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Everett Tilson
Christian reflection on Jesus’ life and practice has yielded a broad consensus
concerning authentic Christian living itself. This agreement touches on
many things, but it highlights, in addition to the significance of Jesus5life for
us, the relative importance of words and deeds and the use of special gifts.
Christ's ministry of crossbearing service gives us the modelfor the conduct of life
as well as the central theme of Christian worship.
The life of Jesus focuses atten
tion on the work of the God whose glory we contemplate in worship. Need
less to add, such worship inevitably sets us at odds with racism’s model for
the conduct of life. Whereas racism bids us seek greatness in domination, we
are called to follow one who found greatness in service (Matt. 20:26-28;
21:14; Luke 4:18-21; Rom. 12:16); whereas racism demands that others lay
down their lives for it, we are called to follow one who bids us lay down our
lives for others (1 John 3:16; 4:8-11). However, in all these things, we are
called to do nothing that the caller himself did not do before us. Yet we can
not be excused for doing anything less, either, for we “are the body of Christ
and individually members of it” (1 Cor. 12:27). . . .
Proposition 5: The expression of hatred for any human being for any reason,
racial or otherwise, marks a failure of love for God.
The assertion that all persons are created equal, insofar as it refers to indi
vidual native endowment, is patently absurd. It likewise enjoys little support
in Scriptures. The Bible does not teach that all human beings are equally
able or useful. Its teaching is that all human beings are equally created and
equally loved by God. Although the love of God revealed in Jesus did not
originate with him, multitudes did not become aware of this love until they
encountered it in Jesus. And this same Jesus, who tells us of a God who
blesses the good and the evil alike, calls us not to imitate our neighbors in
the bestowal of love, but to imitate God (Matt. 5:48). By implication we are
asked to ponder the possibility that others may not become aware of God’s
love until they see it in us; that we cannot fulfill our mission from God’s man
for others until we become God’s people for others; in short, that each of us
is called to become Christ to the neighbor. . . .
When we read the Bible from the viewpoint of God’s Word made flesh in
Jesus Christ, the divisions of human beings by race pale into insignificance
beside their bonds of union. The demands of faith push these accidents of
birth into the background. The impulse to go apart on the basis of race yields
place to the necessity to draw together on the basis of grace.
True enough, Christ and the apostles do not provide us with a clear exam
ple of conquest over the temptation to separate people on the basis of race.
They did not face that problem. But they did encounter the temptation to
separate publicans, Samaritans, and Gentiles. And they faced that problem
head-on in decisive combat. What is more, by facing and solving it as they