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.
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