:CCO's Cross-Culture Exchange:

Since the election of our first Black President, some in the media have wondered if we have entered into a new era of holding hands across racial barriers and singing “kuumba ayah”.  They have popularized the term “post-racial” which at the very least is asking the question, “has America moved past the issue of race and racism?”  However, maybe a better question is whether there should ever be such a thing as a ”post-racial” society if the picture of our heavenly future is one of a crowd so large that it cannot be counted, made up of all nations, tribes, peoples and tongues.  (Revelation 7:9)

Let’s first consider the continued racial incidents in our country to see if the issue has begun to disappear.  A few years ago the Southern Baptist Convention published a Vacation Bible School curriculum using the name and theme of “orientals” and a Barnes and Nobles book display featuring a book about monkeys was placed in the middle of a display of books about the Obamas.  Just recently a hangman’s noose was discovered in the library of San Diego State University and here in Pittsburgh three White policemen beat a Black honor student from the Creative And Performing Arts school claiming he had a gun  – no gun was found.  While these occurrences do not necessarily represent the attitudes and actions of an entire college,  national book store, denomination, police force, or the dominate white culture, we can not ignore the pain and the exclusion felt by the minority groups represented in these incidents.

I don’t know about you but I am not feeling the post-racial thing.  I fear that for some “post-racial’ is a hope that minority groups are finally assimilating into our White culture.  Regardless of our political leanings we can feel good that we have moved to the place of electing a Black President but let’s be careful not to be lulled into a sense of complacency because we still live in a world full of ethnic divisions and racial prejudices.  We must not only acknowledge that America is made up of citizens from every culture and ethnicity but that God plans to populate heaven with His multi-ethnic salvation.  If God’s heart reaches out to the whole world then our hearts need to as well, especially when He continues to bring the world to our cities and our college campuses.

So should America be striving for a post-racial world and what would that look like to you?  Or should we as Christians be working towards diversity and inclusion while fulfilling Jesus’ mandate to make disciples of all (ethnos) nations?