The pastor and bestselling author lamented that “Our identity is to be rooted in the Imago Dei, in the image of God. But we’ve gotten so ingrained in the thinking of the culture, that we wind up being parakeets to what the society is saying, rather than taking a solid, loving but clear stance on what God is saying.”
He offers an alternative way of looking at the racial tensions seen across the country and a biblical framework for unity.
Evans explained that elevating anything — identity, race or national allegiance — above Christianity “is idolatry,” and “whenever that national allegiance causes you to have non-Christian perspectives, underneath the flag, then what you have done is you’ve created a national idol that God must resist, reject and judge.”
Evans said, “What we’re seeing now is conflict, and the conflict is the judgment because God has been removed and the idolatry of culture, nationalism, and race has replaced God’s primacy in our lives. He’s allowing a conflict until it gets so bad that we wake up and look up.”
The answer, Evans said, is reconciliation and unity, and that’s something the Church desperately needs. He encouraged Christians to act as “bridge builders and foster relationships with those across the racial and cultural lines “without compromising the essentials of the faith.”