On Racial Equality and Glorification

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As a pastor I often hear people refer to the folks they can’t wait to see again in heaven. Sometimes this is simply a vague reference to a loved one who has passed away—looking forward to being greeted by a friendly face when they too pass over to the other side—other times it is a very clear idea that their loved ones are looking down on them from heaven, waiting eagerly for their arrival.

In what I’m about to say, I hope it’s clear that there’s nothing wrong with this. I am looking forward to seeing all kinds of friends and family on that day, too.

It’s just this: I can never remember a single time in all my years as a pastor when someone has said, I can’t wait until we get to heaven and I’ll get to sit down with people from all kinds of races and cultures that I’ve never known, and finally be reconciled with black people, and white people, and brown people, and Native American people, and Russian people,  and Chinese people, without any of the racial barriers that currently divide us.  Or even less theologically: I can’t wait till heaven, when there won’t be racism any more.

I’m speaking somewhat hyperbolically. Certainly, I’ve known missionaries who have faithfully traveled to the ends of the earth and back to tell people of every nation, tribe and tongue about Jesus, and that’s got to be an expression, in some way, of this desire for racial reconciliation. (Although it’s not this by default. Lots of terrible acts of racism have been perpetrated in the name of “missionary zeal,” too.)

But either way, my point still stands. We are, on the whole, far more interested in being reunited with our own “kind” of people in Heaven, than we are in being reconciled to “other kinds” of people.

And if I’m on to something here, let me say that this is, I think, a profound failure of the Christian imagination. Because the Scriptures say far, far more about the racial reconciliation that will happen in the New Heaven and the New Earth, than it ever does about our personal family reunions.

At least: I can’t remember a single saying of Jesus where he speaks about my Grandma or Grandpa waiting in heaven to hug me with open arms.  I can’t remember any parable he told where my dearly-departed best friend will welcome me in with a holy high five. Though again, I’m not saying this won’t happen, or that there’s anything wrong with wanting it. I’m just saying that that did not seem to be Jesus’s primary vision of what we should expect come that day.

Instead, I remember a him saying that “many will come from the east and the west to take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 8:11; and he said this to Jewish people, in response to the faith of a Gentile person). And I remember a parable about a great banquet where many who were called would not come, so the Holy Host brought them in from the roads and the country lanes to fill the house with others (Luke 14:15ff). And I remember St. John the Divine’s vision of heaven itself, where people from every nation, tribe and tongue were gathered together to worship the Lamb (Rev. 7:9-10).

In other words, if the Heaven of the Bible can be thought of in any way as a big family reunion, it is not my personal family that will be reunited, but the whole family of all humanity—a glorious reconciliation of the races, where all are brought together in Christ as “one new humanity” (Eph 2:14-15).

This unity, though, does not nullify the ethnic differences that make each one distinct, rather it celebrates and sanctifies them all as God’s gift to his people. After all: didn’t God declare all the creatures in the sheet to be clean, in Peter's vision (Acts 10:15)?  And didn’t he forbid Peter from calling any of them impure, whom God himself had sanctified? And didn’t he show Peter that this vision was really about racial reconciliation in the Gospel, by following it up with visitors asking about the Gospel, who were from a racial group that Peter’s people had been taught to despise?

The answer to all these questions is yes.  Because the heart of heaven beats passionately for racial reconciliation—the leaves of the Tree that grows in Heaven, remember, are for the healing of every ethnic group (Rev 22:2)—and the Holy Spirit wants us to labor with him towards that day.

I’m saying all of this because over the last few days, while protests for racial justice rage around the globe, I have been trying to think through racism from a soteriological perspective. Soteriology is the high-falutin’ word for “the Bible’s teaching about salvation, how we are saved and what it means for us.”  It started just with a realization that as a white Christian I have this deep-seeded desire to justify myself when it comes to racial inequalities, rather than seeking to be justified by faith in Christ. After writing about Justification by Faith, I realized you couldn’t stop there, and had to talk about Sanctification, too. After writing that piece, I figured I ought to go all the way with it, and reflect on Glorification as the final jewel in the crown.

Glorification is the theological term we use, sometimes, to talk about the hope of glory that God extends to us in the Gospel. We are not saved for this life only. If that were the case, Paul says, we are to be pitied above all people. Instead, our salvation is a promise of life to come in the New Heavens and New Earth, when Jesus himself comes in glory to judge the living and the dead.

When people talk about meeting their loved ones in Heaven, they are reflecting, whether they realize it or not, on the doctrine of glorification.

The truth is, however, that if we want to be biblical in our doctrine of glorification, we have to wrestle with the fact that one of the things that will make our glory so glorious is just that, on that day, we will finally and fully be reconciled with people from every nation, tribe, and tongue on the planet; and there won’t be a racist among us.

We have to be careful when using the doctrine of glorification to talk about racial justice, however. It can very easily slip into “pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die” kind of thinking. What does it matter (we might say) if you are oppressed now? When you get to heaven you’ll get your reward, so just suck it up and suffer through….

That abuse of the doctrine of glorification has been used, actually, to justify racism in the past, to keep the oppressed oppressed and the oppressors oppressing; and if it sounds like I’m saying that then I have failed in this post.

Because there is a different way of applying the doctrine of glorification.  In this different way, a Christian looks deeply into the Scriptures to see what Heaven is really like. What is God’s vision for the sinless relationship with him, in harmony with others, and at peace with the world, that he wants us to enjoy in eternity? What is he moving this crazy thing called the History of Planet Earth towards? What will life in the New Creation be like?

You grasp hold of that vision.  And then you set to work—in your limited capacity and with the Holy Spirit working through you the whole way—you set to work—by prayer and petition with praise and thanksgiving—you set to work trying to “live into” that glory now. You live into it, (so to speak) so that when it finally dawns in All its Glory, you’ll be ready for it, because you’ll have been practicing for it all along.

When we apply the doctrine of glorification in this way, we discover not only the motive, but also the means by which to resist racism. Because you will not be a racist in Heaven. No evil thing is allowed into the Heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21:27), so any racist sin that’s still lurking in my heart come that day will have to be laid aside—covered by the blood of the cross for good—before I ever pass through those gates.

How much better if we allowed the glory of the Lord to get to work on us here, and now, instead? How much better if we asked him to heal that sin now, instead, so that when we do at last make it to Glory, we will be good and ready to take our place in that heavenly choir which is (according to St. John the Divine, it is) made up of singers from every nation, tribe, tongue and culture, people, ethnicity, and race under heaven.

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On Racial Equality and Sanctification

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I am part of a holiness movement. Both denominations that I serve, the Church of the Nazarene and the Free Methodist Church in Canada are descended from the Wesleyan Holiness tradition. I am saying this in part as a follow up on the post I made yesterday about justification by faith. In that post I was trying to say that the right response for us, when we become aware of the ways in which we are complicit with racial injustice, is not to try to justify ourselves, but to throw ourselves instead on the mercy of God in repentance, and seek in Christ’s death for our sins our only justification.

This is theologically true. One of the challenges, however, is that so often Justification gets separated from Sanctification in our understanding of the Gospel, so that the “right standing with God” that Jesus offers us does not ever result in a concrete change in how we love our neighbours as ourselves. 

This was, I think, one of the reasons the Holiness Movement began the way it did, to challenge the idea that a disembodied “faith” could save us, without ever needing to see it “play out” in concrete action in the world. This, too, has been one of the failings of the modern evangelical movement, I think, which has communicated that the Gospel is about getting people into heaven by having them “ask Jesus into our hearts,” without ever asking Jesus to change the way their hearts are beating. 

Essentially the Holiness Movement said no to this idea that the Gospel was simply “eternal fire insurance” for heaven, preaching instead that the necessary evidence of our faith in the Gospel was the way in which “Gospel fruit” showed up in our lives.

I’m bringing this up, in part, because many of the stories I have been hearing over the last few days have reminded me of how culpable the white evangelical church really is when it comes to racial injustice, either by actively acting racist, or at the very least by not actively resisting racism.

How could this be? When the Gospel so clearly indicates (at least on my reading it’s crystal clear) that racial equality is God’s vision for his Kingdom?

I would argue that one of the explanations is that white Christians have been content to be “Justified by Faith” without wanting to be “Sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” If we were truly, entirely sanctified we would loathe racial prejudice as the affront to the Creator that it is, and we would long for racial justice the way the Creator himself must long for it. And until we are entirely sanctified, I do not think we can expect to see real, lasting change when it comes to this issue.

So I’m saying this partly to bring Justification and Sanctification back together in this discussion: we can never talk about how we are justified by the grace of God, without wanting to be sanctified by the Spirit of God.

But I’m also saying it to address another impulse that I am noticing in myself, as a white middle-aged male, besides the impulse to self-justification. That is the impulse to “virtue-signal.” It’s one of the reasons I did not respond immediately on social media when news about the protests against racial injustice started to hit my Facebook feed last week. It seemed to me that to jump in with a “like” and a “share” that really cost me nothing would only come across as an empty signal of a phoney virtue I didn’t think I deserved. Of course, the irony is that not saying anything could also be a kind of virtue-signalling, too. If it’s concerned primarily with how my silence will “look to others” it simply becomes a way of saying, “Look at how sensitive I am… I get the issue well enough to hold my tongue….”

Lord have mercy.

Because what I am discovering as I process all this is that just like there is a desire to self-justify when it comes to the evil or racism, there is also a desire to self-sanctify, that is to find a solution to the problem of racism that does not require the supernatural transformation that only the Holy Spirit can effect.

Please don’t get me wrong. I believe that social action, speaking out, taking risks, political protest, personal sacrifice, engaging in dialogue, resisting evil, that all these things have a place. They are essential if we are ever to see justice roll down like a mighty stream. Racism is real, a deeply rooted sin that needs to be addressed as such. But the problem of racism is not that we are racist, per se, it’s that we are unsanctified, and if we were entirely sanctified we would find within us the spiritual resources necessary to address and resist the problem of racism.

I believe that the call which is sounding across the country right now, as cities burn and people protest, is not just a call for us to confront the evil of racism. I believe it is that, but that there is another call, echoing within it, the way deep calls out to deep. It is the call of Jesus to all his followers, and especially his white followers in positions of privilege, to be sanctified today by the Holy Spirit. This is what he always offers us when we repent of any sin: not just a divine forgiveness, but a divine change that empowers us to be different.

Without that divine change in my heart,  I honestly fear that my best efforts to fight racism on my own may amount to little more than an empty signal of a phoney virtue I’m not sure I really have.

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On Racial Equality and Justification by Faith

The other day I received some constructive criticism about my ministry, pointing out a blind spot I had when it came to promoting (or in this case, failing to promote) racial diversity in our community. It was a relatively minor critique, all things considered, but given the racial tensions in the political atmosphere these days, it stuck with me.

I write this, of course, as a middle-aged white male living in one of the most prosperous countries in history, placing me among one of the most privileged demographics on the planet. Acknowledging that, I say what I’m about to say very cautiously, and offer it with an open hand. Through all last week, as news about the protests in the States began popping up on my social media feed, and it became clear to me that a real political groundswell was emerging, I chose not to comment on it in any of the social media channels available to me. This was not because I was trying to bury my head in the sand and ignore an issue that is as close to the Lord’s heart as racial equality is, but simply because, as a middle-aged white male, I believed I was the last one who had any right to speak. Rather than pipe up with my own ignorant point of view—what do I know about systemic racism, who has never had any doors closed to me because of the colour of my skin?—I did my best to listen to the points of view of others. In this I was trying to follow the advice of one of my spiritual heroes, Francis of Assisi, who sought more to understand than to be understood.

But here’s what I found, by seeking to understand: I have within me an impulse towards self-justification that is grievous to the Holy Spirit.

I say this because when I received the constructive criticism I mentioned a minute ago, I noticed that my instinct was to think of all the reasons why the critique could not be true—to “justify myself” in my own eyes. I wouldn’t say my response was defensive, necessarily, but the first thing that came to mind was everything I had done to promote racial equality in my sphere of influence. I won’t list them here, because the sum total of them is pitifully small, truth be told. The point is just that, my gut reaction was to pull out my “spiritual ledger” and start reviewing all the times and all the ways I had proved myself to be “a swell guy” when it comes to this issue. I’m not sure I would have named this impulse as “self-justification” before this week, but as I mulled it all over, I came to see that this is exactly what it was.

I believe this grieves the Holy Spirit for two reasons. First, and foremost, because if I am a Christian, then the gospel I have believed tells me that I cannot justify myself; and it’s because I can’t that God has already justified me in Christ. Regardless my just deserts, he has declared me righteous in the death of his Son. Bear with me, if you see the problems that appear when we try to apply the doctrine of Justification to the issue of racism, because I see them too, and I will get to them in a minute. But theologically, I think that the only way forward for someone in my position—someone, I mean, who has lived his whole life benefiting from systemic inequality (whether he realized it or not)—is to admit that there is no human justification for it, and to turn, a repentant sinner needing grace, to the justification that God offers us in the death of his son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

We aren’t used to thinking about the doctrine of Justification as something that can, and should, impact human relationships. We have been conditioned to think about it solely as a theological abstraction, a truth that puts us in right relationship with God and paves our way to heaven, yes, but a truth that shapes the very structure of our interactions with others? That’s a different ball of wax, isn’t it?

And yet, as I process the impulse towards self-justification I mentioned above—the way my heart grasps so quickly for all the reasons that I couldn’t be as bad as it looks—I am coming to see how important it is for Christians to allow the justification of Christ to transform the way we experience and respond to the issue of racism in North America.

In The Cost of Discipleship, German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer argues that Jesus is not only the mediator between us and God, but he is also, for that very reason, “the mediator between us and all other [human beings].” The same idea emerges in Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, where he suggests that “within the spiritual community there is never, in any way, whatsoever, an ‘immediate’ relationship to one another”; and “Because Christ stands between me and another, I must not long for unmediated community with that person.” One of the ways we “long for unmediated relationship” with others, I think, is by thinking up all the reasons we are “justified” to be in relationship with them, instead of acknowledging ourselves as culpable sinners in need of the grace God offers. (Surely a divinely reconciled relationship with others is not least among his graces towards us?)

I believe with all my heart this is true. The problem, of course, is that if it’s applied in the wrong way, it can amount to saying simply, “Yes, maybe I benefited from racial inequality as a white person, but Jesus says I’m okay, so it doesn’t matter to God, and certainly shouldn’t matter to you.” If it sounds like I’m saying that then I’m not communicating well here at all.

Because there is a different way of applying the Doctrine of Justification to every-day human relationships. It involves honestly facing the ways I’ve knowingly or unknowingly participated in sinful power structures and saying simply: I can’t justify that. There is no human justification. And then, because the Gospel proclaims that even that sin is nailed to the cross, I discover in God the grace genuinely to repent. This is not cheap grace (to quote Bonhoeffer one last time), but neither is it an empty, virtue-signalling repentance. Because if I am justified in Christ, then I must surrender my own self-determination to Christ, and allow him to mediate my every interaction with others. Only there will I learn truly what it means to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Him.

This brings me in the end to the second reason self-justification grieves the Holy Spirit. It is because so long as we are determined to justify ourselves, we will stay blind to our blind spots. After all, if I saw what was really happening in all the places I’m not looking, it might leave me feeling uncomfortably culpable. Better not to look there, right? Worse than keeping us blind, though, self-justification is all kinds of likely to make us defensive, arrogant, even cruel, ignoring the honest protest of others, and so missing opportunities to grow in Christ-likeness. Because to hear those protests the way Christ would, we would have to acknowledge all the ways we have been unjust, and are therefore unjustified. Rather than do that, it’s easier to bluster, minimize, equivocate, evade and dismiss.

May the Lord have mercy.

And thanks be to God that he has had mercy, and offers it to us all today in Jesus Christ. May we find in him the humility and the strength to work together, as we labor towards that day—the day the Holy Spirit himself is labouring towards—when all of God’s people, gathered from every nation, tribe and tongue stand together before the Lord, justified freely, together, by his grace.

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