Introduction

The paper takes a brief look at “racism” and how we should deal with it from a Biblical perspective. We reflect here the deductions of research, rather than the details. The writer recognizes that there are other perspectives and theories regarding this serious issue, but is satisfied that the Biblical position is correct. Consequently, without pointing to the merits and demerits of the various positions and without attempting to defend for his own, he discusses the issue from the Biblical position., which is his final authority.

Definition

In this discussion, we define “racism” as prejudicial behavior based on the presumption that people of one race are superior to those of another. In short, “racism” accepts the concept of the hierarchy of races

This concept leads the dominant race, through its control of Institutions, Systems, Resources, and Customs of Society to enforce its prejudices over the others. It assumes that members of the subordinate groups do not have the full humanity, the wisdom, or the judgment to make meaningful and proper decisions to affect their lives or the lives of others. Therefore, the dominant group must make decisions for the subordinate one. The dependency of the subordinate group grows as the dominant group continues to deny the members of the subordinate group their freedom.

Our discussion on “racism” begs the question: “If God made man, what race did He make him and where did all of the different races come from?” The Bible teaches that God created man and then woman (Genesis 1:26-31; 2:7-25). The first couple, Adam and Eve, the parents of all mankind, had other children in addition to Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:25; 5:4).

The Origin of The races

There have been many theories concerning the origin of the different races in the world. Some have concluded that the different races originated when Noah’s descendants disembarked from the Ark after it rested on Mount Ararat following the universal flood that destroyed the lives of all mankind, Genesis 6-8. Then, they migrated back five hundred miles to Babylonia, the general area where they lived before the Flood. Many years later they scattered abroad through the “Confusion of Tongues” or by different languages, which emerged at the Tower Of Babel, Genesis 11.

Others have concluded that when Noah’s sons left the Ark they went in different directions and this marked the beginning of various races. Japheth went to the North and settled in the regions of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. As a result, the Caucasian races of Europe and Asia began. Ham went south and settled in South and Central Arabia, Egypt, the East Shore of the Mediterranean, and the East Coast of Africa. The citizens in these areas were his descendants. Shem journeyed towards Assyria, Syria, and the Euphrates Valley. The people of Palestine are his descendants.

Anthropologists divide mankind into three major stocks, the Caucasoid, the Caucasian, or white stock, the Negroid, or black stock, and the Mongoloid, or yellow stock. Each of these further subdivided into a number of smaller groups or races. For many generations, man has been crossing and re-crossing. Consequently, there is probably not any pure race today. Some scientists tell us that any given race in Europe has some of the genes, or hereditary units, of almost all other races in Europe.

Racial Matters, A Fact of Life

We must accept the fact that there are different races and different racial cultures. Skin color or different National origins are racial differentia. However, this is only incidental and relative to what constitutes authentic humanity. It is when we turn these incidental and relative differences into absolutes that race becomes “racism.” For example, when the incidental factor of black, white, or brown skin-color becomes absolute, black, white, or brown “racism” emerges. Nazism was born when Hitler absolutized Nordic origin. When a feature of race incidental to our humanity is absolute, the race possessing this feature exalts itself as a superior race and develops the consciousness that it bears a transcendent destiny to lead the world into the future by whatever means necessary. Its manifest destiny, however, becomes obvious in its peculiar racial difference. In white “racism,” superiority is manifest in white skin. In Hitler’s Germany, it was Nordic soil and blood.

“Racism” Presents Serious Problems

“Racism” in any of its many forms is dangerous and destructive. It exalts itself against God and projects itself as though it were God. From a Biblical perspective “racism” is a vaulting, arrogant human attempt to seize for itself the status that in Biblical thought is, “Election.” Since “Election” belongs only to the Most High, who “ . . . is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of men” (Daniel 4:17), “racism” is a serious perversion and is strongly condemned in Scripture.

“Racism” presents many serious problems. Arising out of the definition, are several serious issues for us to consider closely. First, “racism” ignores God’s mighty work in creation. The Bible declares that God created all men in His image and likeness:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:26-28).

The Fall of Mankind in the Garden of Eden did not obliterate this image and likeness, though it marred it: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man” (Genesis 9:6). God created all mankind, as represented by Adam and Eve, for unity and solidarity. Adam and Eve complemented each other. Together, they received the command to subdue to the earth and to rule creation.

The only differentiation we see in creation is based on gender: male and female, but even this, arises out of unity and involves mutual dependence, not in hostility or in any feeling of superiority. The Bible further declares that “[God] has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth…” (Acts 17:26 NJKV). He “ . . . shows no partiality . . .” (Acts 10:34, NKJV). Since God, Himself treats all mankind equally, for us to do otherwise, dishonors Him, and exalts ourselves.

Second, “racism” attacks the unity and solidarity of the human race, which our common sinful condition clearly reflects. Both Adam and Eve sinned against their Maker and God expelled them together from the Garden. Further, apostle Paul makes it abundantly clear that sin has contaminated the whole of the human race: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23). This places all mankind on equal grounds.

Third, “racism” denies the universal nature of the Christian Faith. The Christian faith is for all nations and speaks of the Universal Kingdom. God is Lord of all the nations. The purpose of Israel’s salvation was to witness to the universal power and love of God. The community of Israel acted as a paradigm community foreshadowing the coming Kingdom of Yahweh over all the world: “ . . . It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6).

Some have argued that God’s choice of Israel to be recipients of His special blessings, demonstrates some form of superiority of Israel over other nations. This is not the case. God did not choose Israel for the purposes of ethnocentricity, but to represent His universal Redemption. Its worship was to foreshadow the worship of all nations: “And I, because of their actions and their imaginations, am about to come and gather all nations and tongues, and they will come and see my glory” (Isaiah 66:18). Israel’s calling to Servant-hood in Isaiah 53 is the opposite of racial superiority that some so erroneously assume. God gave His marvelous Grace to Israel, His Covenant People, not on the merits of their race or any other quality, but solely out of Divine Love and for the fulfillment of His purpose. They were to mediate this love to the world.

Fourth, our Lord Jesus Christ eloquently illustrated the principle of universality in the New Testament. He speaks against racial “particularism,” by attacking anti-Samaritan views:

As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.

And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him;

but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem.

When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” But Jesus turned and rebuked them,

and they went to another village (Luke 9:51-56).

In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, He held the Samaritan as a model: “But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him” (Luke 10:33).

Fifth, the promise that our Lord Jesus Christ made to His disciples immediately before His Ascension emphasized that the Holy Spirit would come upon them, not for their sake alone, but to empower them to take Gospel to the nations. The promise says: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Sixth, a careful examination of the Early Church shows both the existence of racially superior assumptions among the Jewish Christians and the theological responses of the apostles to counter these assumptions. Peter’s vision in Acts 10: 9, is of decisive Theological and Ecclesiological significance:

About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray.

He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance.

He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners (Acts 10: 9-11).

This showed Peter that God intended to bring the Gentiles into His Saving Purpose. This clearly revealed the universality of the Gospel and its non-discriminatory nature. In Peter’s words:

Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism

but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right (Acts 10:34-35).

The mighty outpouring of the Blessed Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, Acts 2, showed that the power of God was for all.

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.

Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them (Acts 2:1-3).

Further, the apostle Peter declared:

In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.

Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy (Acts 2: 17-18).

Seventh, the apostle Paul makes it clear that Salvation in Christ is independent of all racial, gender or social divisions and stands over and against them. Believers are justified only by God’s Grace through faith. Having become members of Christ’s Body, they are united and unified in Him:

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,

for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:26-28).

This passage shows clearly that baptism symbolizes the essential solidarity or oneness of believers, just as much as it signifies the washing away of sin and the incorporation of believers into Christ.

We see the same line of thought expressed in the Epistle to the Colossians. Here the apostle Paul says that the grounds of the unity of the Church is the Cosmic Lordship of Christ:

For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy (Colossians 1:16-18).

Christ’s unifying of creation through His Death is modeled in the Church, which demonstrates the unifying purpose of God for the whole world. Consequently, in Him “there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all” (Colossians 3:11).

The apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians extends the Christological argument by giving a Theological basis for the unity, not only of the Church but also of humanity and the entire created order. It says that God’s purpose is “ . . . to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ” (Ephesians 1:10). In the light of this, any attempt to formulate a doctrine of racial hierarchy flies in the face of New Testament teaching. The universality of the Kingdom expressed in the Old Testament is fulfilled in Christ. Consequently, believers possess fundamental ontological equality before God and one another. This unity is rooted in their “new life” in Christ: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). As the first fruits of the Kingdom, the Church ontologically expresses the Will of God for the whole of humanity in Christ. Racial equality is rooted in God’s Ruler-ship over the world.

Eight, in His wonderful Incarnation, our Lord Jesus Christ embodied humanity in all its facets:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death–even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:6-8).

But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons (Galatians 4:4-5).

Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted (Hebrews 2:18)

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet was without sin (Hebrews 4:15).

In the Incarnate Christ, all racial groupings find expressions. He is the principle of solidarity-in-unity personified. For this reason, it is perhaps incorrect to say that humanity is composed of different races in an ontological sense. In reality, this may appear to be so, but underlying the appearances is the fact that, in terms of being, the human race possesses an essential oneness made explicit in the Incarnate Christ. “Racism” attempts to frustrate the true meaning and purpose of the Incarnation and is, therefore, evil.

Ninth, from a Trinitarian perspective, the idea of diversity and differentiation within unity is fundamental. The relationship between the Persons of the Triune Godhead offers a further model that expresses ontological unity. Speaking of the Trinity, Leonardo Boff has commented: “The essential characteristic of each Person is to be for the others, through the others, with the others and in the others. They do not exist in themselves, for themselves: the ‘in themselves’ is ‘for the others” Consequently, the Trinity offers a model for human relationships which is distinctly anti-racist. “The Trinity can be seen as the model for any just, egalitarian social organization.” The practice of “racism” works against the concepts that the Holy Trinity presents and is therefore a slap in the face of the Maker.

The Disastrous Effects of Racism

“Racism” disqualifies one for entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. One cannot be a Christian and a “racist” at the same time. These positions are irreconcilable. The Bible warns us: “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” (1John 3:15). Racism violates the Sixth Commandment, which says: “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). Biblical Christianity forbids “racism.”

“Racism” is a spiritual, moral, and social problem. It hinders personal and National development, divides people and nations, promotes conflict, and prevents entry into the Kingdom of God. Racial conduct in any form: apartheid, ethnic cleansing, racial profiling affirmative action, or any other is one of the most destructive sins in our day. It is sometimes harsh and blatant and sometimes patronizing or perfumed in euphemisms. It may be so open and exposed that we cannot deny it or may be subtle and covered so that only the victims feel its evil effects. However, it expresses itself, “racism” is sin.

Conclusions

From our discussion, we can draw at least four conclusions. First, any idea of racial superiority and racial hierarchy is against Biblical teaching on the unity and solidarity of humanity. Second, we concede that there are phenomenological differences between groupings, but these are not grounded in ontology. Third, models of humanity can best be derived from the Doctrines of God, Christ, the Church, and the Holy Trinity, since these allow for diversity, but emphasize essential unity. Fourth, race is only a relative and incidental issue to authentic humanity.

Resolution

• Whereas, racism, is one of the most destructive and divisive evils of our day,
• Whereas, racism is in total violation to Word of God,
• Whereas, racism stagnates development, personal and national,
• Whereas, racism dehumanizes the victims and stagnates development at all levels,
• Whereas racism is rooted in pride, which is a terrible sin in the sight of God,
• Whereas racism will send people to an eternal hell

Be it resolved,

• That we sincerely repent of this evil
• That we pray earnestly against this Satanic stronghold and believe God for victory over this form of bondage
• That we not only condemn, but we preach and teach against the practice of all forms of discrimination in every area of life particularly as it relates to race and ethnicity.
• That we publicly and privately oppose the spirit of racism wherever and whenever it raises its ugly head.
• That all steps be taken to censure any, wherever possible and practical, who may be guilty of racism.

“So help us God!”