In the 1950s, Billy Graham, like many other evangelicals, held segregated revival meetings in the South. However, as he spent time overseas, Graham came to realize that segregation was just plain wrong. He grew into that understanding through his experiences and through his study of God’s Word.
Chattanooga, Tennessee, 1953. Graham was preparing for another revival meeting when he removed the ropes cordoning off the black section of the auditorium. When the ushers threatened to put them back up, Graham told them, "Either these ropes stay down or you can go on and have the revival without me." (We might also add, you can go on and have the revival without the Holy Spirit.) Graham never held another segregated meeting.[i]
A short while ago I posted this statement: “The church has not been silent; the world has been deaf.” I intended it to refer to any issue of evil or injustice across the board, but of course the immediate reaction pertained to racial injustice; specifically, African American and White American relations.
Nobody can ever deny that atrocities were committed, or that injustice persisted, or that challenges remain. I’m not going to deny that, and even attempting to do so would be impossible. My only desire is to defend my statement that (a) the church has not been silent, but rather (b) the world has not listened to her.
Go back two thousand years, and you’ll discover that the church basically invented the concepts which have turned into our ideas of “justice” and “equality”. When the church was born, the first major crisis it faced was how to deal with persecution. The second major crisis it had to face was the integration of two races which were previously hostile: Jew and Gentile. Of course, “Gentile” is too broad, but that’s how the Jews organized the human race for the most part. It was “Us” and “Them”. Incidentally, that’s basically also how every people group throughout history has organized the world population.
The Jews thought they had a good reason for it, because the Torah listed many daily habits which were partly designed to maximize the differences between the Jews and Gentiles – food, appearance, even Sabbath keeping. Specifically, non-Jewish slaves were only allowed to eat Passover after they’d been “Judaized” by being circumcised,[ii] and only non-Jews could be charged interest.[iii] In the Torah, Balaam verified this quality of Separation when he called down a blessing upon the Hebrews, instead of cursing them, as he’d been hired to do: “behold, a people dwelling alone, and not counting itself among the nations!”[iv]
Starting with these principles, and after many long centuries of complex interrelations, the Jews finally established a strong, tough attitude of hatred toward non-Jewish practices and beliefs, which reached an apogee during the Roman occupation.
So, when Gentiles started to presume entrance into the church – which at that point was rightly seen as the culmination of Jewish history and faith, embodied in the Jewish Messiah – many of the Christian leaders (all Jewish at the time) assumed that coming into the church meant becoming Jewish.
The first church council was held over this very issue, and it’s recorded in Acts 15. The opening argument was put forward this way: “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.” In other words, Gentiles who wanted to be reconciled to God through Christ had to commit to living like Jews. They had to become Jewish.
Against this view, three arguments were raised. First, Peter recounted his direct experience of the Holy Spirit being given, by God, to a Gentile – a Roman officer, no less – without regard to any Jewish observance; it happened merely on the basis of his faith and trust in Christ. Second, Paul and Barnabas recounted all of the experiences from their first missionary journey, confirming Peter’s account. Third, James determined that these experiences were reconciled with holy scripture. At that point it was decided: race and racial affiliation had nothing to do with full, unequivocal inclusion in the family of God. The church had become the world’s first and only institution to incorporate equality. But the world doesn’t acknowledge that fact, and many people have never even heard of it.
Even at the very beginning, some Christians resisted, and in so doing, they were deaf to the voice of the church. Paul was speaking on behalf of the church when he summed up the new reality of the church this way: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 2.27-28). The brand-new dream of unity, according to the scriptures, was to be found in Christ. No wonder the world is deaf to such a message: the world says it wants unity and/or equality, but only on its own terms.
The multicultural consequences of such a message go beyond discussions of “faith” vs. “works”, and they quickly became manifest over the whole globe. Today, we’re used to seeing Christians on each continent. In reality, it was that way from the very beginning. In response to the wide-openness of the church’s message, great Christian centers arose in Syria, modern Iraq and Iran, China, India, Mongolia, Egypt, Nubia and Ethiopia.[v] Even the greatest church father of the first four centuries was the son of an African Berber woman: St. Augustine of Hippo. The history and the personalities are there for all to see; but many people ignore this testimony, remaining deaf.
The church has been given this message; thus, anyone who fails to speak of (or treat) all races as equal and integrated is not speaking for the church. In reality, this message has been preserved against all the odds of a world which can’t hear it, and in 1953 this voice eventually convinced the most famous evangelical preacher in America that he’d been wrong to segregate his congregations, and to take a stand for justice before he stood behind the pulpit.
In order to demonstrate that the church has not been silent, I’ve pointed to the very earliest shared experience of the church’s founders, the reality of the early worldwide church, and the founding documents which they produced, all in order to demonstrate that equality and inclusion are not only the voice of the church, but also its true outcome. I’ve also demonstrated how that truth – though it took time to develop – gave birth to tangible action in our own country at the very time and place where the civil rights movement was fomenting. But many people will counter by pointing to the negative examples, and many others will assume that the silence which they perceive in their own experience is the true reality.
First of all, there are people who’ve claimed to be Christian who’ve tried to defend slavery and white supremacy (although none of them as effectively as Charles Darwin). When such people speak, they are not speaking for the church. You might think that I’m just making excuses, but this is a legitimate and necessary position. On social media, there are some black people speaking out against the BLM movement. What do BLM supporters say about those people? They say that those others “don’t speak for all African Americans”. In the same way, anyone claiming to be a Christian who violates the scriptures by promoting racism does not speak for the church. In fact, such a person is anti-church, anti-scripture, and anti-Christ.
Those Christians who have spoken the truth have done so loudly. Although it would be possible to demonstrate how the words of the New Testament have been rightly acted upon throughout the whole history of the church, I’ll restrict myself to our modern era. For example, William Wilberforce, the British politician who led the movement to end slavery in Great Britain, was motivated to lead reform only after his conversion to Christ.[vi]
In America, as the Civil War increasingly became identified specifically with the single issue of slavery,[vii] not only the fiercest abolitionists, but also Abraham Lincoln spoke about the evils of slavery in specifically Christian terms:

"'Woe unto the world because of offenses for it must needs be that offenses come but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs come but which having continued through His appointed time He now wills to remove and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?"
-A. Lincoln, 2nd Inaugural Address

At the forefront of these biblical public statments was the support of the abolitionists, so very many of whom were deliberately outspoken Christians. But today, many people are trying to cover up the Christian anti-slavery motives of those who supported Lincoln, and by doing so they are deaf to a historical voice of the church.
Who was the most influential leader of the civil rights’ movement? Martin Luther King, Jr., a Christian and member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.[viii] Today, many people want to remember MLK but they rarely mention that his faith was the defining characteristic of his identity. He was a gloriously imperfect, but also courageous and faithful, vessel of the church’s message. Without true Christianity, we wouldn’t have had MLK; by segregating his faith from his political action, many people today remain deaf to the fact that his was a true voice of the church.
As a young man growing up, I knew precisely one African American boy in my school. Everyone liked him. I had one favorite show – the Cosby Show. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t racist, it does means that I had no idea racism was a thing because I was sheltered. When did I finally meet more people my own age who weren’t white? When I went on a missions trip, joining other young Christian teens who were different from me. When was I challenged to think about the dangers of racism? At a church-sponsored event in the early 90’s (a Promise Keepers’ event) at which numerous speakers, black and white, took turns speaking to us and challenging us to listen to the true voice of the church. Up till then I assumed racism was a problem in the past; the church was trying to tell me differently.
When I took my first pastorate in rural Montana and worked in a community fueled with racism, I wondered what it would take to challenge that reality. When I invited a Native American speaker to come to our church and preach, he did so – right before he performed a foot-washing ceremony for myself and the elders, an incredibly humbling experience which modeled Christ to the entire congregation.
Over and over, the voice of the church has found expression in truth and in courage. Over and over, the testimony of those who speak for the church has been shouted down, ignored, or erased. But the reality cannot be erased. In the denomination which I serve, the immigration of people to the United States from other countries has resulted in ethnic churches serving alongside and sometimes outnumbering our white congregations. Recently, on behalf of a friend, I performed a search for congregations in another state. Typing in the name of the city which we were looking for, five separate churches were found... three of them are non-English-speaking ethnic churches. Again, the church is demonstrating its true nature, but who notices? Not the deaf world.
At this precise juncture, there’s so much sheer noise out there in the news and on social media that the only way to be heard is to shout louder than anyone. The only people willing to shout are those who don’t care what anyone else is saying, who demand to be the only audible voice. In that kind of environment, for the church to try to shout down the world would be the worst possible idea. Not only would it drive people away, it would increase others’ determination to be heard, rather than to listen. No, the only way for the church to be heard is to speak with a different voice, one which is comprised of actions more than abstractions, one which speaks through obedience to our Jewish Messiah. And that is what the true church has been doing for two millennia; it’s what the true church is doing now; it’s what the world denies is going on because the world can’t hear.
Because the world is deaf.
So let me close with a call to action, using the incomparably superior words of One who has the power to cut through all the noise and nonsense, all the blather and bile, all the garbage that’s filling my depressingly unwieldy Twitter feed: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
 
[i] http://www.thearda.com/timeline/events/event_36.asp
[ii] Exodus 12.43ff
[iii] Dt. 23.20
[iv] Numbers 23.9
[v] see Jenkins, Philip. The Lost History of Christianity; the Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia – and How it Died. HarperOne, NY. 2008.
[vi] “Wilberforce’s abolitionism was derived in part from evangelical Christianity, to which he was converted in 1784–85.”  https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Wilberforce.
[vii] Many people question whether the civil war was fought over slavery, but Lincoln didn’t: In his second inaugural address he stated, “These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war.” https://www.nps.gov/linc/learn/historyculture/lincoln-second-inaugural.htm. So much for the revisionists. Of the many, many explanations of how this worked out in practice, try John Daniel Davidson’s article, in which he explains “...the entire history of the United States prior to outbreak of war in 1861 was full of compromises on the question of slavery... which... eventually led to the election of Abraham Lincoln and the subsequent secession of the southern states. Through all this, we inched toward emancipation, albeit slowly.” https://thefederalist.com/2017/11/02/shelby-footes-civil-war-history-defends-america-insatiable-haters-like-ta-nehisi-coates/.
[viii] Colson, Charles. How Now Shall We Live? Tyndale, Wheaton, IL, 1999. p. 397 ff

Why does history matter? Either you already know why, or you don’t care. So no matter which of those describes you, you're not likely to feel much compulsion to follow that headline which means that nobody is likely to land at my blog, which basically sums up my entire online-platform-building strategy.
However, at the risk of alienating hypothetical readers whom I imagine have come this far, let me say that I intend to demonstrate one single, all-important fact: the older a bit of history is, the more it matters.
That idea flies in the face of our modern thinking. We tend to attach more importance to things which are taking place right now, and we feel ambivalent toward any event which happened before our lifetime. In fact, the further back in time it is, the less we tend to care about it.
But if my main point is true, then the habit we have of reading history only occasionally (if it entertains us) while we gobble up tons of information about the present is actually not only backwards, but counter-productive to the point of absurdity. In reality, it should be the other way round: We should know lots and lots about history from every era, even at the expense of paying attention to the present horror of ‘current events’, many of which are not really that current, and many of which barely qualify as ‘events’.
I begin with a concept which may have come from the study of physics, which I would know for sure if I were a physicist or if I could be troubled to look it up online. It’s a concept which many people know well enough to serve us for this discussion – the butterfly effect.
The butterfly effect is shorthand for a small event which has enormous consequences because of a series of exponential results. An example goes like this:
Suppose you wanted to figure out what the weather would do a year from now. With all the computers on earth, we should be able to, right? Well actually, no, because there are too many variables. Let’s say you managed to put every single weather factor into the world’s computers; wind, temperature, pollution, moisture level, number of people breathing out carbon dioxide, number of new trees breathing out oxygen... everything.
But you missed a single butterfly in Singapore. That butterfly flaps its wings, which doesn’t do much at first; it just creates little eddies in the air above its flower. But now, the air directly above the butterfly is moving in a way you didn’t predict. That creates a little bubble of uncertainty which causes the air passing over that garden to move in a way you didn’t expect. Now that breeze is carrying new, unforeseen gusts with it, and because they were unforeseen, they impact the winds which pass over Singapore in ways you could not have quite gotten right. The breeze is picked up by currents of air moving over the South China Sea, which are now heavier by just a little, and drifting more than we thought they would. Suddenly the rising moisture from the ocean’s surface has a more dynamic atmosphere to contend with: fresh currents emerge as a result; patterns collide and stretch; new possibilities multiply every second. Before you know it, a simple gust which had been slowly picking up momentum now turns into a more forceful gale, and, turning in on itself, starts to cascade as it swirls. A seasonal storm finds unexpected energy, then meets a cool front, and suddenly what would have been a windstorm is more powerful than anyone anticipated. A hurricane is born. Entire mainland villages lie in its path, and hundreds are left homeless.
All because of a butterfly.
This illustration of the butterfly has become common coin for many people, so much so that it’s now almost a trope for time-travel stories. But its real value is in helping us understand how every single historical event has implications over time. In fact, as with the butterfly, so with history; the older an event is in time, the more impact it has on subsequent events.
Here’s a real-life demonstration...
Christopher Columbus sailed west. He did so for specific reasons and on behalf of certain financial backers. The immediate impact was felt within a very small circle of people. Ferdinand and Isabella started to plan further expeditions, Columbus tried to demonstrate that he’d proven his theories, and certain indigenous Americans became aware that they were not alone.
Those were momentous consequences, but they were nothing compared to the larger consequences which followed the next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. In fact, the more time you give it, the more astounding the effects of Columbus’ journey become. Native Americans were exposed to diseases for which they had no immunity; Spain received an unparalleled influx of precious metals which led to them overextending their spending which led to more than half a dozen bankruptcies while they were still the predominant world power; more land in the Americas led to plantations becoming increasingly important, which required more manpower, which fed the African slave trade; which presaged Britain’s naval dominion of the ocean trade routes, which made them the next great superpower; which allowed the formation of American colonies which eventually declared independence; which continued to feed the slave trade, which increased public resistance to human slavery on the new continent, which created conflict, which led to a bloody war, which allowed people to take advantage of the depleted south, which created racist counter-reactions, which made an environment ripe for civil rights... and on and on it goes. None of which – not one thing – would have happened the same way if Columbus hadn’t happened.
The further away from Columbus we get, the more his actions impact the world of today.
The same thing is true of every story in your old history textbooks. The further back in time an event occurred, the more impact it has made on the world, and on your life. Stuff which happened yesterday? Well, the effects of those things take time. They may impact the future, but for us they are still only echoes of the past.
The practical upshot of this principle is something like this: The more you know about history, the more you understand the present. The less you know about history, the less the present will make sense – or the right kind of sense – as you try to navigate a world which has arguably been made worse by the ubiquity of instant news.
So, for everyone who’s read this far, I offer a couple observations. If you already value history, now you have another way to explain to other people why history matters, and why they should care. If you don’t like history (first of all, why are you still reading? but more importantly) I hope that you know now why so many people repeat the old phrase about how those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. It’s because history isn’t a bunch of stuff that happened before, to other people.
It’s a bunch of stuff that’s still happening; and it’s happening to us right now.

For a long time, I avoided public political statements for the same reason I avoid putting Christian bumper stickers on my car: I frequently do stupid things, and I don’t want people associating Jesus with my goofball mistakes. I'm about to break that longstanding policy.
As faithful Christians, how can we be political? How can we not? This is one of the most important questions of our time. The first Christians had some things easier than us. They weren’t ‘involved’ in politics, they mostly had a simple choice: obey, or suffer. By comparison, our choices are endless, and the chance of getting them right – or even simply proportionate – is basically nil.
Our job as Christians is to follow Jesus, love one another, and reach people with the gospel. One way (arguably) we can do that is by trying to be agents of positive change, like William Wilberforce. In America, the hurdles we face in that pursuit are legion. First, we have to know the gospel; know it inside out and upside down. Then, we have to set our course by it. Also, it helps if there are, you know, one or two dozen other Christians who all believe the same thing – which is no longer a given. Then we need to know what’s going on in our culture, and we have to accurately assess how the gospel speaks to each issue. Then, we presumably need to have some standard which can help us prioritize, just as Wilberforce prioritized human slavery over animal cruelty and gambling, even though he realized all of those issues could be addressed by the gospel.
Of course, we also need a theology for action. For example, in God’s eyes, how important are results? What means can we employ which will be justified as long as we attain our goals? At what point will our obedience to the authorities cease to honor God, and at what point will our disobedience bring him glory? What kind of language and rhetoric are we justified using? Is sarcasm OK (because it’s sometimes used in scripture) or is it off-limits (because it makes us look like uncaring jerks)? Can we use public nudity, like Isaiah and PETA?
Is it enough if we simply vote, and if not, what kinds of additional action will not get in the way of our parallel obligation to witness the truth of Jesus Christ? After all, if I (hypothetically) speak out in favor of enforcing immigration law just because as a Christian I want the US to continue to be a safe place which blesses those who live here and because I want to honor those who follow the legal process, but someone who hears me assumes that I’m racist, will that affect my ability to witness to that person? What if it does; should I sacrifice my reputation as a loving person (something I know Jesus wants) for a political position which I believe may turn out to be correct (which Jesus never spoke about)?
For all of these reasons and many others, I have long hesitated to speak out on political matters. I want to be a responsible member of American society by voting, but is that enough? When I speak out on anything which has become divisive (i.e., everything) I feel as though I’ve begun a dangerous activity which is guaranteed to put up insuperable barriers with some people, solidifying their negative opinion of me and making witness impossible. If some people deny me the right to speak my mind, should I bear that cross as an act of sacrifice and humility, or push back because I don’t want the truth to be stifled? And if I push back, am I doing so because I want to fight for my rights, or because I want to fight for the other person’s soul? Is ‘fighting for my rights’ even biblically justifiable?
Do I just stop caring about those people, or do I retreat and pray for them in private? Or – do I press my case, hoping that the truth will find some kind of handhold on their hearts, in spite of their opinion of me?
In this modern political climate, I feel lost, and I have no seriously viable model at hand to guide me. A million people in this country will offer me their solutions, but every one of those individuals is just as much a product of the puzzle as I am. Should I be politically active like Daniel, or like Dietrich Bonhoeffer? Should I be like Joseph, or more like MLK? Should I be like Wilberforce, or like St. Telemachus? And if you think the answer is ‘just try to be like Jesus’, remember that all of the people I just mentioned are models of how to follow Jesus; and they all did things differently, and yet they were all correct. (Weren’t they?)
So what should Jesus’ example look like for me now? If someone tries to tell me what it should be, should I believe them more according to how confident they seem – or should I be most suspicious of those who are the most confident? And finally, if things get worse, and the choice suddenly becomes clear, and the path I really ought to take becomes absolutely undeniable... will I have the courage to follow it?

The kind of racial problems we have today did not exist once. Let me explain. There was a time in human history – and it was a long time, it covers basically our entire past and all people everywhere – when any outsider was automatically beneath consideration. You were part of your own group, and that was it. Other groups were there to be avoided or used. The Aztecs used prisoners and slaves as human sacrifices. The Romans used other nations for revenue and border guards. The English used India as a source of income and tea. The Jews avoided others unless they first agreed to assimilate. The Native American tribes regularly stole from, enslaved, and avoided each other. The early Americans used African slaves as labor. This is the history of the human race, and although you can find little details here and there which you might try to use to paint a different picture, those are all exceptions; and for every exception, there are thousands of facts which establish the rule.
This was not seen as a problem of race. If it was considered a problem at all, it could be considered a problem of power. How can we be strong enough to conquer, or avoid invasion? How can we benefit without giving away too much? How can we keep people out? How can we sharpen the dividing line? The only racial problem most people ever considered was how to use or avoid other groups.
Today, thank God, there is a different idea at work in the world which turns those old human assumptions on their head; it’s the idea that the different people, the other people, the individuals who are Not In My Group – that those people are just as important as me, and they are worth just as much as me (or more) and I should have genuine compassion for them. Once you believe that people in other groups are worthy, and that you should actually consider them, empathize with them, include them, and be equal with them, you have a new problem. That new problem is something like this: How on earth do we do that, when it’s so hard, or when we’ve been programmed not to think that way?
Now let’s be honest: This is a good problem to have. It’s much better than the problems of how to avoid others, or how to use them. But it’s still a problem because it’s hard to do, it goes against our nature, and it’s rare. That’s where we are today. Our old problem has been transformed. It used to be “Keep out! Members only!” but now it's more like “You and I are equal... why can’t we act like it?” Some individuals in our society are still clinging to the old problem, and we call them racists. But today, many of us have been infused with the other, better problem in a way that is historically unique. Where did this modern problem come from?
To be blunt, it was never stated clearly or blatantly until the early church came along and realized that the racial and religious Jew/Gentile divide had been obliterated by Jesus Christ. Once that sank in, the Jewish habit (to avoid others) and the Gentile habit (to look down on Jews) each became irrelevant within the church, and the new problem became this: Now that we have been united together, how do we make it work? Paul the Apostle started out persecuting those who were outside of his initiated Jewish group, but once he joined the church he realized that nobody – no other race, color, nationality, gender, class, or age group – was to be excluded or used. The new creed became his famous words in Galatians 3: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Notice that this covers the three most common historical lines of separation: Race, Class, Sex.
This is where our contemporary problem really started, and it’s why we are struggling the way we are today. In the United States, most of the people by far who wanted to abolish slavery were Christians who had Christian motives, whose desires were directed by the gospel. Sure, if you look hard enough you can find people who claimed to be Christian who defended slavery, but they are exceptions – and they lost. And when they defended slavery, they were contradicting Jesus (and Paul too) so really, they just clarify the scope of the problem, and their ignorant hypocrisy highlights the reality of the issue.
In our modern world today, we would not have the idea of equality unless Jesus Christ had directly inspired that idea to enter into our history. Just go back and read John chapter 4. Nobody else did what he did for all people everywhere regardless of their race - in his daily life, or on the cross. His true followers realized what he had done, and because of his actions they had to learn how to think and act differently, which meant they had to address a new problem that had never existed before. Then, even though they didn’t always get it right and even though we haven’t always been faithful to the truth, their teachings entered our world anyway, so that now there are millions of people who assume equality is a thing even though they don’t realize their beliefs can be traced back to Jesus Christ. Our problem, the true problem, the problem of all of us who believe in equality, is a new one which can be phrased this way: Since we’re all equal, and since we all deserve justice, and since every human life is worthwhile in God’s eyes, and since everyone deserves compassion and empathy... how can we structure our lives and society so that we honor each other?
We rarely stop to think about how new that problem is; it’s a good problem to have; it demands a solution; and it only exists today because of Jesus Christ. In fact, maybe we won’t be able to actually find a solution to that problem until we acknowledge whom it really originated with, and unless we’re honest about the fact that we’re going to answer to him for how we deal with it.