'Grace Not Race': An Answer To Don Lemon’s Comment About Jesus And Racial Healing

Cross of Jesus Christ
Photo of a cross taken on 2010. |

CNN News anchor Don Lemon shared his thoughts on healing racism in his interview with "The View" on Monday. He mentioned teaching the "true history" of America and presenting the identity of Jesus as "a black or a brown person."

In addition to his advice for the Black community to learn to forgive in his new book, "This is Fire," Lemon said that "persons of faith" in America have to also get realistic about "God and the Bible."

"People ask me all the time, especially young mothers, young white mothers, they say what can I do? How can I fix this after George Floyd? I don't have the vocabulary to teach my kids. What can I do? I thought about that and offered some advice. That's what the book is about. It's one of the reasons I wrote the book. We have to start, as I said earlier in the show, we have to teach the true history of this country, the history that African-Americans brought to this country," said Lemon.

"If you are a person of faith in this country, and we know America is built on faith and religious freedom, a good way of starting is to present the true identity of Jesus. That is a black or brown person, rather than someone who looks like a white hippy from Sweden or Norway. We should start with that and put that in your home, either a Black Jesus or Brown Jesus. Jesus looked more like a Muslim or someone who is dark, rather than a blonde-looking carpenter," he continued.

"When your children ask you who is this, say this is Jesus. Jesus does not look like the popular depiction we have in our churches and our homes, and we see all over the media. That is a good place to start. That's a good place that your kids will ask questions, and then you can go from there, and then we can - then we can come to a true reality about what America really is and then try to figure out how we fix this issue of racism in the country. It is a spell that must be broken," Lemon concluded.

Grace Over Race: Not a Black or White Issue

 Over the years, America has been in bedlam over racial discrimination issues. About nine years ago, apologist Ken Ham wrote a persuasive essay on how the church could address problems of prejudice and discrimination. His suggestion, among others, is for Christians to be taught "the true history of the world as outlined in Genesis" instead of subscribing to Social Darwinism which puts Caucasian race at the top.

"If we take God's Word as written in Genesis, then we are all descendants of one man and one woman-Adam and Eve. That means there is only one biological race!"

Ham contends that when Christians are taught this way, the church could have avoided the issue and would have been the catalyst towards racial healing.

In his blog for Answers in Genesis which he titled, "We're Not 'Black or White'-Everyone Is Brown," Ken Ham explains the root of racism's poison.

"Sadly, at the time of Darwin, many Christians had already compromised God's Word with the belief in millions of years and therefore didn't stand on the authority of God's Word and the true history of the world to refute Darwin, and others', dangerous and racist teachings."

Further in his blog, Ham highlighted the "message of grace, not race" and directed those seeking for more answers to listen to his friend Dr. Charles Ware.

"In his new series Grace Relations, you'll discover how biblical truth and the gospel apply to the tensions and prejudices in our nation."