0304 - Who Threw That Bomb? Politics, Systemic Racism, and Repentance (w/ Jemar Tisby)

"As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting." (2 Corinthians 7:9)

Join Isaac Adams and Jemar Tisby as the two talk about politics, which so often combines race, religion, idolatry, and power. Still, Tisby maintains Christians are political creatures who need not shy away from politics.

Tisby discusses the nature of systemic racism, and how it's too narrow a view to reduce racism down to personal animus. Rather than only seeing racism as outright hostility, though it is that, Tisby maintains Christians should be also concerned with anything done to bolster a racist environment (e.g. furthering racial stereotypes or imposing bigoted ideas on groups of people). This type of racism can have disastrous consequences, the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama demonstrating as much.

If we can have a wider view of racism, we can better own up to our decisions, actions, and non-actions, all of which have implications and consequences. However, there's grace to reckon with these implications. We need not run away from politics or act as if we're merely above them. "We are political creatures," Tisby maintains. However, the grace of God which pardons us allows us to be forgiven and to pursue justice.

Discussing the history of the black church to past Supreme Court Cases, Adams and Tisby take a number of matters to the Lord in prayer. Let's join them in doing so.