Christianity and Racism: The Lie We Believed and Helped Spread

I think we can all agree that racism is an ugly, ugly thing. If you can’t, then this will not be for you.

The reason I’m writing this is that I’ve felt God putting it on my heart for some time now, and considering current events and the deception running rampant, I could no longer ignore it. What is it I’m addressing?

1) “Racism” is a lie.

2) It’s one that Christians unknowingly helped spread.

Now, before you all come knocking on my door or think I’ve lost my mind, wait until the end to make that call. I’m speaking TO my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ specifically here, not non-believers, although some of these truths apply to them, too.

The Origins of Race

Many know Charles Darwin, and many more adhere to his beliefs in evolution, Christians included. But there is a tremendous problem that many don’t seem to recognize with evolution, and that is it is inherently racist and where racism stems from; it is the root of modern racism.

Darwin was, after all, a man of his time, class and society. True, he was committed to a monogenic, rather than the prevailing polygenic, view of human origins, but he still divided humanity into distinct races according to differences in skin, eye or hair colour. He was also convinced that evolution was progressive, and that the white races — especially the Europeans — were evolutionarily more advanced than the black races, thus establishing race differences and a racial hierarchy. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2672903/

Darwin and his family were apparently against slavery, however, he still saw everyone who was not white as less evolved. And, considering his belief that we all stem from apes and are nothing more than the next step in his evolutionary ladder, he (intentionally or unintentionally) created a value system that says you are worth-less if you are not white. If we are at the peak, we have more worth than those below us.

Not only does Darwin believe in white supremacy, he offers a biological explanation for it, namely that white people are further evolved. He writes that the “western nations of Europe … now so immeasurably surpass their former savage progenitors and stand at the summit of civilization.” https://sites.williams.edu/engl-209-fall16/uncategorized/the-dark-side-of-darwinism/

As white Europeans “exterminate and replace” the world’s “savage races,” and as great apes go extinct, Darwin says that the gap between civilized man and his closest evolutionary ancestor will widen. The gap will eventually be between civilized man “and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla” (201). https://sites.williams.edu/engl-209-fall16/uncategorized/the-dark-side-of-darwinism/

Read that last line again if you missed it: Darwin’s theory claims that Africans and Australians are more closely related to apes than Europeans are. The spectrum of organisms is a hierarchy here, with white Europeans at the top and apes at the bottom. In Darwin’s theory, colored people fall somewhere in between. Modern human is essentially restricted only to white Europeans, with all other races viewed as somehow sub-human. https://sites.williams.edu/engl-209-fall16/uncategorized/the-dark-side-of-darwinism/

There is much more that can be said on this topic, but I think you are getting the picture and I would encourage you to check out the links and read for yourself about his beliefs and how they seem to mirror our country’s current state and why racism is seemingly everywhere.

Right?

Are There Other Races?

I think the Bible makes this emphatically clear: No.

Genesis 1:26, 27, 31 (NASB)

26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness… (emphasis added)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=NASB

27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the [al]sky and over every living thing that [am]moves on the earth.” (emphasis added)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=NASB

31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good… (emphasis added)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=NASB

Genesis 5:1 (NASB)

5 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them [a]Man in the day when they were created. (emphasis added)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+5:1&version=NASB

We can see clearly that God made “man and women” not “many races”. If you call yourself a Christian, then this should be your starting point: God made man (humanity) and we all descend from Adam and Eve.

If we can agree on this, we’re off to a good start. If not, well, you may need to think really hard whether you believe in God and His Word.

So if we go all the way back to the beginning, we see that God created humanity in “His own image”. Now, we will not split theological hairs here, it’s pointing out that if someone is made in the “image of God” they have immense WORTH. We are ALL a reflection of our Father. That means all life holds a priceless value, no matter your skin color.

This contradicts Darwin’s belief that non-whites have less value because of their color or because “all other races viewed as somehow sub-human”.

We are all human. Yes, there is a difference in the genetic makeup of people because of migration and living in a different climate, but that does not mean they are of a different race.

That so many Christians have bought into this lie is disturbing.

The Church Has Believed The Lie

This thought of “race” is not new and was occurring long before Darwin showed up, dating back to Jesus and before. The Jews saw the Samaritans as “half-breeds” because “after Israel’s fall to the Assyrians, they began to intermarry with the Assyrians, contrary to Deuteronomy 7:3–5.” https://housetohouse.com/jews-samaritans-hate-one-another-much/

When we look at the life of Jesus, he interacted and went out of his way to make sure he spoke to the Samaritan woman and brought her the good news and even used the parable of the Good Samaritan (which was mind-blowing to the Jews at the time) to (I believe) humanize them again. Why?

Because Jesus doesn’t see “race”! He sees humanity that was created in the “image of God”.

Sadly, after the 1st century, the Church lost sight of this beautiful truth.

Here me: Christians have become no better than the Pharisees, myself included.

For a long time, I bought into the lie that those of color are from a different race than myself. That blinded me to the truth. So I am not guiltless in this, which is why I am speaking out against it now.

After Constantine legalized Christianity things started spiraling downhill, and in it, I believe the Church lost its focus in order to be “accepted” by the world at large. (For more on this, check out the book, Pagan Christianity to see how much the pagan culture has seeped into the Church and made it about Religion, rather than a Relationship with Jesus)

That started a trend that carried over into consolidating the power under one person (the Pope) and distanced the everyday people who needed Jesus, reserving him for the privileged and the few. Under the Roman Catholic reign, Crusades were waged, Inquisitions were conducted, and the “Church” became just as power-hungry as the Pharisees of Christ’s time with their man-made laws and rituals.

Throughout this time, those who called themselves Christians were nothing of the sort as we can see here:

Matthew 7:15–20 (NASB)

15 “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will [a]know them by their fruits. [b]Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? 17 So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 So then, you will [c]know them by their fruits. (emphasis added)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+7%3A15-20&version=NASB

John 13:35 (NASB)

35 By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (emphasis added)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+13%3A35&version=NASB

In addition to that, so-called professing Christians used the Bible to justify slavery, more than one wife, the killing of millions of “heathens” and “unbelievers” to name a few. I would say that Jesus, based on what he states in John 13, would be in strong disagreement with them.

I want to take a moment and acknowledge that not ALL Christians acted in this way, and there were many fighting against these things. Nor am I saying the Catholics are evil people. Humanity is broken by sin, and they are no different than us. I am stating what I’ve seen played out and my understanding of what I believe God has shown me.

It should also be mentioned that this was not something overtly done by any one person, but a slow and steady compromise through history by Christians and the Church as a whole. Thus is the nature of sin, that you rarely throw yourself into it with abandon; it’s one small step at a time.

It’s A Slow Fade

What we see is people being seen as “less than” is not something new in the world, and what we cannot see is that this started long before Europeans crossed the Atlantic. The Church had fallen so far by the time we “found” the “New World” that we had forgotten our purpose:

To preach the gospel.

The Good News.

Not slaughter millions.

This was not an overnight thing. It was a slow fade, starting with Constantine and progressively getting worse through the centuries.

Christianity became more about politics than about people; about power than the powerless.

Religious Christianity stands (in my opinion) in direct opposition to Jesus and what Jesus stood for and what he told us to do.

Because of this slow fade, some Christians saw Darwin’s view of how things worked and tried to twist it to fit the Bible rather than standing on Biblical truth. Sadly, many still do.

The truth is, however, that Darwinism is not compatible with Christianity; it can’t be because its inherent core values say that there are people who are “sub-human”.

You cannot cherry-pick which part of a philosophy you follow and turn a blind eye towards the rest because it doesn’t fit your narrative.

While many Christians would say that they disagree with Darwin on evolution, I believe that if you look at how they treat people of color, you can clearly see the effects of Darwinism in their actions. The South is a good example of this in many respects because they continued the slave trade and treat them with ruthlessness, all while claiming to follow a loving God. They thought blacks with less than human.

The South is not alone in this fallacy, however. If we look at our modern history since the abolition of slavery until now, we can see how this Darwinistic thinking was prevalent everywhere. Even among “God-fearing Christians”.

We had segregation, lynch mobs, and other atrocities, and now, we have police brutalizing people of all colors, and yes, especially black communities. To say differently would be sheer willful ignorance, and I no longer think we as the Church can continue to ignore it. But to do that, we have to acknowledge the root of the sickness, which is Darwinism and the lie of “race”.

We have to acknowledge that we’ve been tricked and lied to for centuries. We have to acknowledge that the Church has actually been part of the issue because we traded the persecution for the comforts of power when Constantine took over. Satan has infiltrated the Church to destroy her testimony to the world and rob her of her effectiveness. Part of that came with believing that there are some who are “less-than” us.

So What Is The Solution?

That answer is, as it always has been and always will be, Jesus.

Brothers and sisters, we need to start at the beginning, acknowledge that God made man (humanity) in “His image” and that “it was good”. The Fall, when sin entered the world through our rebellion and disobedience to God, marred what was good, but only for a time. We know that Jesus will come again to restore all things and make all things new; it’s a promise.

Once we’ve acknowledged that we are made in “His image” and that all people, regardless of color, have immense value because of that, only then can we really be about changing the world and its broken systems.

Next, we need to acknowledge that Darwinism has insidiously infected the Church’s mindset and the mind of many Christians; that the theory of evolution has led to the ideology of white supremacy, and that (knowingly or unknowingly) the Church has been a conduit of that.

Everything that Darwinism stands for directly opposes God and what He says about the humanity He created.

Lastly, we need to preach the love of Jesus and call a broken world to repentance. We need to place our hope in Jesus and what He did on the cross as payment for our sins and turn back to Him. He is the only solution for what is going on in the world today.

“But we can’t stand by and do nothing but pray!”

I agree, we should be actively calling injustice out for what it is. But if we’re trying to do that without Jesus, what point is there? It doesn’t work. There is no real healing.

“Jesus would support BLM in fighting back against police brutality!”

While He stood by the broken and oppressed, not once does he ever call for rebellion against the oppressing authority of the day. In fact, Jesus told them to submit to that authority. The best example is in Matthew:

Matthew 5:41 (NASB)

41 Whoever [a]forces you to go one mile, go with him two. (emphasis added)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5%3A41&version=NASB

These are His words to an oppressed Jewish people under Roman rule, and let me tell you, you’re living in a dream world if you think the oppression today is anything close to what life was like under the Romans. (This doesn’t excuse current actions, mind you, but to provide context. The Romans were absolutely ruthless). The Romans had the ability to force any Jew to carry their load for at least one mile. Instead of speaking out against what was a very unjust thing, Jesus tells them to carry it another mile.

“Carrying something is not the same as police brutality!”

Not to us, perhaps, but considering the times in which Jesus lived and the persecution of the Jews under the Roman rule, I think they would beg to differ.

“So are you saying that we should continue to let this injustice continue?”

No, I’m not. What I am saying is that rebellion to authority is (especially as Christians) actually a rebellion against God. And God makes it pretty clear and rebellion isn’t okay.

Romans 13:1–7 (NASB)

Be Subject to Government

13 Every [a]person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except [b]from God, and those which exist are established by God. 2 Therefore [c]whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. 3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for [d]good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; 4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. 5 Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. 7 Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor. (emphasis added)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+13%3A1-7+&version=NASB

1 Peter 2:18–20 (NASB)

18 Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are [a]unreasonable. 19 For this finds [b]favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly.20 For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds [c]favor with God. (emphasis added)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+2%3A18-20+&version=NASB

1 Peter 2:13–14 (NASB)

Honor Authority

13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, 14 or to governors as sent [a]by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. (emphasis added)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+2%3A13-14&version=NASB

Titus 3:1–2 (NASB)

Godly Living

3 Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, 2 to malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men. (emphasis added)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Titus+3%3A1-2&version=NASB

I’m not advocating for slavery because God makes it clear that it is not what he wants:

Exodus 21:16 (NASB)

16 “He who [a]kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his [b]possession, shall surely be put to death.

(If you want additional context, check out: https://emergencenj.org/blog/2019/01/04/does-the-bible-condone-slavery)

I’m not pretending to have all the answers to this question; the only thing I know beyond any doubt is that Jesus is what we need in the world today. His truth, which is a hard truth because it calls us to change, is the only hope this world has. Fellow Christians, be aware of what you are supporting, what you are preaching, and what message you are living out before your fellow man and an unbelieving world.

Sadly, there will be many who call themselves “Christian” and will stand before the Lord and find out the hard way that they didn’t truly know him.

Matthew 7:21–23 (ERV)

21 “Not everyone who calls me Lord will enter God’s kingdom. The only people who will enter are those who do what my Father in heaven wants. 22 On that last Day many will call me Lord. They will say, ‘Lord, Lord, by the power of your name we spoke for God. And by your name we forced out demons and did many miracles.’ 23 Then I will tell those people clearly, ‘Get away from me, you people who do wrong. I never knew you.’ (emphasis added)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+7%3A21-23&version=ERV

This is not a warning we should take lightly as believers.

Racism is a lie we should stop continuing to spread because it doesn’t match up with the bible and what it states. We should not allow actual racists, such as Darwin, to influence our faith. We need to stand on biblical truth and pray that Jesus would reign in the hearts of all.

Only then will we end the injustice.