This post will be a warmup for when we gather Sunday for what we call Worship in the Round. This past Sunday I announced that for our monthly evening service (Worship in the Round) I would answer questions regarding the big topics affecting our country right now. In Q and A format I am going to answer questions regarding the pandemic, the election, and racism with my main objective being for our church to have the Bible’s answers on our national conversation. It is no understatement to say, a lot of people (Christians and non-Christians) have a lot to say on each subject but rarely in terms of biblical truth.

To get the ball rolling, I thought I would give a pre-Q/A answer to the question of racism and Christianity. Racism in simple terms is discriminating against, antagonistic toward, or thinking lesser of someone based on their race. Corresponding with this definition is the belief that someone sees themselves as superior to someone else based on race. God’s word boils all of this abhorrent thinking and action down to sin, particularly the sin called hate (cf. Titus 3:3 “…hating one another”).

I could unpack all kinds of things about this pervasive and culture altering sin, but I want to simply make the single point that being a racist is completely incompatible with being a Christian. I recently stated in a panel discussion that when I became a Christian no one had to tell me not to be a racist. This is because when God saves someone he performs spiritual open heart surgery, removing one heart with a natural bent toward hating people and replacing that with a new heart with a new bent toward loving people.

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8)

You may already know that 1 John is something of a spiritual exam testing the genuineness of someone’s conversion. A book of the Bible specifically designed to test someone to see which heart they have inside. They either have the heart they were born with, bent on hate or a new heart Jesus put inside them, bent on love. Simply put, when someone loves someone else and indiscriminately so I might add, that person is acting like God because God is love. Conversely, when someone hates someone else, he is not acting like God and is the opposite of God and proves he does not truly love God.

Hating someone (no matter their ethnicity) is always sin. Bottom line. This is obvious to most but what is equally the case and perhaps less obvious, is that not loving someone (irrespective of their race) is equally sinful. Tying this together – genuine Christians not only do not hate but they also do love!

Allow me to clarify a nuance here. The Bible does not teach that it is impossible to be a Christian and hate someone for their race temporarily. Pay attention to the word temporarily. We read in the book of Acts and Galatians the account of when Peter separated himself from eating with new Gentile converts, believing they were violating Jewish law. I am not sure you can classify this action as hate but it might be close to it. Certainly, this was racism. In Galatians, Paul records confronting Peter publicly, to his face.

My point is that Peter was sinning and Peter needed to repent of that sin. I believe he did so because if he would not repent of this sinful action and attitude this would call into question his salvation and Scripture never does this. Peter, throughout the record in the book of Acts and the New Testament was a noted leader in the church. Peter’s sin was real, extreme, and threatening both to himself and the unity of the early church but before we beat him up for his extraordinary sins, we need to remember that forms racial discrimination are common sins that everyone has to account for and repent of in life (cf. 1 Cor. 10:13). God’s word teaches that Christians will repent of their hatred (this kind and all kinds of hatred) and conversely that not repenting of this kind all kinds of hatred will call into question someone’s salvation. Someone claiming Christ who at the same time is a racist should always examine his conversion and likewise have no claim on the assurance of salvation.

A broad survey of Scripture paints a picture of race as both beautiful and redemptive. Genesis 10 speaks of the trifurcation of the races under Shem Ham and Japheth. Remember after the world was drowned in a flood based on extreme sins, Noah and his family established God’s incredible reset for repopulating the world. So, chapter 10 has been called, the table of nations as the history’s catalog of how God spread people groups all around the world both geographically and ethnically. The repeated refrain, “From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations” (Gen. 10:5; cff. v. 20, v. 32). It is fascinating to read these broad and precise statements made in this chapter which capture how we all came to be where we are.

This brings up next chapter, Genesis 11 which accounts what we know as The Tower of Babel. At first read, it can be confusing as Moses (the author of Genesis) appears to be working in reverse order to prove a point. He writes chapter 10 as the effect and then writes chapter 11 as the cause. Doesn’t the Tower of Babel precede God separating the nations? Of course it does. Putting the effect before the cause has been compared to watching an old war movie (i.e. on say, WWI) where you see the effects of years and years of battle only to return (say, in the middle of the movie) to the original cause of the war. Thus chapter 11 being the Tower of Babel scene explains why God divided everyone in the world up geographically and racially. The whole earth in its pride said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens” (Gen. 11:4). Because of man’s attempt to be god-like, God scattered this one group into many people groups, creating nations. Chapter 11 is then juxtaposed with chapter 12 where God first promises Abram (later named Abraham) that through Abraham’s loins and by his example of faith he would bless all the families of the earth. We know from reading our New Testament that this promise (known as the Abrahamic covenant) is made possible only by

our Savior Jesus. His death and resurrection is what has brought salvation to all believers for all time and from every nation. Racing ahead to Matthew 28 we find the risen Christ commissioning his followers to carry out this mission of winning the nations to believe. The church accepted this mission as is depicted in Acts 2 at Pentecost where everyone heard this good news, gospel preached in their own language. The early church began with Jewish converts but what formerly had been a race barrier was now broken down as sin was defeated by Christ’s cross. Jesus bought us back making us all one in Christ and co-equal heirs. Though our oneness is true and real, the Gospel still celebrates the races in the glorious vision of heaven captured in Revelation 4 and 5. Every tribe, tongue, people, and nation worship Jesus as both Creator of all things and Savior of all who believe! So again, being a Christian and being a racist are truly incompatible. Loving every race with godly affection is the only possible posture and path for everyone who names the name of Christ.