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“..those who have truly accepted Him have transcended any stigma falsely attached to gender, race, status, and culture. They will shine with a light that will reach beyond any and all divides.”
Grace That Set Me Free
By Falvo Fowler
“If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?”*
Right there on center stage, we watch as handlers and the media make a presidential campaign about race and gender rather than about accomplished, intelligent individuals. Hillary and Barack: one a woman and the other an African American man. Can we have one or the other in the most powerful office of the world? Can she handle the military? Can a man of color handle the power?
Are we really that lacking in intelligence?
As Christians we’ve witnessed the same drama in our respective circles. What’s amazing is that many of us can quote Mrs. White jot and tittle while clinging to her as if our eternal life depended on it (which it doesn’t necessarily, by the way), yet scoff at the idea of women in leadership roles because. . . .
Meanwhile, racial tensions among Christians are growing on both sides of the battle. Yet we continue to ignore it, believing it will all be better on that golden shore; but until then, what about the pain and ill will all of this causes?
And why do we do it? Because of tradition? Tradition is great for families who want to identify with their ancestral roots. However, traditions in churches often become idols that mock the transforming power of God.
And if we say it’s biblical?
When will we realize that Scripture wasn’t given to prove we are right, but to encourage us to discover God through the lives of people who messed up, recognized it, and made good? When will we realize that Scripture was given so that we could discover God through words of inspiration—words that are to be used to lift people up, not mow them down. In terms of value, there’s no difference between those who have accepted Christ and those who haven’t. Christ didn’t come to die for a specific group, race, gender, or color. He died so that all may be saved (John 3:16, 17). And we know that those who have truly accepted Him have transcended any stigma falsely attached to gender, race, status, and culture. They will shine with a light that will reach beyond any and all divides.
So while we build our executive areas in order to demarcate those who have and those who have not; while we place token individuals in certain positions because we feel a need to appease gender, racial, and cultural groups; while we move people like pieces in a chess game, we just prolong our time on earth.
Because it isn’t about the baptisms, it isn’t about the churches, it isn’t about the places we’ve “conquered in Christ’s name.” It’s about how we live, how we administer, how we witness to the grace of Jesus—this same grace that looked at the woman about to be stoned and bent to write in the sand (John 8:1–11); the same grace that appeared to the Ethiopian in the form of Philip (Acts 8:26–39); the same grace that blinded a passionately wrong Saul so that he could see as Paul (Acts 9:1–30).
This is the same grace that reaches through Scripture to everyone who chooses to believe. It’s a grace which says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28, NIV).
One Christ. Equal. Accomplished. Intelligent.
Just the way God made us. Just the way we’re supposed to be.
If we choose to see individuals other than equal, then the Carpenter was just a carpenter who deserved to die for not knowing His place in the system.
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*William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, scene 1, 58–68.