Every nation, tribe, people and language…..
Racism is a belief that claims to justify the existence of slavery, of discrimination, of genocide and of many forms of oppression. It argues that one race is superior to another purely on the grounds of hereditary cultural characteristics. It supports the different treatment of one race from another, for example, because of the colour of one’s skin. From a Christian perspective this belief can find no support and because of this we can see no room for political parties that discriminate in any way on the basis of race.
Looking back at the account of the creation of the world, we find God creating man in his image. He created men and women (humanity) and though they were different, they were equal in terms of their standing before God. They were both ‘in his image’. With the rich diversity of peoples that now cover the face of the earth, it still holds true that all are made in His image and all are equally valuable and have an equal standing before God. Indeed the Bible is clear that all humanity, being descended from Adam, have sinned and fallen short. So we see that while the colour of our skin may differ, in our standing before God there are only two true races, those related to Adam and those who are related to Jesus.
We believe the church is called to be prophetic in this area. The church demonstrates a community that is multi-racial, giving us a glimpse that in heaven there will be represented those from every tribe, language, people and nation (Rev 5:9). The secret of this ‘racial harmony’ does not come from people putting away their cultural differences and become one bland people, but rather from a realisation that our identity comes from somewhere else. Our true identity is realised only when we know God as our father. When that is true, we know ourselves as his children and if children, brothers and sisters to each other. God is pouring out his Spirit upon all flesh without reference to age, sex, or race. The church is Christ’s body and each people represented will add that unique quality native to itself alone.
But in our society today we see the effects of racial tension. For those outside of God’s family, it is harder to resist the pernicious claims of racism. In a selfish culture where your needs are more important than other people’s, racism provides a convenient justification for mistreating whole groups of people to your advantage. The issue of identity is also at the root of much racial tension. Without God as our father, we need to find our identity elsewhere. This leads to a struggle to establish racial identity and then to a defence of that identity against the threat posed by different colour and race.
God is a God of justice and it is clear that any form of racial discrimination or hatred is not what God desires. There is no human solution to this problem, but as the church prophetically demonstrates, God has a complete answer.
