But how can Christianity help us with our privilege and bias? How can we as followers of Christ begin to work to understand and address these realities? One of the central goals of Jesus in the Gospel accounts is to help “the blind receive their sight” (Matt. 11:5, NIV). Throughout the Gospel accounts, we see many stories of Jesus literally healing those who are physically blind, but it seems upon close reading that his central concern was not primarily physical but spiritual blindness. In fact, when Jesus is speaking about salvation to a Jewish leader named Nicodemus, he says, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” (John 3:3 NIV). The idea Jesus is communicating is that humans have a vision problem. We cannot see what is true and real, we cannot perceive the reality of God’s kingdom emerging around us in the present moment. Similarly, if we cannot perceive what God’s desires are for the world, then we will not know just how far off the mark we are from those desires.
The way of Jesus is meant to help us gradually begin to receive our sight, and the more we see, the more we are called to repentance, which literally means “to change direction,” to begin walking on a new path toward a different reality. This seeing comes to us only by allowing the Spirit of God to work within us to convict and compel us to follow the way of Jesus.
From “Filled to Be Emptied: The Path to Liberation for Privileged People” by Brandan Robertson – Westminster John Knox Press