Racism and the Gospel

Have you ever wondered just exactly why and how we as a society can say that members of all races are equal? Well, if you do not approach race from a Christ-centered perspective, I really don’t think you can. Without a Biblical basis, I don’t think there is any way to say that there is no intrinsic difference between blacks and whites and Latinos and Orientals and such. Think about it. Without the divinely revealed and authoritative moral standards of God, all that remains is a Darwinistic survival of the fittest model. And that’s no good.

So how exactly, from a Christian viewpoint, can we honestly say that all peoples, no matter what race, creed, or color, are the same? There are two ways. The first is the positive one. It is the fact that we all are made in the image of God. All of us, as humans, not only reflect God in the fact that many of our attributes are similar to His, but also in the fact that we are personal, just like the Trinity. So from this we are made to understand that we are all the same because every human, no matter in what condition (including those who are mentally disabled) or what type, are all fully equivalent in our basic humanity.

The second way that we Christians can authoritatively say that all humans are equal, is again, precisely because we are all equal in our basic humanity, but this time in a negative way. For me, this is much more personal. I was pulling out of my neighborhood one day this week when I say a person of another race pull into it. I thought to myself, “What makes this man the same as me?” The answer was immediate: because he is just as sinful as I am. Our basic humanity became flawed by the fall, and the great equalizer was and still is sin. All peoples of all types stand condemned by God and are in need of a Savior.

How then can racism continue? Most racism is based on the fact that I am morally better and more righteous than a person of another race simply because I am of a different color. When someone honestly looks at someone else and realizes that that person is no better than him because he is just as sinful as the next guy, how can feelings of racism and prejudice persist? We would do well to remember that.