A Four-Year-Old and the Presidency

On Wednesday morning I watched my four-year-old son (the same one who raided Carl Trueman's candy dish) watch news footage of America's first black president.  I don't think he thought to himself, "That's a black man."  He just saw him as a man. 

Among America's many challenges culturally, okay let's just call them cultural sins, stands racism.  Some have called it America's original sin.  From the treatment of native Americans to enslaved Africans to Jim Crow segregation to inconsistent immigration policies you could easily make a case that "all are created equal" is easier said than done, a creed that doesn't always get practiced.

Will my four-year-old think differently about race because of this election and its profound significance? I think so.

I grew up singing "Jesus loves the children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, Jesus loves the little children of the world."  I sang that with all the other white boys and girls in the class.  When I did watch the TV and see the politicians, I saw one color.  Ford (of whom as a kid I had just a vague recollection, but come to think of it, isn't that sort of true of everyone's recollection of him?), Carter, Reagan, all white, every last one of them.  All 43 of them.

Will my four-year-old think differently about race?  I hope so.

Here's the point I'm trying to make.  The white ascendancy in American culture has not been positive for the American church's (in general) attitude towards and views of race.  I realize the election of one president is just that, an election of one president.  But it is still something.  Something that could have a longer term impact on the church, on our own kids, and what they think of the red and yellow and white and black children that God created.  Also, just to be clear, I'm not making any statement on President Elect Obama's policies.