Anti-Racism

Every Christian generation has to deal with the battlefield issues of their time. For mine, the primary front of the last 5-years has been the redefining of sexual morality away from the Christian ethic. It’s been going on forever, literally, but Americans are now figuratively living in Babylon where we have to deal with it pointedly. But Satan fights on multiple fronts.

I don’t want to step into the whole racial thing, but I am about to. I take comfort in thinking that even Francis Schaeffer had to be cajoled to step into the abortion issue (I don’t have a reference, so I might be wrong). I’m not being coerced by anything other than the waters in which I swim – and I think I need to at least formulate a coherent thought on the subject. Perhaps Dragonwood might become something of a L’Abri.

Currently there is a lot of anti-Semitism in the water, not to mention this whole anti-white thing (as though ‘white’ is a race). I’m sure it’s broader than that, as I see the confederate flag frequently flying here in Tennessee, and I can guess as to the emotional responses that Texans and Arizonans have regarding their borders being unprotected. And I have no idea what is going on in the rest of the world.

Having grown up in Iowa, and spending more time there than I ever wished for as an adult (proving that God has a sense of humor), I seriously thought that racism was dead. Forgive me.

Currently, the only social media I gravitate toward is Gab. I like Gab – it is absolutely a bastion of free-speech, however it has a reputation for being anti-Semitic. And I gotta say: It earned that reputation. I can’t help but think that the government is trying to give it to them, however.^{Note #1}

Torba has not followed the directives of the government to suppress dissenting opinions, or the reporting of actual news, the way that Zuckerburg and Dorsey followed the FBI’s instructions for Facebook and Twitter. Logic would dictate that as our government has been successful in having its way with Big Tech, our government would also want its way with Alt Tech.

Gab has not given the FBI, or others in the government, free reign through a backdoor, but the front door is open by design. Torba published the single ISP from the east coast of hundreds of simultaneously created Gab accounts, even before Elon published Twitter’s email chain between pre-Musk-Twitter and the FBI. I’d say we can be confident that our government is working against us in many ways, as all the documentation is in order, and one of those ways is by stoking the fire of racism wherever it can. (I see FBI-plants.)

Yet Torba has not helped himself, regarding the anti-Semitic tone of Gab. Even though he pushes for a Christian nation, which inherently holds Christian values, he distinguishes between Christian ethics and Jewish ethics. There is the rub.

Torba is partially correct – there is absolutely a difference between Christianity and Judaism, since the arrival of Christ. Christians recognize how the New Testament fulfills the Old Testament – therefore it is not a different religion, rather a single unveiling of God.^{Note #2}. Torba states how he wishes for all the world to come to Christ, and how the Jewish people need Christ – and how all people are lost who don’t have Jesus as their Lord. So far so good. Enter the whole Zionism crap. Seriously. How can this even be an issue post-WWII?

The Bible tells a single, unified story – from Genesis through Revelation, with the pivot-point being Jesus. Christians recognize that Jesus is the Christ, while those who retain only the Jewish faith do not. But if Jesus was not the promised savior, we need to remember that He claimed to be. He said without ambiguity in John 14:6b (ESV) “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

And if Jesus was not the promised savior, we need to call Him out as a charlatan or a schizophrenic. The power-players of the time did that by calling Him demon-possessed. All of that means that if Jesus wasn’t the promised savior, He couldn’t have been a good teacher, and certainly not a prophet. He would have been nothing other than a failure, relegated to the dustbin of history – yet Jesus changed everything! Every. Single. Thing.

Jesus changed how all of history was recorded, to how we throw parties – the term holiday comes from ‘holy day’. He instructed us to love our enemies. It was the Christians who rescued the children left to die; the poor and the marginalized were pursued, not ostracized. By trusting Jesus as Lord of lords, not just as a warm-fuzzy, we don’t need to pick fights against people as it says in Ephesians 6:12 (ESV) "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." Rather, we fight for the faith as spelled out in Jude 1:3 (NIV) "Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people."

If race doesn’t enter into the Christian equation, what does? Faith and TRUTH. Many people simply don’t believe the importance of the words Jesus spoke in Matthew 7:13-14 (ESV) “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

The outworking of the faith may be different Anno Domini, from Judaism to Christianity, but if a person is a follower of Christ, the ethics are one and the same. The Christian ethic has to be the same as the God is the same.

In Malachi 3:6a (ESV) “For I the LORD do not change.” And in Hebrews 13:8 (ESV) "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." For history-buffs, I’d be interested to look into the cultures surrounding Israel and compare how they lived, then line that up alongside the Ten Commandments. I bet we could do that in our present-day Babylon also. Followers of the One TRUE God live differently.

So, is it real that there is a growing racial animosity? I am sure there is. Remember that whole George Floyd fiasco? I had the privilege of working in a jail full-time during that event, and listening to officers discuss the details of it, as well as its fallout. That doesn’t make me an expert but it does give me insight I wouldn’t have had otherwise. That tragedy wasn’t racially motivated in the least, even though that’s how it was sold to us. (Sold by who?) Our government showed its hand by how they fomented racism in the aftermath of Antifa.

When I hear how racism is a motivating factor to bad behavior now, I hear Kurt Cobain screaming in my head, “Just because you’re paranoid, don’t mean they’re not after you.” Perhaps I can alter the lyrics just a little, “Just because the government is against us, doesn’t mean that racism doesn’t exist.” But that isn’t quite as scream-able to grunge guitar riffs.

Yes, there is real evil in the world and, yes our government bends its knee to some god other than Christ. We as Christians recognize that God created us all: In our place, in our time, in our skin, in our sex, and in our ethnicity – we have value and worth as a result of being created by God and in His image. If we fight, and indeed we need to be ready, we ought not fight against those who God chooses as His own. Speaking to the Hebrews in Deuteronomy 7:6 (ESV) “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth."

The Christian ethic will shine through us if His Spirit is in us. We absolutely should expect to get bloodied and we absolutely need to stand our ground. But that doesn’t mean picking a side in the racism war. It means picking a side in the eternal war. I’m thinking, if we endure in our faith, if we abide in Christ, we will not be safe. When people see Christ in us, many will be threatened by our king, and will come at us.

How we fight is also different than how our ultimate enemy fights. We don’t play by the same rules. Remember how Christ triumphed over death? Different weapons, different warfare.

Note 1: Andrew Torba, Gab’s creator – incorporated the ability to block accounts at the initial design-level, long before Facebook or Twitter ever added that feature on – anticipating that Free Speech would result in some people not liking what other people say.

Bonus Note 1: Gab has been successful in preventing porn from ever getting posted, yet Facebook and Twitter don’t concern themselves with that. I hear that Musk stopped porn on Twitter within the first week of his takeover, but maybe that’s just Gab-talk.

Note 2: I am gobsmacked by progressive revelation – how God reveals Himself over time. I imagine myself in Noah’s day: knowing God, yet only very little of His nature. In Abraham’s day, and on into Moses’, God shows up more clearly over time. What did these Godly people know of God Himself, and how? Somehow even Melchizedek was a player, but how did God reveal Himself there? Was that guy even a Hebrew?

It’s got to be that God revealed Himself personally along the way, outside of Scripture, and that nothing was written down. It’s amazing to think that we sit here in the 21st-Century, with literally thousands of years of God showing up and proving Himself, with an innumerable number of witnesses providing evidence to what He has done, and still God continues to present more of Himself. Such is the evidence that God’s glory will continue to expand throughout eternity.

Bonus Note 2: Remember Gamaliel who cautioned the Sanhedrin against opposing Peter in Acts 5? He said that if Peter was from God He would last, but if He was not he would go away, as did all the other wannabes. Gamaliel stated that they could be opposing God if they went after Peter. We might need to hear those same words of caution.

Side Note to the Bonus Note: Jesus hasn’t gone away.