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Charlottesville and Dinner

Crazy couple weeks. It’s been a crazy couple weeks. Not just for us but for the nation. And I know Jesse talked last week about some of the stuff that’s been happening in Charlottesville and other places. But I want to say something that I don’t think I NEED to say, but I am going to say it.

It is the official position of Outlet, and our leadership here :

White Supremacy and all other types of racism are incompatible with the message of Jesus Christ.

That’s not a polical statement. You simply CAN NOT call Jesus King and believe that nonsense. It is ‘anti-Christ’ in every sense of the word.

And shame on any so called Christian who would want to attach the name of Jesus to a movement like that.

In fact a pastor this past week said “Heaven will be a white supremacists hell.” They’ll show up and be shocked.


OF COURSE – Other Kinds Racism.

And I really hope that everyone in this room would agree with that. And OF COURSE there’s other kinds of racism, from other races that shows itself in different ways, that is absolutely just as evil.

But I think in a lot of ways: White suremacy is ‘our racism’, and by ‘our’ I mean evangelical christianity. You don’t have to zoom back very far to find evangelical Christian churches condemning the movement of Martin Luther King Jr for example. And please understand, that’s not some distant memory, that was 49 years ago. So whenever it pops up, it’s important for us to name it, and to speak against it.

Ex: Bad – Christian theology. – Hindu. It’s kinda like bad Christian theology. I’m sure there’s bad hindu philosophy too, but I’m going to bring up bad Christian theoology, b/c it’s OUR bad theology. Does that make sense? And I wish I could say that White Suremacy and Christianity aren’t still linked together, but the sad fact is that in a lot of areas it still is, unfortunately.

Politics ≠ repenting. And I’ve told you before that one of my fundamental issues with politics in that it insulates us from repenting. You know what nobodies doing? Repenting. You know what everybodies doing? Pointing the finger at somebody else. And that’s not the Jesus way. So when the racism that my tribe has been guilty of rears it’s ugly head, I’m just going to repent of it. And renounce it.


So today, I want to say that white supremacy is from the pit of hell. And if someone doesn’t think that, then it just proves how ignorant that person is. If Jesus was to walk into this room, he would look far more brown than white. A white supremacist wouldn’t even want to hang out with Jesus.


Revelation 7:9-10

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. (Revelation 7:9)

And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:10)

Sometimes I zoom out and I just think: God save us.


Hebrew Phrase

“Tikkun Olam”

“To repair the world.”

We believe that that’s found in Jesus. We believe that’s the mission of God.


So how do we participate in that?

1. We vow to beome healers not haters.

The anger of man ≠ produce – justice- God. (James 1:20)


God’s grace and mercy is for the oppressed; and it’s also for the oppressor.

It’s for the racially oppressed, but it’s also for the racist.

If that’s shocking, it might help to remember that the early Christian church contained both slave owners and slaves. Pacifists and military generals. Violent revolutionaries. Corrupt tax collectors and anarchistic zealots.


And so: How do you learn to see people not as enemies, but bothers. Even thought who are radically different than you: Through prayer.

Forgiveness is best born from the awareness of our own brokenness and imperfection.

2. (Jesse Hardin): “We embrace the beautiful discomfort of diversity.”

I love what Jesse Hardin said last week. And we have to get comfortable living life with people who look and think very differently than we do.

Grateful – Outlet And that’s one of the reasons I’m so grateful for a community like Outlet, with different skin tones, and age brackets, and political views, and social classes, but we can all come together under the banner of Jesus Christ and truly love each other, and listen to each other. And be family together. And so I want to encourage you, as we head to the back patio to eat tacos, to learn to appreciate the wonderful differences between each other, and how that doesn’t make us weaker, it actually makes us stronger.