This is Episode 1 of theFormed.life Podcast where we hope to challenge you in thinking deeply about what it means to follow Jesus in all of life.
In this episode of the podcast, we are talking about the hostile dividing walls that tragically still exist between people, with a special focus on race, ethnicity, and culture.
- That’s a big topic and we won’t be able to cover it all. One of the tools Jesus uses to tear down hostile dividing walls is genuine relationships.
- With us today to help unpack that idea is Christian Fellowship Baptist’s Senior Pastor, Stan Archie, as well as Christ Community Church’s Lead Senior Pastor, Tom Nelson.
- The current conversation taking place in our broader culture about racial and ethnic differences is often not life-giving or especially productive.
- Let’s focus more specifically on the church. What are you seeing in how the church is engaging in this conversation? Knowing that there is both healthy and unhealthy in the church in this conversation.
- Often the church’s response is too simplistic from both “sides”:
- Without giving in to caricature, here is some of what we hear in conversation:
- “History doesn’t matter that much, the present and future should be the focus.”
- “Structural/systemic problems are not as harmful as often portrayed, the real problem is the breakdown of the family, lack of education, personal choices, etc.”
- There is a lack of recognition that individual choices (good and bad) matter!
- It’s actually about all of it!
Bryan Fikkert: “What is poverty? Poverty is the inability to fully experience image bearing. Poverty is the inability to fully experience image bearing. The four relationships (God, ourselves, others, whole of creation) are not working the way that God designed them to work. Poverty is rooted in broken relationships and those relationships are broken for three reasons; individual brokenness, systemic injustice, and demonic forces. That's the story. The world, the flesh, and the devil.”
