Racism In America
Thinking Biblically; Thinking Clearly
Good Questions Have Groups Talking
www.joshhunt.com
Email your people and ask them to do a little reading and praying over the issue of racism this week.
OPEN
What is your name and one thing you love about living in America. (To my international friends, substitute your country, of course.)
DIG
1. In light of recent events, I’d like for us to take a careful look at what the Bible teaches about racism. To get us started, what verses come to mind?
A great site to answer this question is https://www.openbible.info/topics/racism Verses are voted on by users so that the most helpful ones find their way to the top. As of this writing, these are some of the most helpful verses. (Slightly edited.)
John 7:24 ESV Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.
Galatians 3:28 ESV There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Romans 10:12 ESV For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.
Romans 2:11 ESV For God shows no partiality.
John 13:34 ESV A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
Acts 17:26 ESV And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
James 2:9 ESV But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
1 John 2:9 ESV Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.
Acts 10:34-35 ESV So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
2. How would you define racism?
In the summer of 2004, the Presbyterian Church in America settled on the following definition, which I find helpful: “Racism is an explicit or implicit belief or practice that qualitatively distinguishes or values one race over other races.” In spite of saying above that I usually use the term race with cultural connotations (ethnicity), in this definition I am thinking of race primarily in terms of physical features. I am making a distinction between race and ethnicity.
The reason is that, since ethnicity includes beliefs and attitudes and behaviors, we are biblically and morally bound to value some aspects of some ethnicities over others. Where such valuing is truly rooted in biblical teaching about good and evil, this should not be called racism. There are aspects of every culture, including our own (whoever “our” is), which are sinful and in need of transformation. So the definition of racism here leaves room for assessing cultures on the basis of a biblical standard.
The focus of this definition of racism is on the heart and behavior of the racist. The heart that believes one race is more valuable than another is a sinful heart. And that sin is called racism. The behavior that distinguishes one race as more valuable than another is a sinful behavior. And that sin is called racism. This personal focus on the term racism does not exclude the expression of this sin in structural ways—for example, laws and policies that demean or exclude on the basis of race. — John Piper, Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), 18–19.
3. Should we, as Christians, be concerned about social issues like racism?
Then, following King’s explanation of his obligation to disobey an unjust law of the government in order to obey the just law of God, he piercingly indicted these pastors with the following words:
In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churches stand on the sideline and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard so many ministers say, “Those are social issues with which the Gospel has no real concern.”[83]
Then he pleaded for them to apply the gospel to such social issues, saying:
There was a time when the Church was very powerful. It was during that period when the early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the Church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. . . .
But the judgment of God is upon the Church as never before. If the Church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early Church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.[84]
I reread these words as I prepared to make my remarks on that Good Friday, and I was freshly grieved by the gospel-less actions of my white forefathers during those days. — David Platt, Counter Culture: Radically Following Jesus with Conviction, Courage, and Compassion (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2015).
4. Galatians 3.28, Romans 10.12, Romans 3.22, Ephesians 2.13. What do we learn about the heart of God from these verses?
Ephesians 2:13 trumpets the foundational note with the word blood. “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” The “nearness” Paul has in mind is nearness to God and to Jews. Gentiles find reconciliation with God and with Jews “by the blood” of Christ. We watch this unfold as we move through the following verses.
Paul says in verse 14 that Christ “himself is our peace, who has made us both one.” In other words, Christ did not come to open a second, alternative way to God. He came to shed his blood for sinners, both Jew and Gentile, and by his sacrifice to give Jew and Gentile a common access to God through faith.
Then Paul adds in verse 15 that the aim of Christ was “that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace.” Here he pictures the church as a single person. Once there was a Jewish people, and there were Gentile peoples. Then Christ came, and by his blood united them to himself so that “in himself” there would be only one new person, namely, Christ. He is their common identity. Which leads us naturally to verse 16 where Jew and Gentile are the one body of the one new man Jesus Christ.
Verse 16: “[Christ reconciled] us both [Jew and Gentile] to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.” The reconciling work of Christ brings people to God not in two alien bodies, one rejecting him (Jewish) and one trusting him (Christian). Christ brings Jew and Gentile to God in one body, the church redeemed by his one sacrifice. — John Piper, Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), 123–124.
5. Romans 10.12 says, “There is no difference…” But, here are differences, aren’t there? Are we to pretend that there are no differences?
As Christians, we are firm in our convictions that all ethnicities are equal in value: “There is no difference between Jew and Gentile” (Rom 3:22). As authors we are deeply committed to and convinced of the fundamental equality of all peoples. We also believe that to understand a culture, you must be aware of ethnicity and especially the prejudices that may exist within a particular culture. To ignore them is naïve and can result in serious misunderstanding.
Consider this example. Let’s suppose a Korean missionary decides to move to Birmingham, Alabama, to start a church. He notices that a lot of the people are dark-skinned. He asks you, “Is there a difference between blacks and whites?”
In our piety, we might answer, “No, everybody is the same.”
It is certainly true that all are equal, but our pious answer is misleading in several ways. First, we are likely setting our Korean missionary up for trouble. He will be blindsided by the first racist he meets, and he will surely meet one. Second, he will notice some differences among the locals in worship and dialect and perhaps even in dress and cuisine. Third, he might assume that the majority culture of his neighborhood is representative of the majority culture of North America. Just as ignorance about ethnicities can lead to misunderstanding in our daily lives, so too it can lead to misunderstanding of the Bible.
We are conditioned culturally not to make generalizations about people based on ethnicity. We know better than to say, “He does such-and-such because he’s Latino.” We affirm that instinct. But being oblivious to ethnicities can cause us to miss things in the Bible. The biblical writers and their audiences were more than happy to make such generalizations. “He does such-and-such because he’s a Jew” was a perfectly legitimate argument for first-century Romans. Consequently, we may read the Bible ignorant of ethnic differences in the text that would have been obvious to the first audience. Or we may naïvely believe that those differences don’t matter anyway because first-century Rome must have been post-racial, like we supposedly are. Other times our deeply ingrained racial prejudices influence our interpretation so that we assume the ancients held the same stereotypes we hold. — E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 55–56.
6. We live in a racially divided world. Was the Bible written in a racially divided world? Can you think of examples?
Like the world we inhabit today, the worlds of both the Old and New Testaments were ethnically diverse and richly textured by an assortment of cultures, languages and customs. And also like today, ancient peoples had a number of ways of distinguishing between locals and out-of-towners, friends and enemies, the elite and the marginalized. Prejudice comes in all varieties, yesterday, today and tomorrow. From time immemorial, humans have held prejudices against others based on their ethnicity, the color of their skin or factors such as where they’re from and how they speak.
While it may be comforting to know that other cultures, including the biblical ones, have prejudices, there is another reason to note them. Since these usually go without being said, in the text of Scripture we are left with gaps in the stories. In Genesis 27:46, for example, Rebekah exclaims her frustration with Esau’s wives, not because he had more than one, but because of their ethnicity: “I’m disgusted with living because of these Hittite women,” she says to Isaac. “If Jacob takes a wife from among the women of this land, from Hittite women like these, my life will not be worth living.” Rebekah’s comment is heavily laden with ethnic prejudice. There was something about Hittites that sent her up the wall. Most of us don’t know what; it went without being said. And, as we’ve said before, we are prone to fill in such gaps with our own prejudices. This gives us lots of opportunity for misunderstanding. We may assume an issue is due to ethnicity when it isn’t, assume it isn’t when it is, fail to recognize an ethnic slur when it’s obvious or imagine one when it isn’t. Consider these examples.
Paul had started churches in the southern regions of Anatolia (modern Turkey) in the towns of Derbe, Lystra and Iconium. Acts tells us that on his second sortie into the region, Paul attempted to go into the northern area: “When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to” (Acts 16:7). This northern region was known by the Romans as Galatia, a mispronunciation of the word Celts, the name of the people group that had settled in the region generations earlier. They were considered barbarians, a term that referred to someone who didn’t speak Greek. The word barbarian was more or less the Greek equivalent of us saying “blah-blah-blah” to ridicule someone’s speech. Since Greeks equated speech with reason (as in the word logos), someone who couldn’t speak Greek was considered stupid. While the entire region was technically Galatia by Roman designation, the inhabitants of the southern region preferred their provincial names, a practice Luke knew: “Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia [i.e., not ‘Galatians’], Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome” (Acts 2:9–10). They did not want anyone confusing them with those uneducated barbarians in the north. When the churches in this region act foolishly, Paul writes to chasten them. He addresses them harshly: “You foolish Galatians!” (Gal 3:1). This is roughly equivalent to someone in the United States saying, “You stupid rednecks.” Paul is employing an ethnic slur to get his readers’ attention. We might assume Paul would never do such a thing; he’s a Christian, after all! Yet that instinct proves the point. Our assumptions about ethnicity and race relations make impossible the prospect that Paul might have used ethnically charged language to make an important point about Christian faith and conduct. — E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 56–58.
7. There was a lot of racism in those people’s hearts. Do you suppose there is any racism in your heart and mine?
But I had to be honest. As much as I wanted to distance myself from those eight pastors in 1960s Birmingham, I had to admit that I have the same gospel-denying tendencies that elicited their letter. For I am prone to prefer people who are like me —in color, culture, heritage, and history. If I walk into a room by myself and see two tables, one with a group of people ethnically like me and the other with a group of people ethnically unlike me, I instinctively move toward the group that is like me. I suppose something in me assumes that those who are like me are safer, more comfortable, and therefore better for me. Similarly, I’m prone to act as if those who are unlike me are less safe, less comfortable, and less beneficial. It seems to me, then, only a short walk from such simple preference to the kind of sinful prejudice that marked my pastoral predecessors. The difference between them and me is more one of degree than of kind.[85]
So when I preached my sermon that Good Friday, I had to confess the sinful tendency of my own heart to prefer one person over another based on particular commonalities. Furthermore, even as I write these words on this day, I have to admit that I have not resisted this tendency in my own heart and in my own church with the fierceness with which I ought to fight it. I feel inadequate to write this book on so many levels, but that inadequacy may be felt most in this chapter, for even as I have sought to develop friendships, foster partnerships, and forge initiatives that promote unity across ethnic lines, I know there is so much more that needs to be done in my own life and in the church of which I am a part. — David Platt, Counter Culture: Radically Following Jesus with Conviction, Courage, and Compassion (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2015).
8. Romans 10.12 (and other places) says there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. It doesn’t mean much to us. We don’t have any emotional reaction. How would it have FELT to the original audience?
Keep in mind that the divide between Jews and Gentiles was not small or simple or shallow. It was huge and complex and deep. It was as intractable as any ethnic hostilities we experience today.
It was, first, religious. The Jews knew the one true God, and Christian Jews knew his Son, Jesus the Messiah. And for many the Gentiles seemed utterly outside religiously; they were pagan and did not know God.
The divide was also cultural or social with many ceremonies and practices like circumcision and dietary regulations and rules of cleanliness and holy days, and so on. These were all designed to set the Jews apart from the nations for a period of redemptive history to make clear the radical holiness of God.
And the divide was racial. This was a bloodline going back to Jacob, not Esau, and Isaac, not Ishmael, and Abraham, not any other father. So the divide here was as big, or bigger, than any divide that we face today among Anglo-, African-, Latino-, Asian-, or Native-American. — John Piper, Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), 126.
9. Let’s look at a story that sheds light on Jesus’ view of racism. Turn to John 4. Look over this story. Who can summarize it?
IF YOU WANT TO WALK with God, you won’t always wind up where you expected.
If you want to go to Galilee, you don’t go through Samaria. Jesus wanted to go to Galilee. And yet He went through Samaria. Why? Because He “had to.”
When Jesus went to Samaria, He was going out of His way. Jews did not try to find ways to hang around Samaritans—they had history and were not on friendly terms. Yet Jesus kept going. He went out of His way to talk to a Samaritan woman there. He was fully aware that He was stepping over not one but two barriers: the social barrier between Jews and Samaritans, and the cultural barrier between men and women. By all rights, this conversation should not have happened. And yet it did. — Doug Nuenke and Jerry Bridges, Five Traits of a Christ-Follower (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2015).
10. How did the Jews feel about Samaritans back in the day?
Every Jew in Jesus’ day viewed Samaritans with contempt and from a position of superiority. To the Jews, the Samaritans, a mixed-race people descended from the Jews, were compromisers, impure and wayward. This perspective was so much a part of the Jewish psyche that Jesus’ own disciples marveled that he would take them into Samaria rather than skirting around it, and they were even more amazed when they found him conversing with a woman there. Jesus had sought this particular woman out so that he could treat her with respect and offer her the true, abundant life that he came to bring. Through her witness, many in her town came to believe (Jn 4:1-45). — Leroy Barber, Embrace: God’s Radical Shalom for a Divided World (Westmont, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2016).
11. Why the animosity between Jews and Samaritans? What is the back story?
During the Persian period, the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and the walls. This attempt was resisted by the Samaritans, who were now a mixed race of Assyrians and Israelites and did not want to see the city of Jerusalem successfully rebuilt because of their racial hatred of the Jews (Nehemiah 2:19; 4:1; 6:1–6). The Jews, meanwhile, desired to maintain the purity of the Jewish race and thus would not allow the Samaritans to participate in the rebuilding process (Nehemiah 2:10; 6:14). A feud developed that continued into Christ’s day and served as the historical backdrop to the confrontation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. — Tony Evans, Oneness Embraced: Reconciliation, the Kingdom, and How We Are Stronger Together (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2015).
12. How does Jesus model for us breaking down racist barriers?
In Samaria, Jesus rested at Jacob’s well (John 4:6). A well offered water and shade, and it was a natural place for a hot, tired man to stop. But Jesus chose this particular well because both the Jews and Samaritans loved Jacob, who was the father of both groups. Jesus was looking for common ground so He stopped at Jacob’s well and built a bridge of communication by starting with what He and the Samaritan woman could agree on.
Jesus had rejected the attitudes of His contemporaries in His willingness to go through Samaria from Judea to Galilee, something no good, orthodox Jew would do. This is why in John 4:9 the Samaritan woman asked him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” The text tells us, “For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.”
Shocked at Jesus’ request, she could not believe that He was asking her, a woman of Samaria, to let Him use her cup. To put His Jewish lips on her Samaritan cup was an intimate act of fellowship and warm acceptance. It was something that wasn’t done in this woman’s neighborhood. Not only was this an action that signified a willingness for fellowship, but it was also an action that gave the woman value. Jesus was letting her know that He had a need, and that she was in a position to meet that need. He esteemed her with value by placing Himself in a position that acknowledged that she possessed the ability to help Him. — Tony Evans, Oneness Embraced: Reconciliation, the Kingdom, and How We Are Stronger Together (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2015).
13. John 4.9. How did this woman know Jesus was a Jew?
But how did the woman know that Jesus was a Jew? John, the author, does not say that Jesus told her that He was a Jew. So there must have been something about Him that made her know. It could be that He looked like a Jew, or perhaps He had a Jewish accent or some other trait that gave a public indication of His racial and cultural heritage.
Whatever it was, when Jesus Christ went through Samaria, He did not give up His own culture. He did not stop being a Jew to reach a Samaritan, but neither did He allow His culture to prevent Him from connecting with her or meeting a spiritual need in her. While remaining culturally competent, He maintained His unique cultural identity. He just didn’t let who He was stop Him from being what He was called to be.
In other words, Jesus didn’t let His history, culture, race, and background get in the way of ministering to a woman who had a spiritual need and who would meet him on common ground. Likewise, Jesus allowed the woman to retain her history, culture, and experiences as a Samaritan. — Tony Evans, Oneness Embraced: Reconciliation, the Kingdom, and How We Are Stronger Together (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2015).
14. What is the application of this story? What are some steps we can take rid our world of racism?
Jesus’ ensuing conversation with the Samaritan woman shows us further that a heart which is disciplined to minister not only works hard, but crosses difficult relational barriers to reach out to others. The narrative continues: “When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ‘Will you give me a drink?’ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?’ (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)” (vv. 7–9). Racial differences form some of the most daunting barriers in this world.
Australian Anglican Bishop John Reed relates that early in his ministry he was driving a bus carrying a full mix of black aboriginal boys and white boys on an outing. As they filed in, the white boys took one side and the blacks the other. And as the trip went on, they exchanged jibes with increasing intensity.
Finally Reed could take it no longer. He stopped the bus and ordered everyone off. Then he stood at the bus door and made every boy say, “I’m green” before allowing him back on.
It took some doing, but at last the bus was full. Bishop Reed was feeling pretty good about his accomplishment until he heard someone in the back of the bus say, “Alright, light green on this side, dark green on the other!” — R. Kent Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Man, 10th anniversary ed.; rev. ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001), 215–216.
15. Do you think the Confederate Flag should be taken down?
This week the nation reels over the murder of praying Christians in an historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina. At the same time, one of the issues hurting many is the Confederate Battle Flag flying at full-mast from the South Carolina Capitol grounds even in the aftermath of this racist act of violence on innocent people. This raises the question of what we as Christians ought to think about the Confederate Battle Flag, given the fact that many of us are from the South.
The flag of my home state of Mississippi contains the Confederate Battle Flag as part of it, and I’m deeply conflicted about that. The flag represents home for me. I love Christ, church, and family more than Mississippi, but that’s about it. Even so, that battle flag makes me wince—even though I’m the descendant of Confederate veterans.
Some would say that the Confederate Battle Flag is simply about heritage, not about hate. Singer Brad Paisley sang that his wearing a Confederate flag on his shirt was just meant to say that he was a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan. Comedian Stephen Colbert quipped, “Little known fact: Jefferson Davis—HUGE Skynyrd fan.”
Defenders of the flag would point out that the United States flag is itself tied up with ugly questions of history. Washington and Jefferson, after all, supported chattel slavery too. The difference is, though, that the United States overcame its sinful support of this wicked system (though tragically late in the game). The Confederate States of America was not simply about limited government and local autonomy; the Confederate States of America was constitutionally committed to the continuation, with protections of law, to a great evil. The moral enormity of the slavery question is one still viscerally felt today, especially by the descendants of those who were enslaved and persecuted.
The gospel speaks to this. The idea of a human being attempting to “own” another human being is abhorrent in a Christian view of humanity. That should hardly need to be said these days, though it does, given the modern-day slavery enterprises of human trafficking all over the world. In the Scriptures, humanity is given dominion over the creation. We are not given dominion over our fellow image-bearing human beings (Gen. 1:27-30). The southern system of chattel slavery was built off of the things the Scripture condemns as wicked: “man-stealing” (1 Tim. 1:10), the theft of another’s labor (Jas. 5:1-6), the breaking up of families, and on and on.
In order to prop up this system, a system that benefited the Mammonism of wealthy planters, Southern religion had to carefully weave a counter-biblical theology that could justify it (the biblically ridiculous “curse of Ham” concept, for instance). In so doing, this form of southern folk religion was outside of the global and historic teachings of the Christian church. The abolitionists were right—and they were right not because they were on the right side of history but because they were on the right side of God.
Even beyond that, though, the Flag has taken on yet another contextual meaning in the years since. The Confederate Battle Flag was the emblem of Jim Crow defiance to the civil rights movement, of the Dixiecrat opposition to integration, and of the domestic terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens’ Councils of our all too recent, all too awful history.
White Christians ought to think about what that flag says to our African-American brothers and sisters in Christ, especially in the aftermath of yet another act of white supremacist terrorism against them. The gospel frees us from scrapping for our “heritage” at the expense of others. As those in Christ, this descendant of Confederate veterans has more in common with a Nigerian Christian than I do with a non-Christian white Mississippian who knows the right use of “y’all” and how to make sweet tea.
None of us is free from a sketchy background, and none of our backgrounds is wholly evil. The blood of Jesus has ransomed us all “from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers” (1 Pet. 1:18), whether your forefathers were Yankees, rebels, Vikings, or whatever. We can give gratitude for where we’ve come from, without perpetuating symbols of pretend superiority over others. http://www.russellmoore.com/2015/06/19/the-cross-and-the-confederate-flag/
16. Do you think statues of Confederate war heroes should be torn down?
We would like to imagine that all questions have easy answers. This is not usually the case. I could argue either side of this. On the one hand, if we tear down every statue of every imperfect person, there would be no statues left. Many of our founding fathers were slave owners. And, if we found a statue that was 2000 years old of a slave owner, we would surely preserve it for the sake of history. There is just something about something that is old that feels like it needs to be preserved.
On the other hand, to celebrate the life of someone whose main accomplishment—the thing he is remembered for—is fighting for the right to own slaves… this is obviously offensive. (As I understand the Civil War story, there is actually more to it than the right to own slaves. I do think that was a strong driving force.)
Perhaps a compromise would be to move statues to a museum. Advocates of preserving the statues might be pleased that in this way, the statues would be protected. And, they could be given context. An explanation of this person’s life as a historical figure—not a hero could be provided.
I think I could benefit from the thoughtful consideration of thinking people on this one.
17. As a thought experiment, could you argue the other side of these last two questions?
You may not agree with the other side, but you ought to seek to understand the other side. Unless you could articulate their view in a way that they would agree with, you have not yet done your homework in understanding. A first step in getting past conflict is understanding. A good way to test whether we really understand is whether or not we could articulate the view of people we disagree with.
18. Think of your circle of friends. Do you have friends races not your own? If I looked through your Facebook friends, would I find all people of the same color as you? If I looked at your contact list on your phone, would I find all people of the same race as you?
A good application of this lesson is to seek to befriend someone of a different race.
19. What is your application to this lesson for your life this week?
The gospel compels such action. By the grace of God, we must work to overcome prejudicial pride in our lives, families, and churches, a process that I’m convinced begins with changing the conversation about race altogether. Moreover, with the wisdom of God, we must labor to respect immigration laws in our country as responsible citizens while loving immigrant souls in our community as compassionate Christians. In a context where minorities will become the majority over the next thirty years, we must consider how to apply the gospel across a multiplicity of colors and cultures for the glory of Christ. — David Platt, Counter Culture: Radically Following Jesus with Conviction, Courage, and Compassion (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2015).
20. How can we pray for one another today?