Rev. Tony Evans, the first African-American to earn a doctorate in theology from Dallas Theological Seminary, believes it does not matter what colour a person's skin might be, since people are all equal in God's eyes.
"God has a kingdom. It's made up of citizens. Some black, some white, some red, yellow, Spanish backgrounds. His intention was never that the individual uniqueness would cause them to lose sight of the flag flying over them—the flag of the cross," says Evans, according to the Gospel Herald.
Evans is very concerned that America has not resolved its issue on race, culture, and class. When people look under the surface, they will realise there is still an "ever-bubbling problem that has gone unresolved."
"We have voices about which life matters. All life is created in the image of God. All lives matter," says the pastor. "However, underneath the banner that God has created all people in his image, there are inequities that must be addressed."
He cites abortion as an example, because killing a defenseless child inside its mother's womb is an injustice that falls "under the umbrella that all life matters."
"Black lives matter [is] a subset of all lives matter. So any injustices to a particular group must be addressed specific to that group but under the banner that all life is created in the image of God," he says.
Evans also does not like the description "black Christian," "white Christian," or "Hispanic Christian," because it highlights a person's colour or culture instead of faith.
"It's the job of the adjective to modify the noun. If you put Christianity in the noun position, and your colour or culture in the adjective position, you have to keep shaping the noun so it looks like the adjective that describes it. So if your colour stays in the adjectival position, you got to keep shaping Christianity to look black or to look white or to look red," he explains.
The pastor stresses that Christianity must always be prioritised. When people do so, then their different backgrounds and races won't matter anymore.
"If we could get enough Christians to be Christian before white, Christian before black, Christian before Spanish, it doesn't take 240 years to fix this. It takes about two minutes and 40 seconds," says Evans.
