Kaleidoscope People

It’s much harder to be shocked than it used to be. Just when you think life isn’t becoming one giant reality television program someone does something to remind you just how ridiculous humans can be. Recently there was a pastors’ conference in a neighboring state that advertised that only white people could attend. Thankfully the group wasn’t Baptist in any shape or form; it was the Church of God Chosen, a non-affiliated church of Pentecostal persuasion. The leader of the conference is under fire from his entire town over his whites-only stance. His rationale: white people are God’s chosen people. His proof: the Bible. His diagnosis: Nuts! O.K., that’s my diagnosis of him and his theology.

I’ve read the entire Bible…the whole book…went to school to study it in more depth…even read the hard parts more than once…and it’s clear that white people were not God’s Chosen people. Do you think he realizes Jesus was Jewish? Has he been to the Middle East where people are all shades of brown and darker? The New Testament story was not centered in Sweden or Finland where the whitest white people live. Does he not realize God is color blind? God loves the Finns and Swedes and Jews all the same. What about the multi-hued peoples of America. Yep, even us, but not exclusively us, and certainly not just the melanin-impaired Americans.

Thank God today for His unconditional love and grace for all people groups. That’s really the story of the New Testament. Resist all temptation to look down at other people groups or individuals who are living life differently than we are. I’ve studied my genealogy…my family tree is like a grove of different trees…there’s red people, black people, brown people and all kinds of white people, even some crazy ones thrown in to spice up the mix. I’m a mutt. Most of us are. And God loves us anyway. That’s why they call it the Good News!

Michael McCullar