John Piper takes us back to a time that many see as the golden years in our country’s history. It is the 1950s, before when many believe that our country lost its Christian moorings to the social chaos of the 1960s. But that is not how John remembers that time. Piper sees the 1950s very differently. It was for him a cesspool of sin because society at that time was infected by the sin of racism and committed to the cause of segregation. This is not to say there are not sins that prevail in our time, but what made the 1950s stand out was that society’s sin had infected the church.

John, a committed evangelical and Bible-believing Christian, was also a committed racist. He, his church, his family, and many evangelical leaders at the time accepted segregation as God’s divine order of things.  Underlying segregation was a fear that if children from different races lived and played together, they might fall in love with each other. If they fell in love, they might marry and start families together. Keeping pure racial bloodlines for many ran deeper than their commitment to the gospel. 

This video introduces John Piper’s book, Bloodlines, which tells the story of how God brought him out of racism and led him to pastor a diverse inner-city church and finally to adopt an African-American daughter. 

Watch the Bloodlines video: https://youtu.be/fs_unRFvS5o

Some questions to think about:

• What did the Gospel teach John Piper about his identity in Christ? 
• What is the Gospel saying to you about race and our gospel identity?
• Do we see vestiges of this sinful thinking in the American church today? Why or why not? 

Feel free to leave your responses in the comment section below.