What is MH’s relationship to Black Lives Matter?
By Robert Krumrey
Today (6/20/20; 3-5pm) I’ll be speaking at a Christian Black Lives Matter event in the Amherst town common. There have been a few concerned people who have reached out to me and our staff regarding whether or not we want to associate at all with the BLM movement. We know that there are a some agenda items on the to-do list of the official BLM organization and some of the methods that BLM uses that we as a church could never get behind because of our understanding of God’s word. That said, we can wholeheartedly get behind the idea that black lives do indeed matter.
Some may say, “Well of course they matter because all lives matter” and this is true. What is also true is that the humans in our country, who happen to have black skin, have experienced a 400-year history of being dehumanized. The clarion call that “black lives matter”, at least in part, is a cry for this kind of dehumanizing injustice to be recognized and remedied. I think that as a church it is worth the risk of being misunderstood (mostly by other Christians) in order to engage with this very important issue. The following is based on what I am planning to say at the event:
WE ARE HERE TO STAND
We are here to stand with our black brothers and sisters. To grieve with you and lament over the injustice of racism that has been a part of our country since 1619 when 19 enslaved human beings were brought to the shores of Virginia which mushroomed into more than 10 million human beings experiencing the same fate. We are here to sit in the grief over the scourge of the Jim Crow era and the subsequent discrimination that continued in subtle and not so subtle ways long after the Civil Rights Era. We are here to lament the complicity of many in the white church itself in these injustices and their insistence that black Christians were not worthy to be fully accepted members of integrated churches.
While I was certainly aware of these and other “facts” about racism in our country, I didn’t enter “the feelings” as deeply as I should have . . . until I saw the George Floyd video. Many in the white community knew when they saw that video (myself included) that this man would not have been treated this way had he been a white man in an affluent neighborhood. This incident is only one incident among many in a 400-year history of racial injustice in our country and we stand here today with you acknowledging that injustice and pain.
WE ARE HERE TO CONFESS
We are here to confess our silence in the face of these injustices. Our lack of love for our neighbors. For not acknowledging that this 400-year history has been absolutely devastating for the black community and continues to be so in many ways. I am a pastor of a church that is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention which formed during the Civil War mostly over the issue of slavery. By God’s grace, our denomination has publicly confessed the sin of that history and now more than ever is working to heal the wounds of that divide.
Here are some quotes from that confession from a 1995 denominational resolution:
“WE CONFESS
Our relationship to African-Americans has been hindered from the beginning by the role that slavery played in the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention. Many of our Southern Baptist forbears defended the right to own slaves, and either participated in, supported, or acquiesced in the particularly inhumane nature of American slavery. In later years Southern Baptists failed, in many cases, to support, and in some cases opposed, legitimate initiatives to secure the civil rights of African-Americans. Racism has led to discrimination, oppression, injustice, and violence, both in the Civil War and throughout the history of our nation. Racism has divided the body of Christ and Southern Baptists in particular, and separated us from our African-American brothers and sisters. Many of our congregations have intentionally and/or unintentionally excluded African-Americans from worship, membership, and leadership . . .”
We are here to confess these kinds of sins against African Americans.
Interestingly enough the northern version of those Baptists, during the civil war, eventually became known as The American Baptist Churches USA which is the denomination that First Baptist Church Amherst is affiliated with and we stand shoulder to shoulder today in rejecting racism in our country and in the church.
WE ARE HERE TO HOPE
There is perhaps more hope in our country than usual at this moment as it pertains to racial justice. There is hope in the effectiveness of the use of protest to change public opinion and keep our institutions accountable. There is hope in the use of the political system to get the right people in office who will make changes to our society. These kinds of things are very important. Martin Luther King Jr. shared this same sentiment during the Civil Rights Era in one of his sermons collected in a book called Strength to Love:
“Let us never succumb to the temptation of believing that legislation and judicial decrees play only minor roles in solving this problem. Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.”
Fighting for a more just society is important and is absolutely something that Christians are called to do, but we must also remember that our ultimate hope is not in protest or public opinion or politicians. Our ultimate hope is in the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is why I’m so grateful for this event.
Yes BLACK LIVES MATTER but why do they matter? Christian we have the answer to that question! There are 2 really big reasons!
1. Because God made human beings who have black skin
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
God didn’t say he created white humans in his image. He created ALL humans, including those with black skin, in his image. Because God made them as his image bearers, they have inherent worth and dignity and are worthy of respect. Most of today’s protest movement has no idea that this is the case. When we Christians say BLACK LIVES MATTER we are standing on more than mere emotionalism or sense of outrage. We are standing on the unshakable truth revealed to us by our Creator.
2. Because Jesus died for human beings with black skin.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Can you think of a way that God would make a stronger statement regarding the worth of human beings, including black human beings, than sending Jesus to die in the place of them in order to save them from their sins? This not only saves us from sin, which reconciles us to God, but also paves the way for reconciliation with one another (see Ephesians 2:11-22). This again is something that many in the Civil Rights Movement of the 60’s understood that many in the current movement do not. It’s going to take a supernatural work of God, through the gospel of Jesus Christ, to reconcile the races in our country. Again, listen to the wise words of Martin Luther King:
“A vigorous enforcement of civil rights laws will bring an end to segregated public facilities that are barriers to a truly desegregated society, but it cannot bring an end to fears, prejudice, pride, irrationality, which are the barriers to a truly integrated society. These dark and demonic responses will be removed only as men are possessed by the invisible, inner law that etches on their hearts the conviction that all men are brothers and that love is mankind’s most potent weapon for personal and social transformation. True integration will be achieved by true neighbors who are willingly obedient to unenforceable obligations.”
We know that “the invisible, inner law that etches on our hearts the conviction that all men are brothers” comes from a heart that’s been transformed by Jesus Christ. There is HOPE in the Gospel of Jesus Christ!