I took my kids for their annual checkups this morning and I found myself telling the doctor that no, I had not yet taken them to a dentist because I still think I can’t afford it. Going to the dentist is something people with money do.

A probably well-meaning person jumped down my throat on Facebook yesterday for saying that I cannot support any organization whose core values include man’s sovereignty over his own life. While I expect opposition to the concept, I did not expect such ignorance surrounding what the belief means. Sovereignty of God means (among other things) that man is accountable to God in all areas. I didn’t expect such blindness to the fact that asserting a persons right to be whoever and however they want to be (regardless of what God says about who we are) is a value statement that runs antithetical to the whole of Scripture.

We are not our own. We belong to God first, second to one another. We cannot simply choose our life’s path based on what works best for “me”. And if this isn’t the daily grind of rubber meets the road Christianity I don’t know what is. We find in the command to love God and love others an infinite lack in our own selves to accomplish anything remotely like the love Jesus showed us. And we find in our desire to do it anyway, however faltering and failing, an infinite grace that carries us and allows God’s love to shine even in our feeblest efforts.

I will be crying over the injustices I’ve heard about for long after everyone has moved on to the next thing. I grew up in neighborhoods where people got pulled over because their car was too nice. I watched the hostility first-hand towards any non-white civilian regardless of how polite he was. The lack of trust of the police runs so deep in these communities. But isn’t the onus always on the person with authority? It’s the police who need to offer the olive branch. Maybe if I went back to the South side now I would see it all differently, but growing up it was indelibly impressed upon me that the police are not the ones we can trust. And I’m white.

I have money now. I grew up “white trash” but my kids won’t know what that’s like. Even with a paycut since the pandemic, we aren’t struggling financially. And I have to acknowledge the privilege of my race in getting the breaks I’ve gotten. A young white female with wide blue eyes walks into an office far from home and says, “I can learn any software you give me quicker and better than anyone you’ve got working here,” and the hiring manager doesn’t scoff. She believes me. Because I look the part. Not because I’ve got the credentials. Most of my job experience was at Burger King. My little office experience was all due to my connections from my very white, affluent church back home.

I don’t believe that people of color are disadvantaged because it conveniently excuses me from feeling offended by their lack of culture. (Yes I said it; I really believe a significant amount of white people want to believe black people in particular “can’t help themselves” because “the poor dears are disadvantaged”.) I believe they’re disadvantaged because I’ve seen it. The lack of expectations. The “different rules” for “the bus kids” at AWANA. The assumption that they’re poor. The complete lack of surprise if a black teen turns up pregnant. All of this, and more. So much more. It isn’t right.

So when I got accused of racism for disagreeing with an organization that at its surface is about equality but truly at its core supports human sovereignty, I wasn’t upset at the accusation. I was upset that there was no understanding, no concept of God as a person with His own supreme values to which we either submit or rebel. As sad as racism makes me, as rife with injustice as I see this sin-sick world, I know that what we are seeing in racism is the result of a systemic problem far greater: the worlds system, opposed to truth.

To stand with an organization that buys into the world’s system and its greatest lie: that we can be the captains of our own destiny, is in the end to support the continuation of injustice. There has to be a better way.

I will make it a point to get my kids enrolled in activities with people of varying social status and skin color. The one “pro” on my pro-con list of public school vs homeschool is that public school will afford my kids the chance to make friends with people who actually cannot afford to see a dentist, not just people who think they can’t. As a mother of young kids my most important mission is to teach them justice, empathy, kindness. A generation raised on this and exposed to different values, cultures, and ideas will simply not be racist. What we’ve been missing is the acknowledgment of differences. Prior generations of white people (and some more privileged non-white people) thought we could erase the past and just move forward “color blind”. I think we know better now.

But more than anything I can do to teach, I must obey the ancient teachings and never forget:

“…as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.”
‭‭Colossians‬ ‭3:12-14‬ ‭NASB‬‬
https://www.bible.com/100/col.3.12-14.nasb