Black History 3: Bible and Biology Erase Racism

Infants and young children often enjoy a blissful existence, oddly enough because of their ignorance.  For example, a boy baby or toddler can have just as much fun at play with a girl and her dolls as with his own toy trucks and tools.  Many a child can as much enjoy the warmth and love of a dedicated stepmother or adoptive parents as that of his or her biological parents.  And, young children can enjoy playing with other young children without being distracted by differences in skin color, hair, or facial contours.  Everything seems to fit well into a child’s simple scheme of things.

Racism is Sin We Learn to Practice
But as children grow older and learn more about the world, their understanding becomes darkened by values that run contrary to both God’s created order and His revealed Truth recorded in the Bible.  When parents or other authorities in the child’s life practice racial discrimination or racism, the child suddenly learns that their black or white friends are somehow inferior, or of lesser value, or are their enemies. 

The fact that racial discrimination and hatred are passed from one generation to the next is illustrated clearly in the movie, 42.  This 2013 film records how Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier to become the first black major league baseball player.  One scene in which Jackie was playing in a game in Cincinnati features a boy seated in the stands next to his racist father.  The boy’s enjoyment of baseball was marred by confusion over his dad’s racial slurs against Robinson.  Soon, out of respect for his dad, the boy began to chime in to express his own racial protests.  How many times has this scenario been repeated over many generations?

What happens in the human heart that transforms an innocent child who had once enjoyed play with other children regardless of ethnicity to a child that is guarded, suspicious, or resentful of another person who is simply “different?”  Racial and ethnic strife is nurtured when experiences feed our natural inclinations toward pride and spiritual rebellion against God who created us.  Meanwhile, God reveals His truth through the Bible, history, and the sciences.  For those who humbly study these sources of truth, understanding brings great reward.  Jesus promised those who will follow Him:  If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free (John 8: 31-32).

In Part 1 of this series, “Correct History Brings Light,” we considered how ethnic minorities were instrumental in America’s founding.  By the time of the American Revolution, minority Americans like Crispus Attucks were already part of a “melting pot” of ethnicities that was instrumental in the forging of the United States of America.  Attucks who died in the Boston Massacre is reportedly the first casualty of the Revolution.  Interestingly, Attucks himself was an ethnic “melting pot.”  Although he appeared to be an African American, only Attucks’ father was of African descent, while his mother, Nancy Attucks, was a Native American of the Natick tribe.  A better understanding of how Black history is interwoven culturally and genetically with American history is necessary to evaluate the notion of Reparations which we discussed in Part 2.

A correct understanding of Black history and how it is intertwined with American history, it is necessary that we consider what the science of biology is revealing to us about the human race.  As always, we must try to integrate (i.e. logically and consistently fit into a complete whole) what we discover about humankind through science with what God reveals in the Scriptures of the Bible.

Scripture Says, “One Race”
Racism is a complex issue that I am still learning to understand.  However, since I have placed my faith in Jesus Christ and in the authority of God’s Word, the Bible, I must turn to God and His Word for answers to my questions and pray for wisdom to direct my communication and behavior.  Therefore, we will begin by considering what God has revealed about His creation of humankind, His provision for all people, and His principles intended for our good.

After God had created all except humankind, we read in Genesis 1: 26-27:
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
and Genesis 2: 7,
Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Jesus Christ was with God at Creation.  “Our likeness” above suggests the Trinity. The Apostle John wrote, All things were made by Him (Jesus Christ); and without Him was not anything made that was made (John 1: 3).  Jesus in turn spoke of the creation of Adam and Eve:
“Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’?

The Apostle Paul taught both Jews and Gentiles in Athens that they were all of one race (emphasis mine):
He (God) made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation…indicating that all of humanity, regardless of “race,” gender, or origin, are offspring of the first man and woman (Acts 17: 26).  Paul adds specific reference to the man, Adam, in 1 Corinthians 15: 45-47:  So also it is written, “The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.  However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven.

Taken together these Scriptures clearly teach us that all humans are descendants of one specially created man, Adam.  So, we all comprise “one race,” not many races.  It follows that just as the “first Adam” is father of the human race, so the “second Adam,” Jesus Christ, Adam’s descendent through the line of Abraham [Abraham (Hebrew) = “father of many nations”] is the “father” of all who repent of sin and are born again by faith in Him.  In fact, Paul continued his message to Athens with these words (emphasis mine):  Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man (Jesus Christ) whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead (Acts 17: 30-31).

The Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel presents a biblical view of social justice with respect to race relations and ethnicity:
God made all people from one man. Though people often can be distinguished by different ethnicities and nationalities, they are ontological equals before God in both creation and redemption. “Race” is not a biblical category, but rather a social construct that often has been used to classify groups of people in terms of inferiority and superiority. All that is good, honest, just, and beautiful in various ethnic backgrounds and experiences can be celebrated as the fruit of God’s grace. All sinful actions and their results (including evils perpetrated between and upon ethnic groups by others) are to be confessed as sinful, repented of, and repudiated.

As the above statement clearly states, the Bible nowhere supports the notion of racism.  Instead, racism is rooted in Darwinian evolution which claims that pre-human primates evolved into different lines, or "races" leading to present day Caucasian, Negroid, Asian, and other ethnicities.  Because evolution theory assumes that natural selection leads to differences in visible and other traits related to survival, it follows that some "races" must be superior to others.  In, “World History Without HIS Story,” I explain how the Darwinian mindset provided the basis for Nazi Germany’s eugenics experiment involving the Holocaust, the aim of which was to deliberately exterminate Jews and favor the “Aryan race.”  Some educators, both Christian and secular, prefer the use of “ethnic group” or “people group” rather than the term “race.”  Biology and genetics support the Scriptural teaching that humanity is “one race” not many races.

Biology Says, “Race Is Not Rooted in Reality”
An increasing number of scientists believe the term “race” is genetically meaningless.  The American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA) has drafted an official “Statement on Race and Racism.” The statement includes the following rejection of “race” as a useful genetic concept:  Race does not provide an accurate representation of human biological variation. It was never accurate in the past, and it remains inaccurate when referencing contemporary human populations.

Interestingly, while the AAPA Statement denies that race has its “roots in biological reality,” nevertheless it admits that “racism” exists as a social problem rooted “in policies of discrimination.”  That is, racism can be attributed to “a classification system that emerged from, and in support of, European colonialism, oppression, and discrimination.”  Unfortunately, the AAPA Statement fails to identify the role of Darwinian evolution as a major cause of the emergence of ethnic minority oppression and extermination under Hitler as noted above.

Referring to decades of research by the Human Genome Variation Project, the AAPA Statement notes that a genetic comparison of all humans reveals that the genetic makeup of any two randomly chosen persons in the world will differ by no more than 0.1% (one-tenth of 1 percent) of their genes.  According to Natalie Angier (“Do Races Differ?  Not Really.  Genes Show)”, New York Times, Aug. 22, 2000), only approximately 0.01 percent of the variation among all humans involves genes commonly associated with “race-distinguishing” traits like skin color.  D. J. Witherspoon, S. Wooding, et al. publishing in the journal, Genetics (176: 351–359  May, 2007), concluded, “…most human genetic variation is found within populations, not between them.”  Rob DeSalle and Ian Tattersall, both at the American Museum of Natural History, conclude, “race is a totally inadequate way of characterizing diverse humankind or even of helping understand humanity’s glorious variety.”

We began by reflecting on the bliss enjoyed by the baby or toddler who can enjoy being at play with another child regardless of outward differences in appearance.  Meanwhile, because of human spiritual depravity, adults worldwide behave like spoiled children who learn to reject and abuse others who look or act differently.   When will we realize the sin of racism?  In so doing, we defy God’s creative purposes by wrongly dividing human beings who differ by only a few genes that determine outward appearance?  Although racism is real and damaging on a cultural level, there is not enough genetic difference to consider it real biologically.  How tragic!  

The challenge for Christ-followers is to understand the following:
a)  What the Scriptures teach about the origin of all humans from the ”first Adam” (Genesis 1-2)
b)  The reason why we are spiritually depraved (Genesis 3; Romans 1-2)
c)  Why God sent His only Son as the “second Adam” (1 Corinthians 15: 45)
d)  Our need to repent and receive Christ's free Gift of salvation and restoration (Acts 17: 30-31)
For more information on how you can receive the Gift of Salvation, CLICK HERE for "Steps to Peace with God."

Those who come to Christ by faith can fully celebrate human ethnic diversity.  That means celebrating the way in which God and "HIStory" has melted ethnic diversity for the benefit of many nations, America included.  And best of all, Christ-followers can assist in the harvest of souls of every ethnicity, all of whom God loves and invites to live with Him throughout eternity if they claim His righteousness by faith in the blood of Christ.