Race, Gospel, and Justice, Part 3: Esau McCaulley on Racism and Cultural Power

A holistic Christian discipleship addresses our personal morality, our need for fidelity to the one true God, and the need for Christians as a part of our witness to the coming kingdom to push back upon the systems of oppression.

Ed: I think you and I would agree that there are systemic and ongoing issues of racism that exist even beyond Jim Crow laws or overt discrimination. It hasn't all gone away, yet some Christians want to think it's all gone away.

Esau: To me, systemic racism is nothing other than the expansive power of the "all" working it out in governments and institutions. Any Christian who believes that an individual can be a sinner and believes that an individual sinner can have power, believes also that there can be multiple sinners in multiple loci of power who are then exercising that power.

It is not a Marxist conspiracy theory to say, "There might be racist people who have economic and political power who then disadvantage African Americans."

Paul, when he talks in Ephesians about Christ being above every principality and power (Eph. 1:20-23), is talking first and foremost about spiritual beings. In Paul's thought, the spiritual beings, the rulers of the forces of the air, influence human governments. He says that the world, apart from Christ, is under the influence of negative spiritual powers.

The question is, Would these negative spiritual powers have a vested interest in stirring up vitriol and hatred among the races? The answer to that question is yes.

If you believe that the Word of God in Ephesians talks about spiritual powers, that they influence the government and economic systems, then you have to understand the possibility that those systems could be arrayed against the most vulnerable.

In the book of Revelation, John talks about Rome. One of the reasons that God judges Rome is because of the economic exploitation of people, and how the trade policies of Rome leads to the sufferings of the innocent. …

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