On Racism and Auto Loans

The rich and the poor have a common bond, The LORD is the maker of them all. – Proverbs 22:2

“Truth is, I have never experienced as much racism as I have this last year or so”

This broke my heart to hear. I was sitting across a table from the man who was attempting to give me options in financing a new(er) car. Filling out paperwork, my profession piqued his interest. With all respect, he asked hesitantly if I minded questions about my faith. I told him it was the only thing worth talking about to me. My newfound friend is a Muslim and he recounted how people see his name on his business cards and ask uninformed questions:

“What’s the deal with ISIS?” 

He told me how he was American. “My girlfriend is catholic . . . . Allah, God, I don’t care what you believe in, it’s all the same.”

While we may have differing theological takes, he taught me something about how we see people, or as in this instance, fail to see people. He just couldn’t understand why others see him and cover his ideology with bigotry and radicalism. Truth is, he was more American than I was, yet because of his name and darker tone, he was the subject to more hostility and ignorance, often by so called Christians. Obviously they missed the greatest irony that Jesus looked more like him than He did them.

While I apologized for his circumstances, I remember how some view “Christians”. It is human nature to label and explain without ever hearing to understand. In that moment, I realized we had an agreement. It was as if we arrived at the same pessimistic conclusion of the nature of man, and in that, we found a brotherhood that transcends belief.

The sad truth is, racism has never went away. It hides within the shadows and the ivory towers of the powerful. It is difficult as a white American to experience its evil reach, but I know it’s there. As the Church, we are to battle such hatred with the blind grace of Christ. These are issues in heavy discussion around the country, yet it seems like the Church sometimes underestimates its poisonous reach.

It is time to set ourselves boldly against the division of men. As image bearers, we always have more in common with the downtrodden and oppressed than we do with the privileged and wealthy. Ours is a faith from the bottom up.