In Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian, John Piper gives us a sober, challenging read which should shake some of us out of our lethargy, when it comes to racial harmony. Piper brings up his own past, of growing up in a segregated south where the conservative Church turned a blind eye to the black man’s struggle. He exposes his own racism, and labors to show how Scripture and specifically the gospel of Christ, cuts at the root of racism.
Piper is known for his rational thought and his Calvinism. While admitting that Calvinists have historically fared poorly if judged on racial concerns, he nevertheless builds a pretty strong case that each of the Calvinistic doctrinal points should lead toward a greater solidarity between races. None of us are favored because of our own actions, our race shouldn’t determine our fate, what’s more is that Jesus Christ died specifically to redeem men and women of every race. A multicolored and multi-ethnic throng surrounds the throne of the Lamb in Revelation 5. And that should be our goal, to make heaven’s will a reality here on earth.
Along the way, Piper discusses practical aspects for how to implement a culture that aims for racial harmony, and he counters numerous objections. He delves into a cultural analysis too of structural racism and white guilt, among other topics. I found some of the appendices most helpful. One was a detailed discussion of the curse of Ham, which has long been a fundamentalist rationale for rigid racial segregation and separation. Another appendix shared some of the vision and policy statements of Piper’s church, Bethlehem Baptist.
This book is accessible, and personal. It is also informative and provocative. I believe it is very helpful and may have a lasting impact on the church at large. This topic is worth thinking through and praying long and hard about, and John Piper is just the man to help us on this journey. His prayers and his struggles bleed through the pages of this weighty little book. I hope that people of all colors will pick up this book and see the vision for the multi-ethnic church that Christ died for. We all can learn from the wisdom in these pages. I highly recommend this book.
For some excerpts from this book which I shared already here on my blog, click here.
Disclaimer: This book was provided by Crossway Books. I was under no obligation to offer a favorable review.
About Book Briefs: Book Briefs are book notes, or short-form book reviews. They are my informed evaluation of a book, but stop short of being a full-length book review.
I came across this quote in reading through Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian, John Piper’s most recent book (Crossway, 2011). You can tell that Piper has thought about this more than just this little quote says. This resonates with me due to my experience in hard-nosed fundamentalism. But it’s not just fundamentalists, who can tend to think this way. Read the quote below and let me know what you think. This could be fodder for a healthy conversation.
Apathy is passionless living. It is sitting in front of the television night anfter night and living your life from one moment of entertainment to the next. It is the inability to be shocked into action by the steady-state lostness and suffering of the world. It is the emptiness that comes from thinking of godliness as the avoidance of doing bad things instead of the aggressive pursuit of doing good things.
If that were God’s intention for the godliness of his people, why would Paul say, “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12)? People who stay at home and watch clean videos don’t get persecuted. Godliness must mean something more public, more aggressively good.
In fact, the aim of the gospel is the creation of people who are passionate for doing good rather than settling for the passionless avoidance of evil. “[Christ] gave himself for us… to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14). The gospel produces people who are created for good works (Eph. 2:10), and have a reputation for good works (1 Tim. 5:10), and are rich in good works (1 Tim. 6:18), and present a model of good works (Titus 2:7), and devote themselves to good works (Titus 3:8, 14), and stir each other up to good works (Heb. 10:24). (pg. 101, emphasis added)
Piper goes on to stress being fervent and zealous in good works, but the point I wanted to hone in on is called out in bold emphasis above. Too often, conservative Christians rest in the fact that they are avoiding bad works. They can pride themselves in “watching clean videos,” not using foul language and etc. The old adage was something along these lines: Christians “don’t drink, don’t chew, and don’t go with those who do.” But merely being decent people is not what true godliness entails. We should take thought to what we are doing, not merely what we are not doing.
This Martin Luther King Day, I thought it would be appropriate to offer an excerpt from John Piper’s new book on race that I have been reading. The book is entitled, Bloodlines: Race, Cross and the Christian (Crossway, 2011).
In the introduction to the book, Piper quotes from Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” because this letter “provides a window on the mid-twentieth century world of black Americans.” For those of us who didn’t live through the 1960s and the Civil Rights movement, this excerpt should help us better appreciate the significance of MLK day. I also hope it serves to make us all the more aware of the deceitful sin of racism and ever more resolved to root it out of our lives and our families, communities, and churches.
————————————-
On Tuesday, April 16, King was shown a copy of the Birmingham News, which contained a letter from eight Christian and Jewish clergyman of Alabama (all white), criticizing King for his demonstration. In response, King wrote what has come to be called “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and which one biographer described as “the most eloquent and learned expression of the goals and philosophy of the nonviolent movement ever written.”
We need to hear the power and insight with which King spoke to my generation in the sixties–enraging thousands and inspiring thousands. The white clergy had all said he should be more patient, wait, and not demonstrate. He wrote:
Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society;
…when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she cannot go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she’s told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people;
…when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking, “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging sings reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “Nigger,” your middle name becomes “Boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”;
…when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.”
To the charge that he was an extremist, he responded like this:
Was not Jesus an extremist for love: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you”? Was not Amos an extremist for justice: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream”? Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus”?
Was not Martin Luther an extremist: “Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God”? And John Bunyan: “I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience.” And Abraham Lincoln: “Thus this nation cannot survive half slave and half free.” And Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” So the question is not whether we will be extremist, but what kind of extremist we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love?
And finally he delivered a powerful call to the church, which rings as true today as it did in 1963:
There was a time when the church was very powerful–in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society…. But the judgment of God is upon the church [today] as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the 20th century.
That is Martin Luther King’s prophetic voice ringing out of the Birmingham jail in 1963. [pg. 25-27]
————————————-
For more on John Piper’s book watch the book trailer, the full 18 minute documentary video, or view the links below. To read King’s entire “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” click here for the letter in .pdf format.
In Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian, John Piper gives us a sober, challenging read which should shake some of us out of our lethargy, when it comes to racial harmony. Piper brings up his own past, of growing up in a segregated south where the conservative Church turned a blind eye to the black man’s struggle. He exposes his own racism, and labors to show how Scripture and specifically the gospel of Christ, cuts at the root of racism.
I came across this quote in reading through