“Do not judge so that you won’t be judged. For with the judgment you use, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye but do not notice the log (beam, KJV) in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and look, there is a log in your eye? Hypocrite! First take the log out of your eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
~Matthew 7.1-5

Race is the theological beam in the eye of the Church. Unfortunately, throughout history, the Church has attempted to serve as the proclaimer of the vision of the Kingdom of God on earth while using the spectacles of the culture. The Church, the members of Christ’s body, having Jesus’ vision for humanity still endorsed American slavery, were silent during the Jewish Holocaust and South African apartheid, supported Jim Crow segregation and attempted to locate a rationale for its enforcement in the sacred Scriptures and today, practice White Supremacy and Black Nationalism. The Church has the message of Jesus Christ and yet we proclaim another gospel, which excludes others based on the social coloring of their skin, repays evil with evil and hatred with hatred, that does not have to forgive because race says so and that judges with a beam in its eye. This is not Christ’s gospel but our own.

Race is not a gospel of peace but of violence. It is not a gospel of inclusion but exclusivity, of division not reconciliation, of hatred not love. Still, we pronounce the judgements of race and we have done it in the name of God and as the Body of Christ. As a result, the Church is in no position to judge as the most sacred our in our week is also the most segregated. We gather to worship the same God but cannot sit on the same pew. We are all praising the same God but cannot share the same hymnal. We are proclaiming the same message but cannot share the same pulpit.

The theological beam that looms large is the reality of a Black Church and a White Church. Surely, Christ is not the chief cornerstone of this race- driven creation. And I have heard the various reasons as to why there are separate churches, which all amount to “we worship differently.” But, I assure you that these arrangements cannot be maintained in heaven and if the Church, which is to represent the body of Christ, cannot come together, then how will the lost come to know Him in the pardoning of their sins? If we don’t remove the beam of race from our eyes, not only will we continue to have no basis with which to proclaim God’s soon- coming judgment, not only will we continue to lose sight of His plan for humanity but we will fall as a house divided against itself cannot stand (Mark 3.25). Remove the beam or our house will do just that.