Going Back to Charlottesville

(Photo courtesy of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship)

But despite the chaos that plagued the Virginian town, college students are still preparing to return to Charlottesville for school. And as students mourn and learn to heal along with the rest of the city, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship is responding and helping.

“You know, there are three areas I think we tend to focus on in terms of a Christian response. And we are seeing this on the ground at UVA as well,” InterVarsity’s President Tom Lin explains.

“The first type of response in prophetic. You know, we need to help our student leaders call people to reject the idolatry of racism. The second is evangelistic, inviting people to repentance in Jesus. And then the third response we want to prepare them for is to have a pastoral response, discipling people towards racial reconciliation, helping walk alongside fellow students who may be struggling.”

Long-Term Ministry

For decades, InterVarsity has been dedicated to multi-ethnicity and racial reconciliation on college campuses. In fact, 54 percent of the students InterVarsity works with are non-white.

Because of this, the recent events in Charlottesville probably won’t have an effect on InterVarsity’s long-term ministry with college students. In a sense, it may help open some doors for multi-ethnicity and racial reconciliation conversations.

(Photo courtesy of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship)

For example, an InterVarsity staff member did a prayer-walk on the same route as the protesters. Other InterVarsity staff and students participated in a prayer vigil in the town. The sight of InterVarsity trying to bring a little bit of calmness to the crazy helped comfort some locals.

In fact, InterVarsity received a letter from a non-Christian business leader in Charlottesville who saw people wearing InterVarsity t-shirts throughout the city over the weekend. The business leader was thankful for InterVarsity’s presence amidst the hatred.

“I think when non-Christians encounter InterVarsity groups as diverse as ours — as I said, 54 percent are none-white — they note it and they say things like, ‘Only Jesus could bring people together across so many differences. How does that happen and how does that work?” Lin shares.

Starting Conversations

InterVarsity is also engaging in the conversation of racial reconciliation through books from InterVarsity Press. A few books Lin recommends on the topic include The Myth of Equality; Roadmap to Reconciliation; and then White Awake. InterVarsity does Bible Studies on racial-reconciliation, too.

(Photo courtesy of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship)

And because InterVarsity has been effectively engaging with students on the topic, the ministry has been asked by various college faculty, such as a university’s athletic director, to help them in having these kinds of conversations with students and athletes.

Not sure where to start with the conversation of racial reconciliation yourself? Well, start with prayer. Lin asks for prayers for college campuses across the country, especially the University of Virginia (UVA). InterVarsity has a chapter on UVA’s campus and will be walking alongside students as they wrestle with the recent happenings in their college town.

For more prayer requests, click here!

(Photo courtesy of Amanda Hirsch via Flickr: https://goo.gl/Lg8Cy3)

Such blatant and extreme racism is something only God’s love can change. We asked Biblica CEO Carl Moeller for insight into how he believes Christians should respond.

“First of all, we all have to acknowledge that I think as Christians, or just as human beings, I think the events, the violence, and the pure hatred that was expressed on Saturday should be repulsive to us, and it should be something that causes us to really stand back and look into what I call the mirror of human nature apart from the love of Jesus Christ,” Moeller says.

Racism is nothing new. History is filled with examples of people hating each other because of their background.

“The Bible is chock-full of racist elements that illustrate the depravity of human beings and their ability to find ways to hate and destroy one another,” Moeller says. “Jews did that to the Samaritans. The Jews and the Gentiles were guilty in many places throughout Scripture of having a racist identity that ignored and defeated the very revelation of God.”

Moeller says that apart from Christ, there is no antidote for racism. Only when we realize what racism truly is, he says, can we begin to foster unity.

“I think the root of racism is idolatry,” Moeller says. “There’s no question in my mind that when we are convinced that our race is superior, our way of life is superior, we’re actually putting something in place of our primary love that should be there for God.

“If we remember that racism is an idolatry, then we have to remember also that Christ’s coming is to destroy the divisions and the basis for racism. It’s to break down, as Paul said, that dividing wall between us, between our ethnicities and between our self-centered idolatries.”

A good reminder of our unity in Christ is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (NIV). In God’s eyes, we are all equal.

(Photo courtesy of Mark Dixon via Flickr: https://goo.gl/YrJWU7)

“There’s an old saying, ‘All men, and women, are equal at the foot at the cross,'” Moeller says. “We all, at the point of Christ’s death on the cross, come with nothing in our hands. There is no privilege. There is no superiority of our race, of our religious convictions or those kinds of things. It’s all equal at the foot of the cross.

“I think we would do well in this moment of division in our country to remember that. Let’s call people to the foot of the cross, where we will have the unity that comes from the Body of Christ.”

In this divisive time, Moeller challenges us to pray not just for harmony, but that the Spirit would penetrate the hearts of those spreading their hateful ideologies. He also says Christians need to remain united.

“I think it’s an important time for the Church to speak with one voice on this, that regardless of where we fall on the political spectrum of things, we must fall together on the biblical spectrum of this,” Moeller says. “The Bible is clear. There is no room in the Church, in our personal Christian lives, or even as we extend ourselves into society, for race-based hatred and racism. It’s just not an option for us.”

The Tragedy of Charlottesville

(Photo courtesy of Amanda Hirsch via Flickr: https://goo.gl/84fS5s)

Christian Aid Mission is based in Charlottesville, and David Taylor with Christian Aid was on-site where the protests took place. “It was kind of my first time to experience up-close something like that where you had so much, kind of, charged hate. You had two sides that were just yelling at each other and it just looked like something was ready to explode. You felt that electricity in the air. You felt like this was going to get violent.”

And it did get violent. As each side goaded the other, several brawls broke out and one man drove a car into the crowd of counter-protesters, injuring 19 people and killing one young woman. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency “to aid state response to violence.”

Christians in Charlottesville were also present. Members of the clergy linked arms and sang ‘This Little Light of Mine’ in a stand against the alt-right group. Taylor says he also witnessed believers holding prayer vigils.

He speculates this event may have been a catalyst for more clashes in the future. “This is going to affect probably the entire South. This is a small thing we’re seeing in Charlottesville compared to what’s ready to explode. This is going to happen in Richmond, this is going to happen in Arkansas, this is going to happen everywhere where you have these kinds of monuments and this is just getting started.”

Same Ideology; Different Name

The ideology of nationalists is quite similar to the ideology of terrorists and extremists. According to InfoPlease, the stated mission of al Qaeda is “to drive Americans and American influence out of all Muslim nations, especially Saudi Arabia; destroy Israel; and topple pro-Western dictatorships around the Middle East.” Boko Haram in Nigeria literally means “Western education is forbidden”. ISIS has made it known that their goal is to establish an Islamic caliphate across the Middle East.

(Photo courtesy of Amanda Hirsch via Flickr: https://goo.gl/8GtYJ1)

When white nationalists chant, “Our blood, our soil!” and “You will not replace us! Jews will not replace us!” it’s another violent ideology based in a “them versus us” mentality, and is completely counter to the message of the Bible.

As Scripture says in 1 John 4:20, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

Taylor shares, “I think God is waking us up…. What we saw this past week where the young man drove into a crowd, that was reminiscent of what al-Qaeda is doing, what extremist Muslims are doing. And now it’s kind of come full-circle, it’s now hitting here in our homeland. This should be a wake-up call to us, that we can’t ignore what’s happening around the world.”

Hijacking the Label ‘Christian’

But some within the alt-right group do indeed claim the label of ‘Christian’. And there is grave danger in those who would hijack the name of Christ for their own nationalist agendas.

Taylor says, “There is a huge risk I think right now in terms of how people are viewing religion. There’s the impression that young people are going to get as they’re growing up in this context that religion is something that’s harmful, that’s something that is extremist. This is the time to speak into a generation that is increasingly becoming secularized.

(Photo courtesy of Rick Cooper via Flickr: https://goo.gl/VCDWvP)

“Our organization at Christian Aid Mission, we have a global look. So we’re thinking about this in terms of the implications for how we’re being viewed around the world. How is Christianity being viewed? And what is the Church’s response to this kind of thing?”

It’s important that the American Church take racism in our backyards very seriously. “I think it’s important first because of history,” Taylor reflects. “There was certainly a kind of unwitting participation if you will, a complicity if you will, of American Christianity with racism…. As Martin Luther King said, the most segregated hour of our time is on Sunday. And we still have this situation in the Church where we’re not really exemplifying the heart of Christianity, the brotherhood that we have in Christ. We’re still meeting in our ethnic enclaves. Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with having ethnic churches. It’s just that there’s an underlying problem that is illustrated by that, where we still have a problem coming together and we need to overcome it.”

True Healing

So how can we as the Church, the Body of Christ, be part of the reconciliation and healing process across racial and cultural divides?

“I think one thing we can do is begin to show solidarity within Christianity. I remember one day being surprised when I was living out in California and on the cover of the LA Times was a cover story on Latinos and African Americans getting together for worship on Easter for a sunrise service. And the reason why that made the front page is because, traditionally, African Americans and Latinos haven’t gotten along in Los Angeles. But here they were worshipping together and that’s a powerful message that we can bring — that we can tell the world that in Christ, there is no Greek or Jew, male or female, there are not these distinctions. We’re all the same before God.”

Ultimately, it’s going to take Christians who are centered on the Gospel, faithful to the Great Commission, and grounded in God’s truth and love who can then tell the world what the Church is all about. 1 Peter 2:9 says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

(Photo courtesy of susieq3c via Flickr: https://goo.gl/oKwwML)

That ‘chosen race’ in 1 Peter is not an ethnic group. It is the Church. And ‘Christ-follower’ is our primary identity — more than our national identity, our gender, our ethnic background, or anything else. Revelation 7:9-10 speaks of the Apostle John’s diverse vision of the Church when he said, “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!'”

What a beautiful vision of the diversity and unity we have as brothers and sisters in Christ across creeds, languages, and countries. We may have different backgrounds and stories, but we are one in the Lord. As believers embrace the joy in this vision, we can share it with the world looking on.

Taylor encourages, “Let’s get ahead of the narrative, and let’s let people know that as Christians we have nothing to do with racism. Quite the opposite. Jesus came to tear down divisions. And we are going to do everything we can to bring healing to the past. I think these are wounds that are resurfacing from the past, things that have never been healed. So there is a larger issue here. It’s not just about monuments. There is a deeper issue here that needs to be addressed, and that’s what we need to be talking about as Christians.”

A Prayer for Charlottesville…and the World

Finally, Taylor offers this prayer — for unity and for healing:

“Heavenly Father, we come before your throne. Our hearts are heavy. We are at a place where we don’t know what to do, so we turn to you. You are the God of all wisdom. You are the God of all peace, and we ask you to bring the Prince of Peace to our land, to our country. God, we need your healing, we need your touch, we need your love to permeate our hearts and our minds. Lord, the world is watching us, the eyes of the world are watching your people and how we’re going to respond. And I ask you to strengthen us, to empower us, to enable us as your people to rise above all of this — to rise above the rhetoric, to rise above the pettiness. God come in and show us the way. Lead us, God, that we may be Kingdom seekers. May we be Kingdom-minded people. Show us how to do that God. Only you know the way. In Jesus’ name, we pray, Amen.”

Click here to read more thoughts from Carl Moeller with Biblica on the Church and a biblical view of racism.