A Gospelogical Approach to Racism
Good morning, Immanuel. Francis Grimké reminds us how the gospel compels us to see all people and ethnicities as made in the image of God.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
“An evangelism that permits men to believe that they can be Christians without making an earnest and honest effort to rid themselves of race prejudice is a spurious evangelism” (Woodson, The Works of Francis J. Grimké, n.d., 1:524).
That quote sums up Francis Grimké’s gospelogical approach to racism. Grimké believed that the gospel compels us to see all people and ethnicities as made in the image of God and, therefore, as the object of God’s love at the cross. Unlike many today, Grimké was both a champion of equality and utterly realistic about the limitations of laws to change human hearts. As both activist and pastor, he used all his influence to try to convince his fellow Presbyterian ministers to stand against racism (Kerr, Sons of the Prophets, 166). He knew that the only force powerful enough to draw natural enemies into loving community is the love of Jesus Christ. Therefore, Grimké sought, most of all, to bring people into contact with the heart-changing gospel of our Lord, a point demonstrated beautifully in a diary entry on his seventieth birthday.
“I want to keep in such close touch with Jesus Christ that people will be reminded of him as they come in contact with me. At the end of these seventy years, I never felt more like serving the Lord than I do now; never felt more like preaching the glorious gospel, never felt greater joy in preaching it, than I do now. I long for each sabbath to come, that I might break to the people the bread of life” (Woodson, The Works of Francis J. Grimké, 1942, 3:95).
After seventy years of contending uphill for peace and reconciliation among the people of God, Grimké remained undaunted by the world, filled with hope in Christ, and happy in the service of his God. The relevance of Grimké’s gospelogical legacy for us today hardly needs to be spelled out. Here is a man “of whom the world was not worthy” whose life of faith in God is more relevant today than ever before. God be praised for Francis J. Grimké.
God be praise indeed, thank you TJ 🙏🏼