My Prophetic Rabbit

The above picture is a photo of our rabbit. Actually we are just foster parents, he belongs to our daughter and her husband, but for practical reasons has been staying with us for the past six months. He is called Bavinck.  A strange name for a rabbit you might think, so where does it come from. The rabbit is named after a Dutch Reformed theologian of the later nineteenth, early twentieth century called Herman Bavink. During his life he made several trips to America, and you can read more in a post by James Eglington, which is where most of my information comes from. In 1909 in a lecture in Rotterdam 1909 he said:

In the future, there truly lurks a danger, and in the future a struggle will doubtless be fought between black and white, a heated struggle, fanned into flame by the strong antipathy on both sides.

Sadly this was all too prophetic. He argued that religion was the only way to avoid this, and that “the whole human race is of one blood”, as the Bible teaches.

All “races” (there is really only one race, the human race, but you know what I mean) are capable of racism, but there does seem to be a peculiarly deep rooted problem in America (see the post by post by James Eglington) which those of us from other countries may find difficult to comprehend. 

In these days we need to be very careful of being swept along by the strong tides that are swirling around in society at present.  At the end of John chapter 2 it says:

Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. (John 2:23,24)

We need to beware of entrusting ourselves to the ideas of men. Much of what is going on in America, and in other countries, in reaction to George Floyd's murder is motivated by critical race theory and identitarian politics. Such ideology is destructive and does nothing to help black people, nor to bring peace. The only way forward is to recognise, along with my prophetic rabbit, that we are all of one blood, we are all of one race in Adam. That means we are all sinners. And then to see that the solution is the blood of Christ, certainly not in shedding other people’s blood. Only in Christ can we all be one.

I would also recommend David Robertson's article, which directed me to Bavink!