I’ve been talking about the Black Lives Matter movement a lot, and for good reason. It concerns me and others that look like me. It’s an affirmation of the value of black lives. Naturally that would be important, but sadly most won’t see it that way. Another thing that is important to me, however, is my faith.
As a Christian, I only have more reason to support the BLM movement. In supporting it, I feel that I’m following God's plan in some way. Specifically, the goal of racial reconciliation as a step in helping the world look more like what God's Kingdom is supposed to look like.
God most certainly cares about our ethnicities and even after our earthly lives, those ethnicities are still taken into account. (Revelation 7:9) Looking at these differences, and embracing them, while not letting those differences take away from our similarities (that is, our humanity) would bring us closer together as humans and children of God.
These social justice issues are sometimes a bit hard for me to talk about secularly, because I strongly feel that they're Christian issues, but I know in a secular world, motivations that involve the concepts of God's vision wouldn't motivate those who don't identify as Christian like me. Even so, I do it anyways, because in a secular perspective, these issues still matter. I figure most in a secular circle could assume that these social justice issues aren't entirely Christian issues, and some could argue (with valid points to their argument) that Christians had more of a hand in making these issues so prevalent in the first place, but these issues most definitely are Christian issues. We Christians, Christ followers, are called to work for a world that resembles God's kingdom. I'm not sure about you, but I know that racism, sexism, and so much injustice wouldn't be practices that are all that welcome in that kingdom.
We're made in God's image (Genesis 1:27) and to see those made in his image (male, female, LGBT, all people) be treated as less than or to watch as others face injustice and other atrocities, motivates me to change that. That's not the way we were meant to be treated as people, or treat other image bearers, and so it shouldn't be acceptable.
I understand that many Christians go overseas to try and do some sort of work for God, and I don't want to question the validity of their works there, that may be what they're called to do after all, but I feel that the issues here are largely ignored, pushed to the back as the idea of doing works away from home sounds more glorifying. It drives me to act, because it's what I'm called to do. It's just that one of these works are looked highly upon, while the other isn't.
These issues are most certainly Christian issues, and I'm not too sure why that's such a crazy idea. When image bearers aren't being treated as such, and we Christians see that, that alone should motivate us to act on it. While I'm making an effort to be compelling, I want to make it clear that we don't have to do works to be in God's favor, or anything like that, but my motivation in this is to partner with God to leave the world with a bit more "good" than it had before. I believe that we can resolve these issues, but I wouldn't want to leave God out of the equation. He just may be what we need in all this.
