I am a racist.

I am a racist.

And I'm not very happy about that.

A few weeks ago I visited the MySpace page of a woman I met online. On her page, there is a picture of her with her boyfriend. She's white, and he's black. And the first thing that came to my mind was: what is she doing with that black man?

Ouch! It hurt to have that thought.

In the town where I grew up, there were no black people. All I knew about black people was what I heard from others. My dad, as I recall, nearly always called black people “niggers.” I saw as a child the news on TV about the riots in Harlem, Watts, and Detroit, and I'd hear people around me say, “Well, what do you expect from niggers?” And they might toss in a comment or two about how they were all on welfare, too. That's what I learned about black people as a child.

As an adult, I lived in North Carolina for 8 years. Unlike the rural Pacific Northwest town I grew up in, there are black people in North Carolina! And I got to know some of them. Griffith was a technician where I worked, and a good technician. He was quiet and soft-spoken, and I don't think I ever heard him speak a harsh word to anybody. Sometimes a bunch of us would go to lunch together, and I doubt it ever occurred to anybody to exclude Griffith. He wasn't a nigger to any of us, I don't think anybody even thought of him as a black man. He was just one of the guys.

Then there was Wheatley. Wheatley was bright, witty, pleasant to everyone, and beautiful. And married, which broke my heart! I don't think I ever thought of Wheatley as a black woman; I just thought of her as a woman, and a damn fine woman at that!

Back in the town I grew up in, there are now a few black people, and I know several of them. I've had two of them work for me in my electronics business. And I never really thought of them as black people, just people. One of them is married to a white woman, and I have never looked at the two of them and thought, “What is she doing with that black guy?” They're just another married couple.

So why the reaction to the picture of this white woman with a black man?

I think that what I am guilty of is not so much racism as it is prejudice. Prejudice means, literally, “pre-judge.” I looked at the picture of a white woman and a black man, and I pre-judged him. I know nothing about him, yet I made the judgement that he was not the right man for this woman.

It's a lot harder to do that face to face. When I see a person in front of me, I find it much easier to just see a person. I don't generally see a black person, or a white person, or a brown or red person, I just see a person. Maybe it's seeing their smile, or hearing their voice, or maybe it's feeling the presence of another human soul before me. But I am unable to pre-judge a person who is standing right in front of me. My heart feels what my eyes and brain have learned to not see.

I am not happy that I pre-judged that man in the picture. I'm not happy that things I learned as a child still come back to haunt me. That bothers me. But I am happy that I was bothered by it enough that I have been thinking about this ever since that day when I looked at that picture and pre-judged - wrongly pre-judged – a man I knew nothing about. I'm happy that I was bothered by it enough to talk to several friends of mine about it, and I'm thankful for their insights. I'm glad that I was able to see this prejudice, and to see the error of it.

Almost certainly, I harbor more prejudices that I am yet unaware of. I hope this experience will help me to see them too, and to deal with them. I hope that in the future I will not see skin color, or hair color, or whether a person is fat or skinny, or tall or short or old or young. I hope that instead I will simply see another human being, another person much like myself. And I hope that you have been inspired to look for any prejudices you may harbor, and to work through them.

It's too political.

I've been rather disappointed lately, disappointed in churches, and the pastors who lead them. Or perhaps more accurately, should be leading them.

If we as Christians are called to love and serve our fellow human beings - and I believe that we are - then shouldn't we encourage each other in that? And shouldn't pastors encourage their congregations to show their love for their fellow human beings? It seems reasonable to me. Yet some pastors are actively discouraging their congregations from doing what Christians should be doing.

I attended the meeting of the Social Justice Committee at a local church a few evenings ago. Somebody suggested that the Committee should do something for Advent, maybe a book discussion or something. We started discussing a topic to go with, and somebody suggested “world peace.” But someone said they thought the pastor wouldn't like that, it was too political. I was going to say something right then, but the conversation moved on too quickly. Later someone suggested we could do a study of global warming, and maybe show Al Gore's film, “An Inconvenient Truth.” But again, somebody said the pastor wouldn't like that, it was too political.

That's when I lost it. When I hear something like that, I think, “there's a man on the fast track to hell.”

World peace is too political an issue for Christians to discuss? Global warming is too political an issue for Christians to discuss?

War may be a political issue, but peace is a moral issue, and therefore a Christian issue. Jesus, the man we sometimes call the “Prince of Peace”, said “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Shouldn't we all be blessed peacemakers for Jesus? What does it say when a pastor tells his congregation that world peace is “too political”? God's children are suffering and dying, and the pastor thinks world peace is “too political”? To me, he's not saying “it's too political”, he's saying, “don't be Christians.”

Is global warming a political issue? Although those who profit from the activities of man that are causing global warming make it a political issue, I contend that it is in fact a moral issue, and therefore a Christian issue. Global warming will make large areas of the Earth uninhabitable. Sea levels will rise and flood low lying lands. People - God's children - will suffer and die. And they will be dying because we refused to stop driving our cars, because we refused to stop burning coal and oil to generate electricity. They will die because we felt our lifestyle was more important than their lives. That is a moral issue, that is a Christian issue, and it is wrong for somebody who claims to be a church leader to not only refuse to lead his congregation on this issue, but to stand in the way of his congregation.

I have seen similar things take place at other churches. I have been thinking for some time that it would be good to have a public discussion of what can be done to decrease the number of abortions performed in this country. It seems to me that, pro-life or pro-choice, we should be able to agree that abortion is undesirable, and that it would be a good thing to reduce the number of abortions. I talked to the pastor at the church I usually attend about having a public discussion at the church about how to reduce the number of abortions. He wouldn't allow it at his church, because it's “too controversial.” This is a conservative, “pro-life” Baptist church, yet the pastor feels it's “too controversial” to discuss how to actually go about curtailing abortions. Interestingly, he didn't say it's “too political” an issue, and “pro-life” Christians are often politically active in trying to outlaw abortion. But apparently it's more important to make abortion illegal than to actually reduce the number of abortions performed.

C.H. Spurgeon once said, “I do not think the devil cares how many churches you build, if only you have lukewarm people and preachers in them.” A preacher who discourages his congregation from taking stands and taking action on moral issues is less than lukewarm. Pastors, if you are to be church leaders, then get out of the way and start leading.