The Heresy of Racism (Part 1)
This essay and the following essay (Part 2) were previously published on the blog for Resonance Theological Journal in June and July of 2018. I am publishing them here because of the timeliness of the subject.
I have never understood racism. The very idea of pre-judging a
person’s value or worth based solely on skin color has always struck me as
ranking on the highest order of stupidity—the kind of stupidity that is chosen
and reinforced rather than merely passively learned from others. This
particular kind of sin is not merely a case of superficiality triumphing over a
more mature understanding of human existence; rather it is a purposeful
distortion of the nobility and intrinsic value of the human person as created
in God’s image. That is why I propose a different way of describing racism—as
the heresy of racism.
That I have never sympathized with nor understood racism I count
as a gift of God. My mind was never poisoned by the heresy of racism and the
irrational notion that human beings can or should be classified at all. That
“race” is part of people’s self-identity is theoretically understandable to me
but also deeply troubling. And so far as I have learned from studying history
it seems that categorizing humans by the complexion of the skin is modern idea.
Are not human beings more than the color of their skin? Or of
their ancestry? Or of the language and culture they were born into? And
according to Scripture, are we not told plainly that people’s value is based
upon their being created in God’s image and likeness? Where is there any basis
in Scripture for pride in one’s “race”? Are these not forms of idolatry which
modern people have invented because they have discarded the need for the One
who created all things according to his own wisdom and creativity?
I am employing the phrase “the heresy of racism” because I think
that how people speak of race and racism does not adequately demonstrate how
perverse it is. The notion of race and of the supposed superiority of one
subset or grouping (“race”) among humans is heretical because it is a denial of
the doctrine of human beings being created in the image and likeness of God
(with all the nobility and value that inherently gives us).
If we are going to assert the uniqueness of human beings in the
world then we must hold that all humans share the same value, dignity and
worth. To argue that superficial differences, even those based in our
physiology, constitute an intrinsic superiority or inferiority is alien to Scripture
and Christian tradition; rather, it is firmly rooted in a presupposition and
commitment to the philosophy of materialism—and to the particularly perverse
extension of Darwinian evolutionary theory to subclassify human beings (and
thus assign varying value to them) in all their created diversity.
The very notion of “race” is itself an invention and an extension of artificial cultural concepts. But these “unnatural” concepts of race have had a devastating effect on the lives of actual humans because this unnatural categorization became the justification of extraordinary injustice. Jonathan Marks, an Anthropologist, insightfully notes the following.
“Race is not a category of nature—that is to say, a formal zoological subdivision of the human species—but nevertheless something very real. We would consequently be mistaken to think that the only reality is ‘nature.’ Class differences, after all, are historical and cultural facts, not natural facts. To the extent that class differences may correlate with biological differences, we can see that the reality of race is a bio-cultural category—the intersection of natural human differences and the cultural classificatory decisions [people have made] about what kinds and what amounts of differences matter. . . . [However, we] ought to be leery, then, of the statement ‘race doesn’t exist’ simply because race doesn’t exist as a unit of nature, or biology, or genetics. For if the only reality we acknowledge is nature, what do we make of political or social or economic inequality? Those are real facts of history and society, rather than facts of nature.”[i]
I think that it is no accident that the notion of “race” and of
“racism” arose in the modern period of European history. For this has been a
time when revelation (Scripture) has been downplayed, if not outrightly
rejected, and with that arrogant indifference to divine revelation has come
philosophical materialism. Racial concepts are intertwined with philosophical
materialism and thus people have taken racial categories seriously. These
bedfellows have fueled much of the modern contentions that differences of
culture, language, ethnicity and skin color are inherently defining differences
which justify prejudice and hatred of those “others.” This fundamental problem,
which is rooted in modern secular ideology, cannot be solved by appealing to
philosophical materialism because only God’s written word provides an
explanation for why created things are so wonderfully different.
What then does this have to do with theology? Or with Scripture? I
contend that the European intellectuals of 19th century led the
way in redefining human nature by supposing that we could credibly ascribe the
superficial differences of appearance, customs and beliefs among humans around
the world to “race.” This effectively gave them the right to decide who was to
be considered full-fledged humans (and thus bearing value and to be esteemed).
They looked in the mirror and deified themselves as the norm of humanity—this
is idolatry of the crudest and most superficial form.
Once they convinced themselves that this classification according
to skin color was real they could begin to define themselves as distinctly
different and superior to the peoples of Africa, Asia, and all others. This
supposedly enlightened idea became self-authenticating. Then this racial grid
was imposed upon the biblical text and taught as biblical doctrine (or at least
compatible with it). The authority of Scripture then became a tool for them to
further justify and harden themselves in their deceit and malice towards those
“others” and even invent nonsense about the positive role of slavery in
society.
Does this sound crazy to you? It was not considered odd or even
questioned by many just four hundred years ago. Consider the following exert
from a paper presented by a Presbyterian Minister, Frederick A. Ross, who was
arguing for the practice of slavery. He insisted that the abolitionists in
America were dependent upon the political principles of independence derived
from the current political thought and the founding political documents of
America, especially the Declaration of Independence—not the plain the teaching
of the Bible. The abolitionists were, in effect, in error by embracing
unbiblical principles and had led many to disregard plain biblical teaching.[ii]
Ross made several types of theological arguments, but they are all based on the assumption that “white” people have been positioned by God in a superior position socially over negros (and others). That is, based on racial categorizations.
“[That] the relation of master and slave is sanctioned by the Bible; –that it is a relation belonging to the same category as those of husband and wife, parent and child, master and apprentice, master and hireling; –that the[se] relations [reflect God’s will for people in this fallen world] . . . [and] slavery, as a relation, suited to the more degraded or the more ignorant and helpless types of a sunken humanity, is, like all government, intended as the proof of the curse of such degradation, and at the same time to elevate and bless . . . while slavery will remain so long as God sees it best, as a controlling power over the ignorant, the more degraded and helpless . . .”[iii]
He states further, with remarkable confidence, that racial categories
are no longer needed to establish the legitimacy of slavery as expressing God’s
will for people in human society. Ironically, he attempted to distance himself
from racial notions and assert in effect that “the Bible says” slavery is
legitimate and ordained by God.
“[T]he Southern slave-holder .
. . feels, as never before, the obligations of the word of God. He no longer,
in his ignorance of the Scriptures, and afraid of its teachings, will seek to
defend his common-sense opinions of slavery by arguments drawn from ‘Types of
Mankind,’ and other infidel theories; but he will look, in the light of the
Bible, on all the good and evil in the system. . . . With no false ideas of
created equality and unalienable right, but with the Bible in his heart and
hand, he will do justice and love mercy in higher and higher rule. Every evil
will be removed, and the negro will be elevated to the highest attainments he
can make, and be prepared for whatever destiny God intends.”[iv]
This is heretical in so many ways! Aside from the absurdity of
having abandoned “arguments drawn from ‘Types of Mankind [racial
categorization],’ and other infidel theories” he audaciously denies “created
equality and unalienable right” for all human beings. This is, in effect, the
selective stripping of some human persons of their value, dignity and worth as
image bearers of God. To sustain this line of argumentation is to assert that
the declaration of Genesis chapters one and two only apply to certain groups of
human persons and not to others. And then he sought to infuse some moral
legitimacy to the inherently oppressive nature of slavery by stipulating that
it is the burden of the “white race” (the superior ones) to act justly on
behalf of “the negro” so the enslaved Africans can be “elevated to the highest
attainments he can make.” These are multiple strands of demonstrable falsehood
wound together with Christian terminology. And this is an actual example of the
outgrowth of the heresy of racism.
[i]Jonathan Marks, Is Science Racist? (Polity
Press:2017), pp.57-58, 58-59; italics in original.
[ii] A Documentary History of Religion in America to the Civil War, 2nd Edition, edited Edwin S. Gaustad, (Eerdmans:1993),
pp.500-502.
[iii] A Documentary History of Religion in America to the Civil War,
p.502, italics in original.
[iv] Ibid., p.502.
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