Racism isn’t just wrong, the term itself is bad anthropology
Add comment September 4th, 2009
Here is a great story about a Lebanese Christian family who worked positively through the years against bias against black customers who just wanting to eat some great BBQ.
But it raises a question for the thinking, biblical Christian,,,
Our modern American culture is increasingly embracing the message that racism is wrong. As followers of Christ we know that is it wrong to be biased against anyone based on their “racial” background, and it is right to care for people regardless of that background (see the story of the Good Samaritan, for example). Here’s the problem as I see it: Biblically, there’s no such thing as “race”. Or more accurately, we’re all one race, sons and daughters of Adam and Eve out first parents. The idea of different “races” comes not from a Biblical worldview, but from a naturalistic view of origins that has crept into and pervaded our thinking. So racism isn’t just morally wrong, the idea itself is bad anthropology, a categorical error, and I think that error is the rotten root producing the poison sap of what we call “racism”. The term itself is wrong-headed because the concept is flawed. Race as a valid term can only apply to differentiate between kinds of creatures, like humans, cats, dogs, horses and earthworms. We ought to all be racists in the proper sense of the word, since we should distinguish and discriminate in our behavior to these different kinds. We should not marry cats and we should care for dogs and horses as good stewards of the creation. If I have to choose between the worth of a human and worm, I ought to choose the human.
The concept of race is itself a non-real, categorical deviation from the truth, the term itself doesn’t properly apply to human beings, and we ought to recapture and stand that category upright again: we’re all one race, one blood, with wonderful variations of height, skin tone, hair, etc. Diversity within unity according to God’s creative power.
We really should use different terms than “racism” and “racist”.
