–– Seth Meyers

The audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

A small town about 250 kilometers from Bloemfontein does not allow black people to live in it. Recently, an articulate black woman named Katlego discussed this phenomenon. Other men are trying to promote the idea of Afrikaner preservation as well. 

Do ethnic groups have a right to self-preservation? Can a people group self-segregate? Do they have a responsibility to integrate with all the people around them? Is it kind, loving, or Christian to block people out? Or is it good to make a special place where your values and heritage can be passed on? 

There are, in this scenario, questions of law, liberty, morality, and culture—many philosophical issues for debate that deserve a more prolonged treatment than this article will allow. 

But, for believers, some considerations are even more basic than those important discussions. 

1. Believers focus on the church. 

Our Lord died for His Church. The book of Acts is a history of churchplanting. Every one of the epistles were written to first generation Christians in churches planted as a result of missionary activity. All the theological tensions in Acts 15, the book of Galatians, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, and Jude were doctrinal disputes brought about as a result of planting churches. 

Are there so many Biblical churches among the Xhosa people, for example, that a Xhosa believer should give much time discussing 3,000 whites living on their own? Should an Afrikaans believer have a greater interest in preserving his culture or sending out missionaries? 

The eternal light of uncreated glory shines and sparkles when the church meets (Eph. 3:10), not when any other meeting takes place. If this is our focus, then we need more after-church discussions, WhatsApp texting, and link-forwarding about missions not Orania. 

When the earth is full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, then we will not need to send out missionaries because they will all know the Lord from the least to the greatest. Until that time, let us be MEGA Christians: Make Evangelism Great Again. 

2. We should invest in society as if it were a valuable, but doomed, project. 

In 2 Timothy 3:1, young pastor Timothy needed to know that “in the last days difficult times will come”. Persecution by the government is predicted until the end of this world (2 Tim. 3:12). Our Lord asked His disciples, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8) 

And yet, our Lord went about doing good, leaving us a pattern that we should follow. We must be good stewards of what we have been given (1 Cor. 4:2), and love our neighbours in practical ways. Drilling wells, children’s homes, political action campaigns, and poverty alleviation have a place in Christian priorities, but that place is below the local church and the sending of missionaries. 

It is a matter of prudence to give to more important matters more resources, but since time, money, and words can be broken into small units, then let us give to missions an obvious majority of those resources with significantly less to all other line items. 

3. The Bible makes the difference in society. 

Afrikaans culture was exposed to Christianity for hundreds of years before the cultures of the Sotho or the Tswana even had Bibles. Proverbs 29:18 teaches us what is obvious from history, and I paraphrase: “Where there is no Bible, the people are a mess culturally, morally, and politically, but happiness increases in a society in direct proportion to the number of people who obey the Bible.” 

Unconverted Afrikaners abuse the grace they’ve received with vain glory, pride, and selfishness because even their mercy is cruel (Pro. 12:10). Unconverted Africans hate to hear this because it requires Matthew 15:25-27 humility, where the Caananite woman cries to our Lord and says of her people’s Christless state, “Yes, we are dogs, but can’t we have the crumbs of grace?” 

Conclusion

The book of Hebrews speaks about the world to come, the better country, a God-built city, the things to come, the days to come, and these should dominate our minds. Believers should be far more concerned that their church has not sent out a missionary than they should be about whether their culture is preserved or whether a group of people likes them.