Is Race Negligible?

The transgender debate has surfaced a new tolerance for the blurring of gender distinctions in our society (which, oddly enough, flies in the face of liberal ideology by embracing embodied gender roles - for a thoughtful discussion, read this article). With more Americans embracing gender as a fluid construct, can the same be said of race? The now former Spokane AACP leader Rachel Dolezal proved that falsely claiming another racial identity is not something most Americans approve. Certainly, like gender, social constructs of inferiority and superiority come into play, but race has proved different. This week's tragic Charleston deaths, intended by the shooter as the start of a "race war," further demonstrated that race is still a highly charged issue in our society today. The Bible acknowledges that race is not a negligible point. Race matters. God set aside a people for himself in the nation of Israel and asked that they be set apart from other peoples. Yet God used non-Israelites for His purposes like Ruth the Moabite. Jesus crossed racial and societal barriers to reach out to the Samaritan woman. The Apostle Paul understood what it meant to be all things to all people. In the end, race is so significant that every nation, tongue, and tribe will be represented at the throne. "After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:10-11). 

It is at this point that what will matter most is not race, but the collective affirmation of the Lamb in a beautiful display of Christ as Savior of the world.