Do Black Lives Matter to Christians?

There are moments in time that we don’t realize will go down in the history books. This is not one of those times.

In that respect, it’s infuriating to see the lack of response from the Christian church regarding the movement.

Shouldn’t one of the priorities of the church be to get down to the core of why there is so much anger in our nation? Not directly acknowledging Black Lives Matter as a human rights issue is alienating both to members of the Black community and to allies of the movement. The fact that people can’t separate the organization from the movement isn’t shocking (we tend to like to group things in neat little packages at the expense of learning) but Christians and Christian leaders need to 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐏 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐬. The principles of the Kingdom are 𝖒𝖔𝖗𝖊 𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖑 than the systems of this country.

Depending on the church in question, it might be demographically easier to deliver messages of peace, unity, love for all and obedience to law than it is to address the blatant racism in the country. It is certainly less controversial to preach that looting and property destruction is immoral than it is to speak on how even the most passive forms of racism torment innocent lives. But sometimes the easier message is not the one we need to hear.

Hang up your political affiliations, park your donkeys and elephants in their respective habitats and open your eyes, ears and hearts up to what’s going on in the world. Standing up for vulnerable people is far more important than worshipping the government. When it comes to practicing what we preach, party politics and fear of losing tithes shouldn’t prevent the right sermon from reaching the people. God is not, after all, superintending our election process.

White Christians, especially, must not let their voices be taken by reactionaryism, or risk allowing inaction to get in the way of a movement that recognizes and dignifies the value of Black lives.

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. Legality≠Morality. Christians are called to be the moral conscience of our society. Silence on systemic racism and its influence on issues of human dignity and government misconduct means also being willing to relinquish rights to speak up when secularist ideas are introduced as solutions.

Christians should be actively involved in public discourse and activism when it comes to practices that impede on human dignity. Criminal justice policy reform is designed to protect groups subject to police and judicial malpractice, but the entire society benefits when it is done correctly.

While it’s nice to recognize that racism is wrong and still prevalent in our society, and that police misconduct is unsavory, it’s not enough. Policy reform on the local, state, and federal level is necessary.

Don’t you think that if Jesus were alive today that he would be an activist in this movement?

The predominant message the church is preaching involves being submissive to law and order. But what happens when those who are called to uphold the law abuse their authority? When they aren’t upholding the principles and values that maintain peace and justice? The manifestation of sin is imposed in the ordering of our society.

When I hear that Christians should be peacemakers, I am hearing that we should keep our mouths shut. When I hear that Christians should stay away from protests, I am hearing that we should be compliant. I’m also hearing a cop-out.

“The only cure for racism is a changed heart. To change your heart you must go through God.” (Or some variation).

This message says that racism stems only from individual hate. Not the systemic racism deeply embedded in our legal system, our economy, our government and even our schools. Remember when America had slavery? We didn’t wait for Jesus to change the hearts of slave owners. We went to war. Remember Jim Crow Laws? Civil Rights activists fought tirelessly against those until law was signed. Sometimes, laws must be changed to protect people. Period. Stop persuading people not to act. Legal, economic and educational reform is necessary. Failure to act puts Black people in danger.

We must take back the image of who Jesus is because how he’s been presented has been used to perpetuate everything from the Crusades to slavery.

We must not hide behind the Word of God to avoid uncomfortable conversations. Weaponizing religion against oppressed people by arguing that they should continue blindly following practices that aren’t serving them the same way as they serve others is absurd. The only way forward in a time of racial injustice is to acknowledge the wrong that is being done and to do something about it. Didn’t Jesus provide absolute compassion to persecuted, victimized and disenfranchised people? All Christians should join in solidarity with movements created to put racism to bed once and for all.

Some are saying that the chaos in the world today is the work of the devil. They say that it’s Satan trying to divide us. The truth is, the separation has been there. The devil has been working overtime in this arena for hundreds of years in the United States. The pervasive nature of human sin is exhibited through systemic racism. What’s going on is that there are people now recognizing that they should stand with their Black brothers and sisters of Christ against racial disparity. The devil isn’t the law or order, it’s the system. Allowing a system set up to intentionally harm Black lives to continue is evil.

Structural racism, or the processes and practices in the system that socially exclude groups of people and deprive them of access to necessary resources to sustain health and well-being, is part of the system that needs to be dismantled. Discrimination in sentencing, stigmatization as criminals and neighborhood disinvestments are the lives Black people are dealt, just because the color of their skin and the system we continue to support. Saying nothing is reinforcing that we are okay with this.

Pilate’s sin was passivity. He knew Jesus was not a bad man, but allowed him to be murdered. (Silence is violence. Silence is complicity.)

Christian churches don’t need to support donating to the Black Lives Matter organization. They don’t even need to urge others to engage in peaceful protests. They do need to recognize that Black Lives Matter and to allow Christians who feel called to do so to feel righteous in their activism to end senseless and archaic discrimination. Followers of Christ should rebuke injustice, brutality and racism. Just as Jesus came to liberate and set us free, we should also be called to liberate as we were created in his image.

Are we finally paying attention? Is the rise of white supremacist attitudes finally unleashing the appropriate amount of backlash? Has the menacing COVID-19 given us the opportunity to put other distractions aside so we could give compassion for a man who suffocated beneath the knee of the law—an officer who was supposed to protect and serve? Are we able to relate the death of a Black man who needlessly died a painful death, crying out for his mother the way Jesus cried out for his own father?

Throughout his life, Jesus protested and brought awareness to religious hypocrisy, political corruption, racism, hate, empowerment, gender inequality and social injustice. He stood up for the outcasts, uplifted the exploited, energized the oppressed and loved humanity.

Jesus was a protester. He was also a refugee. At the end of his life, Jesus was a political prisoner and torture victim. He was a brown man whose life was taken by law enforcement.

The Christian church should be loudly and proudly anti-racist. Consider this a plea for the Christian leaders of our country to reconsider the business as usual response. Because what’s going on is a far cry from a usual state of affairs.

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