Dr. Martin Luther King, the apostle of non-violence in the civil rights movement, has been shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee. Police have issued an all-points bulletin for a well-dressed young white man seen running from the scene. Nearly 50 years ago today, that's Walter Cronkite on air April 4th, 1968.

He was standing on the balcony of a second floor hotel room tonight when, according to a companion, a shot was fired from across the street. And before we jump into today's episode, it reminds me that the MLK 50 conference is coming up in a few days in Memphis. And Pastor John, I know you're looking forward to it.

And on the second evening of the conference, on Wednesday, April 4th, which marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Pastor John, you'll be delivering the final plenary session at 8.30 p.m. local time in a message titled "The Glory of God and Racial Unity." Really looking forward to that.

That's Wednesday, April 4th, 8.30 p.m. in Memphis. Today's question is related. What does John Calvin have to do with racial reconciliation? In fact, does Reformed theology obstruct racial unity, or does it offer a way forward? The question today comes in from a listener named Drew. "Hello, Pastor John. I live in the South and attend a church that holds to Reformed theology and does great work for the gospel of Christ in our city.

My question, do you think it's possible for people in the Reformed world to use theology as an excuse to distance themselves from churches that are predominantly African American in order to avoid any deep issues or discussions of race that come up? How do we fight this and gladly partner with our brothers and sisters in Christ and address the real issues of racial history that exist, especially with churches that are less obviously Reformed in their theology?" The first thing I would say is that the sinful human heart—that is, my heart, your heart, all hearts—is capable of taking every theology under the sun and every doctrine in the Bible and using it to advance our own personal preferences, even sinful preferences.

As far as the content of Reformed theology goes, I think there is as much or more truth for the overcoming of racial and ethnic animosities in this theology as there is in any other theology. I would even say there is more. But accurately articulated biblical doctrine by itself is not a sufficient dam against the rushing currents of sin that flow in the human heart.

We are not saved merely by accurately rehearsing and believing right doctrine. We are saved by a transforming miracle of the Holy Spirit called new birth. And that new birth brings into being not merely new ideas about God and salvation and humanity and heaven and hell, but gloriously new affections and desires and longings and attitudes and dispositions.

And this radical, miraculous, Spirit-wrought transformation, with its utterly essential manifestation in ongoing growth in grace and knowledge and love and wisdom, that new birth is all-important in dealing with matters of racial tension. So, no, I don't believe the content of Reformed theology is a stumbling block to the pursuit of racial harmony and racial diversity.

In fact, I think the content of Reformed theology is wonderfully, positively explosive in its true implications for overcoming racial hostility and suspicion and distrust and dislike. But I'll say again, any theological position, anyone, can be made the servant of sin and is in fact made the servant of sin somewhere in the world.

Right doctrine in the life of the church is profoundly important. I've given much of my life to it. But even more important is the radical, supernatural, Spirit-wrought miracle of new birth that creates a new kind of human being. You might even say a new race, a new race that cuts across every racial and ethnic distinction, a new humanity that is not in its essence and not in its decisive, controlling heart, white or black or Asian or American or British or German or Cherokee or Southern.

But let me point out a little catch in something I've said, and you probably picked it up if you're sharp. I said the content of Reformed theology is not a stumbling block to racial harmony. And the reason I stressed the word "content" is because the very existence of doctrine, theology, complicates racial harmony because it complicates human harmony.

Every church that believes that unbiblical doctrine damages people, and that's certainly what I believe, unbiblical doctrine damages people. Every church that believes that, every person that believes that will, for the sake of love, experience tension with other churches and other people that believe and teach unbiblical doctrine. They can't treat it as negligible if it hurts people and dishonors God.

And by doctrine, I simply mean how you understand the Bible and what it teaches about the nature of God and the nature of Christ and the Holy Spirit and the atonement and the nature of faith and what's the Christian life like and how do you live it, what's heaven and hell like, and how do you avoid going to one and go to the other.

If a church down the street treats the Bible as one religious source among many and treats Christ merely as an exemplary teacher and belittles the substitutionary atonement as divine child abuse and marginalizes the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit in sanctification, my relational harmony with that church and those folks is going to be much more complicated than if they believe the historic Christian things I believe.

And that's true whether that church is predominantly white or predominantly black. During most of my ministry, it has been much harder to relate to liberal white churches in Minneapolis than it has been to relate to Bible-believing black churches that we had connections with. So what I'm saying is that it's not the content of Reformed theology or the content of Arminian theology per se that creates problems for racial harmony, but the very existence of doctrine.

Doctrine itself complicates that harmony because it complicates human harmony. If a predominantly black church or a predominantly white church or any other kind of ethnic church believes and teaches unbiblical doctrines, this is added to any racial or ethnic challenges of harmony. But they're not the same. They're not the same since the doctrinal challenges exist among people of the very same race and the very same ethnicity.

So let me give four very brief bullet points on what we might do in view of this multi-layered challenge of relationships between racially and doctrinally different churches. Number one, let there be recurrent, earnest, biblical preaching and teaching on the blood-bought beauty of ethnic diversity according to Revelation 5-9. The shedding of His blood—by His shed blood—Christ ransomed people from every people, language, tribe, and nation.

Racial harmony and unity and love and respect and delight cost Jesus His life. Not to want it—and I say this—every church in any culture that has a history of alienation, not to want this, not to love this, not to pursue this is to belittle the blood of Jesus. Number two, let us preach and teach and counsel and converse in such searching and probing and fearless ways that we identify and name and root out every form of ethnic lovelessness.

Number three, let us realize that there are many different kinds of togetherness that may be appropriate for people holding significant doctrinal views. There are friendships and work relationships and conferences and conversations and seminars and ethical causes, as well as various kinds of services, so we don't have to despair of any kind of connectedness with people across racial lines if there happen to be certain doctrinal barriers in the way.

Number four, let us find ways of saying to each other and to the community that if there are doctrinal convictions that create some limits of togetherness, it is not the racial differences that divide us. Let's work at finding ways to say that, make that clear. And number five, finally, let there be an empathetic effort in our churches to know and understand the past and present streams that feed the river of present tensions.

Let's not live with our head in the sand. - So good. Thank you, Pastor John. And if you want to see how Reformed Theology relates to racial reconciliation, see Pastor John's book, Bloodlines. And again, if you're in Memphis or plan to attend the MLK50 conference, be looking for Pastor John's final plenary session, Wednesday, April 4th, 8.30 p.m.

local time. Don't miss it. And thank you for listening and continuing to support this podcast by listening and financially supporting our labors. You can stay current with the Ask Pastor John podcast episodes in your phone or device by subscribing through your preferred podcast app or by listening through our YouTube channel.

And if you'd like to search our past episodes or to listen to our most popular episodes all time or to send us a question, you can do those things at our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. Well, we're going to break for the weekend. And on Monday, we're going to return to talk about the Great Commission and who did Jesus give the Great Commission to?

It's a really good question. You don't want to miss. That's on Monday. We'll see you on the other side of the weekend. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -