Guest Author - LeeAnn Bonds
I was rude to someone else’s guest. I couldn’t help it. A grown man, who professes to be a follower of Jesus Christ, told a racist joke at a dinner gathering. He’s lucky I only expressed my heartfelt opinion of his “humor” instead of smacking his smug face.
I am a homo sapiens. So are you, and so is every person on the planet. We are one species, one biological race, one family, one blood. Scientists have slowly figured this out, but Christians have had the information for millennia. “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth…,” Paul tells the Greeks on Mars Hill. Dad (Adam) and Mom (Eve) are our collective parents. For anyone to think himself superior to another based on where he was born, the amount of pigment in his skin, or the shape of his eye is beyond ludicrous. It is moronic. For a Christian to harbor such attitudes is abhorrent to God.
So much harm has been done by evolutionary theories of race. Entire people groups have been brutally oppressed or virtually wiped out because “scientists” said they were inferior to the ones doing the wiping out. I’m sure several historical incidents leap readily to your mind. We must fight that mindset with every fiber of our being. Never give an inch. Never tolerate it. Never just laugh nervously and change the subject. Don’t believe a weaselly “it’s just a joke, I don’t mean anything by it.” People don’t generally tell a joke unless they think it’s funny, and what you think is funny says a lot about you.
In America we like to think of ourselves as enlightened and modern. But we have been culturally conditioned through our national history and “science falsely so-called” to view people with different skin tones with suspicion. (See the Answers in Genesis link below for more on this.) Our churches, to our shame, are often almost completely segregated by skin color! We’re not comfortable with our brothers and sisters in Christ if they don’t look and sound like us. This is so terribly wrong that I tremble when I think that all of us will stand before a righteous God and have to explain our behavior. If Christians, who owe everything to a homeless, middle-eastern Jewish man who was executed as a criminal, cannot be of one mind and heart, how on earth can we expect to draw others to the love of Jesus? He said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." That’s a direct command from our Lord and Savior to each of us.
I implore you: search your heart. Pray like David: “ Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties, and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” If you find ugly prejudices you’ve inherited from your family or your culture, repent of them and ask God’s forgiveness. We are one blood, saved by His blood. Let’s live accordingly.
