Photo Credit: Bethany Walter Photography

By Herbert Beck

Tony Evans wrote a book a few years ago called How Christians Should Vote. Dr. Evans is the Pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship near Dallas, Texas and was team chaplain for the Dallas Cowboys. In his book, he offered an illustration I will paraphrase. Most people think there are two teams at a football game when there really are three–two football teams and a team of officials. The two teams want to win while the officials are responsible for officiating the game according to the rule book. If the officials call the game based on bias rather than the rule book, they lose their credibility.

Christians are losing their moral credibility because their allegiance to cultural tribes is superseding their Christian Gospel obligations.

America has been rocked with politically charged acts of violence over the past week. Black men have been killed by police officers and police officers have been killed by a black man—IN ONE WEEK. As you can imagine, these events are stirring emotions in a profound way. What is saddening is that the Christian response often seems dictated by our various tribal identities rather than our shared theological one. Believer, we have a common enemy…

Be serious! Be alert! Your adversary the Devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. Resist him and be firm in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world. 1 Peter 5:8-9 HCSB

This enemy is a certified master at deception and manipulation and Christians aren’t immune to his influence. Quite the contrary, we cooperate in his schemes when we make ourselves available to him via our biases.

Believer, we are called to be salt and light in this sin-infected world. Dr. Jerry Young, president of the National Baptist Convention, recently spoke at the Southern Baptist Convention. He stated, “The problem with America is that we have contaminated salt and concealed light.” Dear Christian, we can’t be salt or light if our salt only works on and for Republicans, Democrats, blacks, whites, police officers, Americans, or anything else that we align ourselves with.

How a Christian Should Respond

In these divisive times, one of the best things that Christians can do is to heed the word of God found in James 1:19, “Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for man’s anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness.” Know this, believer, you don’t have to agree with someone to show them sympathy. It’s easy to show this sympathy to people we love, identify and agree with. It’s not so easy to do it with those with whom we don’t have so much in common. This doesn’t absolve us of our responsibility to act like Christians.

You don’t have to agree with someone to show them sympathy.

Now, I am a Christian. I am a black man. I respect police officers and I lament the loss of any life. My newsfeeds in social media depress me. Christians go from one extreme to another in these tragedies that involve police officers shooting black men. Depending on who you ask, you tend to get one of two opinions. One camp says a perfectly noble policeman honorably and rightfully killed a violent, black gang-banging criminal in self-defense. Another says that a rabid, racist, hateful cop has spitefully killed the neighborhood choirboy for selling cigarettes or CD’s. The truth is most likely somewhere in the middle for each incident. I believe if the victims and the shooters could relive that day, each of them would do something different. They made mistakes and lost lives. Families and reputations are destroyed. Satan wins…

Our Real and Common Enemy

Satan loves causing strife and hatred. He doesn’t want us to live in peace and reconciliation. Here is the evidence. If you’re a white, conservative evangelical and you show even a little grace or understanding towards people who say that Black Lives Matter you will likely be accused of being politically correct. You may also be called a bleeding heart liberal by those in your tribe. If you are a black person who says that if the black victim did something differently then they may have survived, you’ll likely face similar criticism from your tribe. There is a good chance you will be called a sellout and accused of practicing respectability politics.

Truth doesn’t change based on our perspective or allegiances. The enemy doesn’t want us to have a productive or meaningful conversation that leads to reconciliation.

Unfortunately, these won’t be the last racially or politically charged tragedies. I beg of my fellow Christians, regardless of color, to please be agents of reconciliation and not accusers or aggravators. Pray, listen, and think twice before you speak or post. Bring light to conversations rather than heat. Jesus is Lord and the Gospel is too important for us to lose our credibility over our tribal allegiances. After all, when we get to Heaven, there won’t be a black, white, rich, poor, Republican, or Democrat sections. And Jesus won’t be slapping high fives with you for “telling it like it is” or “keeping it real.” What a day of rejoicing it will be!

REFLECTION

Will you be an agent of reconciliation this week? Try considering someone else’s perspective before sharing your own. Will you walk in peace or stir up strife?

Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for man’s anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness. James 1:19

Herbert was born and raised in Springfield, Illinois. He earned his B.A. degree in Music from Clark Atlanta University and his M.A. in Theological Studies from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. He is married to April and has two daughters Cadence and Imani. His professional background is in music education and ministry. He is currently the minister of music at Shindler Drive Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida. Herbert loves Jesus, his family, and people. You can usually find him loving on his wife, terrorizing his daughters by embarrassing them, leading a choir, leading worship, reading a book, playing his sax being a Foster parent or doing something else for God’s glory… maybe not glorifying God by terrorizing his daughters…