Did black evangelicals let white evangelicals say nigger?

Reflections on the dismembered body of Christ

Louisville Kentucky, Memorial Day weekend, 2007

I was at the New Attitude conference hosted by Josh Harris and Sovereign Grace Ministries. The conference held 3000 singles from all over the world, though mostly from the US. I was a performer, doing a spoken-word style rap about the meaning of the word grace. Shortly after I finished, I was approached by a guy named Collin Hansen, who, at the time was the editor-at-large for Christianity Today. He told me he was writing a book called, “Young, Restless, Reformed.” At first, I thought he said young and the restless, a daytime soap opera that, he had to know, a black dude like me didn’t watch. I was wrong. His book was about reformed theology, not daytime television, and he wanted to interview me for the book. I agreed to do it but asked if I could bring a friend.  He was fine with it, and so I brought fellow Christian rapper, Shai Linne.

We went to a quiet section of the building where New Attitude (NA) was hosted and talked with Collin about my story and how I became reformed. Time flew by as Shai and I gave details about rap’s origins, the effectiveness of rap as a vehicle for growth, and our hopes for the black community, as it relates to sound doctrine. We said a lot. Collin asked good questions. After a couple of hours, we parted ways. Me and Shai headed back to the conference. Collin went wherever he was going, and when we were far enough apart Shai asked me, “Hey bro, do you think we threw the black church under the bus?”

It was a fair question. We spent the last bit of the interview highlighting some deficiencies we saw in the black church. But I had been on staff as an intern at a predominantly white suburban church called Covenant Life, and over the years had a lot of conversations about black culture with white folks. However, many of those conversations were pushing back on assumptions made about the black church/black community. And the year before (2006), at the first T4g (Together For The Gospel, a conference that was largely attended by white evangelicals), I spent the majority of the time with an unknown but up and coming theologian named Thabiti Anyabwile. We talked about his first book, “The Decline of African American Theology,” that was coming out in 2007.  He had even better insights and critiques of aspects of the black church than I had, so I didn’t think that much of it. I replied to Shai. “Probably so. But we didn’t say anything untrue. I guess we’ll see if he uses anything we said.” I didn’t realize the significance of Shai’s question until 5 years later.

By 2010 (three years later), I was starting to notice a shift in the landscape of reformed evangelicalism. Conferences were a big deal and I was attending them pretty regularly. I was often recognized at these conferences because I rapped at John Piper’s, then church, Bethlehem Baptist Church in 2006. That 5-minute video of my song, “Unstoppable,” momentarily, made me the face of reformed rap, to a whole swath of white evangelicals, that never thought they would hear the word propitiation in a rap song. I was doing interview after interview, defending rap, explaining rap, and making people aware of other artists that were reformed and rapping about it. I started developing friendships with influential white theologians/pastors that would pick my brain about the black church, and how to get “African Americans in their (predominantly white) churches.” But three years after the interview with Collin, I was starting to get concerned.

That same year, 2010, I released an album under the moniker, “Voice.” The album was called, “Christ the King.” Towards the end of the record, I had a song called, “Black Church White Church.” I decided to rap the critiques I was hearing whites say about the black church, and what blacks were saying about the white church. I saw a problem brewing and tried to address it. But by that time, I was a pastor and reformed rap had blown up to the point where the focus was on artists like Lecrae and 116 click, Flame, Shai Linne, and many others. My “voice” was rapidly becoming more of a whisper. And I was mostly fine with that. Primarily because the merging of urban culture and predominantly white churches were amazing! It was something both sides seemed to appreciate. I benefited so much from being in those spaces and thought that it would stay that way until Jesus came back.

Many black evangelicals saw the beauty of setting aside our cultural preferences for the sake of the gospel. And many white evangelicals saw the beauty of embracing a culture they had only known from a distance. It was incredible! But there was a tremor in the force. It was what Shai’s question was getting at after we met with Collin, then, three years ago. I saw it in 2010. Everybody saw it in 2012.

There were two events that set in motion the beginning of the end of how far we thought we’d come racially. The first is so well known and discussed, I will briefly mention it. The second is largely unknown except within a small segment of the evangelical church.

Trayvon Martin

Little needs to be said here. Frustrated at the seemingly allowable murder of Trayvon Martin, black evangelicals expected (right or wrong) for white evangelicals to express some outrage over the senseless death. The expectation came out of an observation of the sanctity of life expressed in hatred for abortion. As well as some growing relationships among black and white evangelicals resulting from church membership and attending the same conferences. Apart from Obama’s election, many “race issues” were quietly being discussed among evangelicals of differing stature.

But there was more going on under the surface that revealed, there is a fundamental difference in how blacks and whites view blacks being killed, particularly by non-blacks. For many white evangelicals, each situation is seen as a separate event, with its own facts, producing its own outcome. All the emphasis is on waiting for the facts of the situation. And this is a good practice. Waiting for the facts is fundamental to our conceptual framework of justice. Even though it has been abused, it’s still a good practice to know what happened before we react. Proverbs 18:17 teaches this truth. “The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.” The challenge comes when the framework of justice is seen differently. Waiting for the facts assumes a fundamental trust in the justice that will come once the facts are revealed.

For many black evangelicals, public events of blacks being killed are not seen individually, but as a mosaic of continual impending injustice in their outcome. There is a long tail of injustice towards blacks murdered by non-blacks that is seen in there being no consequences given for those murders. Especially by law enforcement. For many blacks, there is a degree of trauma that comes from law enforcement-induced killings of black people, because for such a long time in our country’s history, it was legal to do so. The sadness is not only connected to the potentially unnecessary loss of life. It’s also the gnawing feeling that nothing will happen and that it will somehow be the fault of the black person who was killed, even if the facts show an unnecessary use of force by law enforcement. Though George Zimmerman wasn’t law enforcement, some of the push back with crime stats within the black community felt like they were defending Zimmerman as if he was law enforcement acting within his duty.

Because of this, the expectation from some black evangelicals was more “weep with those who weep” not “wait until another comes and cross-examines him.” That waiting has sadly seen more injustice than how America purports itself to be. And in the Trayvon situation, the difference in how blacks and whites view these situations caused a crack in the foundation of the community that had been built the last 10 years.

Precious Puritans

In September of that same year (2012), rap artist, Propaganda, released an album called, “Excellent.” A particular song on that album, “Precious Puritans,” was a point-blank, aim, and shoot at the reality that Puritans owned slaves. That was the emphasis of the back and forth in both the defense of the song and the defense of the Puritans the song was talking about. Whether intended or not, “Precious Puritans,” exposed a painfully deeper reality of the difference between many black and white evangelicals on race and the historical legacy of it in the American church. 

The song took on a life its own with lyrics like, “How come the things the Holy Spirit showed them in the valley of vision didn't compel them to knock on they neighbors door and say, "You can't own people!"? Your precious puritans were not perfect. You romanticize them as if they were inerrant. As if the skeletons in they closet was pardoned due to the they hard work and tobacco growth. As if abolitionists weren't racist and just pro-union. As if God only spoke to white boys with epic beards. You know Jesus didn't really look like them paintings. That was just Michaelangelo's boyfriend. Your precious puritans.”  The response to the song was just as strong.

A paper on the validity of the Puritans by theologian Joel Beeke surfaced as a push back to the song. Owen Strachan, had a blog response on Patheos that wondered, “…if Propaganda isn’t inclining us to distrust the Puritans. He states his case against them so forcefully, and without any historical nuance, that I wonder if listeners will be inclined to dislike and even hate them. He groups all the Puritans together, which is problematic. Not all of them were chaplains on slave ships, as he says later in the song. Many were not.” He’s right. Only bias against the Puritans would disagree with Owen’s point. But a deeper problem was about to surface as a result of Owen’s and many others’ negative critiques of “Precious Puritans.” 

White evangelicals would criticize blacks but did not respond well to criticism from blacks

Thabiti Anyabwile, in a post on his then Gospel Coalition blog, listed 8, “Random reflections,” about the song. One of which was woefully overlooked. In Thabiti’s sixth reflection entitled, “We’re terrible at critiquing our heroes,” he makes this point. “As I read the exchanges, the folks who seem to have the greatest difficulty with the song are the folks who seem (sometimes they say so) to have the highest appreciation for the Puritans. That’s the pedestal Prop mentions. By definition, raising someone to a pedestal means lifting them beyond critique and realistic assessment.” Ironically, five years earlier Thabiti had done that very thing. He critiqued the theology of some black people’s heroes in his first book, “The Decline of African American Theology.” He didn’t need to add “We’re terrible at critiquing or heroes” because he had already been doing that. And he wasn’t the only one.

At that 2007 interview with Collin Hansen, what made it easy to, “throw the black church under the bus,” was that white evangelicals had been doing it for years. And blacks that were coming into more reformed churches also critiqued the black church, often in comparison to the white reformed churches we were in. We spoke very highly of the sound doctrine and fidelity to the gospel in those churches. When we critiqued white churches, it was often in jest and more connected with worship styles and clapping rhythms.

However, when we critiqued the black church, many of us were not as gracious but did it to be in solidarity with our white brothers, as it often felt like an application of the gospel, in the sense of building community together. Especially when you’re reformed. You critique everybody who isn’t. Black Christians ignored many critiques that were beyond what was objectively sinful in a biblical sense. Things like, “The black church is too emotional.” Or “the songs aren’t theological enough.” The mocking of preaching styles and other critiques were really preferences that are based on cultural distinctions, not biblical imperatives. What verse commands us to not be emotional in worship? Not to mention, the critiques were mostly monolithic, subtly spilling over onto black culture, not just black church culture. And many black evangelicals, myself included, agreed with them. This became an underlying issue when Precious Puritans dropped.

As many of our white brothers that we respected, trusted, and followed, pushed back on the monolithic critique of the Puritans, we felt somewhat betrayed. For years we tolerated and participated in the monolithic critique of the black church/black culture, and were now getting significant pushback from our white brothers when the critique is towards white church/white culture. For some of us, it felt like we let white evangelicals say nigger and not get punched in the face for doing so. The main reason for that is, quite a few black Christians knew Puritans owned slaves. In the way that many Jews know the history of the suffering of their people, so do blacks. That’s partly why the divide has lasted this long in evangelical churches. Yet, we still came. We set aside our cultural preferences, which come with, for many, irreparable baggage. We read Thomas Watson’s, “Doctrine of Repentance,” and other books from the Banner of Truth publishing company (most known for publishing Puritan writings). "Charity and its Fruits," by Jonathan Edwards was one of my favorite books. We crossed the proverbial red sea of racial disparities so that we could have fellowship with our white brothers and sisters. So, when many of us heard Propaganda’s song, we weren’t wondering if it was true. We knew it was. We were more like, “oh he’s going like that? He just put it out there.”

For us, it wasn’t the song. It was the response to the song that threw us off. Mainly because, it didn’t seem like the same humility that we had been taught and were trying to apply, by not being defensive at critiques of the black church, even when they were preferential, was being reciprocated. When excuses like the Christians who owned slaves were, “men of their times,” for many black evangelicals, it felt like we got punched in the face. Frustrations came in the form of questions like, “So it’s not a gospel issue to care about an image-bearer like Trayvon Martin, but it is to defend slave owners?” In a short period of time, the critiques towards white slave owners turned into critiques of white evangelicalism. This served only to cause a further rift for two main reasons

White evangelicals didn’t think there was a white way of doing church

As critiques transitioned to white evangelicalism (which in reality was saying there was a way white people apply the gospel culturally that is different than the way blacks and others might), white evangelicals doubled down on their resistance to seeing that they may not be right in their orthopraxy. This was seen in the response to some of the critiques they were getting. Like the white slave owners, white evangelicals were dismissing the concerns by reiterating what they believed theologically. The problem, though, is that the critiques were not focused on what they believed, but on how they behaved. The ability to consistently give critiques, particularly to black culture, but act as if there’s no such thing as white culture was revealing. Whites saw the critiques as unsound because there is no “white way of doing church.” But then how is there a black way of doing church? Every culture will have dynamics that aren’t sinful that are expressions of that culture. Revelation 7 all but says this. White evangelicals seemed unwilling to entertain the idea that how they behave irrespective of what they believe is the real problem. As if Jesus never said, "The scribes and the Pharisees are seated in the chair of Moses. Therefore do whatever they tell you, and observe it. But don't do what they do, because they don't practice what they teach.” This was the concern that many black evangelicals had for our white brothers. You dismiss how you behave because you are confident in what you believe.

One evidence of this was the language that white evangelicals used as a pushback to concerns for their insensitivity to racial dynamics. It started with calling those who made the critiques, “Marxist,” which is first an ideology (what one believes). And despite that many black evangelicals claimed to not know who Karl Marx was, "Marxist" became the standard response to critiques towards white evangelicals for their defense of slave owners and other racial dynamics. This was the same language that has been used towards blacks throughout history, even when challenging overt racism. From "Marxist" it went to “Cultural Marxist,” then “Social Justice Warrior,” and then finally to the all-encompassing term, “Woke.” I’m not saying that there was no validity in using those terms to push back against critiques. Black evangelicals were not and are not sinless, as will be discussed below. The point here is to show that white evangelicals often focus on what they believe more than how they behave. Even when they push back, they attack what they think someone believes. And, as long as their belief is more biblical (subjectivity at play here), they have grounds to dismiss whatever concerns are expressed. “Right Theology,” can be the excuse that turns potentially valid concerns about wrong behavior on those who are bringing the concerns.

This elevated into a definitive stance that racial concerns and all ideas on what to do to solve them is another gospel. The words “social gospel” started floating around, and for some became a viable critique towards black evangelicals. This was a dangerous sentiment. For most people, “gospel” is the good news of salvation because of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. It is the only way to spend eternity in heaven. To accuse someone of preaching another gospel was to call that person, as Paul warned in Galatians, “accursed.”  No one who preaches another gospel is going to heaven. To say black Christians with racial concerns are teaching a social gospel is to say that they believe salvation is found in taking racial issues seriously, not in Jesus. While there may have been some that felt that way, the majority were not. They were trying to apply the gospel by finding practical ways to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Again, in comparison to defending slave owners because their theology was exceptional, calling black brothers in Christ, who previously stood on the same stages at conferences preaching salvation in the same Jesus, felt like letting our white brothers in Christ say nigger. It was intellectually dishonest. Many black believers were talking about how they should apply salvation by grace alone, not replace It with salvation by race alone.

Whether white evangelicals meant it or not, and many I don’t think meant it this way, “men of their times,” describing theologians they respected that owned slaves, was a nail in the coffin to racial dynamics in the reformed section of the evangelical church. Not simply because they owned slaves but because it communicated that what people believe is more important than how they behave. With this caveat, “if we approve of your theology.” If it’s “another gospel” then we ignore everything. Anthony Bradley, in his 2012 Urban Faith article criticizing those who critiqued Prop’s “Precious Puritans,” said, “Propaganda’s point is that if white evangelicals do not talk about the bones of their heroes they run the risk of doing great harm to people of color. Many of us are beginning to wonder why white evangelicals do not seem to care much about this and seem willing to trade off “honoring” their forefathers for their own comfort over doing what is necessary to build racial solidarity.”

Again, for some, the issue was one of distinction because not all puritans owned slaves. As one comment noted in response to Anthony Bradley’s article. “William Perkins, William Ames, John Owen, John Flavel, Thomas Watson, John Bunyan, Thomas Goodwin, and Richard Sibbs, puritans that have been reprinted and are most often quoted, never owned African slaves nor served as chaplains on slave ships. Sadly, yes, many of their successors did.” Again, this is historically true. So, one level Prop’s song could’ve seemed disingenuous. But that really wasn’t the problem. While many were arguing back and forth on which puritans owned slaves, should they be read or not, and the very notion of slavery not being a uniquely American institution, but one practiced by many people throughout human history; the real issue slid underneath the popular conversation. Again, it goes back to a fundamental difference between white and black evangelical thinking.

The Deeper Issue

When white evangelicals think about slavery, they almost always think of it in its most functional definition and practice. “A condition of having to work very hard without proper remuneration or appreciation,” is what often comes to mind. In this sense, slavery is nothing new under the sun. Every people group in human history had slaves. Even the Bible has categories of slavery that called for slaves to submit to their masters. Many white evangelicals then and now highlight the book of Philemon as a pushback to some of the outrage of Christians owning slaves. On the surface there is validity to this argument, but, it again reveals the fundamental difference in how blacks and whites think about slavery. For white evangelicals, slavery is about ownership and forced labor, which, while wrong, showed those Christians to be “men of their times,” for tolerating it.

For many black evangelicals, slavery is less about ownership and more about brutality. For blacks, slavery brings up visions of black women being raped repeatedly, children physically and sexually abused simply because they were slaves. It brings visions of children being ripped from their parents and being sold to other plantations. The screams of the mothers who were beaten for showing emotion at the loss of the only thing they truly loved, their children. Slaves were brutally beaten or tortured for minor infractions. Slaves were forced to fight to the death for entertainment, or were forced to watch their wives being raped by the slave master and his friends. The constant psychological warfare from the daily fear of death, separation from loved ones, or the reminder of being less than human; all encapsulated under one word, nigger. Slavery, in America, is more than just not being compensated for hard work. It's the dehumanization of personal dignity. The color of one's skin is a stigma that signifies to many still that you are the worst of society.

Slavery, for many black evangelicals, is not thought of functionally, but morally. It's not about being owned as much as it’s about the degradation of their humanity, which legally continued in America in different forms until the 1960s. Add to that, many in the church, of all places, participated in it heavily. If James is right when he said, “Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world,” slavery created orphans and widows, and no Christian can simply be "men of their times" who approved of it. This was the deeper issue. Slavery meant different things to different people and neither of them is wrong, but as those who criticize the morality of believers who vote a certain way politically, there is a greater morality at play when it comes to those who owned slaves. If, "no true Christian would ever vote Democrat," why would a true Christian ever own slaves? And why defend men that you have no idea if they even made it to heaven?

This would lead to a very interesting 2013 public back and forth between Thabiti and Doug Wilson about Wilson’s book, “Black and Tan,” which essentially sees chattel slavery in America as a good thing because it brought salvation to black people. With all of this looming in the shadows, a growing fragility between black and white evangelicals was coming to a head. And in 2014, the shooting of Mike Brown, by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was at this point that many black evangelicals pushed back in some unhelpful and even sinful ways.

Blacks were fed up and moving towards ultimatums

A line in, “Precious Puritans,” stated, “It must be nice to not have to consider race. It must be nice to have time to contemplate the stars.” While the term “privilege” wasn’t explicitly used here, the idea is communicated. What Prop essentially was saying is what a privilege it must be to not have to consider race. This idea of privilege, though not a new one, became a new way of evaluating white evangelical responses to racial dynamics in and out of the church.

On May 12, 2014, The New Yorker, webzine did a cover story on the origin of the term “white privilege.”  The article opens with a brief introductory history of the concept. “The idea of “privilege”—that some people benefit from unearned, and largely unacknowledged, advantages, even when those advantages aren’t discriminatory —has a pretty long history. In the nineteen-thirties, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote about the “psychological wage” that enabled poor whites to feel superior to poor blacks; during the civil-rights era, activists talked about “white-skin privilege.” But the concept really came into its own in the late eighties, when Peggy McIntosh, a women’s-studies scholar at Wellesley, started writing about it. In 1988, McIntosh wrote a paper called “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women’s Studies,” which contained forty-six examples of white privilege.” The term "white privilege" had gone mainstream, and with influential black leaders in the church frustrated, hurt, and offended at white Christians, “white privilege” became a weapon.

The Mishna of White Privilege

The Mishna is, “the accumulated traditions of the Oral Law, expounded by scholars in each generation from Moses onward, is considered as the necessary basis for the interpretation, and often for the reading, of the Written Law.” The Mishna is why Jesus was offended by the religious leaders in his day. They equated oral traditions, (particular observations or applications of Mosaic Law) with the same authority as the Word of God given to Moses. And in very similar ways, black evangelicals did the same to white evangelicals. Equating particular applications of racism on par with biblical maturity, and all else not.

White privilege is true. And, in its essence, means that people with white skin get the benefit of the doubt in America. JD Vance in his book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” tells a story of his first time eating a meal with his Ivy League friends and not wanting them to know he had no idea what to order. He was from Middletown Ohio. A place where poor whites rarely make it beyond their local town. He was a rare breed. Went to college and then Yale Law school. He looked just like his friends who had grown up with a lifestyle totally opposite of him. They were used to things that JD pretended to understand. Even something like what to order in a fancy restaurant, for him, proved that he wasn’t white like them. So he just ordered whatever they did and no one knew any different. Since his skin was white, they figured he came from money or some similar experiences. He did not. He was brutally poor. But he could hide behind his skin. When you’re black, especially historically in this country, your skin makes people want to hide from you.

White privilege is real. But so is American privilege, Class privilege (rich vs poor), and people who are not handicapped versus people who are, to name a few. Privilege is always a way of life. And in most cases, privilege is an issue of sovereignty. God determines the privileges and who gets what. White people, (men who owned land to be specific) for most of America’s history, were the gatekeepers of the “American Dream.” Add to the fact that D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film, “Birth of a Nation” set in motion a media onslaught of the portrayal of black people (men primarily) as more “prone to violence and criminality.” A pathology that still exists to this day. With segregation and an organic distance from black culture, whites would grow accustomed to thinking their way of life is the normal way to do life. It was more ignorance than arrogance for many white evangelicals, but white privilege felt like the unpardonable sin, seemingly overnight.

This left many white evangelicals understandably confused and offended. Many of them that I spoke with were loving, kind, trying to understand, and often able to agree with things once presented clearly. But there were too many angry black voices clamoring for authority, sinfully accusing white people of knowing and plotting against blacks who still struggle with racial dynamics. A failure to see the privilege and feel sorry for it became an ultimatum. Or rather a litmus test for white evangelicals and their genuineness as a Christian. By ultimatum I mean, influential black leaders were essentially demanding that racism be at the top of every white person’s list of things to care about. And by care about, I mean to eradicate, end it once and for all. In this life, that is impossible. Every sin will exist until Jesus returns. This notion sent shockwaves to many white evangelicals. And it only escalated as influential white Christian leaders pushed back.

From White Privilege to White Supremacy

In 2016 when it was announced that Donald Trump had become the 45th president, a study came out and revealed that said 80% of white evangelicals voted for Trump. This stat was a dagger in the heart of the body of Christ. White Evangelicals were seen as supporters of white supremacy because of their vote. White supremacy has almost always been seen as representing the KKK, Skinheads, Neo-Nazis, the Alt-right who marched in Charlottesville Va., etc. Including white evangelicals to that list was essentially saying that they are not Christians. White supremacy is the opposite of loving your brother, and 1 John is clear. “If anyone says, "I love God," and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

Not to mention, white supremacy is a heart issue. Yes, we can judge a tree by the fruit that it bears, but when you’re talking about people outside of that idiom, discerning why people do what they do, especially when it’s not inherently a moral command being disobeyed is, “deep waters. But a person of understanding draws it out.” Why people vote the way that they do is often more complicated than simply a full-on support of the platform, or the person running. But in the climate of the racial tug of war that has been happening in the church, the judgment is swift and harsh.

While there may be some that profess Christ that are white supremacists, many of the white evangelicals voted for Trump simply because he was the Republican candidate. These white Christians weren’t voting for Donald Trump, they were voting as conservatives for the political party they almost always vote for. If Earl Dickensby would've been the nominee on the ticket, it would’ve been Earl Dickensby as number 45. The accusation made it seem like all who voted for Trump did so as approval of everything he’s ever said, done, is going to say, and do. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Many white evangelicals were torn voting for him. But politics is an unpredictable relationship. It’s a terrible football team that you still cheer for because they’re your team. Believe me, I know what that feels like.

Accusing white evangelicals as supporters of white supremacy, was largely due to vengeance, bitterness, and self-righteousness. It was the punch in the face for their not receiving the kind of criticism they’ve given. It was monolithic unless of course you were white and agreed with what was said. At its best, it was a fire trying to put out a fire. And it caused sufficient damage to a lot of people. So much so, that whites who were in churches where the pastors were/are black, or had even married someone black with bi-racial children, felt like they needed to renounce their white privilege and supremacy. Newsflash, if you're white and voluntarily go to a black church, and or are married to someone black, you already have renounced that privilege. It is a horrible standard. One that Jesus doesn't impose.

This whole thing turned into a dumpster fire in just a few years. All that we had thought was solid between white and black evangelicals in the years leading up to this, was largely washed away. And the saddest part of it all is that all of us missed what was really happening. 

We have been wrestling with flesh and blood, misdiagnosing the issues. Everything became “their” fault for not seeing it the way we see do. When it should’ve been, all of our faults because we let the devil, the only being whose sole purpose is to hinder the church, convince us that he doesn’t exist. That the division we’re seeing is not spiritual warfare but physical warfare. "It's the Conservative’s fault. No! It’s the liberal’s fault. Nah, it’s those who are woke! Not even, it’s those white supremacist Christian's fault!" As if we all won’t be in the Revelation 7 scene, where John tells us, “After this, I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands.” This is the biblical future of all this division. We'll look back on these times and be really grieved at how un-christlike many of us were.

Shame on all of us. The Devil just proved that the people who most understand the gospel, don’t know how to apply it when we’re offended. Many of us are dejected, emotionally torn apart, with no hope until Jesus returns, and even then in hopes to see that they were right and the other side was wrong. There is good news. We don’t have to wait until Jesus returns. There’s a way to fix a lot of this but it’ll have to wait until the next article.

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