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Now, there’s been no shortage of efforts to engage millennials and to promote racial reconciliation. But there’s reason to hope that OneRace may succeed. Long before, and hopefully, long after August 25, tens of thousands of Christians of all races, ethnicities, and denominational affiliations gathered in small groups to pray.
Obviously, we believe that this kind of prayer can help to bring about the revival OneRace and other Christians seek. Any endeavor undertaken in the name of Jesus must have prayer at its heart.
But this emphasis on prayer also aids in the building of relationships across the lines that have previously divided Christians. Their goal is “To inspire 100,000 cross-cultural relationships and 1,000,000 acts of kindness.”
As a BreakPoint colleague has noted, for most, if not all, of American history, white and black Christians have traveled on parallel but separate tracks despite their shared faith. Coming together to pray is a way getting people, to stretch the metaphor to the breaking point, to ride on the same train.
The other grounds for hope is that organizers are realistic about the task ahead of them. As John Stonestreet said yesterday on The Point, “True racial reconciliation is hard, and fraught with political, theological, and personal landmines.”
As Garland Hunt told CBN, the process will make people feel uncomfortable at times. Navigating a potential minefield usually does. But we have no choice. If the people who bear the name of the one who with His blood, purchased for God . . . “men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation,” can’t pull off being one race, what hope is there for the rest of the world?
Christians are called to run into the cultural mess and not away from it. We are at our best when we respond to brokenness with truth and grace, starting with our own. That’s why OneRace is an effort worth knowing about and supporting—or even replicating in your community and state.
Because if we don’t do this vital work, who will?
You can find out more about One Race at OneRaceMovement.org. Or of course, come to BreakPoint.org and we’ll link you to it.