9 Reasons to Reject Racism: Reasons 1-5

Does American society have a racism problem? Does the the church? Lately, everybody seems to claim or assume the answer to both of these questions is “yes,” but maybe those who preach, teach, and lead in churches and ministries have the same job to do either way—to ensure that the wealth of biblical teaching relevant to racism reaches the believers in their care.

To clarify a couple of key terms, I’m using “race” here in the old sense: basically a group of ethnicities from the same general geography who have some shared physical characteristics. Given the large amount of concept-overlap, I’ll treat race and ethnicity as being roughly equivalent. “Racism” here refers to devaluing and mistreating people (inwardly or outwardly) because we think they’re of a different race than ourselves.

Scripture gives us several reasons to reject these attitudes and behaviors. We’ll consider nine, with the first five in this installment.

1. We’re commanded not hate.

Jesus predicted that hate would be a growing problem in the future (Matt. 24:10), but the NT directly instructs us to turn away from hate.

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. (ESV, 1 John 4:20)

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice [i.e., every form of ill will]. (Eph 4:31)

In the Sermon the Mount, Jesus systematically exposed the underlying corrupt attitudes of His hearers. It must have been both blessed and painful to be there and hear these words:


The supposed enlightened of society increasingly use the term “hate” to shout down any moral judgments they don’t like, but that doesn’t reduce the importance of rejecting true hatred. If anything, the growing confusion makes turning away from real hatred more important than ever.

2. We’re commanded to view believers who are different from us as one with us in Christ.


The Apostle is not directing Christians to treat each other identically across these categories. Equal and identical are not the same thing. If I say to my son, “Please mow the lawn,” and say to my daughter “Please wash the dishes,” I’m not treating them identically, but I am treating them equally. If the yard work and the housework categories seem too traditional (which is supposed to mean unfair now), reverse them. The point still stands.

So it is that, in the church, men and women have different jobs to do, but these assignments are not unequal in essence or value—they’re just different. But when it comes to ethnic backgrounds, Scripture doesn’t even call for different roles, much less unequal ones.

We are one in Christ, regardless of gender, ethnicity/race, or economic status (James 2:1-4).

3. We’re encouraged to see our differences in the body of Christ as God’s wise design.

The NT doesn’t offer a text that directly says “your ethnic differences are God’s wise design.” What it does reveal is that all of our differences are from Him (1 Cor. 4:7) and that our differences in ability are specifically His wise design for His body, the church.

So, if the differing gifts are His wise design, does it follow that differing natural traits are not? Surely the spirit of these words applies to both:



In the body of Christ, different is from God, and different is good. Excesses of the socio-political left have given “diversity” a bad name. But long before it became a social obsession, diversity was God’s idea.

4. We’re commanded to regard every man as made in the image of God.



“Image” refers to both the pattern of our being and to our general purpose—and this pattern and purpose exists from conception to the grave in the greatest of heroes and the lowest of criminals.

The terms “brotherhood of man” and “fatherhood of God” have taken on a good bit of socially and theologically liberal baggage. But there is one sense in which it’s correct to think in these terms: nobody we ever meet is less than a fellow human being made in the image God. There is a kinship of ultimate origin there that goes far deeper than mere ethnic origin.

5. We’re commanded to avoid unnecessary offense.

Some apparently reason that because the godly suffer persecution, all “persecution” is evidence of godliness. This is faulty thinking in itself (see Affirming the Consequent), but Scripture also directly challenges it:


When we bring suffering on ourselves by being needlessly offensive, we’re really not being “persecuted.” We’re bringing shame on our Savior and on the gospel.

Paul went way out of his way to avoid unnecessarily alienating people he was supposed to seek connections with (i.e., everybody).

Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, (1 Cor. 10:32)


The gospel declares that every person is born in sin, has continued to wrong a holy God, and is justly condemned to eternal judgment. It further insists that our absolute best can’t even begin to solve the problem. That’s an inherently offensive message—all the more reason we who declare it must make sure it’s the gospel that offends and not our carelessness, arrogance, or insensitivity.

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There are 3 Comments

G. N. Barkman's picture

Thanks, Aaron.  Excellent thoughts.

G. N. Barkman

Bert Perry's picture

Nothing wrong with a list, I guess, but something in me wants to simply say "according to Genesis 1, the person in front of you is created in the very image of God.  Got it?"  Something along the lines of Hillel's citing the Golden Rule as the essence of the Torah, and the rest being just commentary.  

Aaron Blumer's picture

Bert, you have a point. Then again, the Greatest Commandment plus the "second like unto it" sums up all the law and prophets.... yet God still gave us all the law and the prophets.

So sometimes we need the redundancy... or the details, depending on how you look at it.
