Let me explain the charming little drawing above. A couple weekends back, Cooper and I took a day trip to Phoenix (I basically just wanted to get out of town and have some fun with my husband, and visit a friend). One of the things we did that day was go to the Arizona Science Center. I think I had been there before, but I didn't really remember it, and it seemed like a fun thing to do with Cooper. And it was. It's a hands-on museum aimed at grade-school kids, so we spent the day playing with the various exhibits and learning grade-school level science facts. Pretty fun.
However, the museum was featuring an exhibit on race (inspired, I think, by the election of our first black president two years ago). Overall, the exhibit was very interesting, even if it was, in my opinion, a bit too politically charged to really fit in well with a science museum (I'll get into that more shortly). It talked about how the biological and genetic differences between people of two different defined races are actually minimal, and that two people within any one race can differ just as much, if not more so, than people of two separate races. Interesting. Totally true. I had heard that sort of thing before. With the advent of DNA testing, we are learning so much about what makes us people, and I think it's great that we are finding that we are much more alike, even genetically, than we are different, despite a huge diversity in physical appearance. I learned, for instance, that fingerprints, blood type and height, which have been proven to be genetically determined, have little to do with race.
However, at the end of the exhibit was a place where kids (or anybody, really), could draw a picture in reaction to the exhibit. The picture above was one in the album that I thought intriguing, and somewhat frightening.
Notice what the little girl (who happens to share my name, it seems), drew. She draws some stick figures, labels them with race names, and puts them all in a box together, supposedly friends. Now on the outside of that box is a mean looking stick figure, with the label "races" (I know she meant "racist"), and then a nice bold "Not friend" pointing to it.
Now, let me make something really really really clear, a very pointed disclaimer. Racism and prejudice are wrong. Dead wrong. I personally think one of the most beautiful things God did with the human race was give us a rainbow of colors, experiences, and cultures. I think it's stunning. I can't wait to be at the banquet table of heaven, look down the line, and see a myriad of colors around me (I share Randy Alcorn's belief that "race" will be apparent in heaven, because it is a part of who we are on earth, and I don't think God is going to erase all that makes us unique once we are in heaven). In fact, that is what I love so much about the Gospel; more than any other religion, Christianity is a faith that celebrates the beauty of God-given diversity, while uniting us in a really profound way under the lordship of Jesus. My Christian family will no doubt be in agreement with me: we can meet someone of an entirely different people group, language, and culture, but if we share a faith in Jesus, there is immediate connection and unity. It can't be described, but it's wonderful, and if you are on the outside looking in on that experience, I pray you will one day understand it. It is the kind of unity that cannot be imitated or counterfeited apart from Christ, as much as people try to do so. So when racism exists, it spits in the face of God. It spits in the face of His boundless creativity. It spits in the face of what makes us individuals, made in His image.
Nevertheless, I see something dangerous reflected in this drawing. I'm sure the little girl meant well. I have no doubt she did. But it reveals, I think, a very real, and very frightening double-standard of tolerance, defined in our modern context, that I think is being taught in public school classrooms to our children.
The double-standard is this: We tolerate everyone, except those who are not tolerant (the "racist not friend"). Now, that is not a very accurate definition of tolerance. Originally, tolerance meant that you put up with something that was unfavorable or undesirable. Now, tolerance means that everything is desirable, and you must believe and practice that, or else you are ostracized and labeled.
But do you see the problem here? Modern tolerance expects us to tolerate everyone, and yet as soon as someone does not tolerate everyone, that person is not tolerated. It's a contradiction of the value being taught, but we see it everyday. If you are a Christian, and someone has ever called you "intolerant" for believing that Jesus is the only way to God (I have), then you know what I mean. The people who are "intolerant" are not tolerated, creating a disturbing contradiction. But Christians aren't the only victims of this. Just a couple weeks ago, NPR fired Juan Williams for making a criticizing remark on Fox News about Muslims. The funny thing is, Juan Williams is in no way a conservative. In fact, he's extremely liberal. But he learned, I'm sure, that not even liberals are safe if they cross that sacred line of "tolerance" (again, not saying I agree with his remarks, I actually don't know what I think about them yet, but I mention this to illustrate my point). This sort of thinking results in the very prejudice that these so-called "tolerant" people are trying to avoid.
I think though that this is more indicative of an even deeper problem, and that is that a value system is being taught, or perhaps even indoctrinated, in public institutions of education. Despite the fact that these institutions insist on being secular and untouched by religion (which is good, if they are receiving public funding), they nevertheless are teaching a theological standpoint; even if it is one devoid of an acceptance of divine power (or an acceptance of
every divine power), it a religious viewpoint nevertheless, and therefore a violation of First Amendment rights. One friend, who attended a private Christian college for her undergrad studies, and is now going to a public one for her graduate degree, put it this way: "At a Christian school, you expect to be taught values. But when I came here, I didn't expect to be taught values, because this was a non-religious school. And yet I'm being taught values." Another friend of mine once told me that statistics show that those who are more educated (aka, go to college), tend to drift towards a lack of belief in God. His point was that the more you learn about the natural world, the less a theological explanation makes sense. However, I think these statistics are more indicative of the value systems of "non-religious" institutions than of a gaining of knowledge, because that causal explanation quickly falls to pieces when confronted with the fact that there are many very intelligent people who hold PhDs and have high regard and respect within academia and who are also very religious.
So here, I believe, is Biblical tolerance. If we, as Christians, run across someone within our community who is racist, we should still love them, even if we know that what they believe is wrong, rather than ostracize them and label them "not friend." And hopefully, in loving them, we would show them their error and they would repent. Even better, if we are loving people like this, we are doing something very different from the world, and that is being truly tolerant of everyone, the way Jesus was. That did not mean that he approved of, or put up with sinful thinking and behavior. He did not. But He was patient with and loving towards sinners. If He wasn't, where would all of us be?
