Who is Driving the Narrative on Race?

The World or the Church?

Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

One of the criticisms of certain evangelicals (“Big Eva,” the “elite,” “woke evangelicals,” “winsome evangelicals,” etc.) is that they have a bad habit of following the world’s narrative on social issues. So, after the Trayvon Martin killing in 2012, many white evangelicals (slowly) began to start paying attention to concerns raised by black evangelicals and Americans in general that there are racial disparities, biases, and prejudices still operating in America. Already in 2011 John Piper had released a book on racism and Christianity. There was (some) institutional support behind Christian racial reconciliation projects for several years in the mid 2010s: scholarships for people of color to attend seminaries, conferences highlighting racial injustice and the gospel, lots of articles, etc. It was socially acceptable for evangelical leaders to address racial issues in America. Some people would accuse them of being “cultural marxists,” but for the most part it was socially acceptable. To be concerned about racial injustices was not coded as progressive, for a time.