Racial Prejudice Hinders the Gospel - Tom Shanklin Ministries

Share the Good News!

William Seymour, Pastor of the Azuza Street Mission in Los Angeles.

By Tom Shanklin

“He said to them, “Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15, MEV)

When Jesus gave His final instructions to His followers, He told them to go into ALL the world and preach the Gospel to EVERY creature. He did not limit His mission of love to a particular nation or language or race. But from the very beginning His instructions were not carried out. The early church was largely an ethnocentric Jewish sect which saw its mission to the nation of Israel rather than to the whole world.

While there was a great expansion of the early Church among the Jews, little was done to reach the wider world until the Lord supernaturally connected the Apostle Peter with a Roman centurion named Cornelius. It took two visions of angels and the voice of the Holy Spirit to convince Peter that he should do what the Lord had already told him to do—preach the Gospel to EVERY creature.

Peter and the early Church leaders should have already known God’s will based on Jesus’ command to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, but their cultural mindset prevented them from moving with God. They had racial prejudice which had to be overcome by visions of angels and the power of the Holy Spirit.

This scenario has been repeated in various forms throughout the history of the Church. Often, the Church lags behind the Lord in her thinking. God is leading, but we are not following because of attitudes from our past which prevent us from fully apprehending the will of God and walking in it. Even though we may have been Born Again and filled with the Holy Spirit, we often need a transformation of our minds and hearts in order to be aligned with God’s will.

One powerful example of this was in the outpouring fo the Holy Spirit in the early 20th century. On January 1, 1901, God poured out his Spirit in a Bible School in Topeka, Kansas which was led by a minister named Charles Parham. The particular feature of this outpouring was the manifestation of speaking in unknown languages. During the outpouring, one of the students, Agnes Ozman, spoke in perfect Chinese. Others then were filled with the Spirit and spoke in other languages, and Parham began to preach and promote speaking in tongues as the initial evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Later, Parham moved his Bible School to Houston Texas. When a one-eyed black preacher named William Seymour heard about Parham’s school and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, he wanted to learn more. But because of segregation laws in the south, Seymour was not allowed to attend the classes. As a compromise, Seymour sat in the hallway faithfully listening to the lessons on the Holy Spirit.

It would have been easy for Seymour to walk away in disgust, but his hunger for Holy Spirit prevailed. Because of his humility and sacrifice, God honored William Seymour, and mightily used him to bring a great move of God in the earth. How often do we short circuit the will of God by becoming offended by the inappropriate actions of others? We need to learn that the will of God is the most important thing.

While in Houston, Seymour met a woman who invited him to come to Los Angeles and pastor a church there. After preaching his first sermon on the subject of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, he immediately was shut out of the church. He then began meeting with a small group of believers in a house on Bonnie Brae Street in Los Angeles. The Holy Spirit began to move with signs and wonders and the work grew.

When the front porch of the house collapsed because of an overflow crowd of people standing on it, they realized it was time to find another place to meet and worship. They moved to an old livery stable on Azuza Street which became the home of the Azuza Street Mission, with William Seymour as Pastor. All Pentecostal denominations trace their roots to the revival which occurred at Azuza Street.

Azuza Street was a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-racial revival center and church, which was very much contrary to the social norms of the day. People from all over the world came to Azuza Street to experience the power of the Holy Spirit. No one was excluded and the Holy Spirit was allowed to move freely among all people, regardless of race or gender. However, not everyone was so accepting. The Los Angeles Times described the meetings as “disgraceful intermingling of the races.” Charles Parham visited Azuza and was asked to leave after preaching against the integration of races and the free-wheeling nature of the revival.

There has always been a mixture of attitudes about race in the Church. Just as the leaders of the early Church were resistant to change, likewise many others through the centuries have fought against integration of the races and equality. But wherever there is a true move of the Holy Spirit, we see a softening of attitudes, a manifestation of racial harmony, and a desire to “let the oppressed go free.”

Some of the strongest advocates of the abolition of slavery were Christians. Evangelist Charles Finney was a powerful promoter of the abolitionist movement in the in the United States in the early 1800s. William Wilberforce, a Christian politician in Great Britain became the leading voice for the movement which resulted in the banning of the slave trade through the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.

The message of Jesus Christ is a Gospel of Peace. The Bible says that He made peace by the blood of His cross. A passage in Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians makes it clear that this peace is not only between people and God but also between people and one another:

“But now in Christ Jesus you who were formerly far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace, who has made both groups one and has broken down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of the commandments contained in ordinances, that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile both to God into one body through the cross, thereby slaying the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.” (Ephesians 2:13-18, MEV)

We ALL come to the cross equally—as hopeless sinners in need of redemption. When we receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, we are forgiven, restored, and brought into ONE family equally. As Christians, we are ALL in the family of God, having one Father, one Savior, and one Holy Spirit. The more we draw close to our heavenly Father and yield to the Holy Spirit, the more we will see one another through His eyes and will love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.

There are many other forms of prejudice which also divide us—prejudice against women and young people and old people. Prejudice against people of different denominations. And the list could go on. All such prejudice is a work of the flesh and is contrary to the fruit of the Spirit and the will of God. We are all equal before God!

Let us pray that Christ’s body, the Church, would reflect His glory in this area of our lives and our thinking, and learn to recognize that we are ALL made in the image of God and that Jesus died for ALL. Amen.