A CHRISTIAN RACE THEOLOGY (5)

When I was young in ministry I went to a seminar where a theologian commented that everything you want to know about God's interaction and move in humanity you can find in the account of the fall (Genesis 3). I was too young and immature to agree with him then. I came to see the merit of what he said as I began to mature a little bit. Now, in my current level of maturity, I totally agree with him. Even with respect to race and racial division.

The Bible teaches us about the origins of man and this world. A consistent phrase that we see used in Genesis 1 with regard to all of creation is "and it was good." The word good speaks not to the lower notions of what we understand today but to the higher reality that everything was created in the way that reflected the mind and design of God. Everything was without flaw; perfect. Even the creation of man. The goodness of man, however, had a higher significance of good than the rest of creation because man was created in the image of God.

Man was created as a reflection of God and to model His actions in the world the Lord created. The world was to be filled with other images of God as Adam and Eve obeyed the creation-mandate to be fruitful and to multiply (Genesis 1:28). The world as we know it now, with all of its cultural and racial diversity, would have existed but in the way of perfection that the Lord had created and designed man to execute it. This was the way it was supposed to be. The creation of God was one in which the order and unity of all things reflected to the world and back to God, Himself, His own beauty. What happened next was catastrophic on eternal levels. The good creation of the image of God (man) rebelled against the Good Creator-Lord.

Genesis chapter 3 tells us about more than the fall of man through their own rebellion. It tells us this, but it conveys something far deeper with respect to its essence and consequences. Yes, man would indeed fall away from the Lord and be removed from His presence but that was because of something of greater significance. When man sinned, they brought chaos into creation. Sin was the chaotic disruption, disturbance and defacement of the design the god creation of God. All of the chaos that came after that rebellion is because of rebellion. Racial division, therefore, is not simply a fruit of chaos, but it is the continual rebellion against the good order of the Good God.

Our trouble with racial division is because of our trouble of being trapped in the passions birthed by and nurtured the chaotic - the rebellion of man against the orderly design of God. This has implication that are far reaching, but my point here is that we are racially divided because we are fueled by and nurturing chaos (rebellion). Here is what is true about the chaos of racial division and all of sin for that matter: External chaos is always and only the fruit of internal chaos. As mysterious as it may appear we know that the chaos of our first parents was internal before it ever was an external act of rebellion (see the process in Genesis 3:6).

What we are seeing in the church has little to nothing to do with opinions or personal past experiences or even the troubles of our sordid history. What we are seeing in the racial division within the church is nothing but chaos - rebellion against the good design of the Good God. If we are to see any change toward unity it must start, not with external actions. We have seen these quickly dissipate and come to naught. Instead, what is needed, by all of us, (all races) is the active and aggressive rooting out of our hearts, minds and souls, the nurtured chaos that we have allowed grow, fester and mature through cultural complicity! Chaos only breeds chaos! Chaotic responses to racially chaotic actions only add logs to the bonfire of demonic expression of division

The challenge for all of us is that we are living in racial chaos seeking to bring about to order, we are doing so from chaotic hearts. Jesus tells us this truth in another place, but applicable to our situation, when he said:

"If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided

against itself, that house will not be able to stand" (Mark 3:24–25).

Division is chaos and chaos destroys. Racial division is chaos, and this chaos is destroying the experienced unity of the people of Christ. By our nurtured and expressed racial division we are doing far more than hurting one another. Racial division, in the church and in our hearts is reflecting to the world and back to the Lord, not the beauty of the Church, but, that which the Bible calls the "synagogue of Satan."

Yet, the gospel is our hope....