Issue 56 - From The Editor
Photo by Federico Beccari on Unsplash
By Jonathan Ho
My friend once told me about a time when he got into an elevator. There was a couple in there, and when they saw him get in, they got out. He said they got out because he was black. I remember hearing his story, thinking my friend assumed too much. What if they just decided to get out of the elevator? Was it really because he was black? There’s no way he could read someone else’s mind, right? Another time, a different friend, half Dominican and half African-American, told me about how a store owner accused him and his brother of stealing from the store when they were just shopping. My brain quietly said, “Maybe you and your brother were suspicious, maybe the store had been robbed before by young people.”
Close your right eye and look at the plus sign with your left eye. Move your face closer to it and see if you notice the white circle fill in while you maintain focus on the plus sign.
You should see the box fill in. This is an example of your brain filling in the gap of a blind spot. Your brain makes sense of the empty space it cannot see. This is true not only in your vision but in how you make sense of the world.
What if I kept arguing with you that the box was full? How could you convince me otherwise? You would need me to either open my other eye or take a step back, to change my point of view. But what if I refused to open my other eye and refused to change my point of view? How would you convince me otherwise? You would need to get me to believe you more than my own eyes/experience, which may be an impossible task.
I had never experienced people walking out of an elevator because I walked in and no one had ever accused me of stealing in a store. The stories my friends told didn’t make sense to me so I told myself my friends were imagining things. But what if it wasn’t them imagining things? What if the ones imagining things were the couple in the elevator, the storekeeper, and me?
Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash
In this edition, we’re asking you to open another eye, to take a different perspective. Brandon starts things off with a picture of the world from a perspective and reality not all of our readers have lived. David, who works with a Japanese ministry, shares his African-American perspective alongside those of his Asian-American friends. Larry introduces the importance of context in theology and Matt wraps up with a broader image of the body of Christ.
When Jesus called us to follow him, he promised both death and an abundant life (see Matthew 10:39, 16:25). He also called us to walk by faith, not by sight. As you read, I pray God would help us all to walk by faith, putting aside what we assume to be true in order to hold onto the truth of our universal need for Jesus. May our sight not be based on our hopes and experiences but on asking and receiving sight from Jesus, both through his Word and through the communion of saints.
P.S. As always, we’d love to hear from you. Do you find the articles helpful as they are? Do you have suggestions for us in our content or approach? We’d love to hear your story as you process where God is moving and how you may join him in his work. Email krc.english@gmail.com with any stories, feedback, thoughts, and questions you might have.