Greco is quick to point out that the proposal applies only to prospective officers, not to all church members. “Officers in the church are to be models of godliness and Christ-likeness,” he says. Though imperfect, “they are not to be identified with their sin.” He believes that the three criteria referred to above “make clear that it is neither being a sinner nor struggling with a sin that disqualifies a man from office. It is identifying with his sin and declaring that the Spirit will never give (indeed, cannot give) victory over his sin.”

Following their approval by the Presbyterian Church in America’s 48th General Assembly, the Book of Church Order (BCO) amendments proposed by Overtures 23 and 37 have been sent the PCA’s 88 presbyteries for their advice and consent. Both proposed amendments deal with homosexuality. Two-thirds of our presbyteries, a total of 59, must approve them before they’re presented to the 49th Assembly for a final vote.
Two Overtures, Three Years in the Making
A lot of history — in the culture and in our church — has brought us to this moment. This is how it goes with controversial issues in the PCA. Sometimes they’re theological — the debate over creation days, for example. Sometimes they’re related to polity — such as the ministry of women in the church. And they can be significant issues in the broader culture, such as racial reconciliation or, as we see today, homosexuality.
Such issues produce debate, prompt disciplinary cases, and spawn overtures to the General Assembly (GA). They can also lead to the creation of study committees to explore the issue, and while the findings of such committees are only advisory, they tend to promote peace in the church around the controversies.
So why this issue, and why now? There are two primary reasons.
The first comes from outside the PCA — the dramatic change in attitudes toward homosexuality in American culture. They’ve occurred quickly — in roughly two decades — and they’ve been pervasive. Sadly, these trends have also been reflected in some Christian churches. Many mainline denominations, for example, now endorse same-sex marriage and the ordination of practicing homosexuals. Though the PCA has faithfully advocated the biblical teaching concerning homosexuality, some have called for the denomination to express its position even more strongly in response to these trends.
The second reason is internal. In July 2018 Revoice, an organization created to support Christians who experience same-sex attraction while upholding the historic Christian teaching about marriage and sexuality, held its first conference at Memorial Presbyterian Church, a PCA congregation in St. Louis. The conference stirred controversy and criticism throughout the evangelical world, and particularly within the PCA.
Over the next several months, Greg Johnson, pastor of Memorial, found himself defending Revoice in a variety of public settings. In the process, he acknowledged his own struggles with same-sex attraction, which intensified the controversy and prompted a series of technical judicial actions:

At the request of the Memorial session, Missouri Presbytery created a committee to investigate allegations raised against Johnson and Memorial for hosting Revoice.
In May 2019, the committee presented its findings; while concluding that the Memorial session had failed to exercise due diligence in its handling of the conference, no charges were filed against Johnson or the session.
In January 2020, two presbyteries invoked the provisions of BCO 34-1 that allow a presbytery to ask the General Assembly’s Standing Judicial Commission (SJC) to assume original jurisdiction when a presbytery fails to act on a matter of theological error. The presbyteries alleged that Missouri’s failure to charge Johnson constituted such a failure.
In the same timeframe, two presbyteries and two sessions outside Missouri presbytery requested that Missouri initiate a disciplinary investigation of Johnson under BCO 31-2. The presbytery established a committee to conduct such an investigation in October 2019. It found no strong presumption of guilt and in July 2020 the presbytery exonerated Johnson.
This led a third presbytery to ask the SJC to assume original jurisdiction in Johnson’s case.
But before the SJC could act on these requests, an elder in Missouri Presbytery filed a formal complaint against the presbytery for exonerating Johnson. The complaint was denied by Missouri and then taken to the SJC, which ruled that the complaint should be considered before the requests for original jurisdiction. That complaint is currently being decided.

The PCA Reacts With 11 Overtures
All this — external and internal factors combined — led to a flurry of 11 overtures sent to the 2019 General Assembly.

One asked the Assembly to commend a study paper on sexual orientation produced by the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA) and make it available to the denomination.
Two offered their own statements on homosexuality.
Two others asked the Assembly to re-affirm previous statements.
Two presbyteries overtured the Assembly to commend the Nashville Statement, produced by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, and make it available to the denomination.
Four presbyteries asked the Assembly to appoint a study committee to address the issue.

Ultimately, the Assembly commended the Nashville Statement and the RPCNA’s study paper. It also approved the appointment of a study committee; GA Moderator Howard Donahoe appointed the Ad-Interim Committee on Human Sexuality (AIC) which posted its report in May 2020, prior to the Assembly that was postponed because of COVID-19.
Read More
For a complete statement of Fred Greco’s arguments in favor of Overtures 23 and 37, click here.
For a complete statement of Kyle Keating’s argument against the Overtures, click here.

[The Aquila Report Editor’s Note: Here are the proposed amendments to the PCA’s Book of Church Order as approved by the PCA General Assembly and sent to the presbyteries for their votes]:
BCO 16-4. Officers in the Presbyterian Church in America must be above reproach in their walk and Christlike in their character. Those who profess an identity (such as, but not limited to, “gay Christian,” “same sex attracted Christian,” “homosexual Christian,” or like terms) that undermines or contradicts their identity as new creations in Christ, either (1) by denying the sinfulness of fallen desires (such as, but not limited to, same sex attraction), or (2) by denying the reality and hope of progressive sanctification, or (3) by failing to pursue Spirit-empowered victory over their sinful temptations, inclinations, and actions are not qualified for ordained office.
BCO 21-4 e. In the examination of the candidate’s personal character, the presbytery shall give specific attention to potentially notorious concerns, such as but not limited to relational sins, sexual immorality (including homosexuality, child sexual abuse, fornication, and pornography), addictions, abusive behavior, racism, and financial mismanagement. Careful attention must be given to his practical struggle against sinful actions, as well as to persistent sinful desires. The candidate must give clear testimony of reliance upon his union with Christ and the benefits thereof by the Holy Spirit, depending on this work of grace to make progress over sin (Psalm 103:2-5, Romans 8:29) and to bear fruit (Psalm 1:3; Gal. 5:22-23). While imperfection will remain, he must not be known by reputation or self-profession according to his remaining sinfulness, but rather by the work of the Holy Spirit in Christ Jesus (1 Cor. 6:9-11). In order to maintain discretion and protect the honor of the pastoral office, Presbyteries are encouraged to appoint a committee to conduct detailed examinations of these matters and to give prayerful support to candidates.
BCO 24-1. In the examination of each nominee’s personal character, the Session shall give specific attention to potentially notorious concerns, such as but not limited to relational sins, sexual immorality (including homosexuality, child sexual abuse, fornication, and pornography), addictions, abusive behavior, racism, and financial mismanagement. Careful attention must be given to his practical struggle against sinful actions, as well as to persistent sinful desires. Each nominee must give clear testimony of reliance upon his union with Christ and the benefits thereof by the Holy Spirit, depending upon this work of grace to make progress over sin (Psalm 103:2-5; Romans 8:29) and to bear fruit (Psalm 1:3; Gal. 5:22-23). While imperfection will remain, he must not be known by reputation or self-profession according to his remaining sinfulness, but rather by the work of the Holy Spirit in Christ Jesus (1 Cor. 6:9-11). In order to maintain discretion and protect the honor of church office, Sessions are encouraged to appoint a committee to conduct detailed examinations into these matters and to give prayerful support to nominees.

When educators intentionally omit God from the classroom for the alleged purpose of moral neutrality, another organizing principle and telos will necessarily fill the resulting vacuum. Many Christians have naively accepted what they thought was agnosticism in their educational models, but it turns out to be much worse.

Over one hundred years ago, Abraham Kuyper asserted what he believed to be Christian education’s proper telos: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’” He uttered this battle cry, not in a sermon or political speech, but at the dedicatory address of a new Dutch university. Undergirded by strong Calvinist convictions, Kuyper boldly planted the flag of Christ’s dominion in that domain always under siege by the enemy, the Academy. Weust follow in Kuyper’s footsteps and rededicate ourselves to a similar comprehensive educational philosophy, one that re-centers the proper orientation of educating Christians by embracing a Christocentric model of understanding each discipline’s form and content.
Why is Kuyper’s view of education so urgent? The havoc in academia left by secular humanism, postmodernity, Critical Race Theory, evolution, and the sexual revolutions is too great to ignore. Too many of our covenant children have lost their way. We cannot simply equate a Christian education with Christian teachers who avoid immoral topics. Instead, we must engage students at the appropriate levels using biblical lens. An education that honors Christ trains the student to think connect each discipline to its Creator.
As idealistic as it may seem, this orientation is by no means a radical proposition. Rather, thinking Christianly about every academic discipline exemplifies obedience to first-tier biblical commands. Consider Jesus’ restatement of the Great Commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). Through the mind, we are to love the Lord with all of our mental capacity, with “the psychological faculty of understanding, reasoning, thinking, and deciding.”[1] In sum, we are to love God in all of our intellectual pursuits. In view of Scripture’s teaching, there can be “no square inch” – no realm that excludes this theocentric worldview (Col. 1:15-18).
Furthermore, the New Testament teaches that the Christian life occurs mostly in the mind, which explains Paul’s focus at the climax of Romans (12:2): “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” A constant flesh-fighting, world-renouncing mental regimen must begin early in life and characterize one’s entire educational experience, both in and out of the classroom. Engaging the mind in this way strengthens student’s faith.
The mind’s heightened role in the Christian life explains why our spiritual enemies target educational systems with such ferocity. Once they capture a student’s mind, then they have captured the student’s soul.
Edmund, a central figure in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, illustrates this. On multiple occasions, C.S. Lewis credits Edmund’s school for his flaws. Edmund’s downfall occurs due to his ability to be deceived easily, to lose sight of what is plainly true, and a failure to trust those he loves most.
Lewis most clearly attributes the school’s detrimental impact on Edmund after he becomes a casualty in battle. Upon giving him the magic healing potion, Lucy “found him standing on his feet and not only healed of his wounds but looking better than she had seen him look — oh, for ages;in fact ever since his first term at that horrid school which was where he had begun to go wrong. He had become his real old self again and could look you in the face” (italics mine).[2] In this remarkable moment, readers learn that Edmund’s affinity for folly was cultivated at school—a powerful warning against the negative trajectory on which an institution of learning can set a young person.
As with Eve in the Garden of Eden or Edmund in Narnia, Satan continues to twist truth, minimize sin and its consequences, and disrupt faith in God’s goodness. Our ancient foe’s strategy has never changed, only his tools and methods have. Unfortunately, relying on a magic potion to rescue a wayward student is not a proven parenting strategy. Students need to be taught what is true, to view sin for all it is while relentlessly holding onto God’s goodness.
Christ as the Reference Point of Academic Disciplines
How does one, then, reclaim an educational philosophy and practice? Simply this: parents and educators must intentionally reference all disciplines back to their Christian center. In doing so, we must reject false dichotomies between , entertaining a certain reverence for all things that Christ has created. We must further reject Postmodernity’s abandonment of objective truth and compartmentalization of philosophy and theology from more “empirical” fields. Adopting this view requires the parent to homeschool or find teachers that actively seek both to understand, ad then to communicate, how Christ’s fingerprints cover all intellectual activity.
Each discipline reveals the Triune God in a different way. The sciences and mathematics become a study in God’s art of creation with revelation, not unprovable theories, as their point of departure.[3] History becomes an outworking of God’s purposes in time, in which He sent Christ in the “fullness of time.” Literature becomes an imaginative retelling of the human experience in light of the creation-fall-redemption patterns, an art that Christ used frequently to deliver truth through narrative. The art of rhetoric becomes a manner of communicating as Christ himself did – with stories, speeches, revelation, and questions. The fine arts become a means of contemplating, enjoying, and creating objects of “glory and beauty.” The study of languages becomes a means of understanding and appreciating other cultures in the aftermath of the Fall of Babel.
This pursuit inculcates wisdom, rather than mere knowledge. And as the Bible teaches, wisdom begins with “the fear of the Lord” (Prov. 9:10). The Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck, who later taught at the university that Kuyper founded, articulated this concept eloquently:
“But what the Scriptures require is a knowledge which has the fear of God as its beginning (Prov. 1:7). When it severs its connections with the principle it may still, under false pretenses, bear the name of knowledge, but it will gradually degenerate into a worldly wisdom which is foolishness with God. Any science, philosophy or knowledge which supposes that it can stand on its own pretentions, and can leave God out of its assumptions, becomes its opposite, and disillusions everyone who builds his expectations on it. [4]
Do any disciplines that are taught in schools include God in their assumptions now?
When educators intentionally omit God from the classroom for the alleged purpose of moral neutrality, another organizing principle and telos will necessarily fill the resulting vacuum. Many Christians have naively accepted what they thought was agnosticism in their educational models, but it turns out to be much worse.
In order to reorient our educational practices, we must reconstruct our philosophical underpinnings. My colleague, Rev. Matt Marino, offers a helpful illustration:
“Imagine a ‘solar system of ideas’ in which God functions like the sun does in our solar system. Not only is He the source of light, but also the center of gravity. All else derives its being from Him, and nothing else can explain itself without reference to Him.”[5]
When the disciplines no longer orbit around God, they fall out of their circuit and lose both their mean and their relation to one another.
Marino’s metaphor also suggests that all disciplines can simultaneously sustain their own orbits while maintaining their collective course around God. He gives gravity, light, and meaning to all arts and disciplines. This model keeps them all centered.
In view of this paradigm, Christian parents must own their children’s education. If we are to obey Deuteronomy 6:4-9, then parents must teach their children to love the Lord and to obey His commands. Parents are responsible to “teach [God’s laws] diligently to your children” and cultivate a domestic culture pervaded by theological conversations (6:7) with ubiquitous reference to the Law (8-9). We make a theological error – one with significant repercussions – when we compartmentalize God’s law or relegate it to Sunday School. We must do the hard work to treat all disciplines, not simply theological ones, in light of Deuteronomy 6.
Objections
Three objections to this proposal come to mind. First is the notion that children must attend public schools to evangelize their classmates. In its immediate context, Christ gave the Great Commission to eleven grown men with whom he invested significant time during His earthly ministry. They were not children. Instead, the child’s vocation is to comprehend the faith (Deut. 6:6-8; Prov. 22:6). One cannot effectively propagate that which he does not understand. Though godly children might be compelling young evangelists (in part because of their simplicity and innocence), the burden of the Great Commission is not yet theirs, any more than it is the average believer to baptize converts. Students need to be equipped prior to being sent out into a dangerous mission field. Let Christian teachers and administrators bear the burden of bringing the gospel into secular schools.
Second, many science-minded people feel that the Bible and science are at odds. I once heard a pastor proclaim, “Genesis 1 has no bearing on the rest of Scripture.” Nonsense. This view increased dramatically in the post-Darwin age; it is not the view of Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Robert Boyle, and other Christian scientists who ushered in the Scientific Revolution. To presume that one knows precisely how the earth was formed, mechanically speaking, is simply fallacious. No one was present to document creation except God Himself. O The tendency to interpret the Bible in view of scientific theories is a post-Enlightenment temptation that leads away from Christ, reflecting a lack of confidence in the God of order.
Finally, some associate Kuyper with radical Christians with some type of theonomic agenda. However, this is not my agenda, and furthermore, recovering a Christocentric view of education does not belong to any single eschatological movement. At its baseline, Christian education is an earnest attempt to be faithful to fundamental passages in Scripture that instruct us how to orient our pursuit of knowledge, particularly in the shadow of the revealed Son of God. In this light, Ryan McIhenny writes, “Christian cultural activity is always done within the context of the completed work of God in and through Christ and the now/not yet completion of his kingdom.”[6] My motivation in writing this article, starting a new college, and devoting my energies to my children is simply this: to be faithful as a father to train my children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Our American system is in disrepair, and we must build new institutions to provide them with what is required of us.
Conclusion
If Christians are to honor the Lord as the creator and source of all true wisdom and knowledge, the starting place for catechizing is as early as possible, and it must extend through the college level. In this way, the answers to the catechism questions “Who made me?” and “Who made all things?” are not theoretical; in fact, the answers to those questions propel me to spend all my days thinking about how and why He made all things, how they glorify Him, and ultimately, why all things remain His today. When such thinking governs our approach to learning, we will begin to see how every square inch belongs to our Savior, fueling generations of exuberant worshippers.
Dr. Ryan Smith, a member of Resurrection Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Matthews, N.C., is the president of New Aberdeen College, a new confessionally Reformed college based near Charlotte.

[1] Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 323–324.
[2] C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Ebook. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010; 125.
[3] The Scientific Revolution was an achievement in Western civilization led by devout Christian men such as Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, and Robert Boyle who understood the Creator is one of order. I am indebted to Christopher Watkin in his ill named Biblical Critical Theory for the assertion that only in the Western, monotheistic society could any scientific discoveries exist. With deities who are capricious, unknowable, and disorderly, the Eastern and African peoples had no starting point to make important scientific discoveries. Contemporary Christian thinkers who dismiss Genesis 1 for theories create slippery slopes that eventually result in people not believing that man and woman were made in the image of God, having a divine purpose for the sexuality, or maintaining a biblical hierarchy in church life.  [4] Herman Bavinck, “Man’s Highest Good” in The Wonderful Works of God. Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 2019; 4.[5] Matt Marino, “Theology’s Role in Classical Christian Education.” Conference lecture, Summer Roundtable; June 29, 2024.[6] Ryan C. McIlhenny, Kingdoms Apart: Engaging the Two Kingdoms Perspective. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2012; xxiii.

Related Posts:

.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{align-content:start;}:where(.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap) > .wp-block-kadence-column{justify-content:start;}.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{column-gap:var(–global-kb-gap-md, 2rem);row-gap:var(–global-kb-gap-md, 2rem);padding-top:var(–global-kb-spacing-sm, 1.5rem);padding-bottom:var(–global-kb-spacing-sm, 1.5rem);grid-template-columns:minmax(0, 1fr);}.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd{background-color:#dddddd;}.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-layout-overlay{opacity:0.30;}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{grid-template-columns:minmax(0, 1fr);}}@media all and (max-width: 767px){.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{grid-template-columns:minmax(0, 1fr);}}
.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col,.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{border-top-left-radius:0px;border-top-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-left-radius:0px;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{column-gap:var(–global-kb-gap-sm, 1rem);}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col > .aligncenter{width:100%;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{opacity:0.3;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18{position:relative;}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}}@media all and (max-width: 767px){.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}}

Subscribe to Free “Top 10 Stories” Email
Get the top 10 stories from The Aquila Report in your inbox every Tuesday morning.

If the church is to be on earth what it is in heaven, the church’s mission is to see sons of Adam become sons of God by the preaching of the gospel. More predestinarian, the mission of the church is to find the lost sheep in every fold (i.e., in every nation), and by so gathering God’s elect this increases the divide between sheep and goats. Truly, the truth of two races— one natural, one spiritual—is so important today, because there is a spirit of Babel that wants to unite the human race and eliminate the divide between sheep and goats.  

Here is the thesis that I want to argue: Your race is more important than your ethnicity.
When defined biblically and not sociologically, one’s race is more important for identity formation than one’s ethnicity. And by extension, the mission of the church is to help you make that statement true. Which raises the question. What is race? And do you know what your race is?
As insulting as that question may sound at first, I am going to suggest it is an easy question to mistake—especially if we have fused biblical ideas with worldly ideologies. At the same time, if we can answer this question from the Bible and the Bible alone, then we have hope for knowing and growing the mission of the church. This is the point that I will argue here, and here is how I will proceed.
I will show why the concept of racialization in America is popular and pervasive, but ultimately unhelpful—if not harmful.
I will attempt to draw the lines of race and ethnicity according to the Bible.
With those lines in place, I will demonstrate that the mission of the church helps men and women, who hold PhD’s in ethnic Partiality, ethnic Hostility, ethnic Discrimination, grow up into Christ, who is the head of a new chosen race, redeemed from nation (ethnē).
So that’s where we are going today.
Racism (Re)Defined as Racialization?
If you have not seen or heard this word before, you probably have not been reading the newer books on the subject of race and racism. Not that I am counting, but this term has been used by John Piper (Bloodlines),[1] Jarvis Williams (Redemptive Kingdom Diversity),[2] Irwyn Ince (The Beautiful Community),[3] and many others. And importantly, all of these works point to Michael Emerson and Christian Smith in their landmark book, Divided by Faith.[4]
Irwyn Ince is a wonderful brother who has been a PCA pastor for years. He has served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the PCA. And most personally, I met him a few years ago when I sat in on one of his classes at Reformed Theological Seminary. After that, he preached in our church’s pulpit and delivered an edifying message from the book of Hebrews. So I deeply respect Dr. Ince and there are many parts of his book I appreciate. That said I find his use of the idea of racialization unhelpful.
In The Beautiful Community: Unity, Diversity, and the Church at Its Best, Ince describes the effects of Genesis 11 on America. And in that discussion, he cites Ibram X. Kendi and Kendi’s thesis that racist policies in America have always come from racist ideas (pp. 75–76). Affirming this sociological perspective, Ince makes a theological connection. He says, “Put in theological terms, our racialized society is an outworking of our ghettoization at Babel. And the devastating reality is that groups of people still seek to serve the interests of their ghetto.”[5]
Ince continues:
“Kendi’s point about the changing nature of racialization in America reinforces what Christian Smith and Michael Emerson explained in 2000 when they wrote: “The framework we here use—racialization—reflects that [post-Civil Rights era] adaptation. It [Racialization] understands that racial practices that reproduce racial division in the contemporary United States [are] (1) increasingly covert, (2) embedded in normal operations of institutions, (3) avoid direct racial terminology, and (4) invisible to most Whites.”[6]
Without getting into all the details of racialization, we need to consider where this new, Post-Civil Rights racism comes from. If you look at Ince and all the other evangelicals who use this term, almost all of them cite Emerson and Smith. And where do Emerson and Smith get the definition of racialization, the idea of racist ideas hidden in plain sight?
The short answer is Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, a sociology professor at Duke and a leading proponent of Critical Race Theory (Divided by Faith, 9–11). What is important about Bonilla-Silva, is that racism after the Civil Rights movement has been transformed and is now embedded in social, political, and legal structures. The result is that racism can now exist without racists. That’s the title of his book (Racism with Racists), now in its sixth edition. This book was published after Divided by Faith, but Emerson and Smith cite an unpublished paper that he wrote in 1997.
Here’s the point. Without getting into the details of CRT, when you use, or hear, or see the word “racialization,” take note. It is not a concept that comes from the Bible, nor is it a word that comes from a sociology grown from biblical stock. Racialization is a term that comes from a view of the world that is wholly inconsistent with the biblical narrative. And thus, Christians should take caution whenever that word is used and should seek a biblical definition of race and ethnicity, as well of the universal sins of ethnic pride and hostility.
In what follows, I will argue that if we are going to rebuild our understanding of race, ethnicity, and the ministry of reconciliation, we must not borrow the idea of racialization. Instead, we need to go back to the Bible itself. We cannot simply employ the tools of CRT, or any other religious ideology (e.g., White Supremacy, Black Power, or anything else), to assist biblical reconciliation. Instead, we must mine the depths of Scripture to find God’s perspective on fallen humanity, its sin, and God’s plan of reconciliation in Christ. Because Scripture is sufficient to handle any type of sin, importing the concept of “racialization” does not give us a better understanding of Scripture. It only confuses the problem.
For not only does racialization, a concept drawn from the quarries of CRT, identify sin with groups of people—specifically, people with power—but it also ignores human agency in sin. Even more, it gives a view of the world that comes from sociology—and not just any sociology, but a sociology that redefines biblical words and concepts, so that in talking about race, ethnicity, justice, and the church, we end up talking the language of Babel. Therefore, we need to go back the Bible.
One Human Race, Or Two?
With our eyes fixed on Scripture we need to see what the Bible says about race, ethnicity, and the pride, hostility, and discrimination that arises in the heart of every son or daughter born of Adam.
The first thing to observe is that the Bible identifies two races, not just one. This might sound strange, if you have been schooled in the biology of Darwin and his kind, because various Darwinists have argued that different races came from different origins. This was the scientific rationale that supported the racial inferiority of blacks.
By contrast, Paul declares there is one human race, derived from one man. “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place” (Acts 17:26).
Still, this singular human race, with one common ancestor, does not deny a second race in the Bible—namely, a people born from above (John 3:3–8). As Scripture presents it, every child of God has a Father in heaven and an older brother in Christ, not Adam. In Romans 5, these two races are set against one another. There is the human race whose head is the first man, and there is the new human race whose head is the last man. Maybe we do not think of Adam’s family and Christ’s family as two separate races, but we should. Peter does. Just listen to 1 Peter 2:9: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
So, does the Bible teach us about race? Absolutely. Race is a biblical concept. For all the ways that sociology has (wrongly) defined race, there is something in Scripture that speaks to this very issue. The word “race” is the word genos, a word that can mean descendent, family, nation, class or kind. Indeed, it is a word that deserves its own study, but in 1 Peter 2:9, it is clearly speaking of a new humanity, chosen by God, redeemed by the Son, and made alive by the Spirit. And this “chosen race” is set against another “race,” the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve.
In this way, we should see in Scripture one fallen human race and one redeemed human race, thus producing two peoples, or as Genesis 3:15 would have it, “two seeds.” From the beginning, there was a single divide in humanity, producing two kinds of people. And in the fullness of time (i.e., when Christ came), this divide manifested in the two races referenced in 1 Peter 2:9. Today, all biblical thinking about race begins with this fact—there is not one human race, but two.
A Biblical Theology of Race
Moving across the canon helps us take the next step in a biblical theology of race. If we had more time, we could consider all the ways that the Law divided Jew and Gentile as two “races.” Indeed, if the language of Scripture means anything, it is striking that in Acts 7:19, Stephen speaks of Israel as his “race” (genos) not his ethnicity (ethnos). Indeed, because the divide in the Law separates Jew and Gentile as two peoples, set under different covenantal heads, the division between Jew and Gentile stands in typological relationship to Adam and Jesus. To put it in an analogy,
Jew : Gentile :: Christ : Adam
More fully, we can say that the legal division between Jew and Gentile, did not create a permanent, spiritual, or lasting division in humanity, but it did reinforce the divide created in Genesis 3:15, when God set at odds the seed of the woman against the seed of the serpent. Ever since, the biblical story carves out one people to be God’s chosen race. In the Old Testament, this was the nation of Israel according to the flesh (see Exod. 19:5–6). And during the time of the old covenant, there were two “races”—the Jews and the Gentiles. Typologically, these two races were roughly equivalent to the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, even though not every Israelite was truly a seed of the woman (e.g., Saul) and some Gentiles would become members of the covenant community (e.g., Rahab and Ruth).
In the fullness of time, however, this covenantal difference would be brought to an end, and the real, lasting, and spiritual divide, of which God promised in Genesis 3, and again in Genesis 12, would be created in the new race of men created by the firstborn from the dead, Jesus Christ (Col. 1:18). And this again is what makes two races.
Therefore, “racism,” according to Scripture alone, should be defined as the hostility that stands between seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Indeed, what is commonly called racism today is not racism at all, but ethnic hostility, ethnic pride, ethnic partiality. Moreover, what is called diversity, equity, and inclusion is actually an affront to the very division that Jesus is bringing into the world (see Matt. 10:34).
Now, in redefining racism according to Scripture, I am not trying to ignore the fact that our world is filled with pride and partiality amplified by color-consciousness. America’s history is filled with hatred and violence due to skin color. If there is anything redeemable in Divided by Faith, it is the selective but shocking history of slavery and Jim Crow that it reports. Those who deny the horrors of history should listen to the testimonies of Frederick Douglass (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass), Booker T. Washington (Up from Slavery), and Solomon Northrup (Twelve Years a Slave).
Read More
Related Posts: