Christian Living
Crimson Unity: Jesus vs. Racism
A Pilot Course
If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also. 1 John 4: 20–21 NKJV
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Noteworthy: Crimson Unity: Jesus vs. Racism won’t read like a blog series. More a first draft of a future course, paragraphs will tend to be longer, with less use of white space and more actual calls to action. It will read and be partitioned, beginning to end, more like a book. We rely on your respectfully submitted feedback. Thanks.
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Approaching the Storm
As followers of Christ, we can receive many gifts from the Holy Spirit. To fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus — to win souls — none of these gifts is more necessary than the power to have what Charles Finney termed “a saving influence" on people. God’s people need God’s power to do God’s work:
“I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5 NKJV)
We also know from 1 John 4:20–21 that those who claim to love God but hate their neighbor are lying, most dangerously to themselves. Jesus improved our understanding of hatred. Improved it to the point that we can safely say that Christianity and racism are mutually exclusive. Eliminating racism becomes a watershed issue, and critical to the Great Commission of Jesus Christ:
“…Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…” (from Matt. 28:16–20 NKJV).
We MUST have that vine/branch connection to Jesus Christ — empowered by the Holy Spirit — before writing a word of this series. Racism is a great evil and 20% of Satan’s original manifesto. Going after racism (or any of the enemy’s favorite ‘isms’) is serious business. Unity is the scriptural solution. Towards that unity, please join us in a sober prayer:
Father, please bless and protect Crimson Unity, and everyone who interacts with it. Grant us wisdom as we live out Your guidance. Let it bear only good fruit and anoint it by Your Holy Spirit to advance Your Kingdom. Amen.
Where Were You?
We (my wife and I) were still researching Biblical unity when George Floyd was brutalized and murdered. Like a lamb through a python, everything from that moment seemed to be shaped by his passing. It informed all conversations, all media outlets, and all arguments. The angst seemed bottomless, and the dam holding back that ancient sea had burst. No real answers seemed able to escape the fine filters of social media. Secular leadership is failing us, and injustice of all sorts taints the atmosphere.
[Hold on, faithful readers, we’re aware of how controversial this will seem]
Jesus Christ was likewise brutalized and murdered, though more horribly and in His perfect innocence. He has an intimate knowledge of this evil — it happened to Him. His passing has shaped history (and Eternity) as no other life ever will, and the price for racism and injustice has been satisfied by this same Jesus.
All who come to Christ know that He is everything we have been missing. His heart calls to ours, and at last, we find no other answers either within or without to compare with His matchless love.
Today, the audience for this study ought to be global. As Christians living in the U.S., not addressing racism for us is like walking past the broken on the way into the church. It just isn’t right. That said, there is much overlap, scripturally, with declawing racism and achieving the unity that defeats a host of other terrible ‘‘isms”. The victory the Church lacks is on the far side of brotherhood.
Christians are in this tempest too but blessed with God’s love, life, and peace. We don’t need to repeat the disciples' frantic error; because “with Jesus in the boat”, as the Sunday School song goes, “we can smile in the storm.” So where were we? With Jesus, whether in or out of the boat.
Christians have been equipped by the Holy Spirit to overcome racism. Let’s teach the world why we’re unafraid, and how to defeat this enemy.
Traveling Together
Welcome, and thank you, everyone, for being here. This journey, taken in sincerity, isn’t easy. We appreciate each heart wanting to live like Jesus in this hour. That’s who this series is for. It’s also for those eager for the Church to reclaim its passion and potential, and to repent of its own errors. We want to follow Jesus Christ, not our convictions.
In its early years, in the face of racism, poverty, cultural terrorism, classism, cruelty, imprisonment, and the unjust might of corrupt governments and leaders, Christianity conquered the known world. Today, the Church (and the world at large) flounders globally against these same evils because it cannot have victory without being reconciled to God and without Biblical unity — what we’re calling Crimson Unity.
7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 1:7 NKJV
Human answers to racism, when compared to God’s, are like working with a travel agent instead of a tour guide. A travel agent will sign you up, take your money, and point you toward a port or terminal of your choosing. A tour guide is your wise companion for the entire journey, who knows the best and most beautiful destinations, where the rest stops and resources are, the routes to take, and the actual costs and the real dangers.
In Crimson Unity we hope to illuminate the path to victory, no matter who you are and where you’ve been in life. The principles are effective for individuals and for groups. The only catch is that we must be heart-set on reaching the destination because no one can walk this path for anybody else.
Ultimately, we will understand racism, how critical it is for Satan’s strategy, and how it‘s winning. We will also understand Biblical unity with God and others, its freedoms, joys, and its irresistible power to destroy racism.
Along the way, you’ll be equipped both personally and corporately to overcome the greatest obstacles to advancing the Kingdom of God. You will walk in your Christian birthright as a minister of reconciliation, breaking the yoke of legalism, and experience how little is required to walk in unity across denominations.
All of this is simple; none of it comes easily.
Like a tour guide, Crimson Unity is a living, interactive resource. God alone is perfect, and we admit that a lot has to be formed in us as Christians to achieve authentic brotherhood. To lean into this, our future will include a blog (CrimsonLife.org), where we will address as many respectfully submitted questions as we can.
Scripture has been weaponized by Satan and humanity since the beginning, and it may seem that God and His only son, Jesus, have a lot to answer for. Fortunately, our God can stand up to the interrogation, and we likewise embrace the struggle for the sake of the good fruit waiting on the other side.
We all know pain, so let’s be kind and patient with each other along the way (Galatians 5:22). We grow Godward together.
Why Us?
Nancy -
I was born for such a time as this — it seems like a total setup. I’m blessed to see how the things that God instilled in me and placed along my path have come together for a plan and a purpose.
Growing up in Brooklyn, New York as a first-generation Haitian immigrant, I dealt with all forms of discrimination. My first real memory of obvious discrimination is when I was in kindergarten, seeing my 8-year-old sister Mary surrounded by African-American children who wanted to beat her up because she spoke broken English.
In high school, a teacher asked me what my career choice was, and what college I wanted to attend. I told her that I wanted to attend NYU to study biology so that I could become a doctor. She said, “Your kind can only be nurses, and you’re not going to get accepted at NYU.”
I met my husband Dan in college. As sad as it was to be rejected by his family, I appreciated their transparency. We have been together for 34 years now, and we have eight children and nine grandchildren. We have two Caucasian daughters-in-law, one biracial daughter-in-law, and a black son-in-law.
We have dealt with all forms of discrimination from all walks of life. There is no doubt in my mind that the issue is sin — in the form of anger, pain, and fear. There is also no doubt that caring enough to confront and cover everything in Christ’s love will bring healing and reconciliation.
Being in an interracial relationship has enabled me to be the neutral person, the safe space where people can ask questions and grow. Being in these vulnerable relationships has also helped me to grow by forcing me to examine where I stand, what I really believe, and with whom I place my trust.
After becoming a CFMA (Community Freedom Ministry Associate), I gained the vocabulary that enabled me to solidify the identity that the Lord has been teaching me about throughout my life. I know that it will serve to mend and bind our hearts.
Dan -
Had I taken a survey entitled “How Racist Are You?” before the events of 2020, I would have aced it. No racial bias here. No way. I mean, I was practically a poster child for the “color-blind” Caucasian.
I was raised in a poor suburb of Long Island, New York. My very white parents taught me to embrace people from all backgrounds, and our church seemed to reinforce those values. I even dated young women from various races growing up. Check, check, check, in all the right boxes of our fictional survey.
Joining the Army expanded my cultural exposure. Soldiers hail from everywhere, and deployments are global. When living or dying as a team, your character counts way more than your chromosomes.
I met my lovely Haitian wife at college. When we were dating, my parents were fine. When we got engaged, their masks came off. My mother was beyond rude to Nancy, and my father sacrificed his moral courage at the altar of my mother. Both sets of grandparents disowned me, quickly writing me out of their wills. Our wedding had three of my closest friends, and my wife’s entire family and social circle. Ultimately, it was Nancy who gave my parents grace, for the sake of our children someday having a relationship with their grandparents. I wasn’t a Christian then, and my feeling was we were better off without them. My new Haitian family welcomed me with love and real joy.
So, I held my unbiased ground through all of that. My opinion was that people generally were a mess, not any given race.
After graduation, we moved to Brooklyn, finding work with the NYC Probation Department. Many people in the Big Apple did not appreciate a biracial couple, often openly. As young marrieds, we fielded those negative encounters together, and well.
I’d seen action against the Sandinistas in Honduras, and the Iraqis during Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Soldiers build enmity as a matter of course for their enemies. I was also in the task force that liberated Kigali, Rwanda, arriving immediately after the Hutus had horribly murdered a million Tutsis — men, women, and children…
..so maybe I could be forgiven for thinking I didn’t have to sweat the question ‘‘are you part of the racism problem?”
Turns out, I wasn’t in the clear. I managed to get through seminary without realizing that, so don’t feel like you’re the only one caught flatfooted by this if you were.
The Bible teaches that getting unity right is how the Church wins the world for Christ, and God has a lot to say about it.
Please join us for our next post, as we begin exploring the Foundations of Crimson Unity.
