Our country observed yesterday the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist pastor who courageously led a movement in the 1950s and 1960s calling America to right long-held wrongs against a people on the basis of their skin color. Much progress has been made, but the sin of hatred and discrimination on the basis of skin color or ethnicity still eats away at many human hearts and pours forth in ugly ways.
If you are like me, you are not far removed from a culture of animosity toward people based on their skin color. Some of us grew up among people, some even professing Christians, who disparaged others on that basis. Some of us may have had to deal with racism and prejudice in our own hearts. Some of us still may need such pruning.
Fortunately, we -- as the church of Christ -- have the answer. It is the gospel of Jesus. Paul makes this clear in his letter to the Christians at Ephesus. By His cross, Jesus "broke down the barrier of the dividing wall" between Jews and Gentiles (Eph. 2:14), whose animosity for each other was huge. For the church, it is the blood of Christ that unites us across barriers of skin color, ethnicity and language.
John Piper especially has done some humble and, what appears to be, important work on this issue in recent months. He has written the book Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian. In it, he tells the story of how he left racism behind. Desiring God has made it available for free by download here.
He also has shared his story in a nearly 19-minute video documentary that accompanies Bloodlines and that you may view below.
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