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Key Bible Verse: If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. (James 2:8-9, NIV). Bonus Reading: Genesis 16:6-14

I define racism as speaking, acting, or thinking negatively about someone else solely based on that person's color, class, or culture. A common definition of grace is unmerited favor of God on humankind. Extending such favor to other human beings is how Christians demonstrate this grace practically. When one merges the definition of racism, which is negative, with the definition of grace, which is positive, a new term emerges—gracism. I define gracism as the positive extension of favor on other humans based on color, class, or culture.

Distinct from favoritism, gracism reaches outside the box of elitism and special favors. While favor is the art of inclusion, favoritism is the exercise of exclusion. Christianity is an inclusive faith that bids all to come.

A gracist extends a helping hand to those who are outside the positive norms of a particular society. While the majority may enjoy the hidden rules of a particular sociological group, gracists build bridges of inclusion for those on the margins. Just like God reached out to Hagar, so we can minister to those who are desperate for someone to hear them and see them.

It was Augustine who famously said, "Love God, and do what you will." What he meant, very simply, was this: If you love God completely and totally, if your values are God-values, then the choices you make will tend to be in tune with his will for you life.

—David A. Anderson in Gracism

My Response: One way I could practice gracism at work, in my community, or in my own church, would be by …

Thought to Apply: Racial reconciliation is one of the best roads to humility that we can take because of the opportunity to die to self.—Glen Kehrein (reconciliation advocate)

Adapted from Gracism: The Art of Inclusion (InterVarsity, 2007). All rights reserved by the copyright holder and/or publisher. May not be reproduced.

Copyright © 2010 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Prayer for the Week

Lord, if I'm part of the problem for unity in your church, make me willing to take action so that I become part of the solution.

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