Every day, we stray farther from the light of God.

Here we have Dale Partridge of Unlearn RelearnHQ arguing that churches shouldn’t bother with diversity.

Dale is correct in saying the Gospel is what unites us and spreading it is our main goal. As Christians our identity is in God. Our gender/race, and whatever social injustices exist as a result of that still need to be submitted before God, placed beneath our identity as a Christians where our greatest goal is to spread the gospel. This world is ephemeral, passing away, but our souls our eternal. The greater concern is where people will spend eternity.

That said, this is still a dunce take. For someone who claims to have founded RelearnHQ “as an effort to help Christians know their Bible, understand theology, and foster Gospel fluency,” there is very little scripture in the majority of what Dale tweets. God is very concerned about injustice on Earth as seen all throughout the Bible and yes, that includes racial injustice. It’s listed as one of the reasons He was wiping out several other nations, because they mistreated sojourners, orphans, and widows (just read the first five books of the Bible, folks).

Boiling the solution to racial disharmony as “just preach, bro” is a low-effort take that allows Christians like Dale to turn a blind eye to the injustice around him, whilst patting himself on the back for doing the bare minimum (not even the bare minimum since even the secular world cares about racial injustice). Much in the same way evangelical Christians in America staunchly support the unborn at the cost of everything else the Bible talks about while actually not doing anything to help the unborn, this is the same energy. All talk, zero action, which ultimately helps no one and also doesn’t help spread the gospel.

This nonsense twittering reinforces this idea that as Christians we should be at best complacent when seeing the suffering of others, offering them little more than thoughts and prayers. This seems completely at odds with Jesus. He didn’t just tell the women caught in adultery to go and sin no more, he called out the hypocrisy and injustice of those wanting to stone her (whilst ignoring the dude who was also caught in adultery) and then he preached to her. What is Dale smoking that reads the Bible and concludes the best he can do is simply tell people to repent or they’re going to hell?

Faith without works is dead. Micah 6: 8 says “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Key word here justice. How can Dale claim we should just ignore the injustice around us in favor of preaching hellfire and brimstone when we are instructed to do justice?

Saying identity politics and CRT are man’s solutions is the equivalent of saying banning abortion is man’s solution, and instead we should just preach the gospel and pray women no longer get abortions. Like I can guarantee Dale would not agree with that but would advocate for a legal ban on abortion.

Furthermore, it isn’t as if Christians like Dale are proposing any useful solutions to racial injustice beyond thoughts and prayers, so what does he expect? If God can’t use Christians to right the wrongs of the world because they are too busy engaging in culture wars and debating each other on podcasts about whether women should wear leggings or not, He’ll find other means to do so, even secular. Really, Dale should be wondering why Christians aren’t spearheading campaigns for racial reconciliation and unity.

Yes, ultimately Jesus does reconcile us across racial, ethnic, and gender barriers and that’s a wonderful thing. But this lazy version of Christianity would likely be scoffed at by Jesus, who not only preached the gospel but practically did things to solve people’s problems. He healed the sick, fed the poor, protected the vulnerable. He flipped tables. He didn’t just sit around all day posting hot takes on Twitter. Jesus is the answer, yes we preach the gospel, but also Jesus has the answers and as Christians, we are not helpless to do anything about the injustice around us.

As usual, I entreat people to read their Bibles. True Christianity is not comfortable and requires us to at times acknowledge uncomfortable truths about ourselves, our nation, and even the history of our faith. Jesus and what he preached was not popular with the status quo of the time, even among the religious folks who followed the law down to the letter yet missed the heart of God in all their legalism. But the truth will set us free and unite us across racial barriers.

There is great beauty in diversity too, something Dale Partridge might see if he got off Twitter, went outside of his conservative bubble, and actually spent some around his fellow human beings.