Racism (Article)

Introduction

What a year 2020 is turning out to be First the Corona Virus and now the protests on our streets followng the death of George Floyed and the accelerated emergence of the Black lives matter movement.

When it comes to the issue of Racism We must have our thinking on this issue shaped by Gods revelation in his word.

1) A Common Ancestry

The Bible would teach that ulitmately we all share a common ancestry to Adam. Of course none of this is to deny the existence of differing ethnicities or national distinctives.

Acts 17:26 ESV

And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,

Regardless of how much melanin we have in our skin we all share a common humanity.

2) The Image and Likeness of God.

Genesis 1:27 ESV

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

If all men are decended from Adam then all men are image bearers and thus endowed with intrinsic dignity value and worth. To persecute, descriminate, belittle, dehumanise a person based on the colour of their skin is not just an attack on that individual or the community to ehich they belong but to assault the God whose image they bear. The image of God is the foundation for the inherent dignity of every human being wether young, old, abled, disabled, black or white.

God does not show partiality or favouritism when it comes to skin colour. Jesus to died for the sins of the whole world that he might create a new humanity out of every tribe tongue and nation. 1 John 2:2

1 John 2:2 ESV

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

3) The Good Samaritan.

Jesus teaching on the parable of the Good samaritan teaches us to love our ethnically different neighbour

To appreciate how shocking this would have been to Jesus’ audience you have to understand how much Samaritans were genuinely detested by the Jews. If anyone had reason to have a go at the Samaritans it was Jesus as they Just chased him out of their village. John and James wanted Jesus to call down fire from heaven and destroy them. Samaritans were half Jew and half pagan, resulting from the resettlement policies of the Assyrian exile of the northern ten tribes in 722 b.c

THE whole parable is a response to an originl question - “who is my neighbour?” Jesus’ turns the question on its head. The parable prompts the lawyer to consider what it means to be a neighbor to someone rather than how to identify who is to be considered a neighbor.

He changes the question from What status of people are worthy of my love, to how can I become the kind of person whose compassion disregards ethnicity and status?

4) The Gospel.

The Gospel of Christ teaches us that racial reconciliation and oneness is possible. In Christ before God we are one. A new humanity is being created and is made up of all peoples tribes tongues and nations. An eternal brotherhood that transcends ethnicity

Galatians 3:28 ESV

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

5) The Heavenly Vision.

Revelation 7:9–10 ESV

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

Black Lives Matter

Of course there is still the question of how one should respond to Black lives matter movement. Personally, for me I won’t be bending the knee thoughtlessly to a political movement, (though I may be in agreement with it on many points). I bend the knee only to Christ. I am already a part of the greatest revolution in human history, the Jesus revolution. I have already seen a vision of justice and racial reconciliation that is embedded in the Kingdom of God and I have experienced it first hand when I worshiped at multicultural church in London. Christianity is the without doubt the most multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural movement in all of history.

Midful that evil prospers when good men say nothing, I will condem racism where I encounter it and always seek to support racial reconcillation (Blessed are the peacemakers). . In the parrable of the good Samritan, The priest left it to the Levite, and then the Levite did what the priest did—nothing! Such is the power of the bad example of a religious man. But as a friend recently said, “Now is not the time to be swept up by the zeitgeist, it’s time to be led by the Spirit of God”

I leave you with this quote from the late Ravi Zacherius

“If the scourge of racism is ever to die, it will only do so on the biblical basis of who we are as human beings as we learn to respect each person in his or her distinctive & essential splendour ...” Ravi Zacharias”