Featured Is God Racist

No. Thats really where the discussion should end.

 

That is a weighted and biased “one size fits all” definition.

racism
noun
rac·ism | \ ˈrā-ˌsi-zəm also -ˌshi- \
1: a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

2a: the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another

b: a political or social system founded on racism and designed to execute its principles

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

 

I am aware that everyone will rush forward with a knee-jerk denial of even the suggestion that God MIGHT be racist, but I am willing to turn to scripture, see what it says and let the chips fall where so ever they may.

So here are some verses on race to ponder and discuss:

• [Ezr 9:2 NASB] 2 "For they have taken some of their daughters [as wives] for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has intermingled with the peoples of the lands; indeed, the hands of the princes and the rulers have been foremost in this unfaithfulness."
• [Zec 9:6 NASB] 6 And a mongrel race will dwell in Ashdod, And I will cut off the pride of the Philistines.
• [Mar 7:26 NASB] 26 Now the woman was a Gentile, of the Syrophoenician race. And she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
• [Act 7:19 NASB] 19 "It was he who took shrewd advantage of our race and mistreated our fathers so that they would expose their infants and they would not survive.
• [Jas 3:7 NASB] 7 For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human race.
• [1Pe 2:9 NASB] 9 But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR [God's] OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

 

Is race a human distinction that God did not make? How did the races of men come into existence if God did not make them? Many will say climate has been the creator of the races of man. If one wants to believe that man evolved into various races, that would be an answer. I don't.

God's question to Jeremiah in (Jer.13:23), "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots", is proof to me that God is the Creator of mans racial distinction. God asked Job similar questions to make the point that only God has the power to do such things. See all of (Job 38-41). In (Job 41:7) God asked, "Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons", in speaking of the creature leviathan. So, just like with the leopard spots of (Jer. 13:23), God is Who created them. Is the Ethiopian different, No. Only God makes the distinctions in man that divide.

So, the first question one must answer to their satisfaction, does not concern a definition of racism. It concerns whether or not God made the various races and divisions found in man. Did He or did He not?

If He did not, and race came about just through climate, culture, or whatever, then it really bears no meaning to God. But, if He did, then you must ask why He did.

Quantrill

 

"Race" may be a newly coined word, but the concept (biblically speaking) is not. At its core is just the concept of "us and them", that there is some distinction between one group and another that allows one to be identified as belonging to some distinct grouping of people.

God created a "chosen" people that was immediately distinct from the rest of humanity that was not "Israel". The Law was given to Israel, the Law was not given to the rest of mankind. The Temple was open to Israel, the Temple was not open to the rest of mankind.

From the New Testament, we have several references to people of every "tribe and tongue and people and nation" (in various order).

• What is a "tribe"? (G5443) φυλή phylḗ, foo-lay'; from G5453 (compare G5444); an offshoot, i.e. race or clan:—kindred, tribe.
  
• What is a "tongue"? (G1100) γλῶσσα glōssa, gloce-sah'; of uncertain affinity; the tongue; by implication, a language (specially, one naturally unacquired):—tongue.
  
• What is a "people"? (G2992) λαός laós, lah-os'; apparently a primary word; a people (in general; thus differing from G1218, which denotes one's own populace):—people.
  
• What is a "nation"? (G1484) ἔθνος éthnos, eth'-nos; probably from G1486; a race (as of the same habit), i.e. a tribe; specially, a foreign (non-Jewish) one (usually, by implication, pagan):—Gentile, heathen, nation, people.

Do any of these individually, or combinations of these collectively, carry the connotation of a "race" in the modern sense?
Does scripture recognize the existence of people groups with common physical and cultural traits?

I think that "Race" as a concept very much does exist in scripture. That is why I am willing to listen to a discussion on whether God deals equally with all "people groups" according to scripture.

 

"Race" in the broadest cultural sense is defined by more than skin pigmentation. There may be people from Southern Europe (Italy and Greece), Southern Asia (India), Northern Africa (Morocco) and Central America (Nicaragua) that are all nearly the identical shade of tan-brown-bronze, but they come from radically different "cultures" and are not part of the same "people group". Likewise someone with pale skin that is Scandinavian, Inuit and Japanese are not the same "people group". Nor is a dark "Ethiopian" the same as a dark Australian Aborigine.

Since LANGUAGE is one of the strongest defining factors of culture and making "a people" to be "a people", we can answer the origin of "people groups" from the Scripture:

[Genesis 11:5-9 NKJV] 5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6 And the LORD said, "Indeed the people [are] one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. 7 "Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." 8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. 9 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.​

God created "Languages" and Languages define "Culture".
This gets us part way there, but the issue of skin pigmentation is still unanswered.

 

I am not sure that your interpretation of the Ethiopian quite works. It seems more a statement of fact.

• An Ethiopian cannot change the color of his skin, a leopard cannot change his spots and a sinner cannot stop sinning.

If we accept your interpretation for the Ethiopian, then the message of scripture becomes a troubling:

• God made the Ethiopian black, God made the leopard spotted and God made the sinner sin.

 

God can never act in any fashion against His very nature, so if racism is sin, God cannot approve nor practice it!

 

Interesting. What made Adam and Eve black? I mean, what do you base that on?

But, you didn't answer my question. Did God make the various races of man?

Quantrill

 

I don't believe the issue of skin pigmentation is unanswered. (Jer. 13:23) If God didn't do it, who did? Someone more powerful than God?

Quantrill

 

I only meant "unanswered in my post".
I did not mean to imply that it was unknowable.

What of the consequence of the God causing race in (Jer. 13:23a) on (Jer. 13:23b)?

"Can the Ethiopian change his skin Or the leopard his spots?
[Then] you also can do good Who are accustomed to doing evil.
[Jeremiah 13:23 NASB]

Is God also responsible for men's inability to do good?

• God made the Ehtiopian black.
• God made the leopard spotted.
• God made men incapable of doing good.

 

Why is it troubling?

That is quite a leap. The leopards spots are they way God created him. The leviathans skin of armour is the way God created him. The Ethiopians skin is the way God created him no matter when it occurred.

Sinner involves man's, Adam's, decision.

Quantrill

 

Well, to be fair, salvation is "of the Jews" ( John 4:22 ).

Isn't that "racism", if He pretty much ignored the entire world except for Israel and a few others for about 2,000 years prior to the Lord Jesus coming the first time?
And then, in His grace and according to His purposes, He grafted in the Gentiles as a people?

Right.
I submit, gentlefolk ( and you all know how much I love my essays ),
Who are we to define "racism", when there is only one "race", and many tongues, tribes and nations...
Which were all one until the tower of Babel?

No, the Lord is not a "racist".

There are members of every background, color, language, tribe, size, shape, male and female among His children.
I suggest that we all, as believers, sit back and think a bit about our modern definition of the "races" and where they came from:


Pride.

 

How can race be defined exclusively by "color"?
What color are "Africans"? What color are "White Europeans"? Is a Swede the same color as a Sicilian? Are they different races?

God made the "languages". Language shapes cultural people groups. What is a "race"?

 

Isn't that the point of the verse? The Ethiopan, the Leopard and the Sinner all have something in common.

• They cannot change what they are.
• God made them what they are.

Those are VERY different commonalities.