Why have I told these stories? What is the point? Stay with me, and you’ll see.
First, the people in those stories are real people. It is important to state that up front, because very often we are able to ignore that reality and think in terms of statistics. The stories I told are true, and the names I used are their real names. I told their stories and used their names so you would picture people, not just sad facts.
I admit that, at the time of my encounters with those people, I didn’t think of them as real people. I thought of them more as characters, actors in a play, or perhaps clowns in a circus. My child’s mind, I suppose, just couldn’t grasp the reality of such a pathetic existence. But as I grew older, I became more aware of that reality, not only of the Indians of South Dakota (and later, Montana), but of other people groups I encountered along the way.
A few years spent in Minnesota’s Twin Cities broadened my experience considerably. It was during those years that I was saved. I then began to see a correlation between the sad social and economic condition of many cultures and their spiritual condition. They didn’t need social programs; indeed, the social programs aimed at them only served to make things worse. What they needed was the gospel.
What to do, then? They were so different. There were so many cultural obstacles to overcome. Not knowing what to do, I did the best I could to relate to the diverse peoples I rubbed shoulders with at the various jobs I held during that time. From the Chinese at the restaurant, to the black man at the formal wear company (a former sparring partner of Joe Lewis, with pictures to prove it), I tried to be an example and witness to them just as I was to my white acquaintances.
As you read these words, you might be detecting an air that smells almost racist. I don’t believe I was racist, but there was definitely a view of people that naturally gives itself to racism. That view is the recognition of race as a real classification of peoples. Once you believe that we are genetically different from those who look different, there is really nothing wrong with considering the possibility that one “race” is superior to another.
I’m not sure when it was that I was exposed to the ministry of Answers in Genesis. I’m not too proud to admit that it took an Australian with an odd resemblance to Abraham Lincoln to point out the obvious: that we’re all sons of Adam (and Noah). Of course, I already knew that, but knowing it had not prevented me from buying into the accepted “facts” of “race.” But believing in race, as Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile has said, “is a little like believing in unicorns; because race, like unicorns, doesn’t exist.”* Believing in “race” had led me to more than one incorrect assumption. I won’t expand on that at this point; it is enough to say that it served to increase my sense of separation from people of other ethnicities.
It is really that sense of separation, that focus on difference, that is the cause of all ethnic strife in the world. And virtually everyone shares that perspective. The attitude of “otherness,” of “them” vs. “us,” permeates everything we see in politics, entertainment, and the news media. We hear of the “African-American Community,” “Asian Community,” Hispanic Community,” etc. (there is apparently no “white community”). Always and everywhere we are reminded that we are different from them. There is now a lot of excitement over having elected the first black President, and what that supposedly means for “race” relations in America, but I’m not buying it. And as long as there are hyphenated Americans, I won’t buy it. We are still a divided people, and the paradox is that we are divided over something that does not exist.
We’ve got to throw out the category of “race.” That is the first step in reaching out to those who are different from us. But once we have done that, once we have disposed of the artificial barriers between us, we are still faced with some genuine differences. There are still cultural differences, some of which are the cause of serious problems: rampant alcoholism among American Indians, and high illegitimacy rates among blacks, just to name a couple of the more obvious ones. Surely we must bridge cultural divides in order to reach different peoples with unique cultural problems.
Did the previous paragraph make you uncomfortable? It should have. There is a certain pride in focusing on all this “difference.” It implies that I, as a Scandinavian-American (to stoop to hyphenation) have no inherited sins, or that the sins of my people are somehow less serious than those of others. More basically, it fails to recognize that our differences, however dramatic they appear, are only superficial. If we scratch through the thin veneer of skin color, and peel away the slightly thicker layer of specific sins, we will find that we are all exactly the same: fallen men in need of grace.
I began this topic with a few stories of alcoholic American Indians I had encountered as a kid. Now I’ll tell you about another Indian I knew. He was my boss. He was the head of the department I worked in, a very responsible, reliable man. He was well aware of the problems common to his ethnic group, and had intentionally gotten away and made a good life for himself. He thought he was different than the others. Based on what he had done, he believed himself to be different. But he wasn’t different. He was simply the object of God’s restraining grace. Lacking that grace, he could have been as bad or worse. And so could I. All of us, black, white, and every hue in between, are the same, and if our lives aren’t total wrecks, it is not because we have done so well for ourselves. It is because God has protected and restrained us.
Our Lord did not send us into the world to solve the problems of cultures. He sent us out to bring the solution to the one problem at the root of all others, the problem we all share: sin, and the resulting separation from God that it causes. He didn’t send us to individual cultures, but to one culture: the culture of sinners. We must therefore stop thinking in terms of our differences, but of our commonality. We are all created in the image of God. We are all fallen sons of Adam. We are all conceived in sin and brought forth iniquity. Our sins are the same, and like them, our righteousness is as filthy rags. We all need the same Savior. So we are really only two groups of people with one difference between us. We are all either in Christ, or we are not. We are all without any hope but that which is found at the cross.
As we approach our fellow citizens of earth, it must be with the humility that acknowledges that we are just like them. Indeed, we must cease thinking of them as them. They are us.
*“Bearing The Image: Identity, The Work Of Christ, And The Church,” Together for the Gospel Conference 2008. This message can be downloaded free at www.t4g.org. I owe a great deal to Thabiti for his contribution to the development of my understanding of this issue.
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