WHEATON, Ill.—In correlation with the release of Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian, author and Pastor John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis will be webcasting an address to local pastors in an effort to promote racial reconciliation. This address will broadcast worldwide live online through the Desiring God website at 7:30 p.m. EDT (6:30 p.m. CDT and 4:30 p.m. PDT) on Thursday, Nov. 3, 2011.
In Bloodlines, Piper confesses his own racism as a youth in Greenville, S.C., and his need for the Gospel. His message is nothing short of a plea for racial harmony and a call to action for the church. “Conservative evangelicals seem to have become indifferent to the sin of racism,” explains Tim Keller, senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, who wrote the foreword to Bloodlines. Whether it’s weariness, our stubborn hearts, or outright denial behind this indifference, racism is still a relevant issue that both Keller and Piper assert deeply offends God.
Though many strategies have been put forward to combat racism—educational, governmental, social—they have all been ineffective in eradicating this evil. These strategies fail to recognize that at the root of racism, human sin and a supernatural enemy are at work, and they won’t be conquered with good intentions or human effort.
“There is little doubt that where maddening, hopeless, sinful, self-destructive behaviors and structures hold sway over large groups of people—white or black, left or right—the Devil is deeply at work,” Piper explains. “What hope does a message of personal responsibility or structural intervention have against this supernatural power? None.” But the good news is that racial justice and reconciliation are possible. The good news of the Gospel is that all bloodlines come together in the bloodline of Christ.
