Open Letter to White Christians: When it Comes to Racism, Changing Hearts Isn’t Biblical Enough

To all my conservative white brothers and sister: The idea that racism can only be cured by changing hearts and minds is a failure to be biblical.  

Let me get straight to the point: God didn’t consider “changing hearts” the only cure for sin.  And if we aren’t going to follow God’s lead, then we might as well stop calling ourselves Christians — which means “followers of Jesus.”

Now let’s unpack this a little: The idea that we should focus on changing hearts is voiced by conservative pastor Robert Jeffress, and constantly repeated and shared.  

The only cure for the racism in America is a changed heart that comes from trusting in Jesus Christ. To try and heal racial divisions without that changed heart is like trying to cure cancer with a Band-Aid.

— Dr. Robert Jeffress (@robertjeffress) June 6, 2020

The implicit point of these kinds of statements is to say that addressing systematic or structural racism will not work unless we change individual hearts and minds.  Which means, as this thinking goes, that we shouldn’t focus on these “political” issues as much as we should focus on “spiritual” evangelism. 

Sounds Pious, but…

While sounding pious and centered on Jesus, it misses the mark of the fullness of God’s word.  

Llike the Bereans, who “examined the Scriptures every day” (Acts 17:11), and like those who “correctly handle the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15), we must look again at the Bible and see if God’s doesn’t address systematic or structural issues when it comes to sin.  

So let’s look at a couple of examples together.

The Systems of Sin (and Blessing) in the Bible

• The Tower of Babel (Gen. 11): Instead of spreading out and filling the earth (Gen. 1:28), all the people after the Fall came together to build a tower reaching to heaven (to usurp God’s position).  God didn’t just change their hearts. In fact, God changed their tongues/language to scatter the people. This was God’s systematic answer to a systematic sin. 

• Feeding of the Nations Through Joseph [Blessing] (Gen. 41): When God knew a famine was coming, God didn’t change hearts and minds. God raised up Joseph to create a system of saving food in the plentiful years to be a supply for the famine years.  

• The Liberation of Israel (Exodus 1-14):  God tried to change the hearts and minds of Pharaoh (and all the Egyptians) with displays of God’s power and mind. It didn’t work. So God enacted the Passover and the Red Sea Crossing to wipe out the systematic slavery of Egypt over Israel. 

• The Gift of the Temple and the Law [Blessing]: (Exodus 20-40; Leviticus) In order to offer God’s own life-giving presence to the people, God instituted the institution (or social system) of the Temple and gave the Law so that Israel might have life, liberty, and prosperity. 

• Israel Wanting a King (1 Sam. 8): When Israel wanted a king like all the other nations, God said that kings would just create systems of oppression like the kings of other nations (excessing taxation, conscription of young men into standing armies, taking of daughters as his wife).  But Israel wanted a king. And the sinful system grew in Israel (with only a few good exceptions).  

• Prophetic Warnings: All throughout the prophets (the books in the Bible that come after Song of Solomon) we are told that the leaders of Israel used their power and privilege (their systems of authority as priests, kings, and judges) to steal and oppress the widows and orphan and foreigners. God punished Israel with Exile from that for their injustice — a systematic answer to systematic sin. 

• Jesus Against the Sabbath: What God had given as a a day of rest, the Pharisees had turned into a system of oppression so that it was no longer a day to promote life, but a day to promote “law and order”, the perverted law and order of sinful human tradition.  

• Jesus and the Temple: Jesus overturning the money changers in the Temple was an overturning of a system that oppressed the poor of Israel and excluded foreigners from drawing near to God.  
  

• The Death of Jesus: The very fact that Jesus had to die (physically) before the Spirit could be poured out to transform our hearts and minds, the act that Sin and Death needed to be defeated by Jesus so that we could be transformed, speaks to God’s systematic answer to a systematic problem.

I could go on and on about how addressing systems of sin go hand in hand with changing hearts and minds.  God does both. And we should too.  

Everyday Example: Healing the Physical Body

Saying that we need to cure racism by changing hearts is technically true, but incomplete, and therefore brutally misleading.  

It is also technically true that only the body can heal the body.  Healing comes from within our bodies as our cells repair themselves.  

Broken Bone: But the fact that they body heals itself doesn’t stop us from adding a cast around a broken bone — an external system to speed the recovery, and to make sure the bone is properly aligned.  

Taking Medicine: But the fact that they body heals itself doesn’t stop us from taking medicine that will reduce swelling, increase the healing potency of the body, or help fight off infection — which are external chemical systems to aid the body.  

Taking Time Off: If someone is sick we tell them to stay home and rest — which is a change to their systematic routine.  

To cure racism we certainly do need to change hearts and minds.  But to do this well and rapidly requires acknowledging systematic problems and coming up with systematic solutions.  

Systematic Healing of the Social Body

Remedies don’t always work the way we think in healing the physical body. But we try anyway, and work until we’ve found the best combination of internal and external remedies. 

So, with the curing of racism, we need to find the proper approach to internal (hearts and minds) and external (systematic racism) remedies.  These probably include how we finance homes, how we fund school, and might include considering de-funding the police a bit in order to broaden our imagination and find new possibilities.  

But please let us not just think that changing “hearts and minds” is the cure.  But God didn’t consider that the only cure.  And if we aren’t going to follow God’s lead, then we might as well stop calling ourselves Christians — which means “followers of Jesus.”