The sin of Saint Peter

Events in Los Angeles following the Rodney King incident have demonstrated just how pervasive racism remains in the United States. Like a virus that destroys the immune system of what appears to be a healthy person, racism is a cancer that is slowly devouring the moral health of our nation. The church must directly confront this social disease, for it militates against the very fabric of the gospel.

Unfortunately, our church has tended to be "loudly" silent regarding racism. Such a posture must be repented of before we can fulfill our mission. Fortunately we have much biblical precedent for engaging in such a reversal. One passage in particular stands out the incident in Antioch where Paul exposed the sin of Saint Peter (Gal. 2:11-14).

Rites of passage

Every society and culture has certain "rites of passage," transition points that mark the break of the future with the past, the new with the old, the what-is-becoming with the what-has-been. Just because the rite of passage has taken place physically does not mean that psychologically the old reality is discarded and the new embraced. Thus, the young couple on their wedding day may not "feel" married, or the recently divorced person feel single. Many African-American slaves at the end of the Civil War did not necessarily feel free, even though Lincoln's Emanicipation Proclamation declared them such. The new is often difficult to accept just as the old is often difficult to forget.

The death of Jesus Christ on the cross can be regarded as the greatest rite of passage in earth's history. It marked the end of death and the be ginning of life, the end of alienation and the beginning of reconciliation. It also signified the demise of the old sectarian religion: Judaism; and the beginning of a new, vibrant, world-encompassing faith: Christianity. This painful struggle of separating new from old sparked some of the most heated debates and early heresies in the young church. It stimulated controversy over what constitutes the community of faith, resulting in Paul's letter to the Galatians.

The sin of Peter

At the heart of the Galatian controversy lay a conflict that Paul in his day confronted but couldn't eradicate. Throughout the long history of Christianity it continued to embarrass the church, negating "the truth of the gospel" (Gal. 2:14).^* It is a problem that yet ravages society. I am refer ring to the sin of racism the belief that one ethnic group is innately superior to another group and therefore deserves unequal treatment and a greater share of society's rewards. Such a system of belief and behavior arises out of a group-centered perspective, the view that one group's way of life is the standard by which all other groups must be measured and valued.

First-century Jewish Christians felt that way about Gentile believers, imagining themselves superior as God's chosen people. This prejudicial attitude threatened the very survival of the early church. Paul describes a particular incident in Galatians: "But when Cephas came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles" (verses 11, 12).

Arriving in Antioch, the apostle Peter found himself attracted to the spectacle of Jewish and Gentile Christians living together, worshiping together, eating together, fellow-shipping together in one harmonious "all nations" community. He joined in this fellowship in fulfillment of the loving oneness for which his Master had so earnestly prayed (John 17:20- 23).

How would one describe what was happening to the Christians of Antioch through living the gospel? Theologian Hans Dieter Betz explains: "To them the Christian faith meant that the age-old dream of human freedom had become a reality. For them 'freedom' was not merely a theological notion, but they regarded themselves as free from 'this ... evil world' (Gal. 1:4, KJV) with its repressive social, religious, and cultural laws and conventions. They had left behind the cultural and social distinctions be tween Greeks and non-Greeks, the religious distinctions between Jews and non-Jews, the social systems of slavery, and the subordination of women. They had overcome their 'ignorance of God,' and their barbaric superstition.... They were the avantgarde, a 'new creation.'"⁺

No wonder Luke declares in Acts, "It was in Antioch that the disciples were first called 'Christians'" (Acts 11:26). Their experience was so radically unique that nonbelieving ob servers simply called this new behavior "Christian"---meaning Christlike.

To the believers in Antioch, the Jewish Christians among them included, there was nothing surprising about this social attitude. They were simply putting into practice the "new commandment" (John 13:34) Jesus had taught the disciples: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (verse 35). Thus, for them there was no longer Jew or Greek but oneness in Christ Jesus (see Gal. 3:28).

Then something happened. Some of the Jews from Jerusalem showed up, and fearing reprisals, "he drew back and kept himself separate" (Gal. 2:12). The tense of the verb indicates that Peter did not immediately with draw from the Gentile tables when he saw the brethren coming, but gradually, under the pressure of their obvious displeasure, he "separated" him self. Today we use different words with the same meaning: "segregation," "apartheid," "caste," "tribe," "ethnicity."

Peter's action affected the others who were with him: "And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy" (verse 13). Paul, in using the word "hypocrisy," indicates that Peter's theological convictions had not changed, nor had those of Barnabas. Both still believed that the fellowship they now shunned was morally and theologically proper. Then why did they not stand up for what they believed? It was the fear of political reprisals from Jerusalem, the center of power for the early church. The strength of this social pressure is seen in how it swept away even Barnabas, Paul's close friend and fellow worker, whom the Bible declares to have been "a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith" (Acts 11:24).

Now we come to the heart of the problem: "But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, 'If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?'" (Gal. 2:14). Paul regarded this phoney behavior as a negation of the gospel. Since Peter's action was mostly public, the condemnation and rebuke of that action also needed to be public. Thus Paul declares: "I said to Cephas before them all . . ."

The expression "not acting consistently" is the failure "to walk a straight path, without wavering, without faltering, without crumbling at the knees." This wasn't the first time Peter had crumbled at the knees. It is frightening to stand alone for truth when church leaders are compromising in the face of social and political pressure. Paul declared Peter's con duct of segregation and racist behavior as sin against the gospel.

And what is the truth of the gospel? It is the manifestation of God's grace. Peter denied this grace in the same manner that the false brethren in Galatia later did, thus undermining freedom in Christ. Betz suggests that Peter's conduct in Antioch may have influenced the Galatians to follow suit in adopting "another gospel" (see Gal. 1:6, 7). This was a gospel of enslavement and bondage to human rules and social regulations that gave adherents a false sense of spiritual and racial superiority while at the same time preventing them from experiencing true spiritual and social freedom in Christ. Thus, the sin of Peter---racial segregation and preferential treatment, racism---became the sin of the church.

Racism, by definition, is an ideology of supremacy that perpetrates evil through an objective, differential and unequal treatment of people. It then justifies this evil by placing a negative meaning on biological and/or cultural differences, undermining the power of the gospel and making of noneffect the grace of God. There is no question that the sin of Peter has become the great sin of today' s church.

Solving Peter's sin

How can this problem be resolved? Paul explains that "if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor" (Gal. 2:18). Normally one would expect him to say the opposite to tear down what had been built up. But here we have Paul denouncing the building up of what had been torn down. This can mean only the dividing wall of hostility referred to in Ephesians 2:14-16. Racism builds up again what Christ broke down, the wall of racial divisions and social factions. The result within the church is war instead of peace.

If the gospel we preach fails to dismantle that dividing wall, allowing members to maintain their smug segregation and racial exclusiveness, then according to Paul we have "an other gospel," a counterfeit. Such belief and behavior violates both the grace of God and the "law of liberty" (James 2:12).

Yes, it is a challenge to live ac cording to the gospel in a hostile world like ours. Long ago the noted sociologist Karl Mannheim remarked: "To live consistently, in the light of Christian brotherly love, in a society which is not organized on the same principle is impossible. The individual in his personal conduct is always compelled---insofar as he does not resort to breaking up the existing social structure---to fall short of his own nobler motives."

Since racial division and preferential treatment are socially constructed, reflective of society, they can be reconstructed by "breaking up the existing social structure" in the church.

We must not tolerate anything in the church that is incompatible with the kingdom of God. Equality is no option left to the pleasure of the church; it's a divine mandate and commandment. The church is only the church of Jesus Christ when living by His teachings and principles. Short of this it is merely a social club suffering under a profound spiritual delusion.

What transforms a social club into the church is the experience of Galatians 2:19, 20: "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." The power to break up the existing social structure does not come from human sources. Only through the power of the indwelling Christ will victory come to us individually and corporately. Though the ultimate breakup of the existing structures will not happen until "the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever" (Rev. 11:15, margin), we can and must be agents of change in the present the salt, light, and leaven that stimulate spiritual and social transformation.

In a time of upheaval such as society is presently experiencing, the church cannot be swept along with the current of convenience. If the gospel means anything, it means trans formation. Thus only when the church is an agent of change is it really the church.