Tuesday, April 10, 2012

David Lamb on racism in the Old Testament

In his book God Behaving Badly Professor David T. Lamb has done a good job in explaining that the God of the Old Testament is not racist. Indeed, not only that God is not racist, he also loves people of all races. But what impresses me is David Lamb's honest sharing of his own experience. Here is an excerpt of what he says,

[W]e confront racism as Jesus did in the Old testament examples he mentioned in Luke 4 or in the parable he told in Luke 10. Two colleagues of mine recently confronted me about an insensitive racial remark I had made to them. They said that even though they knew I hadn’t meant to insult them, they were still deeply offended by my comment. I initially felt very defensive – they should have known that my comments were simply meant to tease them. But then I realized that they had a legitimate point, I didn’t understand their context, and my comment had been very hurtful. I asked them questions to understand their perspective and then asked their forgiveness. While their words were hard to hear, I appreciated not only their honesty but also that they valued our relationship enough to confront me. (page 91)
I have to say that I really appreciate David Lamb's humility and honesty.

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