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one new man

One New Man

This past Monday marked Martin Luther King Jr. day and America was reminded once more of its long history of racial tension and racial reconciliation. One new book that seeks to address racial reconciliation from a gospel-perspective is One New Man: The Cross and Racial Reconciliation in Pauline Theology, by Jarvis Williams. In his review, Michael Nelson writes,

April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, TN.  Many have hailed him as the initiator of the beginnings of racial harmony in America.  Sure slavery ended with the close of the civil war more than a hundred years earlier, but racial divisiveness still continued.  Simply because on paper all men were considered equal did not mean in practice this was true.  To remedy this inequality, the U.S. government in 1965 enacted Affirmative Action as one of many laws to bring ethnic diversity.  Now in 2012, pastoring a church in a small town outside of Memphis, TN, it is evident that ethnic diversity is present, but somehow racial tension still exists. 

The reason for this is because ethnic diversity is not racial reconciliation.  Jarvis Williams, in his book One New Man, says “many Christians equate racial diversity with racial reconciliation, so they conclude if racial diversity is present, then racial reconciliation must be present as well” (5).  Many churches may think that they are doing well when they look out and see a diverse array of color, but still fail in the biblical concept of racial reconciliation.  Theoretically, Williams states, you could have the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan working for a boss who is an African American with co-workers of multiple backgrounds.  But he could still hate his boss and coworkers despite the ethnically diverse background he exists in (6).  Williams argues that racial reconciliation is much more than gathering a group of multi-ethnic people together who seem to be cordial with each other, but it is a bond formed in Christ that unites people of every race or background into one new man.  The way that Williams supports his premise is through three main chapters which comprise the majority of his book.

Read the rest of Michael Nelson’s review.

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