McLean Bible Church’s New Pastor Mike Kelsey Calls For Reparations For Slavery and Says All Evangelicals and Christians Should Support It

In a recent sermon on Nehemiah, Kelsey floats the idea of slave reparations past his congregation, suggesting that if they loved the “whole counsel of God, ” they would be willing to be on board.

Now, this raises a question about how we’re supposed to apply this today. I know what some of y’all are thinking, like, especially in light of the modern debates here in our country about reparations for slavery. And thankfully, I’m out of time. I am.

But let me just say this, let me say this, certainly the principle of restitution is here in Scripture; that justice requires not just stopping injustice, but repairing or rectifying that injustice in appropriate ways. This is why in the New Testament when the tax franchise owner Zaccheaus becomes a follower of Jesus, he commits to actually repaying everyone he defrauded fourfold.

At the same time, though, you can’t draw a straight line between passages like this and any specific form of reparations today. That conversation requires a whole host of moral, legal, economic, and practical considerations that honestly are above my pay grade. It’s a worthy conversation. You just can’t jump immediately from Scripture to ‘this is what that should look like today.’

But I hope it’s clear as we study this passage and as we study the broader teaching of scripture that God calls us to make personal sacrifices for the sake of justice, not to just agree with the idea, but at some point, if we’re going to follow Jesus, if we’re going to obey the whole counsel of God and become a people who reflect God’s just character, it’s going to require something of us.

It’s going to require that we give some things up. It’s going to require that we make some sacrifices in order to get involved and to reflect the character and kingdom of God in caring for the vulnerable, the poor, the oppressed.

In some ways, I want that to challenge us. I want the weight of that, the weight of this passage to sit on our hearts as the authoritative word of God and to allow all of us to just allow and be open to how this Holy Spirit might be wanting to grow us and shape us and lead us. I want this to challenge us.

https://protestia.com/2024/03/21/mclean-bible-church-pastor-mike-kelsey-suggests-sold-out-christians-should-support-slave-reparations/