A Basic Theology of Race. #195. 25/03/2025

Out of Many, One People

Welcome, to a fairly basic offering. There is a basic A4 printable version which you are free to copy and circulate, plus an ‘expansion’, still fairly basic but I hope will be a helpful recap for some , or - given a number of new subscribers - may be a way in for others.

A Basic Theology of Race.

I recently gave an on-line talk for a church on a ‘Biblical Basis for Intercultural Churches’, and provided a simple A4 background paper so that the congregation were able to follow up the biblical references. It is, at root, a basic theology of ‘race’. I provide it here below, for people to print it off for use and distribution in their own particular situations.

I then follow it with ‘An Expansion’, attempting to fill out more of the biblical understanding behind each point.

A helpful much more detailed overview of the topic is J Daniel Hays: ‘From every People and Nation: A biblical theology of race’ (Apollos, 2003).

Hopefully it is a reasonably uncontroversial and ecumenically agreeable outline for a Christian understanding. The main cause for disagreement, I think, is over § 3. A small and declining number of people may think it is simply inappropriate – it is too ‘political’. A more serious cause for disagreement is how we assess power, strength and weakness in our present situation, not least over ‘race’, leading to very different evaluations of the causes, consequences and appropriate responses to racial disparities in our society.

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A Biblical Basis for Intercultural Churches.

1. The unity of all people before God. Genesis 1:27: ‘So God created humankind in his image.’

2. God promises blessing for all people through Abraham’s descendants. Genesis 12:3 ‘In you all families of the earth shall be blessed’.

3. In unequal power balances God supports the weak. Exodus 3:7c,8: ‘I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians’. Ps 140:12: ‘I know that the Lord maintains the cause of the needy, and executes justice for the poor’.

4. The Old Testament often looks forward to fulfilling God’s promise. Psalm 67:4: ‘Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth’. Isaiah 55:5: ‘See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you.’

5. In Jesus that promise for ‘all the world’ was fulfilled. Matthew 28:19: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.’

6. The New Testament is clear about the unity of believers in Christ. Colossians 3:11: ‘There is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free, but Christ is all and in all’. Also Galatians 3:28.

7. They also made sure they kept unity in practice. Acts 6:1-7. The disciples practical response when ‘the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food’.

8. Our heavenly vision is inter-ethnic unity in worship of Jesus. Revelation 7:9: ‘a great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb’.

# 2 & 8 are in Bold as they give the ‘big arc’ of God’s purposes.

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Expansion of ‘A Biblical Basis for Intercultural Churches’.

1. The unity of all people before God. Genesis 1:27: ‘So God created humankind in his image.’

To most people this is rightly the most basic of all theological assertions, but it has not been universally held. Paul’s assertion to the Athenians that ‘From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth’ (Acts 17:20) was in the face of the Athenian belief that they were a special people sprung from the soil of Attica. ‘Polygenism’ (the belief that different races arose from quite different stock) was held by philosophers such as David Hume and Voltaire, and provided a veneer of covering for enslavement of African peoples. I like the story of the dalit who wept when he heard Genesis 1 read – he was not a lesser being, rather his unity with all humankind was vindicated.

2. God promises blessing for all people through Abraham’s descendants. Genesis 12:3 ‘In you all families of the earth shall be blessed’.

Dual emphases run through scripture: God as creator and God as saviour. It is with the call of Abraham that God’s redemptive purpose for all mankind breaks the surface. The promise is underlined by repetition at 18:18, 22:18, 26:4 (to Isaac), and is picked up in Peter’s sermon to the crowd in Acts 3:25, and is foundational to Paul’s mission to the Gentiles (Gal 3:8). The foundation stone for all Christian mission is the call to become a blessing to all peoples. (See Chris Wright’s ‘The Mission of God’, IVP 2006).

3. In unequal power balances God supports the weak. Exodus 3:7c,8: ‘I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians’. Ps 140:12: ‘I know that the Lord maintains the cause of the needy, and executes justice for the poor’.

As mentioned above this emphasis is the source of most disagreements of these eight theses, and certainly has been the most neglected. The rise of Liberation Theologies, inspired particularly by Gutierrez’s ‘A Theology of Liberation’ (1971) drew attention to the call for economic and social liberation for the world’s poor, including a radical rebalancing of power, but there is continuing debate about the respective importance of political change over against personal renewal brought about by the gospel, evidenced by the dynamic impact of Pentecostalism on poor communities worldwide. But there is growing consensus that whilst the gospel may be about getting sinners to heaven it is more widely about the human vocation to be part of God’s re-creation of a new humanity within a new heaven and earth.

4. The Old Testament often looks forward to fulfilling God’s promise. Psalm 67:4: ‘Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth’. Isaiah 55:5: ‘See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you.’

The Old Testament narrative is marked by a degree of violence and conflict that often startles us, and whilst the conflicts between Israel and the surrounding nations often seems to dominate the story, yet God’s purpose for the blessing of the nations through Israel, not their destruction, frequently re-occurs. This is especially true in the Psalms. Alongside the celebration of Ps 67, examples are Ps 22, applied by Jesus to his suffering on the cross, that ‘all the families of the earth shall worship before him’ (v 27b), and the call to establish God’s kingdom amongst the nations over against the illusions of idolatry (Ps 96). Similarly Isaiah 40 onwards frequently returns to the hope of God’s blessing of the nations (66:19). Jonah, in cartoonish fashion, draws out Israel’s ambivalence towards their vocation. Alongside of this is the often unobserved frequency with which people from the surrounding nations were accepted into the national life of Israel – for example Uriah, the Hittite (2 Sam 12:9).

5. In Jesus that promise for ‘all the world’ was fulfilled. Matthew 28:19: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.’

Whilst Jesus’ mission was primarily to ‘the lost sheep of the hose of Israel’, he abjured exclusivism in his positive relationship with the Samaritans and healing a servant from the oppressive Roman army, and promised his Spirit to convict the world (John 16:8-11). In Luke, as with Matthew, after his resurrection Jesus commissions his disciples ‘that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations’ (24:47)

6. The New Testament is clear about the unity of believers in Christ. Colossians 3:11: ‘There is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free, but Christ is all and in all’. Also Galatians 3:28.

In Acts Luke picks up the commission of the risen Jesus to be witnesses ‘to the ends of the earth’ (1:8). He then goes on to describe the struggles of Peter and then the whole Jerusalem church to accept the salvation of ‘the nations’ without becoming fully Jews (Acts 11:1-18, and then the Council at Jerusalem, Acts15:1-35). Acts 13:1 shows a church with ethnically and socially diverse leadership. Paul’s long list of greetings in Acts 16 includes a wide variety of men and women of Roman, Greek and Jewish backgrounds, both slave and free. In Acts 20:4-6 it is a cosmopolitan group of people taking the churches’ gifts to Jerusalem who fulfil the prophecy of Isaiah 60:5 that ‘the wealth of the nations shall come to you’.

7. They also made sure they kept unity in practice. Acts 6:1-7. The disciples practical response when ‘the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food’.

The early church constantly had to struggle to give relational substance to their oneness in Christ, more especially in how to live out the ‘one new humanity’ (Eph 2:15) against the deep seated Jewish sense of a deep-seated religious and social separate identity. In Galatians 2 Paul describes his conflict with Peter over allowing separate table fellowship. In Romans 14-15:13 he tactfully calls for mutual acceptance over food regulations or observing special days. But at all costs allowing for different churches on ethnic grounds had to be avoided.

8. Our heavenly vision is inter-ethnic unity in worship of Jesus. Revelation 7:9: ‘a great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb’.

Christian living involves ‘forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead’ (Phil 3:13), so in all the challenges and demands of living in an ethnically diverse society and being part of ethnically diverse churches Revelation’s vision of our end is a vital inspiration and goal, as we are called to let our eternal future shape our life and especially our worship now. So the words of Rev 7:9 above become in Rev 5:9 the words of praise addressed to the Lamb on the throne.

Related Blogs:

‘The Church’s First Inter-Ethnic Conflict (Acts 7)’ # 3.

‘Barriers to Inclusivity in 1 Corinthians’ # 20.

‘Paul and Ethnic Identity’ # 38.

‘Ethnicity and Nationhood in the Old Testament and Today’ # 66.

‘Romans 14 – Building Unity across ethnic/religious diversity # 67.

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Add On.

‘Taste of Heaven Intercultural Worship Festival’ is being held on Saturday May 24^th from 11am to 8pm in Coventry Cathedral and Grounds, with live worship, practical workshops, speakers, and ‘culturally diverse street food’. Full details from interculturalchurches.org/events.