Is the Bible Racist? | Foundations of Truth

Many leftists have claimed that many of the Bible’s most faithful adherents are racists. As the word “racist” has been diluted, it has become increasingly easy to make this claim. Nonetheless, this contradicts the truths of the Bible.

John 16:29 describes a moment when “Jesus’ disciples said, ‘Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.’”

Jesus knew that there was a proper time to reveal the truth and he knew that once his crucifixion had passed, the time had come for the truth to be made plain.

As Christians, we derive our morals and ethics from the Bible. We seek to preserve the truth. Although our traditions have changed over the centuries, the essential truths of God are passed down from generation to generation.

One of those truths is that God taught Christians to love one another indiscriminately, regardless of their outward characteristics. It is for this reason that Christians were the most vocal and profound advocates of abolition. [2]

Deuteronomy 10:17-19 provides one such example of God’s love for all people: “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.”

Not only is this theme of universal “unracialized” love found throughout the Bible, there is a general consensus among scholars that the categories of “White,” “Black,” “Brown,” etc. are products of the modern world and have no place in an analysis of what the Bible’s human scribes would have been thinking about. [1]

Simply put: despite what some leftists may say, the Biblical worldview provides no room for racism.

That is not to say that the Bible supports the view that feeling any form of discomfort, such as having one’s name mispronounced, is the same “racism.” [4] Although there have been efforts in recent years to redefine what constitutes racism, the classic understanding of its meaning is connected to the idea of eugenics, or, rather, the “belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” [3]

The dilution of the word “racism” has now weakened our ability to identify its evils. Now, instead of rooting out the truly evil beliefs of genuine racists, the word is being used to describe discrimination and prejudice, lumping otherwise well-meaning people in with a group that is known for murdering people over their skin color.

Although both discrimination and prejudice are wrong, they are no where near as dangerous as a racial supremacist’s views. While many are lulled into believing that such views are a thing of the past, this kind of racism is hardly extinct. In fact, the American public was reminded of this recently when a road rage incident led a White motorist to threaten a Black off-duty police officer and his son, screaming “You’ll never be White! You’ll never be White!” [5]

No, Christianity is not racist, in fact it calls us to push back on the evils of this racism. Furthermore, we must not allow definitional arguments to confuse us or lead us to believe that the vicious evil of this form of racism is dead, we must speak the Biblical truth that racism is evil while fulfilling the command to love one another.

We ought to uphold what Ephesians 4:15 teaches us: “speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.”

 

[1] https://aeon.co/essays/fact-check-the-idea-of-race-is-not-modern-but-late-medieval

[2] https://www.britannica.com/topic/abolitionism-European-and-American-social-movement

[3] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racism

[4] https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-04-06/mispronouncing-asian-names-racism-ovation-awards

[5] https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/17/us/new-york-racist-road-rage/index.html

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