Lying in bed, my three year old managed to break my heart while rendering me speechless. Our family had just participated in an antiracism prayer rally, and obviously she and her six year old brother had been paying closer attention than I’d realized. I confessed that I didn’t know how to answer her well, but that I would absolutely think it through so we could talk more in the morning.
And talk we did. I’m sure I messed up a lot of things in this conversation. But God has charged me with discipling my children as we walk along life’s way, and racism is a significant feature on our path. So while part of me still worries that it was premature, the next day at breakfast I pulled down the globe and we talked. About history. About assumptions. About being wrong. About melanin and the equator. About the game of Monopoly and how it’s hard to do well when the other person owns most of the properties. Most of these topics had come up before, but in this conversation we pulled them all together. And we talked a lot about God.
I explained racism from within the context of God’s big story; God created a perfect world that is currently experiencing brokenness because of our fall into sin, but Jesus redeemed us through his death and will ultimately restore fallen creation when he returns to make all things new. We talked about how so many people, including Christians, have been terribly wrong through the years, but also that there have always been some who have understood biblical teaching on ethnicity.
These have known that God created all people in God’s image, and that God loves the differences God made in us. They have understood that in God’s kingdom people use their power and strength to serve and care for one another, whereas in our broken world people often use their power and strength to get what they want. These have loved their neighbors as themselves by speaking up for the poor, freeing slaves, and trying to change the laws that have helped white people more than black people. And now it’s time for us to join them in that fight.
The conversation has obviously continued beyond that initial breakfast. At one point they walked in on me watching Just Mercy (which I highly recommend!) and asked why Walter McMillian was being hurt by his jailers. I explained that just like Jesus, Steven, Peter, Paul, and Silas were falsely accused (usually being charged with disrupting the peace or teaching against/ dishonoring God in some way), so also this man was falsely accused. When they asked about Bryan Stevenson’s character I responded that he was a lawyer who was following Jesus by fighting for the wrongly accused man.
But the painful truth is that many of us haven’t consistently followed Jesus in this way. There have always been pockets fighting for the least of these. But as a whole, white Christians have been naive at best, and complicit at worst regarding racial injustice in this country. And now we have come to the place where we can only claim ignorance by choosing to dismiss the cries that surround us.
I am so thankful for those who are offering their stories to help me imagine what it’s like to walk in their shoes. I’m also thankful for resources that help me recognize my own assumptions and think critically about how they are unintentionally shaping my kids. This is such good and necessary work!
But I’ve also noticed a hole. Despite all that I’ve read online about raising inclusive and antiracist kids, I have encountered precious little showing parents how the Bible can be used either to promote racial bias or to dismantle it.
Historically, those in positions of authority have all too often used the Bible to bolster their power. This is our story… But it’s also not. Jesus isn’t white. He wasn’t wealthy. His kingdom was not of this world. His goal wasn’t to make me feel good about myself, affirm my preferences, or justify my sin. He didn’t die so that I could stop growing or take the easy way out. Instead, he challenged the unrighteousness of those holding power and was killed for it.
The New Testament Greek word for “righteousness” (dikaios) can also be translated into English as “justice.” It’s the same Greek word, translated differently based on the context. In general, we think of righteousness as a right relationship with God and justice as right relationships with others. But the Greek word for the two is the same. Right relationships are central to the biblical story.
From the very beginning, we see whispers of this when God heard Abel’s blood crying out from the ground. Years later, Abraham was promised that he would be blessed so that he could be a blessing to the nations. Roughly 400 years after that God told Moses that God had once again heard the cries of God’s people and would deliver Abraham’s children from their oppressive slavery under Pharaoh. From this point on, God’s heart for justice became more explicit. Throughout the law, the newly freed Israelites were instructed to care for the poor and foreigners, remembering that they, themselves, were also slaves in Egypt. When Israel went into exile it was for the dual sins of idolatry and taking advantage of the poor.
And then a few hundred years later, in the final week of his life, their Messiah stormed into the temple, creating chaos as he angrily overturned the money changers’ tables and released their animals because they were taking advantage of the poor in the very place that was built as a house of prayer for the nations. Righteousness and justice are central.
So how do we teach this aspect of the biblical story? Books are probably being written about it as I type, but thus far I’ve found only one Sunday School curriculum that focuses on it (which is NOT to say that there aren’t more; please share more resources in the comments!). So in the meantime I have two suggestions as to where us parents can start. First, we can learn. We can learn about both biblical justice and about the current cultural situations in which we find ourselves. As the primary teachers of our children, we will naturally teach the Bible differently to them when we understand it differently for ourselves (here’s an example of how we used Mary and Joseph’s flight to Egypt to talk about immigration). There are many great reading lists and resources online, the following being a few to get you started.
And then our second major task is to be intentional about our children’s books and Bibles. I’ve seen several helpful lists of picture books that celebrate diversity or help us talk about racism (many of which we have loved), but Christian parents have the additional opportunity and responsibility to be discerning in our choices of Bibles and Bible storybooks. We’ve been grafted into a community that worships a Middle Eastern Savior along with brothers and sisters from every tribe, language, people, and nation! But this can be easily lost on our kids if we fail to choose Bible storybooks whose illustrations reflect this truth. I’ve written more about this in a previous post (How to choose a Bible or Bible storybook), but these are some of our favorites (and one that’s on our wishlist).
* There are many picture books about Ruby Bridges, but I appreciate how this one includes her faith. The Lion First Bible has primarily white characters, but is helpful in emphasizing the power dynamics in much of the New Testament.
In a similar vein, another really simple shift could be to choose mostly brown tones when coloring the skin of Bible characters. This past year during Advent, I noticed the 5 year olds in my Sunday School class all using the peach marker for Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. Recognizing the opportunity but not wanting any to feel corrected, I just sat down with them and began coloring my own picture differently. Sure enough, the kids noticed. One little girl even told me that I was coloring them wrong! We ended up having a good conversation about how Jesus was from a part of the world where most people have black hair and darker skin. It didn’t last long, but felt like a good start.
These aspects of our story simply must be shared. They must be shared out of love for our neighbors, and also for the hope that we profess. We will continue to make lots of mistakes. But that’s part of our story, too. We are fallen, but also forgiven, forgiving, and empowered. So let’s embrace our calling as we courageously learn together while confronting the darkness of our own lives and broken world with Jesus’ light and hope!
