Racial Reconciliation

Black Lives Matter:

The national movement of black lives matter and the boycott (or at least the attempt) of the Oscars has brought a great deal of publicity to the modern audience of the necessity for racial reconciliation.   The historical back drop of America has been soaked with racial segregation ranging from the dominance of Indian tribes to African slavery and to the Civil Rights movement.  Though there has been enormous strides made through the sacrifice and dedication from men and women throughout history, the fight continues to be centered upon the idea that men should not be identified by the color of their skin but rather by the dignity of their humanity.  We, the minorities of this country, are indebted to the men and women who have fought to give us a better America to live in.

Growing Up as a Minority:

Being raised by immigrant parents in a predominantly white neighborhood I found myself inspired by the works of Abraham Lincoln, Fredrick Douglas, and Martin Luther King Jr.  These men stood for something greater than themselves and I wanted to model their courage, aptitude, and strength.  I, myself, experienced a great deal of racial tension while growing up and understand firsthand the necessity for equality.  The fight for justice and the platform to bring awareness to such discrimination is an honorable and ethical endeavor.  One that is essential for us to fight in order for our children (and their children) to obtain equal opportunity for prosperity in this country as well as in life.

This conviction amplified as I became, by the grace of God, a follower of Jesus Christ.  No longer was racial reconciliation merely a social concern for my indigenous people, but rather a spiritual endeavor that embodied the essence of the Gospel message.

Gospel Issue:

It does not take long to navigate through the biblical text before you are encroached by what the work and person of Jesus Christ has accomplished in terms of racial reconciliation.  What God had established in His people, the nation of Israel, was meant to be spilled over to the nations of the world.  Within the establishment of the Abrahamic Covenant, the choosing of His people, was the redemptive maneuver to unite the world to God's restorative plan.  Moses records for us:

Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.  And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." (Gen. 12:1-3)

The initial intention of the Abrahamic Covenant was to bless the nations with the redemptive work of the seed that was promised to Eve after the tragic fall of mankind (Gen. 3:15).  That seed, Jesus Christ, would rectify humanity's greatest foe — sin and death —  and in the process break down the barriers of the curse granted to mankind from the Tower of Babel (I will be elaborated upon later).

Necessity of the Gospel:

The Gospel, then, is the central element in order to garner any type of lasting transformation within the realm of racial reconciliation.  My premise is that without the work and person of Christ as the mantel to elevate the pursuit for racial unity, our endeavors in finding true social harmony will always be shorthanded by the nature of our inadequacies and infirmities.

Inward Focus:

As our society moves toward a naturalistic or Darwinian worldview what, consequentially, happens is a move toward a relativistic set of moral obligations.  Simply put, truth becomes subjective or is defined by the individual.  Peter Jones writes in his book One or Two that the move toward oneism, which is acknowledging only the natural world, is the denying of the Creator and ultimately any source of objective truth (twoism would acknowledge the Creator/creation distinction).  When this occurs all of humanity's endeavors are terminated upon mankind itself.  This has enormous implications.  What are those implications?

Since in the mind of the modern relativist there is no objective truth, the motivating factor in any virtuous endeavor would be done out of the "good" that is proportioned from the individual.  For instance, if a person were to extend financial support to a homeless man the task itself would not be motivated by an objective standard that convicts the person to love their neighbor as themselves.  The "good" that is done is simply exercised out of the "good" that is proportioned from the giver —  defined relatively by the self.  Consequentially, the driving factor that would prompt the giver to engage in such a noble task would not be for the good of the homeless person, since there is no such thing as absolute good, but for the sake of the giver — namely that he would feel good about himself.  Therefore, through the naturalistic lens, "good" has a narcissistic foundation that is the basis of its motivation.  If this is the case, then, genuine love can never truly be as the bible has demonstrated it to be in the person of Jesus Christ — self-sacrificing! Hence, racial reconciliation, without the foundation of the Gospel, would have no grounds to establish a long term change.

With this rationale infused into the issue of racial reconciliation, there can never really be a harmonious fusion of cultural diversity through the Darwinian approach.  With the world being viewed through the naturalistic lens each indigenous people group, though publicly open to the outside world, would be motivated to elevate their own agenda.  The very mantle that drives them to proclaim unity would be the very weapon that is used to conquer the kingdom of the proverbial hill.

Racial reconciliation outside the work and person of Jesus Christ would ultimately fall upon itself, because there is no guiding standard or Person to assist in its endeavor.

We Can Learn From the Past:

Paul writes in Romans that the greatest outworking of sin is that it has "suppressed the truth."  The writing off of God is the essence of the sin nature which desires to rule the self and, ultimately, be its own god.  The craftiness of the serpent to deceive our first parents derived from this one statement: "you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3:5).  The knowing of "good and evil" had not evaded Adam and Eve since God had conveyed to them what was good — primarily His creative order.  The "good and evil," that was suggested by the serpent, was Adam's own autonomous standard outside of the living God.

The outworking of the Adamic fall is the backdrop to the ethnic diversity that is played out in our day and age.  It was at the Tower of Babel where God dispersed the people and gave them diversity in language.  And yet, what was the undergirding reason for the curse that was bestowed upon the people?

God had commissioned Adam to "[be] fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it" (Gen. 1:28).  The same commandment was passed down to Noah after the traumatic events of the flood (Gen. 9:1).  The setting of the Tower of Babel was a direct dismissal of God's commandment.  Instead of obeying the words of the Lord the people gathered and sought "to make a name for [themselves], lest [they] be dispersed over the face of the whole earth" (Gen. 11:4).  The motivation of the Tower of Babel embodies a striking resemblance to the naturalistic tendency of our age.  Their end goal was not to make much of God or bring Him ultimate glory, but rather to allow all praise and honor to terminate on themselves.  Therefore, God dispersed them by confusing their language and, in effect, accomplishing His intended goal of filling the earth.

Conversely, an attempt at racial reconciliation outside the work and person of Jesus Christ will ultimately unfold upon itself and garner an opposite outcome to its intended desire.

The Centrality of the Gospel:

I am in no way trying to hinder any attempt to reconcile the different ethnic groups that are represented in the world.  All I am saying is that our attempt, if not placed upon the mantle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, will not have any lasting effects.  It is imperative that the church be the front runner of racial reconciliation, and begin to spearhead, through the power of the Spirit, the healing process to bring whites, blacks, yellows, purples, and any other colors together under the banner of the cross.  It is through the work of Christ that He has "[reconciled] us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility" (Ephes. 2:16).

Our Hmong churches, in particular, must re-evaluate and even abandon our Second Generation Model and begin to adopt a church planting culture that embraces other ethnics and cultures.  As we look forward to the future our generation has the opportunity to stand for the cause of Christ in uniting cultures and people groups together through the power of the cross.  To draw lines for the sake of our indigenous people would be to counter act what the Gospel has accomplished. If we are to stand for the Gospel we must stand for the unification of the world in worshipping the one true Creator God, Jesus Christ.

The Gospel gives us the fuel and the power to truly embrace genuine racial reconciliation.  It is in the work of the cross where we see divine love in the giving of the Son to redeem onto Himself a people for His Name.  Only then will racial reconciliation, embodied by Gospel-love that seeks the good of the other and the glory of the transcendent God, have eternal consequence for the generations to come.  The theistic approach which terminates on the Person of Christ will be the only means to which racial reconciliation can find its true remedy.  He has paid the price and we must embrace the riches granted to us by His blood.

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McYoung Yang is the husband to Debbie Yang and the father to McCayden (7), McCoy (6), McColsen (4), and DeYoung (7 months).  He graduated from Crown College in Saint Bonifacius, MN with a Youth Ministry degree and has served as a Youth Pastor in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota for over 8 years.  He is currently studying at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY for his Masters of Divinity.  He hopes to use his training to serve the local church in living life through the Gospel lens.

Changing of the Guard

A Common Struggle:

I have been around the district, or rather the nation, long enough to understand that there is an undergirding tension that is felt within the local churches that has aroused a multi-generation of people.  There seems to be a hunger and a thirst for the Gospel to penetrate from the pulpit into the organic realms of everyday life; to see lives transformed of the sake of Christ.  Not many people have been able to articulate the restlessness that has been gaining traction within the local church, and not many have been able to place their fingers on the method of reformation.  I am in no way implying that I have found the approach that will produce the desired outcome, but I do want to stand with those who acknowledge the need for Gospel-centered ministries and who want to see the church embrace her God-given mandate.

Social Club:

Much of the local ministries across the nation have been simplified to events, parties, and social gatherings.  The initiative toward Gospel-living, Gospel-discipleship, and Gospel-mission have been usurped by Valentine's Day banquets, pho fundraisers, and concerts.  The call of the church to be the people of God who live in the midst of a dying and depraved generation have fallen on deaf ears.  The church is simply comfortable operating in their exclusive social clubs, and yet still find time to wonder why the generations have fallen away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  If we are honest with ourselves many who leave the church exit because there is a lack of Gospel-preaching, Gospel-modeling, and Gospel-discipleship.  The proper question remains: were those who left ever truly regenerated?

With closer inspection one can conclude that the church has ceased to be the church, and has bought into the cultural assumption of Christianity.  Simply put, most have assumed that we are doing church.  Events and programs have been the norm of majority of our church experience and anything outside this structure runs contrary to our definition of church.  Either way, the tension draws deep because the Spirit is at work!

Gospel Focus:

In the midst of all the busyness there must be a reorientation of church life in such ways as to posture the people of God to live life organically for the Gospel.  This means more time for family, more time for evangelism, and more time for discipleship.  With the church calendar bombarded with events and programs, not many children are able to observe their parents model Gospel living, or themselves be discipled by those very same parents.  Much of the week is packed by running from one program to another while trying to maintain an active affiliation with extracurricular activities.  Discipleship does not happen in the local church because the saints are too busy maintaining the machine rather than investing in the people.  Rather than viewing family time, extracurricular activities, and personal hobbies as competition, ministers need to begin to equip the saints to use those spheres of influences as platforms for ministry.  In doing so, you minimize your focus in order to maximize your effort.

Less is More:

In transitioning the church to be the church we can begin "to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ" (Ephes. 4:12).  Ministers can begin to train leaders rather than spoon feed infants.  Ministers can begin to equip workers rather than oversee programs.  Ministers can expand on Word ministries rather than tinker with maintenance.  The fuel of ministry shifts from maintaining events to positioning the church to live life together.  The church, from an institutional standpoint, becomes the springboard to live organically for the sake of the Gospel.

Train the People:

We need to train our people!  In a day and age where biblical illiteracy is through the roof, the church must spear head the movement to educate the community of saints on biblical doctrine and sound theology.  Catechizing the people of God will be foundational to how the common layperson functions and operates in the organic realm of life we call ministry.  A deeper and more robust understanding of God, empowered by the Holy Spirit, will enable the saints to engage in this depraved and perverse world with grace and truth (John 1:14).  It is no coincidence that Paul commands Timothy to "[keep] a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.  Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers" (1Tim. 4:16).  Paul was vehement at the fact that sound doctrine is essential for church life.  He states earlier that "[if] you put these things (sound doctrine) before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed" (1Tim. 4:6).

Positioning the saints to function outside the four walls of the facility will grant the elders more time to train and equip the believers to love God and worship Him in their everyday endeavors.

Life on Life:

Training is the means to enjoy God and express our satisfaction in Him through service toward the lost and edification to the saints.  The ministry that is produced within the confines of the facility should place the saints on a trajectory to live life with others for the sake of Gospel transformation.  Jesus spent a great deal of His time with His disciples traveling from one town to the next while engaging in discipleship.  Jesus did not merely teach on the topic of love, but He embodied it.  Image how impactful it must have been for the disciples to see Jesus heal the blind man.  Image how earth shattering it must have been to witness Jesus extend grace to the adulterous woman bombarded by men who sought to stone her (John 8).  Image how life changing it must have been to look Mary and Martha in the eye as they received back their brother Lazarus from the dead (John 11).  Ministry, for Jesus, was not merely a classroom, but life lived in the midst of a broken world.

Sunday As A Springboard:

I have many friends who, for the sake of organic ministry, have done away with Sunday church service.  I do not share in their conviction.  What I see is the biblical mandate to "not [neglect] to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near" (Heb. 10:25).  The greek word which is translated "meet together" is επισυναγωγην which derives from the word συναγωγη (synagogue).  The author is clearly communicating the necessity for the body of saints to gather and sit under the Word.

What are the implications?  Sunday service, then, become a platform in which the community of saints — who are engaged in Gospel-living throughout the week —  come and find solace, edification, and encouragement to continue to press on for the cause of Christ.  Sunday, through the proclamation of the Word, becomes the springboard to which life on life is fueled and informed.

Live in the Tension:

The common theme I continue to find as I encounter ministers throughout the nation is a desperate desire to see the Gospel centralized in the local church.  Though there lays before us a steep uphill battle, let us be reminded that God has called us for such a time as this.  That He has not left us to fight this battle alone, but has empowered us by His Spirit to do the work of God via the Gospel.  Let us not waver by being engulf in bitterness or anger, but let us put on the righteousness of Christ and endure through His power in order for His grace and truth to permeate forth.  May we stand with Paul and proclaim: "Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works within me" (Col. 1:28-29).  Whether this side of eternity or the other may He receive all the praise, glory, and honor.  Amen!

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McYoung Yang is the husband to Debbie Yang and the father to McCayden (7), McCoy (6), McColsen (4), and DeYoung (7 months).  He graduated from Crown College in Saint Bonifacius, MN with a Youth Ministry degree and has served as a Youth Pastor in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota for over 8 years.  He is currently studying at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY for his Masters of Divinity.  He hopes to use his training to serve the local church in living life through the Gospel lens.

Desensitizing One Step at a Time

Let It Grow On You:

I had a seminary professor who introduced me to the idea of society's ploy to desensitize the common audience to the moral ailment of homosexuality.  He compared it to the way in which I was raised, as an asian, to eat every meal with rice.  My initial inclination was to have rice as the main portion regardless of my side choice; runny eggs, BDubb's, KFC, Thanksgiving dinner, the list goes on.  He, my professor, was raised to eat corn mixed with mashed potatoes.  His premise was that in order for my taste buds to become acquainted with the taste of corn and mashed potatoes, I would need to take in small portions in consecutive days in order to see this dish as normative.  Like corn mixed with mashed potatoes, society, via the media, has sought to propagate the agenda of the LGBT lifestyle in a way that will become normal and regulative for the next generation.  

As Christians how are we to engage with this ever growing realization that the LGBT lifestyle will become normative in our lifetime?  How are we to walk in society in light of the Gospel lens?  How are we to disciple and raise our children who will be bombarded with these images?  How are we to love and serve our LGBT brothers and sisters while disagreeing with their lifestyle?  What are practical ways we can engage in dialogue with our LGBT brothers and sisters in order to communicate love and affection for them as people?  How does the church create space to interact with those who are struggling with same sex attraction?  

Media Day: 

These are all difficult questions and I, honestly, do not have any real concrete answers.  What I do want to accomplish with this blog is to bring an awareness to the movement that is taking course and that is rampant in the media world.  Our churches, Hmong in particular, need to be awakened to this reality and begin to engage in ways that would further the Gospel and bring forth healing to the hurting.  Our Hmong churches need to stop busying themselves with programmatic events and realize that these issues touch base with every member in our congregation one way or another.  These are real life issues that must be dealt with through a Gospel lens! 

Super Bowl Sunday:

I was excited to hear that Coldplay would be apart of the haft-time show at Super Bowl 50.  It only added to my emotional hysteria that Peyton Manning was playing, maybe, in his final game!  To be honest I didn't think much of the half-time performance.  I was too busy enjoying the music to even notice that the screen was filled with rainbow colors - a sign symbolizing the LGBT community.  It finally struck me when the rainbow clothe was placed on the forehead of Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay, via a fan in the crowd.  Only then did I begin to notice that everything from the drum set to the stadium was filled with rainbows.  Media propaganda? 

iPhone App:

I must admit that I love playing solitary!  To be honest I spend more time on my phone playing solitary than surfing FaceBook or checking my email.  Like any free app, solitary has ads that pop up prior to the game starting.  One of those ads was promoting Valentine's Day cards with couples.  Lo and behold there was an add of two males kissing and one giving the other a Valentines Day card.  I was, frankly, shocked at the advertisement and thought about my 7 year old son who could have stumbled upon this commercial?  Media propaganda?  

Biblical Worldview:

I realize that I shouldn't be as surprised as I was (or am), but I also realize that I have the responsibility of raising four young children in my home.  A home that is filled with electronics and televisions in an ever growing society of social media.  Not only that, but I am connected to a district that serves local churches with a plethora of young people.  How can I help serve them to see the biblical design of marriage and the biblical standard of living through the power of Christ?  

This blog has posed more questions than answers, but my hope is that the church begins to see the ploy of the media to desensitize our youth to the lifestyle of the LGBT.  And if we are going to be a church that disciples and fosters an environment for Christ followers, we must tackles these tough issues in order to be faithful to the God of the bible.  Not by spreading hate, malice, or ill will; but by formulating a Gospel lens on how to love and serve in the midst of disagreement.  How to embody grace and truth (John 1:14) in a world that has delineated from His light (John 1:5).  How to uphold biblical truth in a hostile and perverse world.  Through it all we must be aware of the Scriptural warning which says: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" (Isa. 5:20).  

Through it all, may the Lord Jesus empower us and sustain us for the work that He has ahead of us.

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McYoung Yang is the husband to Debbie Yang and the father to McCayden (7), McCoy (6), McColsen (4), and DeYoung (6 months).  He graduated from Crown College in Saint Bonifacius, MN with a Youth Ministry degree and has served as a Youth Pastor in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota for over 8 years.  He is currently studying at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY for his Masters of Divinity.  He hopes to use his training to serve the local church in living life through the Gospel lens.