Changing the Race Conversation

As a Christian father of a Afro-Latino/Arab American home. It is quickly becoming clear to me that the trajectory and rhythm that secular society has set for the race conversation in America will leave my children more confused and isolated, due to black and white binary in which it is being had. My children are beautifully complex and mixed with the richness of several cultures that cannot be contained in one, two, or even ten passing conversations.

The Bible is clear about the beauty of the multiethnic Kingdom that does not derive its worth from the acceptance of man, but rather the love of God that through faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus we can find our new identity as one family, unique in expression, and released as image bearers of God into the world with the greater love of His character.

This is the confines we find ourselves in at the moment. Where the realities of injustice are surely existent and in need of fighting systemically, but only in accordance to righteousness. Meaning, that the African, Latino, Palestinian, and Anglo blood that runs through the veins of my children are perceived of equal worth, and require a conversation with the capacity to include all of its complexity.

The unity of these identities within their existence speaks to the multiethnic reality of their generation. Where there can no longer be in-fighting about who deserves the spotlight of justice, but rather the collective efforts of all to fight injustice as a whole. All while under the banner of one Father and one faith whose plan has always been the unification of one family expressed diversely in many colors, tribes and languages.

I don’t perceive that a hashtag at the moment can speak to the totality of my children’s mixed reality, but I believe the Bible does.

This is the hill I am willing to die on. With a conversation that start in Genesis 12 between God and Abram, throughout the prophets, disciples and Church leaders, all the way through Revelation 21. Where the promise of all ethnic groups and their present manifestation in eternity is the hope that the reconciliation of all people to God and one another through Jesus has been the goal all along.

“After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands.”
‭‭Revelation‬ ‭7:9‬

The multiethnic conversation has been happening since the dawn of creation and will conclude in a glorious family reunion in Heaven. My children are a part of this reality. They are a mirror of it.

This may be the antithesis of the zeitgeist, but it will be always the reality of the Kingdom. My lens and expression are ethnically based, but my identity is in Christ alone. Until we can reconcile this the church of America will never get better, it’ll remain woefully bitter.