By: Josh Buice – deliveredbygrace.com – Jun 5, 2020

On May 25th 2020, the video of the mistreatment and subsequent death of George Floyd was a bombshell that rocked our nation. Within hours of the video that surfaced with officer Derek Chauvin on the neck of George Floyd, protests and subsequent city-wide riots broke out in Minneapolis and eventually, throughout the nation. Organizers of these protests continue to use the #BlackLivesMatter or #BLM hashtag as they call for justice in the case of Floyd.

Black Lives Matter was born during the height of the controversy surrounding the George Zimmerman trial in 2013. What started as a simple hashtag quickly grew into a cultural movement and subsequently—an entire social justiceorganization.

According to Herbert G. Ruffin II, the Black Lives Matter movement builds on past civil rights movements and infuses intersectionality as a means of fueling the new social justice movement. He writes:

Its organizational structure builds on the legacy of earlier reform campaigns, including the civil rights/black power movement, Pan Africanism, Africana womanism, the LGBT movement, and the Occupy Wall Street movement while using cyber activism to promote its agenda. Specifically, Black Lives Matter puts the feminist theory of “intersectionality” into action by calling for a united focus on issues of race, class, gender, nationality, sexuality, disability, and state-sponsored violence. [1]

If anyone should value life—including the lives of Black people—it should be the Church of Jesus. While every single Christian, regardless of ethnicity, should desire justice in the case of George Floyd, that doesn’t mean that Christianity must be baptized into the woke movement of #BlackLivesMatter whose worldview is rooted in ethnic partiality.

This is certain for several reasons, which I will detail in this article, but at the end of the day we must remember that Christianity is the world’s greatest message and if we as Christians will see real peace, love, and unity—it will only be through the gospel of Jesus.

The Radical Social Justice Agenda of #BlackLivesMatter

According to the Black Lives Matter website, they exist to work for “freedom, liberation, and justice.” They have a new agenda in 2020 called, #WhatMatters2020 which is described as follows:

BLM’s #WhatMatters2020 is a campaign aimed to maximize the impact of the BLM movement by galvanizing BLM supporters and allies to the polls in the 2020 U.S Presidential Election to build collective power and ensure candidates are held accountable for the issues that systematically and disproportionately impact Black and under-served communities across the nation. [2]

Notice the language of “power” which seems to be the central goal of the organization. They want to gain power so that they can change power structures within major arenas like the powerful seats of office within American politics and beyond. The woke social justice movement has mortally wounded the university system in our nation, negatively impacted businesses, and has now been infused within evangelicalism.

We continue to see this movement working through evangelical circles as proponents of social justice demand equality and continue to make the claim of ongoing present systemic racism that is dominating evangelicalism.

Pastor Eric Mason, the founding pastor of Epiphany Fellowship in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the author of Woke Church defines “woke” as an “urban colloquialism used by black nationalists and those who are in the black consciousness movement” to describe becoming fully aware of “the systemic, sociological, economic and comprehensive disenfranchisement of African-Americans.” In his book, he writes,

Colorblind theology denies Christ’s power to heal racial divisions, disparities, and injustices by ignoring their ongoing impact. Colorblind theology undermines unity in the church by refusing to acknowledge significant ethnic differences or address significant problems. [3]

Mika Edmondson addressed the Council of The Gospel Coalition in 2016 where he answered the question—“Is Black Lives Matter the New Civil Rights Movement?” In his address, he said the following, “I strongly recommend full engagement with the concept and critical engagement with the movement, especially since there’s no evangelical alternative to Black Lives Matter.” Is that true? I would argue that the Church of Jesus is the best place to minister and mobilize to make disciples who find their joy in Christ Jesus. Edmondson goes further to say:

Why am I not as torn up over this as non-Christians are? Why is Black Lives Matter more torn up over black people dying than [Christians] are? . . . They have more moral sense than we do! How can Black Lives Matter see the value of black life better than we can? [4]

I would argue that the Church of Jesus is torn up over the injustices of this world, but we grieve differently than the world and we have different goals than Black Lives Matter. The reason the Church looks different than Black Lives Matter is based on a fundamental goal of the movement itself. Black Lives Matter is about disrupting and changing power structures and the Church is about changing hearts with the good news of Jesus.

We can see the goal of disruption and political goals during a press conference in Atlanta for Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms to speak as the riots broke out in the city following George Floyd’s death. After she spoke, she turned over the microphone to a hip-hop artist named “Killer Mike” who approached the microphone with a shirt that read, “Kill Your Masters.” This is what he communicated to the citizens of Atlanta while rioters were busting windows of businesses, looting property, and burning police cars in the streets:

It is your duty not to burn your own house down for anger with an enemy. It is your duty to fortify your own house so that you may be a house of refuge in times of organization, and now is the time to plot, plan, strategize, organize, and mobilize. It is time to beat up prosecutors you don’t like at the voting booth. It is time to hold mayoral offices accountable…I’m mad as hell. I woke up wanting to see the world burn down yesterday because I’m tired of seeing black men die…we want to see the system that sets up for systemic racism burnt to the ground. [5]

He then finished his speech by encouraging people to register to vote and go to the polls in November and vote by exercising “bully power” to beat up politicians that “you don’t like.” He encouraged people to vote for progressive politicians who would legalize marijuana and topped it off by calling the President of the United States a “Dumbass President.” This is social justice 101, and it capitalizes on tragedy and emotions as a campaign to further their own agenda.

This is not the way of Jesus. Our God is the God of justice—he created justice—and our justice system is designed in such a way as to reflect the justice of God. Although our justice system is imperfect and upheld by imperfect people, we are called to be people of peace, law, and order. Christians are commanded to love God supremely and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Anyone who diminishes the value of human life and engages in ethnic prejudice is denying the way of Jesus. The Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel describes the Imago Dei in the following way in Article II:

WE AFFIRM that God created every person equally in his own image. As divine image-bearers, all people have inestimable value and dignity before God and deserve honor, respect and protection. Everyone has been created by God and for God.

——

WE DENY that God-given roles, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, religion, sex or physical condition or any other property of a person either negates or contributes to that individual’s worth as an image-bearer of God.

The modern social justice agenda is not about equality and civil rights—it’s about disrupting systems of power and gaining power in order to accomplish their progressive political agendas.

The Lawlessness and Injustice of #BlackLivesMatter

[…]

The Religion of #BlackLivesMatter

[…]

To see the remainder of this article and others from Delivered by Grace, click read more.

Source: Three Reasons Why Christians Should Reject #BlackLivesMatter