The Current Cancer Overtaking the Church

I’ve seen varying versions of this advertisement—as well as the sentiment behind it—a lot over the last year, but the frequency is growing.

Most concerning to me, though, is the strong uptick in deeply-churched people posting such “All Lives” sentiments.

On the surface, the message is one of unity. What could be wrong with “All Lives Matter”? Shouldn’t we encourage others to only see people and not color?

Shouldn’t we be colorblind?

I am certain that most who (re)share similar sentiments do indeed desire there to be an end to the racial tension in our nation, but is a colorblind “All Lives Matter” campaign the way of Christ?

Sadly, those who champion “All Lives Matter” and other “melting pot sentiments” cannot see that this language/stand is not only unhelpful in healing, it is also anti-Christ.

It was 2017, and I was attending an Advance for graduates of my doctoral program when I was first confronted with my own log-in-the-eye on this issue.

Up until then, I neither considered myself a racist nor felt I had anything more to learn on the subject. To me, “All Lives Matter” made sense because we should stop seeing color and look past the outside (where people look, according to 1 Samuel 16:7) to the inside (where God looks, according to the same verse).

So when the conversation among my post-doc peers turned to racial tension in the U.S. in general and the church in particular, I trotted out my go-to line as something of a thus-saith-the-Lord moment:

“I don’t see color.”

Some around the table nodded their head in agreement, but directly across the table from me sat a lady who was clearly unimpressed, if not annoyed.

First of all, let me just say in retrospect, that’s line I used is just plain dumb.

I mean really, it is.

I do actually see color. Even colorblind people see shades of black and white. So my argument, from the outset, was in serious error.

I could have said, “I choose to look on the inside rather than the outside, trying to ignore the color of a person’s skin.” Let’s be honest though, that’s also a lie. I can’t see the inside (only God can, remember?).

Even now, I’m at a loss for a way to say “I ignore what is in front of my face in order to judge you on the basis of what isn’t in front of my face,” but I can’t find a way to say that where I look good.

Maybe, because there is no way to say those words without dehumanizing a person. And dehumanizing someone is the first step to racism, but it’s never the last step.

So… when a rather outspoken peer sitting directly across from me, leaned forward, looked me in the eye, and abrasively confronted me for the sheer lunacy of the idea that I could avoid seeing color—even going so far as to imply that the act of avoiding seeing color was probably latent racism within myself—I wasn’t too happy.

But, as much as I hate admitting it…

She was right.

Race Is Not Irrelevant To God

Genesis teaches that God formed humanity himself, created it with intent.

We were intentionally designed.

Yet many act as though Race was a result of the Fall, or worse, outright believe it. Others believe that Race was the result of a curse at the Tower of Babel. Neither of these theological positions are biblically defensible. And even worse, they both set up a scenario where the only outcome is some sort of supremacy.

And let’s think logically about this anyway.

If, by some chance, race/ethnicity was found to actually be a result of the Fall or Babel, then WHITENESS is the curse. Have we forget the primary colors of those from the cradle of civilization?

Brown. Black. Deeply melanin.

The heresy of colorblindness.

The idea that we can (or should) avoid seeing race or color at all requires a belief that we should look on the soul and not the body. It requires us to try and divorce the body and the soul.

First, as earlier stated, I don’t think this is even possible. As 1 Samuel 16:7 implies, only God can look on the inside. We, unfortunately, are only able to see the outside.

But I am not sure that this is an unfortunate mistake on God’s part.

God certainly could have given us the capacity to only see the inner soul of a person, but he didn’t. Which means he likely had a purpose in it.

So what purpose could a God—who left his singular fingerprint on each of us by way of the Imago Dei—have intended by giving every single, solitary human being that has ever existed their own unique and different fingerprint?

It’s almost as if he intended for us to be different.

It’s almost as if he desired that we would be unique.

It’s almost as if he wanted us to notice our individualities.

It’s almost as if he wanted us to be visibly diverse.

Some errant members of the Early Church didn’t much like the body either. They thought that only the inner part of us, the soul, mattered. Which, in turn, meant that matter was evil. So they sought to embed that doctrine into the faith.

The broader church, though, labeled it “heresy”… the word given to teaching that is so incorrect, so insidious, as to be mortally and spiritually dangerous if followed.

To teach that we should be colorblind and whitewash all of God’s diversity (and let’s be honest, the colorblind crowd does see color… they just wash everything into the color “white” in their minds) is to commit come close if not cross the line of heresy.

Race, ethnicity, and color are a part of Creation, and Creation is not evil, sinful, or something to be hidden or washed.

As Genesis reminds us in 1:31: “God looked at everything that he had made, and he saw that it was very good.”

The Jesus Factor

The Jesus factor in all of this is important.

More than once, Jesus intentionally and specifically pointed out Race and Ethnicity, forcing members of the ethnic majority (Jews) to take notice.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 is not just a commentary on the necessity of helping a neighbor in need, it is a direct confrontation of Jewish hate for those of Samaritan descent. It is a repudiation of the supremacy mindset of many Jews of the time and is, in short, a statement of “Samaritan Lives Matter.”

Similarly, another Samaritan becomes the hero of the story again in Luke 17:11-19 and the Healing of the 10 Lepers. Here, the Samaritan is grateful and acts with integrity and godliness… the other 9, not so much.

Much more could be said, but perhaps the greatest example Jesus set was simply recognizing Samaria as a place and her people, Samaritans, as having agency and value. He treated them as equals, intentionally choosing to regularly travel through their countryside rather than ignore, avoid, and decry their very existence.

Jesus treated them as equals and demanded that those around him did as well.

He did not ignore their differences or ever encourage them to understand that “All Lives Matter.”

He never looked them in the eye and said “Samaritan, you may be good, but there is only one race, the human race.”

All Lives Don’t Matter

When we say “All Lives Matter,” it is not our way of communicating that all people are important, it is our way of telling others that they are not more important than we are.

To move from “Black Lives Matter” to “All Lives Matter” is to intentionally minimize the true needs of others in order to emphatically state that “we have needs too, you know!” It’s like visiting a hospital patient who has experienced extreme life-threatening trauma and saying “I have problems too, sometimes.”

In that moment, it’s not about us, and by making it about us it says more about ourselves than anyone else.

We say “All Lives Matter” not as a theological statement, but as a social statement… as a way to say: “I will not allow you to think you are better than me, and I will not allow you to get more attention than me.”

“All Lives Matter” is not-so-thinly veiled racism. It is hatred on parade, couched in a whitewash of God’s beautifully diverse and divergent creation.

It is a slap across the face of the Divine.