A Black Pastor’s Journey into the Content of Grace.
I struggled with the title “Black Grace” because grace is never imagined as black. Grace can be white, grace can be red, but never black. Grace seen as white describes the purity of the gift of grace, while red reflects the cost of the gift of grace. But black, who would paint grace with a dark hue? Black represents evil, it symbolizes all that is bad, and it is the absence of light (darkness).
This is a difficult topic within the black community. In Ephesians 6:5 Jesus tells us how slaves were to treat their masters. There is no doubt that the European & Pan American slave holders used this teaching to justify and cement their power and status. I think the concept has embedded itself in the African American culture which you now call the culture of Grace. Since Emancipation, a huge unspoken but sometimes whispered fear of the white majority is that one day, those who bore the pain of slavery will rise up and seek revenge. That Grace you speak of is the revenge that never came.