account for it; the public spokespersons dare not speak of it. Euphemisms abound. . . . Instead, we hear familiar intonations of platitudes and empty phrases: "racism," "inadequate funding," "no jobs," "no hope." . . . Even as the collapse of social life among the inner-city poor worsens, we have these pat, ritualistic public conversations full of platitudes about "caring" and "compassion," but devoid of hard-edged judgments about decency and personal morality.

Loury recognizes that restitution and healing cannot come until first, blacks and whites admit that the real problem is the condition of the human heart; second, we must be willing to follow that line of thought to its logical conclusion, which will bring us back, inevitably, to the moral and spiritual content of our character.

"A great, existential challenge faces black America today," writes Prof. Loury, "the challenge of taking responsibility for our future by exerting the moral leadership that is needed within our communities." The problem cannot be solved by government or by social programs. Communities must do it for themselves; but for that to happen, Loury says, "the intellectual, religious, and political leadership of this community must embrace their responsibilities."

No matter how much the black leadership and the social elites may enjoy casting blacks as "the conscience of the nation" or "consummate victims," the road to racial reconciliation must pass, sooner or later, through the avenue of personal responsibility. Loury states:

If we continue to respond to the plight of the ghetto poor in terms of our historical victimization, then we shall pay a terrible price. No one but us can provide the moral and spiritual leadership which is essential to reverse the social disintegration now so well advanced ("The Role of Normative Values in Rescuing the Urban Ghetto," in Don E. Eberly, ed., Building a Community of Citizens. 246-91).

A Question of Soul

To trust government to solve the problems of black America, and to allow the bureaucrats to continue to enforce their agenda of tolerance and diversity will be, Loury concludes, to lose our souls. If we permit white liberals and black intellectuals to continue to fabricate a vocabulary of victimization and race hatred, there can be no healing between the races. Instead, other, bolder, charismatic leaders like Louis Farrakhan, who prey on the anger of the black community, and who have stolen from Christian faith and practice a tortured notion of personal spirituality, will prevail.

Oddly enough, the rash of church burnings across the South the past five years may have helped to spark a new level of brotherhood between blacks and whites based, not on vindication and reparations, but on true Christian love and personal concern. At the same time, the Promise Keepers movement has stressed the importance of reconciliation and led millions of men to renounce their animosity and to seek healing. Promise Number Six of Promise Keepers calls men of faith to reach beyond racial and denominational barriers and tap into the power of biblical unity. This is truly our best and only hope of healing America’s racial wounds.

You can contact these organizations:

Promise Keepers Development Association
Denver, CO 80250-3001
(800) 888-7595

Christian Community
P.O. Box 103001
3848 West Ogden Avenue
Chicago, IL 60623
(773) 762-0994

For further reading:

Raleigh Washington, Glen Kehrein. Breaking Down Walls: A Model for Reconciliation in an Age of Racial Strife. Chicago: Moody, 1994.
John Perkins. Beyond Charity: A Community-Development Hand- book for Christians. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993.
Tony Evans. Moral Crisis in Black America. Chicago: Moody, 1992.

On the World Wide Web:

Reconciliation Online: http://www.netdoor.com/com/rronline/
Promise Keepers: http://www.promisekeepers.org/
The Urban Alternative: http://www.tonyevans.org/

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