by Dr. Neil Shenvi
Ten years ago, if you’d asked the average Christian “is racism a sin?” their response would have been an emphatic “yes,” probably accompanied by a puzzled expression that communicated: “you can’t be serious.” However, today, some Christians seem to be asking that question in earnest, for multiple reasons.
Questioning Racism
First, the suffusion of critical race theory into our culture has led many people, especially progressives, to redefine racism in terms of diffuse, nebulous systems of power that are baked into ostensibly race-neutral laws, policies, and norms. This redefinition has led to confusion, as everything from tipping to math education to drinking milk has been declared to be an expression of racism.
Second, accusations of racism are used as a moral cudgel to bully people into affirming progressive politics. Thus, conservatives are often hesitant to acknowledge racism, thinking that they will be handing their political opponents a stick to beat them with.
Finally, these understandable concerns have produced an overcorrection among some Christians, who are beginning to question not only whether CRT’s redefinition of racism is legitimate, but whether racism itself is a sin. After all, we don’t find the word “racism” in the Bible. So why think that “loving one’s race” is a sin? Isn’t “raaayyyycism” just a made-up Marxist category? Doesn’t the Bible command us to love all men but to have a special love for our own wife? Or for our own children? Or for our own family? Certainly, hatred of another racial group is a sin, but why is it a sin to prefer one’s own race? What is wrong with wanting to live among one’s own people?
Let’s answer each of these objections in term.
The Sinfulness of Racism
First, the argument that “racism isn’t a sin because the word ‘racism’ isn’t in the Bible” is invalid. After all, the words “pedophilia,” “abortion,” and “transgenderism” aren’t in the Bible, but it surely doesn’t follow that pedophilia, abortion, and transgenderism are morally neutral. Rather, we have to ask whether these words correspond to a category in the Bible that is named as a sin. In the case of racism, the answer is a resounding yes. As we will see, racism is a form of partiality, which is repudiated by the Bible (Deut. 1:17, 1 Tim. 5:21, James 2:1-13).
Second, invoking the Bible to defend “loving one’s race” is questionable, since the modern concept of race isn’t a biblical category. The Bible recognizes ethnicity/nation, tribe, family, and language, but not racial categories like “black” or “white” or “Asian.”
Even from a secular perspective, race is a more dubious category of identity than ethnicity or nationality. Why should -say- an Asian person feel a special affection for all the 5 billion people that we happen to dump into the bucket called “Asian,” who are citizens of dozens of different countries, and who speak thousands of different languages? What exactly does a “white” atheist barista in Portland have in common with a “white” Muslim farmer in Albania? Wanting to live amongst people “of your own race” is as bizarre as wanting to live with people “of your own hair color” or “who also have detached earlobes.”
In reality, when people talk about race they are usually talking about ethnicity, a people group’s shared language, culture, and history. Certainly, it’s not a sin to feel a special affection for those with whom you share a language, culture, and history. After all, no one thinks French people or Japanese people are in sin for feeling a special affection for their countrymen. Yet, even here, several cautions are in order.
First, Jesus emphasized that unity in Christ trumps all bonds, even familial ones (Matt. 12:46-50). Thus, if our “love for our own ethnic group” is hindering Christian fellowship, it is sinful. Second, our constant talk about race in the U.S. has obscured the fact that “American” is actually an ethnic group! Spend some time in India or Germany, and you will quickly realize that Americans are your people, people with whom you share a common language, culture, and history. Finally, speculation about the demographic make-up of an ideal nation-state is completely irrelevant to your duty to love your actual neighbors. Even if you sincerely believe that monocultural societies are more stable than multicultural ones, that in no way absolves you of your duty to love the immigrants next door.
The sin of racism, then, is best understood as ethnic partiality, which can be defined as a disordered love of one’s ethnic group that causes us to treat others unrighteously.
Disordered affections
Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) provides a good illustration of a proper versus an improper ordering of our affections. In the parable, a Jewish man is robbed and badly beaten by bandits. Yet both a priest and a Levite, fellow Jews, ignore his plight while a Samaritan –an ethnic and religious outsider— has compassion on him. The Samaritan fulfills God’s command to love his neighbor while the two Jews do not. The implication is clear: our obligation to love our neighbor requires us to love the person right in front of us, regardless of their ethnicity or religion. If someone’s “love for his own people” causes him to disobey the Second Greatest Commandment, then his “love for his own people” is disordered.
This understanding of racism is consistent with how we understand other forms of partiality. To use a trivial example, it would not be a sin for a UNC fan to feel more warmth toward a fellow UNC fan than toward a Duke fan. But it would be a sin for him to see the Duke fan’s car broken down and to pass by on the other side of the road on the grounds that “I just really love my fellow UNC fans.” More seriously, it is obviously not a sin to love your children more than other people’s children. But if you were a college admissions officer, it would be a sin to admit your less qualified child while turning away a more qualified applicant.
Here, as elsewhere, we can recognize the prohibition against ethnic partiality as a simple extrapolation of the Golden Rule: treat others as you want to be treated. Would you want to be turned away from a job merely because of your ethnicity? Then do not turn away others merely because of their ethnicity. Would you want others to make negative assumptions about you? Then don’t make negative assumptions about them.
Sometimes, people’s inconsistency can also show them that they intuitively recognize that racism is wrong, even if they claim to be skeptical about its moral status. For example, I have personally seen people insist that racism is an imaginary, unbiblical, Marxist category while simultaneously lamenting the ubiquity of anti-white racism in our culture. Which is it? If, as a white person, you hate racism when it is directed against you, then you should reject it when it is directed against others as well. Either it’s a sin for everyone or it’s a sin for no one. It can’t only be a sin when it affects you!
Admittedly, there are gray areas where the situation can be complicated. For example, in Acts 6, the early church appears to have selected the first deacons from among the Hellenistic Jews, not the Hebraic Jews. Similarly, missions agencies routinely favor indigenous missionaries over American missionaries. But, in both of these cases, people’s ethnicity is actually functioning as a qualification for certain jobs or roles. The Hellenistic deacons’ cultural background could have equipped them to better address the church’s needs because the Hellenistic Jews specifically were complaining about the church’s failure to provide for their widows. In the same way, indigenous missionaries are typically better equipped to reach their own people groups than foreign missionaries. So, in these examples, qualification and ability are the ultimate criteria being applied, not ethnicity per see.
Reaching out
One final suggestion: seek to understand the motivation of “racism skeptics.” Many young white men are angry because they’ve been told for their entire lives that they’re privileged oppressors who need to repent of their complicity in racism and patriarchy. Is it any wonder that they’re lashing out? The solution is not mere condemnation, but also sympathy. Rather than thundering “How dare you?” it’s often more helpful to respond “I know what it’s like to be mocked for your race and your gender. As a Christian, I can grieve with you. But embracing racism in retaliation isn’t the solution.” Show them that, as followers of Christ, we have a better message and a better basis for genuine unity.