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11( )
Everett Tilson
action with which the Bible confronts us is a summons to work for a racially
inclusive human community.
The grounds for reaching this conclusion have varied from group to
group, but they have typically featured considerations to which the following
five propositions (from which flow implications of great significance for
combating racism) call attention.
Proposition 1: Pride of race, like pride of any other mark of human distinction,
is a denial of God’s grace and a betrayal of the church’s hope.
The Bible betrays an awareness of the differences that divide people into
separate groups. It knows of the division of peoples by language, culture,
nation, and geography. But it acknowledges only one difference of decisive
significance for the conduct of human life. And that is not the difference that
separates people by language, culture, nation, and geography. The only dif
ferences of ultimate importance for human existence is the difference that
separates creatures from Creator, humanity from deity, the peoples of every
race from the God of all races. And that difference is not one that divides
people, but one that unites them. It makes them one in their absolute depen
dence on Another for their very existence. . . .
Proposition 2: Denial of the gospel to any person for any reason, racial or oth
erwise, marks a betrayal not only of the universal love of God the Creator and
Christ the Redeemer but also of the mission of the church.
The ancient Israelites’ belief that they enjoyed a special relationship to
God may well have taken root and flourished in henotheistic soil. However,
once they had left behind this primitive theological heritage for a monothe
istic theology, they lost little time in setting the stage for the transformation
of biblical faith into a religion inclusive enough to match the universal sov
ereignty and mission of their God. They proceeded to assert our oneness in
the creative and redemptive love of God. They also asserted that God has
made us all targets of the gospel to which that love commits us. . . .
Proposition 3: Any sort of exclusion from or discrimination with the Christian
fellowship, save on grounds of faith and conduct, marks a betrayal of the exam
ple of Christ and the apostles and the purpose of the church.
If we would ascertain how Jesus and the apostles would have handled our
race problem, we have only to look at how they handled their race problem.
To say this is, of course, to deny that color is the exclusive or even primary
basis for today’s exclusivist and discriminatory practices against certain
races. It is to agree with those who contend that “the ‘race problem’ with