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A Christian Perspective on Racism

by Max Aplin
10/01/2024 / Christian Living

Something that the Christian faith has in common with mainstream Western culture is an opposition to racism.

In many ways, of course, Christian and majority Western values are completely at odds. On issues like abortion and homosexuality, for example, Christians today have to swim against the tide of popular opinion. And it is surely true that, in general, Christian and Western values are moving further apart.

But on racism we side with the majority Western outlook. We reject any form of hatred or mistreatment based on people’s ethnicity.

THREE KINDS OF RACISM

It is too simplistic to think of racism as a single thing that always involves the same sort of attitude. We can actually distinguish between three common kinds of racism. First, there is hating people because of their ethnicity. Second, there is looking down on people as inferior because of their ethnicity. And third, there is unfairly discriminating against people because of their ethnicity.

The first kind of racism, hating people because they belong to a certain ethnic group, is obviously an evil thing. God is love (1 John 4:8), and all human beings have been created in His image (Gen 1:26-27). So it is extremely important that we love others, regardless of their ethnic group. And it should be obvious too that hatred of people can lead to all sorts of hostile actions that harm them.

The second kind of racism, looking down on people of a certain ethnic group as inferior, is also wrong. There is no reason whatsoever to think that in God’s sight any ethnic group is superior to another.

The New Testament makes it clear that even ethnic Jews, the people God chose in Old Testament times, are not superior to Gentiles, i.e., non-Jews. In the first century, many Jews believed that they were superior human beings to all other people. However, in Romans 2:1-29 Paul sharply criticises this thinking. Similarly, in Acts 10:34-35 Peter says that God shows no partiality towards people of any nation, and he is certainly including the Jewish people in this.

If even Jews are not granted an ethnic superiority, it makes no sense to think that any Gentile ethnic groups should be granted this. Just as importantly, there is no biblical passage which teaches that any Gentile ethnic groups are superior to others. And in the absence of support for this idea, it should be firmly rejected.

The third kind of racism, unfairly discriminating against people on the basis of their ethnicity, is also obviously wrong. Sadly, however, it is all too common.

These three kinds of racism don’t always go together. It is quite possible, for example, for someone to look down on people of a certain ethnic group without feeling any hatred for them. Or it is possible to discriminate against people of a certain ethnicity without looking down on them. Different combinations of racist attitudes exist, but, regardless of the specifics in any given situation, these three kinds of racism are wrong and they grieve God.

PEOPLE WHO ARE RACIST AGAINST THEIR OWN ETHNIC GROUP

Although racism against people of a different ethnic group is common, it is actually also surprisingly common to find people being racist against their own ethnic group. This applies to all three kinds of racism that I have just mentioned.

First, there are people who hate their own ethnic group. Self-loathing is, of course, something that is well known as far as individual people are concerned. But the same sort of thing also occurs with regard to ethnic groups.

Quite common today is the self-loathing many white Westerners feel towards their own ethnic group, encouraged by so-called ‘Critical Race Theory’.

Second, it is also common to find people who view their own ethnic group as inferior to others. For example, I know from Ugandan Christian contacts that some Africans view themselves in this way, because of their history of being colonised by Europeans.

And third, it is common for people to discriminate against their own ethnic group. A good example is the white Western employers who sometimes deny white people jobs because of their skin colour.

All these forms of racism against one’s own ethnic group are just as wrong as racism against another group.

WHAT RACISM IS NOT

Having said a little about the types of racism that exist, it is worth saying a few words too about what racism is not.

Referring to people’s ethnicity

To begin with, it should be obvious that it is not racist to refer to a person’s ethnic group. Yet it is clear that people often feel very uncomfortable doing this.

For example, I have witnessed the following sort of situation:

A group of men, consisting of several white men and one black man, are doing something. For some (good) reason, someone at a distance wants to refer to the black man. By far the easiest way to single him out is to refer to his ethnic group and say something like, ‘You see the black guy over there?’ However, the person chooses instead to refer to what the man is wearing as a way to distinguish him from the other men in the group, even though this is a much more difficult way to point him out.

If you think about it, this is actually quite a strange way to behave. Those who won’t mention the fact that a person is black almost make it seem as if they think that being black is something to be ashamed of.

I am sure that the vast majority of those who avoid speaking about ethnicity don’t in fact think in this way. Instead, they are afraid that the people listening might think there is something inappropriate about referring to someone’s racial group.

Regardless of the precise reasons for refusing to mention ethnicity, however, it is a shame that anyone feels there is something wrong with referring to people’s ethnic groups in non-critical ways.

Attraction to people of the opposite sex

Second, it is not racist to find people of the opposite sex, who belong to certain ethnic groups, less attractive than those of other ethnic groups.

Just as there is nothing wrong, for example, with being more attracted to short people rather than tall people or vice versa, so there is nothing wrong with finding people of a certain ethnicity more or less attractive than others.

This is an area where Western society is really quite confused about what racism really is. It is clear that modern Westerners often tend to be very uncomfortable about even thinking that they find people of one ethnic group more attractive than people of another. But there is nothing wrong with this.

MIXED-RACE MARRIAGES

This brings us to mixed-race marriages.

I can remember a brief conversation I had a few years ago with a Christian who was opposed to mixed-race marriages. He said that God had created distinct ethnic groups, and that people should therefore aim to preserve the distinctions by not having mixed-race children.

Although there are far fewer Christians holding this view than there used to be, a number still believe this.

In the case of the man I spoke to, it has to be said that there was nothing racist about what he said. He was simply concerned that people fall in line with God’s creation.

Nevertheless, I am sure that his view was mistaken. The Bible doesn’t speak against mixed-race marriages in and of themselves, and at times it implies that they meet with God’s approval.

The Old Testament

It is true that in the Old Testament we sometimes find Jews being forbidden to marry Gentiles (e.g., Deut 7:3-4; Ezra 9:1-10:44). But the big concern with Jews marrying Gentiles in those days seems to have been a moral rather than an ethnic one. There was a grave danger that these Gentiles would lead Jews to worship false gods (e.g., Deut 7:3-4; 1 Kings 11:1-8).

Even in the Old Testament, however, we find examples of Jews in mixed-race marriages that are clearly approved by God.

Numbers 12:1-9 is a relevant passage. In 12:1 we are told:

‘Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman.’

(Scripture readings in this article are from the English Standard Version.)

At that time Cush was the area immediately to the south of Egypt, where modern-day Sudan is located. Elsewhere in the Old Testament, Cushite people are distinguished by their dark skin (e.g., Jer 13:23), and there are no good reasons for doubting that Numbers 12:1 is saying that Moses married a black woman. So Moses’ marriage with her was a mixed-race one.

We see from verse 1 that Miriam and Aaron criticised Moses for marrying this woman. And then in verses 5-8 God rebukes Miriam and Aaron for their attitude to Moses.

It is true that God’s rebuke seems to be at least mostly because Miriam and Aaron were assuming more importance than they should have, not specifically because they had criticised Moses’ marriage.

Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the passage implies that Moses did nothing wrong by marrying the Cushite woman. Verse 1 tells us that the precise reason Moses came under criticism from Miriam and Aaron in the first place was because he married her. So when God then responds to this criticism and describes Moses as ‘faithful in all my house’ in verse 7, this has to mean that God had no objection to Moses’ marriage.

Numbers 12:1-9, then, stands as a strong piece of biblical evidence that mixed-race marriages are not in themselves displeasing to God.

The book of Ruth is another powerful piece of evidence for this. It tells of how the Jew Boaz married Ruth, a woman of Moab, and that their child, Obed, became David’s grandfather.

The book of Ruth views this mixed-race marriage entirely positively.

The New Testament

Given that even in the Old Testament there are examples of mixed-race marriages involving Jews that are clearly acceptable to God, it is no surprise that the New Testament nowhere suggests that people should only marry people within their own ethnic group.

What is more, 1 Corinthians 7:39 seems to imply that Christians may marry people of any ethnic group. In this verse Paul says:

‘A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.’

Paul’s words most naturally imply that matters of ethnicity are irrelevant when a widow is contemplating remarriage.

Mixed-race marriages are morally acceptable

In view of biblical passages like the ones I have mentioned, and in the absence of passages that teach otherwise, we should have no hesitation in saying that it is not wrong for people to marry someone of a different ethnic group.

Of course, there might sometimes be specific challenges involved in a mixed-race marriage, just as there might be, for example, in a marriage where the man and woman are of different nationalities or of very different ages. But marrying someone of a different ethnicity or having children with a spouse of a different ethnicity are absolutely fine in and of themselves.

Almost everyone is mixed-race to some degree

It is worth noting too that, strictly speaking, almost every person alive today is mixed-race.

DNA analysis of ancestry is very popular these days, and results almost always seem to show that a person has a mixture of ethnic groups among their ancestors. And this, of course, means that to some extent almost every marriage today is actually a mixed-race marriage and almost every child is a mixed-race child.

ETHNICITY IS RELATIVELY VERY UNIMPORTANT

When all is said and done, in a Christian perspective ethnicity is a relatively very unimportant thing. What is vastly more important is the state of our relationship with God. Whether or not we are one of His saved children is what counts.

The Bible does teach that God still has unfinished business with ethnic Israel. And this means that in some sense the Jewish race still has great significance in God’s sight. But this is in no way because Jews are superior human beings to the rest of us.

APOLOGETICS AND EVANGELISM

In present-day Western culture, as I have mentioned, most people are opposed to racism. Christians side fully with this view, and we should make the most of this similarity in our apologetics and evangelism.

In Acts 17 we find Paul stressing similarities between the Christian faith and the views of the people he is evangelising. He speaks in a way that consciously echoes Stoic philosophy (verse 28) and he quotes a pagan poet approvingly (verse 28), all for the purpose of ‘bridge-building’ with those he intends to share the gospel with.

Of course, we should never build bridges with people by compromising on our values. There are plenty of differences between Western culture and the Christian faith, and we must always stand firm for what is right. Many people are hostile to our faith because of things they dislike in it or because of what they would have to give up if they were to become a Christian, and we mustn’t water down the truth to get more people on side.

Nevertheless, it makes perfect sense for Western Christians to follow Paul’s example by emphasising the ways in which we side with Western society.

Mainstream Westerners hate racism. So do we, and we should make sure that everyone knows it. Doing this should in some cases make the Christian faith seem that little bit less distant from people and make the gospel that little bit less of a stumbling block. For some people, it might make the difference between a decision to accept Jesus as Lord and a decision not to.