The Scandal of Particularity, Black Lives, and Jesus

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

God loves all people by loving a particular people.

The movement called “Black Lives Matter” has been a source of controversy among Christians. The affirmation that black lives matter should not be. The movement and some associated with it have at times made broad claims about a whole host of issues that are highly contested among Christians. Unfortunately, the controversy surrounding the movement has often drowned out the affirmation, confusing the Christian witness around the sacredness of black lives made in God's image.

The phrase “Black Lives Matter” originated in the national outcry following the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin. The social media hashtag became a grassroots movement following the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner in 2014, and the phrase continues to be used today by activists and everyday citizens. For the purposes of this essay, we will bracket the non-profit and the social movement identified with that name from the statement itself. The church, no less than wider American culture, has been riven over debates about this language. Activists insist "Black Lives Matter'' is a basic statement of humanity for many people who believe their lives are devalued by the legal system and American culture as a whole. Others are bothered by the exclusivity of this language and respond with, "All Lives Matter," or even in some cases, "Blue Lives Matter," or "All Black Lives Matter." 

On one level, arguments over language could be seen as tangential to larger questions such as equal justice under the law, criminal justice reform, and the fight against institutional racism. But, as Andy Crouch and others have argued, words matter because cultures are largely shaped by language. Moreover, most debate over this question has fallen along political and ideological lines. Even in the church, most responses have been either knee-jerk rejection or immediate appropriation. For the oceans of ink spilled in commentary, there has been little substantive theological engagement with this statement. It is thus worth exploring how a theological case for the statement "Black Lives Matter" might be made. This essay will explore this question, drawing on the missiology of Lesslie Newbigin, the work of the New Perspective school in Pauline studies, and the life of John Wesley.

Salvation Comes From the Jews

God redeems the whole through the particular. As Sandy Richter has helpfully shown in The Epic of Eden, the narrative arc of Scripture can be understood as a succession of unfolding covenants. Rather than covenants that replace one after another, they build and expand on what came before. Thus, the Noahic covenant is an agreement God makes with one man; the Abrahamic covenant is with one family, with a promise of incalculable expansion; the Mosaic covenant honors one nation; and Israel's vocation is fulfilled (not abolished, as Jesus says in Matthew 5:17) by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Because of Christ’s victory, the New Covenant becomes a gift to all people, as gentiles are incorporated into Israel's promises as a branch grafted onto a tree "like a wild olive shoot." (See Romans 9-11, especially.) In the arc of the biblical narrative, God works from the particular to the whole. The New Covenant continues this theme of particularity, as God blesses the whole world through the Spirit-empowered Body of Christ, fulfilling the promise of Jesus to “draw all people to myself” (John 12:32).

The Scandal of Particularity

Lesslie Newbigin, the great missiologist and ecumenist, used the phrase "the scandal of particularity" to describe how these divine acts outrage modern sensibilities. (See his classic The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, [Eerdman’s 1989], 79.) Modernity deals in universals. Thus, what is deemed true according to the scientific method is true because it is repeatable by observable data from repeated experiments across time and place. Similarly, Kant’s categorical imperative described ethically preferable options as those which could be fruitfully imitated by all people. Newbigin therefore argues that part of what outraged moderns about orthodox Christianity was its insistence that Jesus was not one of many paths to God but the final, most complete revelation of God's will and purpose. To paraphrase Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:3, no one can say "Jesus is Lord" but by denying authority to many other deities, faiths, and institutions which claim human allegiance. This is why many modern theologies de-scandalized Jesus by making him a political revolutionary, a social radical, or a spiritualized teacher with a unique God-consciousness. Classic Christianity, though, has always insisted on the singular authority of Christ and his Kingdom. In Robert Jenson's lovely turn of phrase, the Church has consistently affirmed, "God is whoever raised Jesus from the dead, having before raised Israel from Egypt” (Systematic Theology, Volume 1: The Triune God, [Oxford University Press], 63).

The Particularity of Israel

At the same time modern theology de-scandalized Jesus, it also practically erased Israel from the drama of redemption. Tragically, generations of de-judaizing the biblical narrative in Christian scholarship—especially in Germany—would feed into the National Socialist ideology that sought to erase Jews not merely from the biblical narrative but from history. In the wake of the Shoa, biblical scholars began to re-examine long-held prejudices about Judaism. The work of E.P. Sanders was especially important here to what came to be called—loosely, and probably unhelpfully—the "New Perspective'' on Paul. Moving away from Reformation-era readings shaped by anti-Catholic polemic, the New Perspective and those influenced by their work have done important work rehabilitating contemporary biblical scholarship's views of first-century Judaism and helping new generations of preachers and scholars better understand Israel's role in salvation history. The helpful new book Voices and Views on Paul by Jason Myers and Ben Witherington sheds light on these and other recent developments in Pauline studies.

The Origins of Race and Racism

These theological trends have much broader implications. Recently, scholars like Willie James Jennings have pointed to Christianity’s complicity in the origins of race and racism.

Christianity is inside Israel’s story. At a certain point in time, the people who began to believe that story were more than just the people of Israel, more than just Jews. And at some point in time, those new believers, the gentiles, got tired of being told that they were strangers brought into someone else’s story—that this was not their story. They began—very early and very clearly—to push Israel out from its own story. They narrated their Christian existence as if Israel were not crucial to it.

In this telling, the de-judaizing of Christianity, and of Jesus—which distorted the identity of Jesus into that of just another white European—was foundational for the origins of race as a concept and racism as institutionalized in practices like chattel slavery and colonialism. In other words, in forgetting the particularity of Jesus' Jewish flesh, it became possible to de-value the non-white flesh of others. By supplanting Israel as God’s chosen people, it became easy for colonial powers to claim divine authority for seizing people, land, and resources. A compromised caucasian Jesus, and a de-judaized Christianity, were thus used to underwrite not only racism in the church but in Western culture writ large.

A Personal Story

When I was in graduate school, I took a very formative course on black church history with an African American pastor. I vividly recall him saying in class, when discussing racism in the church, "Don't tell me what you believe about Jesus. Tell me how you feel about black people, and that will tell me everything I need to know about what you believe about Jesus."

At the time, I was somewhat confused by this, perhaps even scandalized along the lines that Newbigin described. In recent years, however, his point has become more and more obvious to me. If my apprenticeship to Jesus has not led me to empathy for and solidarity with my African-American sisters and brothers, I have clearly been following (at best) a very distorted vision of Jesus. But cultural blinders are not easy to see, especially to those of us who are used to being at the center of the church and society. Here, perhaps surprisingly, I find John Wesley a helpful observer of America’s story.

Wesley As A Guide

Though John Wesley is at a chronological and cultural distance from contemporary American debates, he remains a helpful conversation partner to disciples today. In fact, his last writing was a letter encouraging fellow evangelical William Wilberforce in his fight to rid Britain of slavery. In this correspondence, he refers to American slavery as "the vilest that ever saw the sun." 

Historians have often noted what Wesley hinted at as a contemporary: while slavery existed in many places across history, the American form of chattel slavery that endured for generations was a singularly brutal, dehumanizing instantiation. Perhaps, then, we should not be surprised if the legacy of slavery in America is especially arduous to overcome?

Wesley illustrates another point, too. His famous heart-warming experience at the society meeting on Aldersgate Street was (depending on which line of scholarship you follow) either an experience of conversion or assurance of salvation. In either case, what matters for our present inquiry is that Wesley felt the general love of God in a particular, personal way. He records, "I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."

It is one thing to believe that Jesus died for everyone; it is quite another to know that Jesus died for me. In a similar way, it is one thing to say to our generic, unspecified neighbor, "You matter. God loves everyone." It is quite another thing to tell our African-American neighbors, "Black lives matter to us and to the God we serve." Plenty of churches say they love everyone, until the ‘everyone’ who shows up does not look, talk, or dress like the majority of its members. 

Thus, it should not scandalize the church today that our black sisters and brothers are expressing a desire to hear that their lives matter. And yet, sadly, it is not surprising that this call has met with such resistance. Remember, the religious authorities clutched their pearls when Jesus associated with the marginalized. He was not crucified for loving a generic “everyone,” but for welcoming in particular the despised and outcast, exemplifying what our Catholic siblings have dubbed the Bible’s “preferential option for the poor.”

Conclusion: From the Particular to the General

God works, oftentimes, from the particular to the general. In the biblical drama, God acts through one family (Abraham) to bless the whole world (fulfilled in Christ, carried out by the Spirit-empowered church). As Newbigin names, such particularity is a scandal to the modern mind. On this reading, then, resistance to the impulse to emphasize the value of black lives is less a bold ‘conservative’ stance against encroaching wokeness, and more a form of capitulation to a Western culture constructed on flawed theology which despises the particularity of divine action.

I suspect some readers will find I have not gone far enough in this essay. Likewise, I imagine others will argue I have gone too far. I hope to learn from both sorts of critiques. I also realize that merely by offering this, I am in danger of centering myself in a conversation that is not about me. Yet I share these thoughts not as a final or authoritative word but merely as an attempt to think through contemporary challenges with a robust biblical and theological lens.

As "wild olive shoots" grafted into the particular story of God's people, gentile Christians would do well to recall the narrative arc of the biblical drama when considering the ongoing controversy over Black Lives Matter. As Jennings helpfully names, Christianity only exists because a gracious God has included us inside of Israel’s story. Gentiles are not the center of God’s story. In a similar way, white Christians who wish to address racial injustice may need to first attempt to de-center themselves. One way of doing that is for followers of Jesus who are not black to say to their neighbors: your lives matter.

Once more, it is not the purpose of this essay to defend the statements of the official organization, the stances of its leaders, or every action taken in the name of Black Lives Matter. That is a fool's errand. Let me be clear: I am a United Methodist pastor, and yet I would never desire or attempt to defend everything done by a leader or institution with the name United Methodist Church attached to it.

If, however, this essay has described the salvation-historical movement of God's covenantal grace accurately, then there is a theological case to be made that the church should be able to say to our sisters and brothers of color that their lives matter: to followers of Jesus, and to our Lord.

Christians in North America and Europe face a culture that is increasingly indifferent to the gospel. This is a shame, because the Wesleyan message of full salvation for all people—the message of radical, free, transformative grace—is beautiful and liberating. To reach all people, however, we may need to pay particular attention to some people. It is possible that outsiders cannot hear the church saying, "every life matters to Jesus," unless we first say, "black lives matter to Jesus."

Rev. Dr. Drew McIntyre is an Elder in the Western North Carolina Conference and the pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in Greensboro, NC.  To read more from Drew, visit his blog: https://drewbmcintyre.com/.