From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Part 2 of a series. Read part 1.

Editor's Note: The 76th Annual Convention of the American Council of Christian Churches met in Greenville, South Carolina from October 24-26, 2017. The convention approved five resolutions on critical issues confronting Christians and the church in our time. In this series we present those resolutions for the edification and encouragement of God's people. - Dr. Paul Elliott [3]

Resolution on Racism

God created mankind in His image (Gen. 1:26-27), and through the first man, Adam, this divine image was passed on to all men (Gen. 5:1-3), though greatly marred by Adam's fall into sin. Years later, Adam's descendants congregated at Babel to build a tower to ascend unto heaven. God frustrated their plans by confounding their language, and He scattered them by ethnicity all over the earth (Genesis 11). Though dispersed geographically, each individual of every ethnicity continued to bear equally the dignity of God's image (James 3:9b). God "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth" (Acts 17:26).

In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus commands His followers to go and make disciples of all these nations. Christians are to proclaim the good news of Christ's atoning sacrifice to reconcile sinners unto God. Jesus assures His disciples that there will be a great harvest of souls from "every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation'' (Rev. 5:9).

The authors of Scripture further declare that Christ's sacrifice reconciles both believing Jews and Gentiles "unto God in one body,'' the universal church (Eph. 2:19). These disciples are then called to join local churches in worshipping their Lord and Savior and in utilizing their spiritual gifts for the edification of the saints and the evangelization of the lost (Heb. 10:25, 1 Corinthians 12-14).[1] Paul explains that within and among these assemblies, each believer, whether Jew or Gentile, is a brother in Christ and ought to be treated as such (Col. 3:11-14). No church office or ministry is to be withheld from a believer due to his ethnic, social, or economic status (Acts 6:1, 13:1).

Sadly, whether influenced by evolutionary dogma, religious conviction and zeal, or other influences of human depravity, many throughout history have rejected these texts of Scripture in favor of racist ideology. They have wrongly concluded that some ethnicities are of an inferior blood to others and therefore should be discriminated against in some way. In practice, this has led to lynching, race-based slavery, gang violence, disenfranchisement, segregation, genocide, race-identity politics, conspiracy theories about ethnic groups, mandatory racial quotas, racial slurs, race-baiting, collective/corporate racial guilting for the sins of specific individuals (contrast Deut. 24:16), and other forms of race hatred.

Therefore, the American Council of Christian Churches at its 76th annual convention, October 24-26, 2017, at Faith Free Presbyterian Church in Greenville, SC, resolves to decry the sin of racism, especially in the professed Church. "God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him'' (Acts 1O:34-35). Therefore, professing believers should not have "the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons'' (James 2:1). "If ye fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,' ye do well: but if ye have respect of persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors" (James 2:8-9). [2]

References:

1. See the 2016 ACCC "Resolution on the Assembly of Believers," https://accc4truth.org/2016/11/15/the-assembly-of-believers.

2. At its 76th convention the ACCC also rescinded and repudiated a 1957 convention resolution which, while a product of its time and mainly a response to Communist subversion then taking place in the National Council of Churches, wrongly defended racial segregation within churches. 

3. Dr. Elliott is a member of the ACCC Executive Committee.

Next: Resolution on Evangelicalism and Martin Luther King, Jr.

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