4 minute read
Hope and Hard Conversations Striving for Racial Shalom
By Dr. Justin Smith, Head of Upper School
It is now cliche to speak of 2020 being a most unusual and difficult year. Political and racial tensions, differences regarding masks, vaccines, social distancing, loss. Definitely a year unlike any other, marked by anxiety, fear, and suffering for many. And yet, we are comforted by words from the apostle Paul when he says, “we know that God works all things for good for those who love him and are called.” All things . . .for good . . .for those who love Him and are called. (Romans 8:28) In late spring 2020, our Head of School Dr. Arnold designated 15 cross divisional teams charged with a variety of tasks to help our school community flourish during this difficult, chaotic year. The teams collaborated creatively, working hard throughout the summer to prepare for meeting the needs of students, teachers, and families.
Out of this collaboration, the high school group of the Student Support team prioritized creating a structure for supporting students emotionally and spiritually in order to cultivate humility, kindness, and a deeper love for God and others. These intentionally small Advisory Groups of 12-13 students grouped by grade level, and meeting two to three times per week, provided that structure. The weekly time was spent in discussion based on a curriculum written in-house called The Warrior Way, and included community building activities, and prayer. Contributors to The Warrior Way included student writers. The material was designed to bring glory to God and offer hope and encouragement to our students by exploring a variety of topics.
During the spring semester, our students and their advisors spent six weeks exploring the concept of honor and race using selected text and videos from Pastor Miles McPherson’s The Third Option: Hope for a Racially Divided Nation. We asked the question: How could we embrace hope on such a tough subject as racism? Isn’t hope what is being offered in Romans 8:28 in spite of difficulty and suffering? Biblical hope was just what we wanted to explore with our students in these discussions. Pastor Miles McPherson wrote his best-selling book and created an e-course to help believers understand the concept of honoring the image of God in one another and to provide an antidote to the tendency we have to ignore or be at a loss as to how to talk about the issues of race that divide our country and our communities.
LRCA is committed to Racial Shalom, which includes peace, harmony, wholeness, and unity within our school community.
The Bible’s teachings and precepts charge us to be peacemakers. Therefore, we consider worldview conversations - even those on sensitive topics where finding the right words is hard - to be incredibly important as we seek to grow disciples for Christ and His Kingdom. If students can’t practice having such conversations here amidst those who love them and desire to guide them into Truth, how can they be effective communicators of Truth on such important topics as they move out into our culture? Having hard conversations is possible with Biblical hope.
Just as Christ came to reconcile us to Him, we are called to be reconcilers one to another, to be peacemakers, to repeat regularly in our own lives the pattern of repentance, seeking and extending forgiveness and experiencing the joy and freedom of reconciliation.
We want to provide for our students more than just an awareness of the sin of racism. By coupling awareness and dialogue in advisory groups, our students were able to use content rooted in Biblical Christianity as common ground to uncover what the doctrine of the Imago Dei is all about. We were able to ask ourselves the question: How can delving more deeply into an understanding of being image bearers and cultivating a desire to show honor to others help us love one another better?
As image bearers, when we sin or offend, we are called to humble ourselves, and to repent and to seek forgiveness. These are necessary steps in reconciliation. Conversely, when we are hurt or offended, we also have a responsibility to bear one another’s burdens, to love one another, and to forgive one another. Relationships are hard work and require humility, sincerity, understanding, love, and forgiveness. These are difficult conversations to have. But practice makes us better at them. How different would our campus, our families, our communities be if we regularly practiced humility, seeking and asking for forgiveness with the goal of reconciliation? Would it look like Shalom? Would it feel like Shalom?
As Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:9), “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” The promise of Romans 8:28 is real. The hope for Shalom is real, not in a Utopian fantasy sort of way, but in the daily realities of following the Biblical directives to love one another, forgive one another, honor one another, and recognize one another as fellow image bearers, precious in His sight. We are called to be peacemakers. Peacemakers are called children of God. How beautiful it is to see children at play, laughing, and free to enjoy one another. A picture of Shalom.
