Race is a social construct. The Bible doesn’t mention race, except the human race, the single Adamic race.
Some have more melanin than others, so their skin is darker to varying degrees with actually very little physical difference between people. The DNA of any two human beings is 99.9% similar in content and identity. God doesn’t care more for someone with more melanin and neither should any person.
Skin color identifies and distinguishes. If a crime is committed, race is one means of describing a suspect. I heard Shaquille O’Neil in recent years call himself the black Steph Curry. He brought attention to the variation in their skin color. He did that. For what reason?
Enough of that though. Black lives matter and they matter to me too. They don’t matter less than white or yellow or brown or red lives.
The meaning and value of human life and lives are wrapped up in their being made in the image of God. This is not any more clear than in Genesis 9:6: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” With the first murder, that of Abel, God said (Genesis 4:10): “the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.” The shed blood cried out to God for retribution. The life of the flesh is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11).
Life matters to God, so it should matter to us. Black lives matter. When they do matter to someone, how can one tell? How can you tell if black lives matter? People say it, but is it the truth? Should it be that someone types a hashtag for everyone? Is it opting for a blackout Tuesday? Attending a march or anti-racism protest? Is it by facilitating an uncomfortable conversation about race? Through countless memes, videos, and posts about race on social media pages? Instructions on how to educate ourselves? Should it be through an explanation of white privilege? Giving book recommendations about race? Maybe more than any other way, will people know black lives matter to you by your criticism of other non-black people who use language you can label as oppressive?
People aim to appear to care. It’s a show — the Pharisee part of this. It signals virtue, which is in fact absent in most cases. Someone who has done nothing for black lives shouldn’t be touting his own compassion with memes. He is a Pharisee praying on the street corner. He poses like picking the most appropriate image is his big sacrifice, seeking the approval from those from which he hungers it. Black lives matter is another hoop to jump through for acceptance or at least, not rejection.
Someone should ask, what did Jesus do? What did the Apostle Paul do? They were both concerned about the gospel. This life is very, very short. The Jewish problem with Gentiles was judged by its affect on the salvation of Gentiles through a perversion of the gospel. Jesus didn’t protest slavery in the Roman empire. The gospel would bring the owner and slave together like Philemon and Onesimus in Philemon, now brothers beloved.
Our church is heavily pigmented mainly because we don’t target anyone. We don’t pander to any audience, which is the essence of impartiality. We don’t reach out to the blacks, to the whites, to the Asians, to the Hispanics, to the Indians. Hyping race is racism. Ignoring it isn’t. We reach out to everyone regardless of this social construction called “race.” We treat race like it doesn’t exist, because it doesn’t.
Since race doesn’t exist, black, white, red, or yellow culture doesn’t exist. It’s only scriptural or unscriptural culture, spiritual or carnal, godly or ungodly, or sacred or profane. There is no black music or white music. The English language isn’t white or black. You can’t “sound black” or “sound white.” You’re either saying it right or saying it wrong. You’re not helped by saying it wrong. Race itself is a lie, so the pressures created around it to cave to wrong behavior are the price of the lie. It’s what turns people into racists.
When black lives matter to you, first, you care about the eternal soul of the black person. Instead of accentuating skin color, do you talk about the two ways the Bible categorizes people: saved or lost, sheep or goats, tares or wheat, or light or darkness? When you don’t preach the gospel to black people, don’t tell me that black lives matter to you. They don’t. How many black people have you preached the gospel to, professing Christian? If it’s none, when you have black people all around you, you are a heartless hypocrite with zero compassion. Stop promoting yourself on social media like you care. You don’t. You are a pathetic self-promoter. That’s all you are. When black lives matter, you want black lives to be eternal lives, which has nothing to do with skin color and everything about believing the gospel. If you haven’t done that, and you don’t do it, you hate black people, while saying that you love them.
I knocked on every door of the iron triangle in Richmond, California. I skipped no neighborhoods. On many occasions, I played basketball in areas where there were only black people, and afterwards I preached the gospel to them. I knocked on every door in Parchester Village, the Rodeo projects, and North Richmond.
When black lives matter to you, second, you make disciples of black people to Jesus Christ. That is very similar, almost identical to evangelizing, except this means you are sacrificing to spend time with at least one black person to teach him to observe all things whatsoever the Lord has commanded. How many black people have you discipled? Some of the loudest at publicizing their own racial virtue, have done zip. It’s most of you reading. Please sit down. Retire your social media from the spread of this lie that black people matter to you. They don’t.
The third way to tell if black lives matter to you is your support of missions to black people. It’s not just them, but it’s the whole world, which includes black people. Africa is mainly black. Are you willing to go to Africa out of love for Africans? Actual Africans from the continent of Africa? Our church supports three missionaries to Africa and at one time, four, but now one has gone to Australia to evangelize that country. Do you keep up with missions to Africa? Do you read missionary prayer letters from Africa? More black people live in Africa than any other place. What are you doing to reach Africa?
Another way to tell if black lives matter to you is, four, do you sacrificially serve black people? What do you do to help black people? Helping someone means involvement. You work with them directly. You bear their burdens. I’m not talking about a hand out. I’m talking about helping them personally get out of a cycle, maybe by providing free child care, which my wife and I did for years for two black girls, while their mother worked. I would have helped them if they were white or Asian too. Race is a social construct. I stood before a crowd of almost entirely black people every month for eight years, asking if I could take any one of them out to find a job. If someone wanted it, I would meet him at a location in town to try and help. This was my own time, not spending the taxes someone else pays. We have had black people living with us, providing them short term housing, until they could get a place to live.
Do black lives matter to you if you don’t oppose black abortion? Between 2012 and 2016 over 136,000 black children were murdered in New York City through abortion. Do these black lives matter? All black lives matter, not just one murdered by a police officer. More black people are killed by abortion than any single means, so, five, you can tell that black lives matter to you if you oppose the abortion of black lives. That is not popular to say. You can’t post that on your social media and receive two hundred likes from the readers. If you are silent about black abortion, then black lives don’t matter to you.
Very few black people are killed by white people. It’s difficult to find official statistics, so I go back to 2013. According to the FBI in 2013, 2,491 black people were murdered in the United States, 189 by white people and 2,245 by black people. 409 white people were killed by black people. The biggest danger to black lives are black people. If it is black lives that matter and not just politics, then the biggest threat to murder, besides abortion, are black people killing each other. Six, if black lives really do matter, all of them, then more attention must be given to blacks killing blacks, than whites killing blacks.
No murder is justified, but if black lives matter, then the focus should be on what ends the most black lives. That isn’t white people. It’s a very small number of black people who are killed by white police officers. It’s a very large number of black people killed by other black people. Every black person is made in the image of God. Every black person is endowed by the Creator with the right to life. Black lives matter.
If it really is black lives matter, then these six above will be heard. Do you first care if black people will be in the kingdom, will be in heaven with you? That’s forever, not just the short life that we live, but all eternity. Do you second care about what ends the most black lives, so that the most possible black people can live? If you do not hear about these, then it isn’t about black lives, but about something else.
I'm too busy reading the Bible and loving God to deal with these people. I'd rather be dealing with people who are actually interested in God's word. Life is short, as you said. Their conversation is in bad faith. All they're looking for is something to take out of context to make their imagined enemies look bad, when the real enemy is within. I'm thinking of Romans 8:6-7.
Anonymous,
I can't tell if you're serious, but I don't find there to be much difference in race as to the reception the gospel. I really don't know what the reaction will be until I preach it. Preaching it is all we're required to do — the sowing and watering of 1 Corinthians 3. I do get the idea of dusting the feet with individuals and even whole towns if they are not receptive, as we in the New Testament, but that's after a free offer. I understand spending more time with receptive people, but spending some time with everyone that is willing to listen. If anyone doesn't want to listen then one moves on, and this has nothing to do with pigmentation.
Part of why I wrote this is not for someone who is actually preaching the gospel but to someone who isn't preaching it at all, just sitting behind their key board, inventing new social media posts to appear to care.
Pastor Brandenburg,
I'm sure you know who I am, you have access to post history so you know I'm serious. I'm also thinking of the Great Commission. Nothing in there about acknowledging political issues, it's all about God in Christ, and everything he teaches. That's what I have time for. Maybe you like this other stuff, and I'm not going to try to jump to conclusions on that but it's simply not for me.
And yes of course, it is agreed, slacktivists aren't doing much. Signalling support for a political movement is again acting in the flesh trusting in the flesh and also trying to justify oneself (make oneself savvy or presentable) in the crowd for the crowd's approval. For why else would one be a social signaller except that, Pastor Brandenburg?
Anonymous,
I can't usually tell who someone is by the style of writing, so I didn't know if you were serious, because usually someone won't start off by saying I'm too busy reading the Bible and loving God. That's what had me thinking it wasn't serious. I like the way that you represented these people, slacktivists and then social signaller, making ones self savvy and presentable. Those are all good representations. It sounds like you have spent some time thinking about it.
This post also is dealing with what is maybe the biggest problem in evangelical churches of every type. Read Acts 15, which I'm preaching on Sunday morning at our church right now, to see that this is something people have to deal with. It's in every epistle. The gospel will change when someone mixes anything with it and that's what's happening now with churches and within churches. Most of them.
Hi, sorry if that sentence came off the wrong way. I think people should realize when they're dealing with someone that legitimately receives scripture and when they're simply being kafkatrapped. Now if I didn't signal my willingness to try very strongly, then that's my fault I suppose. I'm not here to convince you of that willingness. The excessive signalling on these topics is part of the problem, because kafkatraps are designed to try to make you reckon with them, which is why I'm not doing that. I'm not going to spend one second arguing about some slogan that satan probably came up with. None of that has any meaning to me anymore. It's too bad people are being dragged into it and caving in an attempt to make sure they show to others how politically conscious they are. Even if it means that some people think that comes off as not being sensitive or caring enough and make evil surmisings about my motives, etc. They're going to do that anyway. Now when I said post history, I meant IP addresses and so forth, but no big deal.
Hi Anonymous,
I don't see IP addresses. Maybe there's a way to see that, but I don't see them, so unless someone identifies, they are truly anonymous. I think I remember you now in the sense of saying some things similar before, but that's the extent of it, maybe 1% identity recognition of you now.
"I don't see IP addresses."
Oh ok then, Pastor Brandenburg, I apologize for my tone earlier then. I am 100% serious and I do stand by everything that I said. It's not that I am saying you are doing anything wrong. I don't want to read into other people's reasons for engaging in it, I'm simply saying it should be perfectly in line with following the Great Commission not to engage in it and that this kind of thing is not necessary in order to follow Christ. And therefore I only wish to spend time with and get into conversation with people that are actually holding a good faith conversation, and I personally think that getting into political discussion of this sort is not going to be of any benefit because the people being conversed or reasoned with are not doing so honestly, i.e. telling them you agree with their slogans is not going to do anything to reach a common understanding with them, it's only going to sow discord amongst brethren if anything. This is my strong conviction based on experience and interaction, and searching the Scripture for any examples.
This is more me justifying why I don't do something rather than me trying to tell you not to. I'm trying to go about expressing things wisely and explain reasons for doing so, not to say that anyone (especially not you Pastor Brandenburg) has actually done anything against Scripture. I didn't use the term "black lives" (how is that different from a regular life?) before the year 2015, why would I use it now? That's basically just internalizing errors in the sort of "collective crimes and collective grievances" mindset that Karl Marx promotes, in his false "class struggle" and "fight oppression" narratives. All these people speaking about this are just another reincarnation of Fidel Castro. It's the same lies all over again.
And this is why I personally don't do it or engage in it. And I think this is a strong argument, unless you can find something in Scripture which I haven't found that genuinely counters it.
If you'll still let me post… Just because we are essentially dealing with Karl Marx in nikes, all due respect, that doesn't mean that doesn't mean it's a good idea too act in kneejerk opposite way. I certainly don't believe in the ideals of a police state. As long as would be authoritarians aren't able to seize control from this short-term destabilization, I don't see much harm to Americans coming from any of the concepts of keeping police reportable, no need for a knee jerk reaction and I fully believe in the justice system to handle the case of those officers. What happened in Minneapolis is a tragedy, the things fentanyl does to the body are horrifying. We need to do something about the rampant drug problem in our cities. People's health are destroyed. And that's what I think is being ignored in the frenzy to politicize this horrible accident and dehumanize our fellow Americans all across the country.