A reflection by Phil Stokes
Paul uses his Roman citizenship repeatedly in Acts.
When he does, the reactions of those around him are very telling. When Paul and Silas are released from prison in Acts 16, Paul declares that both he and Silas are Roman citizens. Paul says that the magistrates ‘..have beaten us in public, uncondemned men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and now are they going to discharge us in secret? Certainly not! Let them come and takes us out themselves!’. When Paul’s words are relayed to the magistrates ‘..they were afraid when they heard that [Paul and Silas] were Roman citizens; so [the magistrates] came and apologised to them.”
On Monday, the 25th of May George Floyd was arrested in Minneapolis, was placed in handcuffs placed face down on the floor. Four police officers pinned him down, clearly one of the them placing his knee on Georges neck for 9 minutes. George pleaded for his life and told the officer he couldn’t breath. He was so desperate that he even called for his mother and begged ‘please, please, please..’ But his plea was ignored. He was suffocated and died there on the ground in broad daylight, crushed and unheard by a white person in authority. This image is sickening and repulsive to anyone with any shred of humanity, and yet sadly represents the experience of many of the BAME community. As one person wrote; “The death of George Floyd is the death of every black human. When we saw the lifeless body of George Floyd, White knee on Black neck, we saw ourselves”
This image has become iconic of what many in the BAME community experience.
I believe this is a global kairos moment, a pivot point that could challenge spiritual powers and principalities that hold the earth in their sway.. an opportunity that could lead to a transformation. There is also seemingly an awakening in the UK. Not for those that are suffering, but for those who offered kind words in the past but failed to follow through. I consider myself to be among them. I am not condemned for I am in Christ… but I am convicted and convinced that there needs to be an increase of discussion, empathy, education, and action.
Another friend has written: ‘Covid-19 has caused us to stop …to think deeply … to realise where we have been too busy to respond. Now it is all out in the open and there are no more excuses. Black people have fought long and would love to pass on the baton to our brothers and sisters that are not BAME to fight on our behalf. After all, are we not one body?’
We are indeed one body .. and systemic racism has to be addressed wherever it is found. We cannot argue that the church should not be involved in politics. We of course we report to a higher authority, but what we see in that story in Act 16 is that Paul used his ‘privilege’ as a Roman citizen to challenge the behaviour of his arresting soldiers.. and even to extract an apology from the courts before he would agree to leave the prison!
We in the West are a society that assumes our recourse to Law. But the reality is that we do not see that law applied equally across Race, Age, Gender, and Economics. This is what feeds the rage that divides communities.
The church of course is ‘above’ human law, in that we are called to be seen to be holding ourselves to a higher standard than the world, because in doing so we can challenge the ‘powers and principalities’ of this world, calling them to render justice and to cease their oppression. What that looks like in practice is a Kingdom community in which, for all legal and social purposes there is ‘..neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female.’ (Gal 3:28) The working out of that is that those with racial, gender or economic privilege (and I would add; generational privilege) are to use that power wherever possible to defend the cause of those with less privilege. This is the constant cry of the OT prophets. It is picked up by Jesus and it is amplified by the early church. This is the ‘power under’ that is ultimately expressed and fulfilled through the cross of Christ
We don’t serve a corruptible democracy, we serve an incorruptible Kingdom. But democracies invite our participation, and in our capacity as Kingdom citizens, wherever we have such privilege we are invited to use that to challenge the powers that be, and in particular, call the to render justice to the poor or defenseless.
I don’t have all the answers to this difficult question, and I challenge the idea that there are leaders who do. But we can acknowledge the pain, we can repent for passivity, we can resolve to use any privilege for a higher purpose, we can take a knee, and we can insist at the very least that justice and law account to its own earthly standards.
Comments welcome.
Love the article. Truly. My only thought is that since we find ourselves separating “the BAME community” into a term or section other than the common community of those who call a nation it citizenry, we have not yet fully understood the problem. Kingdom thinking no longer sees the Redeemed or the yet to be so this way, yet appreciates the value of what that old creation and carnal culture has done in the development of the person who would know Christ. Only in dealing with the way of the world must we utilize old labels to do as Paul shrewdly did with his citizenship, and I do think it likely that he may have even done so for the sake of his companion more than himself? Jesus came for the Jew first, as did Paul, but only to demonstrate the faithfulness on God’s part to His precious promises and covenants to those used by God to bring the beautiful thing about: that by His grace through faith in Christ, we may all be His beloved children for all eternity.