The Village Church posted a clip from Matt Chandler’s most recent sermon, in which he denounced the Christian church for mostly refusing to participate on issues of race.
Chandler, who stopped himself mid-preaching to apologize for getting “heated” on the topic, accused Christians of hypocrisy on matters of racial injustice. “When you say, ‘Hey, we’re not going to get involved, let’s just preach the Gospel to that’ — which by the way I find so hypocritical,” Chandler began. “You don’t just preach the Gospel on sex trafficking, you don’t just preach the Gospel on the issue of life and abortion. No, you act! It’s like this brain-broke disjoint that’s got us acting absurd and then critiquing this movement as being evil and dark when we have given up our inheritance! You cannot point out all the flaws in this current movement while you have abandoned the place that we were meant to play!”
You can watch the clip here:
https://www.facebook.com/TheVillageChurch/videos/204464027274742Chandler has been outspoken on the issue of racial justice, often speaking about the flak he receives from his own congregation as a result. Frequent use of language and phrases commonly used by political agitators, such as “white privilege” has fueled this debate. Chandler for his part has been unmovable on the issue and stands by what he’s been preaching on the subject.
Chandler is one of the leading faith voices on the issue of race and in recent years there has been a growing divide among evangelical Christians on how to handle it. Some fear a move towards aligning with far-leftist secular organizations detracts from the sufficiency of the Gospel, arguing they are looking to the world for solutions rather than Christ.
You can watch the full sermon HERE. The transcript of the 4 minute clip is below:
“Here’s where I want to lean in a little bit on where we find ourselves. If you’ll study the civil rights movement in the 60s there’s a pattern that emerges. So, the predominant leader there is Martin Luther King Jr. — which, we really like right now because he’s dead. I have to believe that a Martin Luther King Jr. right now he’d be a liberal Marxist socialist that everybody despises, but we’ll quote him now because he’s not here to offend us in the now. This is what Jesus means when he says that you love the profits that are no longer with us but you don’t like the prophets that are here today. But that’s neither here nor there — in the 60s, the civil rights movement was born out of the church and so if you study Martin Luther King like there was this pattern. They would meet, they would pray, they would worship, they would go over kind of the rules of protest, and then they would march. This was a rhythm that was established by King so that it was rooted in the church that the church let out in a very real way on the civil rights movement in the 60s.
And now one of the things that has happened is the church by and large has refused to participate. Which means that we have turned over — God help us — we have turned over what is our inheritance to dark ideologies. Like, when you say, ‘Hey, we’re not going to get involved, let’s just preach the Gospel to that’ — which by the way I find so hypocritical. You don’t just preach the Gospel on sex trafficking, you don’t just preach the Gospel on the issue of life and abortion. No, you act! It’s like this brain-broke disjoint that’s got us acting absurd and then critiquing this movement as being evil and dark when we have given up our inheritance! You cannot point out all the flaws in this current movement while you have abandoned the place that we were meant to play!
You cannot point out all the ‘well this means this and this believes this and that’s this and that’s this’ and ignore the sorrow and lament of 12 to 13 million image bears in our country! You can’t do that! We mourn with those who mourn. And yes, there are demonic and evil ideologies at play but that’s where the people are God are meant to run with light and the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not to sit back and snipe via social media. I got a little hot there I apologize.
We must grow in the hope that God will heal the wounds of racism, and what we’re watching on our TV unfold again will one day cease. Look at me — this is our inheritance. This is mine. This is yours. What you’re seeing play out right now in violent riot and in murder… that is a robbing of our inheritance. I’m talking to the church. I’m talking to followers of Jesus Christ – it’s mine! Bought by the blood of Jesus Christ we are to grow and hope that this is possible.”