Roasted When You Order
Get 10% off and FREE shipping on your first coffee subscription order.
Use code “BREW” at checkout.
Shop Now
Get 10% off and FREE shipping on your first coffee subscription order.
0
Photo: ©Pexels from pixabay via Canva.com
…and the 1970s…
…and the 1980s…
…and the 1990s…
…and…
Well, you get the point.
You may want to read:
According to the Oxford Dictionary, the definition of the word community is:
Their definition is important to note because, in terms of the “black community” as a social or ideological construct, we must understand that words have meaning and meaning requires context.
Given the above definitions, the assumption most people make when conceptualizing “black community” is that definition number two is the most contextually accurate, having reached that conclusion by likewise presupposing that definitions one and three are equally applicable.
They surmise because black people have a “particular characteristic in common,” namely melanin (skin tone), there exists an inherent “feeling of fellowship.” Because, again, being black, we naturally “share common attitudes, interests, and goals,” and on that basis further assume that blacks prefer to “live together” in “specified habitats.”
In other words, get a group of black and brown-skinned people together in one place, and — Voila! — like magic — “black community.”
See how that works?
It is a mindset that gives little or no consideration whatsoever to the uniqueness of one’s God-given personhood. No thought at all to the diversity of ideological and philosophical worldviews or individual cultural or societal experiences.
It only assumes that to be of a particular skin color is to be in “community” with others who likewise might be of similar skin color. It is the cultural equivalent of making instant oatmeal for breakfast. Only instead of hot water, “just add melanin.” The absurdity of such logic should be obvious to anyone. And yet the assumptions don’t end there.
There are those who would have us believe the assumptions mentioned above are representative of a mindset that is exclusive only to white people. I assure you it is not.
There are many black Christians who hold to the conviction that merely being black is sufficient in itself to juxtapose “community” to their blackness and that you must sacrifice any ideological, political, or philosophical differences that might exist on the altar of melanin.
I use the term altar quite deliberately. For what once was universally regarded as a righteous, that is, biblical, cause – the pursuit of social justice as an Imago Dei issue – has itself morphed into a religion in which individuals exalt race as the object of worship.
Like the Israelites of old, who constructed and venerated a golden calf at Mount Sinai (Exodus 32:1-6), there are today those who, under the more commonly accepted notion of “black community,” have fashioned for themselves a radical Jesus that they worship for His “social consciousness.”
They devalue the redemptive Jesus whose atoning death on the cross forever bridged the immeasurable divide between a holy God and sinful mankind (Romans 3:23; Ephesians 2:4-7, 13-17.)
The repercussions of such a partitioned Christology is an apologetic grounded primarily in the Jesus who confronted the moneylenders (Matthew 21:12-13) but to the exclusion of the Jesus who preached the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12).
Consequently, the clenched fist has replaced the cross as the symbol of our salvation, thereby inverting the very idea of salvation so that it is no longer God who saves us but we save ourselves through our ethno-centric efforts at self-redemption.
This worldview is problematic for several reasons, not the least of which is when your definition of salvation changes, so does your paradigm of who and what can deliver you and from what you must be delivered.
Before His ascension into heaven, Christ commanded His disciples to, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19).
Jesus did not tell His followers to organize themselves into an 11-person “movement” so as to “impact the culture” and free themselves of the political and religious oppression they endured under Roman rule.
If such an adversarial approach could have accomplished the kind of righteousness Christ had in mind in sacrificing Himself on the cross, it stands to reason He would have instructed His disciples accordingly.
That He did not has proven difficult to accept for many within the “black community.” Hence, they have adopted a new “Great Commission,” one that preaches a gospel of cultural confrontation rather than spiritual transformation (John 1:12-13; 3:7, 16).
But, you see, there can be no community where you and I have nothing in common.
Melanin does not shape my morality (Lamentations 3:40; 2 Corinthians 13:5). My ethnicity does not influence by ethics. The notion of “black community” will remain a myth, a phantasm, a dream, a mirage, if we persist in segregating the ideals that should define it from those of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Only Christ has the power to unite us all under one common mission regardless of race, ethnicity, or nationality (Acts 17:26-27).
Unless the gospel of Christ serves as the impetus of our desire for community — true community — that which is rooted in the condition of our heart and not in the color of our skin – we will continue on this decades-long treadmill of societal futility with absolutely nothing lastingly tangible to show for it (Psalm 127:1).
As followers of Christ, we must remain mindful that the “Great Commission” of Matthew 28 commands us to make disciples of all nations, not social justice warriors (John 18:36). To that end, I gladly confess that I am not a social justice warrior. Nor do I aspire to be.
