Bloodlines Review

The issue of race is easily one of the single most difficult things to talk about in our culture. Sadly, any wishful thinking that the election of a black president would wipe the slate clean for future generations has proved entirely wrong. As a country we are still mired in issues of race, from the pop culture debate surrounding Quentin Tarantino's latest revengeploitation film, Django Unchained, to last years killing of Trayvon Martin and the subsequent social media campaigns, to idiots at anti-Obama rallies with signs saying "Keep the White in the White House," to the impulse of some on the left to credit any dissent from Obama as bigotry, to the more recent idiotic statement of (former) ESPN talking head Rob Parker about quarterback Robert Griffin III's who qualifies as only "kinda black" for such grievous sins as being a Republican and engaged to a white woman. It is safe to say we have failed to move on.

And it is still a difficult topic to discuss. A lot of confusion stems from people, especially white people, being unsure of exactly how they can contribute to a conversation about race without said conversation being a) white people being told how bad they are, or b) being criticized for their participation in this conversation, no matter how careful and thoughtful they are. Last year I taught freshman in college how to write, and as we all know, integral to one's success in writing is the ability to fully understand white privilege. Or so the curriculum seems to think. I brought in an article to class one day about the Madden 2012 football video game which had just been released. The author of the article was (self) righteously indignant about the color scheme the Madden engineers had chosen for the customizable player option. If you are a quarterback, default is white; running back, you're black; lineman, white; and so on. How in this day, the author asked, could we be so backwards as to buy into all of these old stereotypes about white quarterbacks and speedy black athletes? One of my white students threw up his hands in despair and asked, "How do we win?" At the heart of his anguished plea was this question: what could the gamemakers have done that would not have elicited a negative response? Make all players black? That would be furthering the stereotype that blacks are only good at sports. Make them all white? Oh, boy. In other words, if you're looking for racism under every stone, you can easily stretch yourself to find it. And my students wanted to know how it was possible to navigate that landscape without someone taking a shot at you; wasn't it easier to just not try?

And into this mess comes John Piper and his book Bloodlines: Race, the Cross, and the Christian. Cognizant of the current situation regarding race, Piper is super aware of the reality that if you speak about race you will be criticized. For some you will go too far; for some not far enough. For some your recommendations will seem too extreme, for others too mild. To some you will sound apologetic for the racism of the past, to others you will sound too harsh on people who lived in different times. It is enough to make one throw one's hands up and quit. But, gladly, Piper didn't do that.

He begins by recounting his youth in South Carolina, where he imbibed the racial prejudices of the culture around him. For example, his childhood church voted in 1965 to not allow blacks to become members. His defiant mother proudly escorted an African American family the Pipers were friends with into the church when her daughter was married, but the culture around him was violently anti-black. South Carolina held out until the 90s before recognizing interracial marriages. So that was his situation and it took awhile for him to see how profoundly it affected the way he viewed races.

Piper's background is important because it sets the stage for what becomes the guiding thesis for his book: he was rebuked for his racism, repented, and taught to live another way by his acceptance of the Reformed theology of the Christian faith. The answer, then, for fighting racism is not some airy liberal do-goodism, the motivation for which is quite usually baseless, but acceptance of hard, yet liberating Christian truth. What white people need and what black people need isn't more conversation about grievances, important as it is to be aware of the very real grievances black Americans have historically and still currently suffer from white Americans, but to come to Jesus.

This is not exactly a surprising answer, given Piper's theological convictions, but it is a convincing answer. The Church is/has been/will be complicit in any number of shortcomings, and historically racism looms large. In many ways, most churches are still functionally segregated. Piper's response to this is that the racial situation of the church, past and present, is largely a failure of application and not doctrine. Lest this seem like a convenient copout--Christianity is great, except for all the Christians!--Piper backs it up with his customary deep exegesis. 

The exegesis is based on an explication of the five traditional doctrines of the Reformed faith, the infamous TULIP acronym. Piper goes chapter by chapter showing how adherence to these doctrines (formed as they are on the testimony of scripture) undoes the ability to view other races as inferior or somehow less beloved of God. What first attracted me to Reformed/Calvinist doctrine, apart from the fact that its expositors didn't seem afraid to confront the whole Bible, was the way that it leveled the playing field for all men. That T up there in the acronym stands for total depravity, which is not a great way of putting it, but essentially means that we are all equally dead in sin and therefore all equally unworthy of God's grace. Everything we have is unmerited favor. You can brag about unmerited favor, but you come off sounding pretty lousy, like the parodied Republican in this year's 30 Rock that complained about how unfair taxation on the rich was because he "earned my trust find by always being polite to grandfather."

In other words, Reformed theology systematically undercuts everything that we use to puff ourselves up: high birth, accomplishment, etc. Instead what we have is all due to and emanates from God's free grace. I cannot look down on anyone, because I in no way deserve or earned what I have been given. Racism is founded on the idea of superiority, that of one racial group over another. Christianity undermines the very idea of superiority, putting us all on the same level.

Christ came to break down the barriers we have erected through sin, both the barriers that keep us from God and those that keep us from one another. In Paul's great chapter on love, which Piper doesn't have space to treat here, he speaks about how he now sees in a glass dimly and that one day he shall behold face to face and know even as he is fully known. It by no means stretches the text to apply its future vision to other people as much as self-knowledge of knowledge of God. That is restoration, or true sight, to fully see one another in our God-bestowed glory.

Some no doubt will complain that Piper's solution is unnecessary. The idea is now ubiquitous in our culture that we can be good without God, that even requiring some spiritual motivation to love others and seek racial harmony shows weakness. All that I can say to that is those people have little idea how much they are leaning on the Christian ethical tradition to make the self-evident claims they want to make. There are precious few cultures in the world not based on a Christian worldview in which racial harmony, freedom of religion, or equality of the sexes are even broad cultural goals. We didn't arise out of the primordial muck loving one another and seeking justice.

Piper shows how wonderfully and completely the love for others inherent in Reformed theology applies across races. How integral to the vision of Jesus and the mission of his Church is racial harmony. This is another key point in the book: Christ's mission was to desegregate a heavily segregated world. He shows favor to Gentile and Samaritans and women. In the final words to his disciples he tells him that they will be his witnesses all over the world--to Jew and Gentile alike. In St John's apocalyptic vision in the book of Revelation he sees a stream of people from every tribe, tongue, nation, and people in procession to worship the glorified Christ. Christ's mission is for his followers to go the world; its fulfillment is that people from every ethnic group on this planet will one day praise his name.

In closing I will mention briefly why Piper named the book what he did, for I find it to be quite beautiful. Worldly bloodlines have caused a lot of harm in this world. People can be either too proud or too humiliated over their ancestors and their history. What Christ does is abolish our worldly bloodlines and establish a new bloodline: one that starts at the cross and flows freely in every person under the sun who bows at the name of Jesus, our Savior and Uniter. To God's unquenchable glory.