What Does True Racial Unity Look Like?
Moving beyond trite platitudes and toward genuine reconciliation
While I tend to focus on the worlds of film and television in my writing, popular culture involves more than just entertainment. It also includes more prickly topics, like politics and ethnic relations. Even though I never relish writing about hyper-partisan topics, I find myself doing so occasionally—especially as it pertains to ethnic relations in the United States.
The sad reality is that there is a dearth of material within Reformed circles on the topic of ethnic unity. However, a book released in 2021 by pastor and hip-hop artist Shai Linne, entitled The New Reformation, is a timely and welcome resource to fill the void. Rooted in Scripture and the rich traditions of the Reformation, Shai Linne’s book calls the church back to the core tenets of our faith in order to properly address the racial issues of our day. And because I found it so helpful, I wanted to share some highlights with my readers.
Linne’s two primary concerns are “the unity of the church and the church’s witness to the world” (15). Linne also explains the genesis of his book’s title:
[T]he Protestant Reformation wasn’t an end, but a crucial point in a continuing journey. As our forebears put it, “the church is always in need of being reformed according to the Word of God.” . . . As I look over both the historical and present-day landscape regarding ethnic unity in the church, it’s plain as day to see. We need a new Reformation. (98, 99)
The book is divided into four sections:
1. MY STORY: This first section is largely autobiographical, detailing Linne’s conversion to Christianity and subsequent involvement in “lyrical theology”—what he has described elsewhere as “using artful lyricism to provoke the study and knowledge of God, particularly in the context of hip-hop culture.”
2. BACKSTORY: Here, Linne walks his readers through snippets of church history, with a particular emphasis on the Reformation, evaluating how our understanding of the past can help us better understand and address a topic like racism.
3. HIS STORY: The third section develops a Scriptural understanding of “race,” tracing instances of ethnic disunity through the pages of Scripture, as well as the gospel implications for resolving ethnic sins.
4. OUR STORY: This fourth and final section examines some Scriptural principles and practices that can lead us toward greater unity, even if and when we don’t fully agree with each other.
Every time Linne mentions “race” or “racism” in the book, he puts those terms in quotation marks, emphasizing that he prefers the more Biblically-accurate term “ethnicity.” “As Christians,” he says, “it’s important for us to avoid allowing the world to dictate our agenda and how we talk about things” (107). Rather than using current terminology and categorizations, he organizes racial issues into six Scripturally-defined ethnic sins. (I would argue that two of his categories overlap, but that’s a minor quibble.)
The New Reformation studiously avoids the tendency to elevate racial issues to a level of equal importance with the gospel itself—what we might call a paradigm of “the gospel AND…” The danger in such an approach, simply put, is legalism: adding to the simplicity and sufficiency of the gospel. In contrast, Linne makes a case for “the gospel, THEREFORE…” (even though he doesn’t use that specific phraseology). This paradigm doesn’t mean ethnic unity is a minor issue—on the contrary, it flows directly out of the gospel itself—but we cannot question another’s right standing with God simply because they don’t fight racism like we think they should.
Theology vs. Politics
Being a theological conservative, I tend to use trusted sources like Neil Shenvi as something of a litmus test for how sound a given racially-themed book is. In this case, Shenvi says that The New Reformation is a “crucial” book in determining “which issues are non-negotiable and which issues should be held with an open hand.” He also says few books on racism are “as solidly biblical, gracious, and unifying as Shai Linne’s.”
If there is a negative, Shenvi says, it is this: “I suspect that Linne and I do indeed differ on several issues. . . . [But] I emphatically do not want the church’s unity to be grounded on political consensus rather than on shared doctrinal commitments.”
That is sound advice in general. As Christians, we will have our disagreements. Depending on whether those disagreements are based on semantics, emphasis, or substance, they could be serious, or they could be trivial. In any case, as Shenvi says, the unity of the church must be based on doctrine, not politics. Agreement on the former is much more important than agreement on the latter.
In case it isn’t apparent yet, Linne’s work is primarily theological, not political. There’s nothing inherently wrong with writing a political book, even a blatantly controversial one. But Linne’s doctrinal approach does, I think, better position his book to enhance ecclesiastical unity. (It seems clear that Shenvi agrees.)
Of course, a book on a topic like this can’t not be controversial—to a degree, at least. And as the member of a minority culture in the United States, Linne has experiences and presuppositions that some readers might find objectionable. Nevertheless, he bends over backwards to avoid petty controversies and uncharitable assumptions about those who may disagree with him on peripherals.
It is true, as some critics have noted, that Linne doesn’t mention topics like Critical Race Theory or Intersectionality. That’s because the emphasis of the book is the emphasis of the U.S. Secret Service in their efforts to suppress counterfeit currency: become so familiar with what is authentic that any counterfeit will be easily detected and rejected.1
Unity in the Faith
When all is said and done, there is no denying the soundness of Linne’s Scriptural exegesis. Because of his book’s strong Biblical foundation, charitable tone, and humble posture, The New Reformation is poised to benefit a large demographic. Sometimes that benefit might not feel good; it might feel more uncomfortable than anything else.
Indeed, it challenges us in our preconceptions. It challenges us to bear with others in patience and love. It challenges us with gospel-infused exhortations and admonitions. Ultimately, it points us to the King of all nations and ethnicities—he in whose presence we all are laid bare, to whom we all must give an account, and through whom we all can find hope in the fight for ethnic unity.
Linne gave this reason specifically in a promotional video for the book that I can no longer find online.