Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
The Perfect Can Be the Enemy of the Good: On Race (A Small Point)

The Perfect Can Be the Enemy of the Good: On Race (A Small Point)

Last updated on: April 9, 2018 at 9:59 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

The Perfect Can Be the Enemy of the Good: On Race (A Small Point) 2018-04-09T21:59:59-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Whenever I say something about race or racism, certain good hearted friends suggest that the solutions I propose are racist themselves, because they take race into account.

I hope those friends will take the time to hear my response.

We share a goal:

The lie of race should die and the sins that cluster around the false ideology of racism should become evil artifacts of the past. The dream of most Americans is for the color-blind society of Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King.

I share that dream.

Yet that perfect has become the enemy of progress. You cannot stop considering race until racism is stamped out. The easier work (and how hard it was!) was ending overt segregation. The harder job is breaking down social barriers. There is, I fear, an invisible empire that keeps us apart and against that we must fight with open eyes.

This is true in so many areas of injustice: we cannot get ahead of where we are. Race still counts and so we must consider race and fight racism. Abortion provides a good parallel case. We all long for a society where all life is sacred. That is not our society. When unborn children are being murdered, we cannot ignore that grave injustice and pretend that all Americans are given the right to life. Americans have to live with a culture where every human life is not valued and press toward the ideal. A nation like Iceland is killing all babies that do not fit their definition of a life worth living. This is real.

In the same way, the chains of the past keep us from being color blind just now.

A Brief Moment to Recollect the Past

Centuries of slavery scarred the North American English colonies and the new United States. Families were torn apart. Great evil was done and all the good we did was corrupted by slavery. Few dare defend slavery, thank God, but in the lifetime of my grandparents, writers like Thomas Dixon openly argued for disenfranchising African-Americans and after World War II, United States Senator Theodore Bilbo repeated his vile assessment of his fellow citizens. Present leaders of the great American city, Houston, grew up eating next to the garbage cans, because the law would not let a resteraunt serve them. If you have not heard a racist joke or seen the CSA glorified in the last five years, you have had better fortune than I have.

A conservative thinks ideas matter and have consequences. Bad ideas have bad consequences and these continue. We still live in the world reeling from World War I. We dare not pretend that the scars of Jim Crow are all gone.

This is the real world and we have to act to change it. I will not leave it to “liberalism” to do so. In fact, I think conservative Christian solutions are best, but we must begin by recognizing that there is a cause and justice to fight for and seek.

Trying to Live the Ideal Just Now Is Less than Ideal

To be color blind when people of color cannot be is morally wrong.

Of course, we cannot fight injustice with more injustice. No person should get a job or position to which he or she is not fit. Yet I have known people, very fit, who somehow never could get jobs once they came to an interview. “You did not sound black!” and somehow the job would never come.

I have seen this enough to know it is no accident. To live color blind, when society is not, is to abandon my friends to injustice. It would be as if I was in Iceland and accepted protestations that no baby is being targeted and then discover that (sheerly by chance?) there are no babies born with Down Sydnrome. A few token births would not do to sate my righteous rage. The time would have come to actively seek justice for these fellow souls created in God’s image. People are using their status (Downs) to terminate them. I will not pretend otherwise. To live in a culture dedicated to eradicating a population as if all men were created equal is to turn the ideal into a snare and delusion.

So what to do?

We must aspire to be color blind, but recognize that racism is not dead. We must recognize the active evil and combat it by active measures.

First, we must tell the truth about the recent past. Segregation is not ancient history for people of my parent’s generation. The good news is that open racism is mostly underground, though I have heard enough to know that racism is still there in leaders who should know better. We have made progress. Few read Thomas Dixon or watch Birth of Nation without a shudder, but the ideas were deeply ingrained in our society. We do not have to demonize what is good about this nation, and God bless that great good, to tell the truth.

No nation is guiltless. There is none righteous, not one. We can point to the good without denying the bad. Our theology demands it!

Second, we are conservatives so we must be practical. We should be proactive in moving qualified minority candidates into positions of power. As much as possible, we should look at ourselves and say: “Does our diversity reflect our applicant pool? If not, why not?” If our applicant pool is not diverse, we should ask why. The answers may shock us.

I knew a place where people of color who would have worked there were turned off by theological liberalism they saw. The organization reached out to folks who hated the theology and mission of the school while ignoring their natural allies. One sure sign of racism is the assumption that “they” are all such and such a way.

There were plenty of theological conservatives who would have worked at this place, but the diversity agenda was driven by people who wanted to make the theology more liberal. Since there were plenty of places competing for these more liberal faces and voices, the organization changes all too slowly.

Third, theological conservatives will have to accept that theological conservatism and social conservatism do not equal economic conservatism. I am a small government person generally, but a small central government failed African-Americans when state governments used police power to enforce segregation.

Theological and ethical truths held in common are more vital than particular political solutions to economic problems. Christians should make shared theology and ethics a priority and work for and ally with any person who might have differences in how best to help the poor (for example). I predict everyone will be surprised once barriers are broken how much creativity and new ideas are unleashed!

Always recall: the evils done by secularism or by anyone else is not an excuse for our failure to act. Read Ellison’s Invisible Man. There are always grifters and hustlers preying on good hearted people trying to do right, yet still we must seek justice. The ideal is before us. Let’s be practical and get there.

Apologetics

Previous Post

April 8, 2018

Renouncing Pomps

Next Post

April 10, 2018 Leave Syria Alone (Send Food, Not Bombs)

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Apologetics Art Culture Education On Books On Education Philosophy Politics Pop Culture Spiritual Reflections Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 July 2025 June 2025 September 2024 July 2024 June 2024 December 2023 June 2023 September 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What miracle did Jesus perform for His friend Lazarus?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Turned him invisible Healed his blindness Raised him from the dead Fed him from nothing

Books by This Author John Mark Reynolds

See All Titles »