A Christian Response to Racial Difference

Facing some biblical facts

When a country like the USA …

“… goes through a trauma as it has since the killing by the police of [African American] George Floyd, the impact is felt world-wide. Mr Floyd’s death has provoked popular protests in dozens of countries. … On Saturday in Parliament Square in London, the largest of many demonstrations in Britain, tens of thousands of people braved chilly squalls and the risk of COVID-19, which had led government ministers to call for protests to be shunned. They shouted Mr Floyd’s name, chanted ‘Black Lives Matter’ and, every now and then, dropped to one knee with one clenched fist raised skyward. The crowd, overwhelmingly young and racially mixed, mostly wore masks but paid no attention to social-distancing constraints.”

So reported The Economist (8 June 2020) in an article headlined “How George Floyd’s death reverberates around the world.” But what should our response be? What does the Bible teach? The Apostle Paul’s experience in Athens, a multi-racial city if ever, teaches some essentials about racial difference.

First, our God of creation has created everyone equal. Paul said: “He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth … ‘in him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘for we are indeed his offspring’” (Acts 17. 26,27). So, he is the Father of us all, of whatever tribe, race or nationality, by creation as well as, supremely (for believers), by redemption.

Secondly, God has created the diverse “glory” of the nations. Different tribes, races and nationalities are not the result of the Fall. For we read “he made from one man every nation of mankind … having determined [i.e. previously] allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place” (Acts 17.26). So, at the end of history, in the New Jerusalem that comes down from heaven, “by its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it … They will bring into it the glory and honour of the nations” (Rev 21.24,26).

God’s first command to man was to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1.28). And as people obediently dispersed, early cultures developed. Gen 4.20-22 speaks of farming, music and early science. However, while culture can produce what is splendid and glorious, in a fallen world all is marred by sin and some marred directly by Satan. But heaven will witness the true cultural glory of the nations.

Thirdly, God will judge tribes, races and nations for their sins (Acts 17.30-31): “… he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Paul knew the sinfulness of the Athenians’ multi-faithism, while respecting their culture (his quoting Athenian poets proves his respect). As John Stott says:

“we learn … that a respectful acceptance of the diversity of cultures does not imply an equal acceptance of the diversity of religions. The richness [or glory] of each particular culture should be appreciated, but not the idolatry which may lie at its heart.”

Fourthly, God has been creating in this world a truly multi-lingual, multi-coloured, multi-racial, multi-national community, of which that embryonic new Athenian Church was, and is, a part. For we read “some men joined him [Paul] and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them” (Acts 17.34). One day this growing earthly community will be transformed, when Christ returns, into a heavenly and perfect community of myriads upon myriads of “ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev 5.9). So, now, abhor racism and welcome those of other colours and nations.

Facing some slavery facts

However, to understand the present we must understand the past, including Britain’s shocking transportation to the Americas of 3.1 million Africans (of whom 2.7 million arrived), many for US slavery and the worst ever known:

“In Brazil, the slave had many more rights than in the United States,” writes Nathan Glazer. “He could legally marry, he could, indeed had to, be baptized and become a member of the Catholic Church, his family could not be broken up for sale, and he had many days on which he could either rest or earn money to buy his freedom. The Government encouraged manumission ... In short: the Brazilian slave knew he was a man, and that he differed in degree, not in kind, from his master … [In the US] the slave was totally removed from the protection of organized society (compare the elaborate provisions for the protection of slaves in the Bible); his existence as a human being was given no recognition by any religious or secular agency; he was totally ignorant of, and completely cut off from, his past; and he was offered absolutely no hope for the future. His children could be sold; his marriage was not recognized; his wife could be violated or sold … and he could also be subject, without redress, to frightful barbarities … The slave could not, by law, be taught to read or write; he could not practice any religion without the permission of his master; and could never meet with his fellows, for religious or any other purposes, except in the presence of a white; and finally, if a master wished to free him, every legal obstacle was used to thwart such action. This was not what slavery meant in the ancient world, in medieval and early modern Europe, or in Brazil and the West Indies.”

However, thanks significantly to the late 18th and early 19th century Evangelical Revival, William Wilberforce’s Slave Trade Act of 1807 abolished the slave trade in the British Empire. Then the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 was passed that finally abolished slavery but on a gradual basis. This abolishing was achieved in the US with a Civil War and Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation on 1 Jan 1863; and the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on 6 Dec 1865. But black men and women were still being grossly humiliated for 100 years and suffering in other ways. Then in 1964 the American Civil Rights Act was passed after Martin Luther King had amazed the world with his successful and peaceful black protest movement. But all is still not well – witness George Floyd’s brutal killing.

Something forgotten

What is a Christian response? We first need to admit that we are all sinners and subject to God’s law. Then we need the truth about the problems, in addition to that of police brutality, behind the current protests. Also, will they be solved by structural and institutional change that Governments and other agencies alone can bring? Or is it personal reform by all of us that is needed? May I suggest it is both, together with changed prejudices and appropriate resources. Also, we could well remember that in March 1965, in the wake of the new Civil Rights Act, a US social scientist, Daniel Moynihan, produced a report on the black family and The Case for National Action. His thesis was that the black family, “battered and harassed by discrimination, injustice, and uprooting, is in the deepest trouble.” While many young blacks “are moving ahead to unprecedented levels of achievement, many more are falling further and further behind.” Moynihan noted that, inevitably in such a situation, there were more lone mothers, less marrying, less father involvement in the black family, and so on, than in white families. And all that generates poverty. His findings exactly parallel those of the late Norman Dennis, the Newcastle University social scientist, regarding his research on family formation among the white poor.

Therefore, one Christian response is to stress the need for conversion to Jesus Christ and for laws, education and resources to help restore Christ’s marriage ethic of marrying once and for life, for all - black and white. But, since 1965 and “the sixties culture”, permissive legislation has led to more family disintegration, particularly damaging the poor, black and white. To prove a point: what happened soon after the protests in Parliament Square on 6 June? Answer: MPs voted 231 to 16 in favour of the Government’s Bill to introduce no-fault divorce in England and Wales! So how we need to pray for an Evangelical Revival that changes people and structures for the glory of God, and the good of all races, in our country and in the wider world.