"And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation" (Acts 17:26)
NB: This was originally going to be a single post, but it ended up getting a bit too long, so I have decided to split it into two parts instead. This first part examines what racism is from a Biblical perspective (rather than a political one).
Yesterday (15 March 2021) was the second anniversary of one of New Zealand's darkest days: when a gunman opened fire in two Christchurch mosques, killing 51 people performing their Friday prayers and injuring about 50 others. It was by far the worst mass shooting in New Zealand history. This wicked man not only shed much innocent blood that day, but he live-streamed it! He was a white supremacist, among other things, and some sort of "ethnic cleansing" was one of the motivating factors for his attack. (He didn't use that exact phrase in his manifesto, but from some things he said - at least, what was reported by the mainstream media - that's one of the things he was aiming for.)
It is also just over a week since that Oprah Winfrey special with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle went to air. And the trial of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer accused of murdering George Floyd after kneeling on his neck for nine minutes, is getting under way (I think they're still selecting a jury for it). So, racism is featuring very prominently in the news and is a hot topic of conversation right now. There is a degree of confusion about what racism actually is, because adherents to Critical Race Theory have muddied the waters by creating a ridiculous narrative around it (which I'll get to in the second part). So now seems like as good a time as any to examine racism from a Biblical perspective and try to get a handle on what racism is (this post), but also, what it is not (coming up in the next post).
Right, now to tackle just what racism IS. The word "racism" does not appear in the Bible, and in fact the word "race" only appears four times (all in reference to running races). But there are enough Scriptures to clearly show that racism, as generally understood today, is something God most definitely does not approve of. Before exploring this further, let me give what I think is a reasonably Biblical sort of definition of racism:
In essence, racism is the sin of despising someone based on the colour of their skin. If you believe that the colour of your skin makes you somehow superior to other people who have a different skin colour, and that their skin colour makes them inferior to you and other people who share your particular skin colour, then you are a racist. A popular but erroneous belief is that only whites are racist (Hollywood and the more recent Critical Race Theory are largely to thank for that), but in fact anyone of any skin colour can despise anyone else of any other skin colour. There are certainly white supremacists in the world (many of whom can trace their ideas back to the patron saint of Evolution, Charles Darwin - something else I'll get to shortly), but there are also black supremacists, Asian supremacists and so on.
Despising someone for any reason is wrong, and it is closely tied to the sin of pride. There are all manner of pretexts by which people despise others. I myself have despised people who wronged me and did not make any attempt to make amends (I have now repented of this and confessed it as sin to God.) In my pride, I regarded myself as very much morally superior to them while basically viewing them as the scum of the earth. Notwithstanding the wrongs they had done me and their unrepentant attitude, it was very wrong and sinful on my part to despise them as I did, and ultimately it only resulted in bitterness. Other reasons that people may despise others include (but are certainly not limited to), religious belief, political affiliation, nationality, state or region, sports teams supported, and so on.
Let's look at a few Scriptures about the sin of despising others:
"He that is void of wisdom despiseth his neighbour: but a man of understanding holdeth his peace." (Proverbs 11:12)
"He that despiseth his neighbour sinneth: but he that hath mercy on the poor, happy is he." (Proverbs 14:21)
"And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." (Luke 18:9-14)
"He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit. But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another." (1 Thessalonians 4:8-9)
Racism is a form of despising your neighbour. It is the vain belief that you are somehow more "righteous" or generally "better" than someone whose skin has a different colour to yours. The Bible says that if you despise someone, you are committing sin against God. It also says that you lack wisdom. Moreover, to despise others is actually to despise God, who has made man in His image. We are supposed to love our neighbours as ourselves, irrespective of their skin colour. The commandment "Love thy neighbour as thyself" appears nine times in the King James Bible: once in the Old Testament (Leviticus 19:18) and eight times in the New. Notice that the Bible does not make any special exceptions. It does not say, "Love thy neighbour unless he is black" or "Love thy neighbour unless he is Asian" or "Love thy neighbour unless he is Muslim", or suchlike. It says to love thy neighbour, full stop. Loving your neighbour means, among other things, not doing them any harm. "Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law". (Romans 13:10) However, rebuking sin, when done properly (without malice), can also be a form of loving your neighbour: "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him". (Leviticus 19:17) So if your neighbour of another skin colour does something wrong, and you rebuke that wrong, you're not being racist. (That is unless your other neighbour of the same skin colour does something wrong and you go easier on him or her - God does not accept that kind of double standard, as I'll address in a moment.) Also note the first part of that verse - hatred, including racial hatred, comes from the heart.
If you still insist on believing that people with differently coloured skin to you are enemies (whether you come at it from a "supremacist" position or perhaps from more of a "victim" perspective), the Bible has this to say to you:
"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans do the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?" (Matthew 5:43-47)
If you profess to be a Christian but look down on people of other races (perhaps because you subscribe to the Christian Identity movement or some such), James has a message for you:
"But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought no so to be." (James 3:8-10)
James says that men (meaning humans generally in this context) are made in God's image. So it is a hypocritical contradiction to bless God (through prayer or singing) and then go and curse other people, and that includes hurling racial insults. If you abuse people who have a different skin colour, you are not only being offensive to them, but to the God who made them, just as He made you.
In fact, if you make a habit of yelling insults at people whose skin colour differs from yours, you really need to examine your heart:
"Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things." (Matthew 12: 33-35)
"A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil; for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh." (Luke 6:45)
Apart from the sin of despising, another sin associated with racism is the sin of respecting persons. For example:
"Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God's: and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it." (Deuteronomy 1:17)
Respecting persons, in a Biblical sense, means showing partiality. So if you show undue favour to someone on the basis of their skin colour for instance, then you are respecting persons. We are to treat all people equally, because this is what God does:
"Wherefore now let the fear of the LORD be upon you: take heed and do it: for there is no iniquity with the LORD our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts." (2 Chronicles 19:7)
"But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done: and there is no respect of persons." (Colossians 3:25)
The Bible states plainly that respecting persons (for any reason) is sin:
"But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors." (James 2:9)
So we should never treat anyone of a different skin colour any differently to how we treat people who share our own pigmentation. God does not treat us any differently, but judges us all by the same standard, and we need to do the same with each other. I might add that the Jim Crow laws of the American South and apartheid laws of South Africa were examples of the sin of respecting persons. Under these laws, white people were given undue privilege while black people were treated as second-class citizens. Those unjust laws have now rightly been overturned. However, there are also examples of white people being treated unjustly on the basis of their skin colour (most notably in Zimbabwe). This too is the sin of respecting persons in action.
Closely associated with the sin of despising is that of all-out hatred. (There is a kind of righteous hatred as well, which God is described as having, so it is important to distinguish between carnal hatred, which stems from our sinful flesh and our pride, and godly hatred, which has more to do with a holy loathing for sin.) Essentially, hatred is the next step up from despising. Whereas despising primarily involves having contempt for people, hatred is more of a fierce hostility that can lead to acts of violence or even murder. In fact, the Bible links hatred and murder together very closely:
"But if any man hate his neighbour, and lie in wait for him, and rise up against him, and smite him mortally that he die, and fleeth into one of these cities: Then the elders of his city shall send and fetch him thence, and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die." (Deuteronomy 19:11-12 - the "cities" were special "cities of refuge" that people could flee to if they killed someone by accident, something the Bible specifies is NOT an act of hatred)
"Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." (1 John 3:15)
The Christchurch mosque attack was described by the mainstream media at the time as "an act of hate", and I certainly don't disagree with them on that point. The evil man who carried out that crime clearly hated Muslims, and hated people with a different skin colour to his. According to the Bible however, all premeditated murders are really hate crimes. (That includes abortion, by the way.) Whatever other motives there are for any particular murder, hatred in the heart is at the very root. And if you have a heart full of hate for people who don't share your skin colour, you need to repent before God with godly sorrow (grieving over the fact that you have sinned against Him) and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ (who was born and raised a Jew, for those of you who have anti-Semitic tendencies) for salvation.
While there are some false converts who try to use the Bible to justify racist attitudes (I'll examine that more closely in a moment), many modern racist ideas, especially those that form the basis of white supremacist movements, come from none other than the "patron saint" of Evolution, Charles Darwin. (Indeed, the vast majority of racists - including the Christchurch terrorist - do not profess any form of Christianity, but there are some "Christian" movements like Christian Identity or British Israelism that are racist in nature.) In fact, Darwin had so many racist ideas that it's a wonder he hasn't yet become a victim of "cancel culture"! I'm sure most people have heard of his most famous work, On the Origin of Species. But have you heard of the subtitle? Well here it is: "The preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life". And who did Mr Darwin consider to be "favoured races"? Why, whites such as himself! (Although he was talking about animals as well.) The insult of calling black or brown people "monkeys" has its origins in the writings of Charles Darwin, who wrote in several of his works about how, in his view, black people are more closely related to apes due to being "less evolved". Many people influenced by the writings of Darwin were as racist as him. The most infamous disciple of Darwin was Adolf Hitler, racist and anti-Semite extraordinaire. He often justified murdering people by claiming they were "unfit", because he believed in Darwin's "survival of the fittest" philosophy. (It was this belief that also formed the foundation of much of Darwin's own racism - he considered whites like himself to be more "highly evolved" and therefore more "fit" to live in civilised society - such a sentiment really does reek of pride.)
David Cloud makes the following sobering observation in this article: "[I]f evolution is true it would give racism a scientific basis. Why would all evolved men be equal? Why wouldn't some be more recently and more highly evolved? And if man is merely an animal and life is the product of chance with no ultimate purpose, why would racism be any more 'wrong' than any other philosophy or morality?" Those of you who profess belief in Evolution should think long and hard about that. Not that I'm encouraging you to be racist - quite the opposite! The point I'm trying to get across here (with a little help from Mr Cloud) is that if you take evolutionary philosophy far enough, racism is one of the end results. That's how "rational" and "scientific" it really is! So if you want someone to blame for the racism (especially of the white supremacist kind) that we see in our modern society, Charles Darwin is your man.
However, while much modern racism has its origins in Darwinian evolution, there are some misguided "Christian" groups who follow quite racist philosophies which they try to justify from the Bible (although they actually get most of their ideas from the Apocrypha). Peter says of such people that they are "unlearned and unstable" and that they wrest (i.e. twist) the scriptures, especially "hard to be understood" ones, "unto their own destruction" (2 Peter 3:16) For instance, there are some groups that teach that white Europeans are the "real Jews" or the "real descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" belonging to the "lost tribes of Israel", and moreover they take the view that God's salvation is only for the "Jews" (i.e. whites, according to this heretical teaching), and that people of other races (especially the genuine Jews) are "Gentiles" or "the seed of Satan" and therefore Christ didn't die for them (it's almost like a racist version of Calvinism). Well, Peter sets the record straight in Acts 10:
"Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him." (Acts 10: 34-35)
Indeed, Heaven will be a very diverse place (in terms of nationality and ethnicity):
"And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation" (Revelation 5:9)
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is for all people:
"And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." (Mark 16:15)
"And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people" (Revelation 14:6)
God does not respect persons, so He does not limit His offer of salvation to a "select few" (take note, Calvinists), and He most assuredly does not impose any restrictions on salvation based on skin colour. Here are three more verses that make this very clear:
"All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." (John 6:37)
"Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:4)
"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9)
God's salvation is available to everyone. The word "all" in those verses means everyone on earth (who is willing to believe). Jesus will not cast out anyone who comes to Him in repentance and faith in His shed blood and resurrection. You could be white, black, brown, yellow, it doesn't matter. God is far more concerned with the state of our hearts than what we look like on the outside:
"But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7)
"Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment." (John 7:24 - actually, this verse has mainly to do with not jumping to conclusions based on how something first appears, but we should also not judge people based on how they appear, certainly in terms of skin colour, but also because people can put on an act.)
Now, before I carry on to look at what racism is NOT (i.e. some things that are falsely called or attributed to racism), I'd just like to touch on interracial marriage. A number of professing Christians, particularly in places like the American South or South Africa that used to practise racial segregation, don't agree with interracial marriage. (Needless to say, people in the Christian Identity movement also oppose it.) Not all of these Christians are necessarily racist. What I mean by that is they don't hate or despise people of another skin colour, but all the same sincerely believe that people of a different skin colour shouldn't marry. I remember listening to a sermon once by a preacher who didn't believe in interracial marriage. From the way he spoke, it was quite plain that he did NOT hate black people (he was a Southern white man). In fact, he said that he had a number of black friends, and that he prayed for them and they prayed for him. He also said that he knew black preachers who also did not believe in interracial marriage. (So it is not just some white Christians who may disagree with interracial marriage - some black Christians feel the same.)
In my view, opposition to interracial marriage, while not always coming from a place of hatred in the heart for people of other skin colours, is misguided. The Bible says that the main reason not to marry someone is if you are saved and they are not. In the Old Testament, the Jews were sometimes prohibited from marrying foreigners and reproved when they did so, however the reason had to do with spiritual differences, not physical. Solomon is a good illustration of this:
"But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; Of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father." (1 Kings 11:1-4)
The word "strange" here means foreign. Solomon is NOT rebuked for marrying women of different nationalities or skin colours. What he IS rebuked for is marrying PAGAN women who turned his heart away from God and to an assortment of heathen gods.
During a later period in Israel's history, Nehemiah also addressed the issue of marriage between the children of Israel and people of other nations:
"In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab: And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people. And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, not take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves. Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin. Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives?" (Nehemiah 13:23-27)
The word "outlandish" means "foreign" here. Nowadays it has the sense of being crazy or outrageous, but in the times when the King James Bible was translated, it had a more literal sense (from out of the land). Once again, the major problem was spiritual, not physical. Nehemiah makes that clear by referring back to Solomon and the way in which his pagan wives turned his heart away from the true God to worship all manner of false pagan gods. The people of Nehemiah's day were in danger of doing the exact same thing, or may have already been doing so.
There is a commandment in the New Testament against "unequal yoking", which applies to marriage among other things, but once again there is no prohibition against marrying someone of another skin colour, just against marrying someone (or otherwise having close dealings with someone) who is not a born-again believer:
"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." (2 Corinthians 6:14-16)
Some people erroneously believe that the phrase "what communion hath light with darkness?" means (or could be taken to mean) that light and dark skin shouldn't be mixed. But it is clear from the context that such an interpretation is ridiculous. The commandment is to not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. Not a word there about people of a different skin colour, nationality or whatever. The questions that follow all relate to SPIRITUAL differences between believers and unbelievers, not PHYSICAL differences between people of different skin tones.
If you still want to believe that interracial marriage is wrong, you wouldn't get on too well with Moses, who married an Ethiopian woman (Numbers 12:1). In fact, God judged Miriam and Aaron for criticising his interracial marriage! You probably wouldn't be great mates with Boaz either, an Israelite who married Ruth, a Moabitess. Rahab, a Canaanite woman, also married an Israelite, and both she and Ruth are in Christ's family line (it is not by accident that some Gentile ancestry was included in the lineage of Jesus as well).
To conclude this first part of this study, I just want to stress again that racism (despising people who have a different skin colour to yourself) is first and foremost sin against God. And as is the case with any sin, you need to REPENT of it if you are guilty of this particular sin. There is no Biblical justification whatsoever for despising or generally mistreating people of a different skin colour to yours. ALL people are made in God's image, and to look down on someone who has a skin tone that doesn't match your own is to also look down on the God who made them as well as you.
You will note that I have not really used the word "race" in this post, but rather talked about different skin colours. That is quite intentional. The Scripture with which I started this post says that God has made everyone "of one blood". There is really only one race, and that is the human race. The variety of skin colours we see are really no different to people having differently coloured hair or eyes. It's all part of the beautiful variety God has used in making us all, just as we see amazing variety in the animal kingdom. Indeed, the Bible doesn't even use the word "race" to talk about skin tones. (The word "kindreds" probably comes closest.) The concept of "races" really comes from Charles Darwin et al.
The Bible is clear that if people have been born of God, other differences are irrelevant in His eyes:
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Galatians 3:28-29)
"Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all." (Colossians 3:11)
Those who have been BORN AGAIN are the seed of Abraham (SPIRITUALLY speaking). If you have not been truly born again, then you are NOT Abraham's seed in a spiritual sense. (Many Jewish people today are Abraham's seed in a PHYSICAL sense - they are his descendants - but not in a SPIRITUAL sense because they have not been born again.) Being of so-called "good Aryan stock" (or for that matter, being an actual descendant of Abraham) won't help you one bit when you face Christ on the Day of Judgement. He will be judging your deeds and how they reflected your heart, and won't have the slightest concern about your skin colour or ancestry. The only hope you have is to be born again. If you think the colour of your skin alone, or your ancestry alone, is your ticket to Heaven, you are going to get a very rude shock when instead you find yourself in the Lake of Fire for all eternity.
Just before I complete this part of the study, a quick word to the "anti-racists" or "woke": While it is right to rebuke genuine racism, if you despise racists (or those who you think are racists), you are being just as wicked in God's eyes as the racists themselves. Remember, it is wrong to despise people for any reason. The Pharisee in Luke 18 despised the publican because he thought himself so very virtuous and certainly much more righteous than the publican. The way he boasted about all his good deeds and thanked God that he wasn't wicked like other men was really just an old-time form of virtue signalling. If the Pharisee had been a modern-day "wokester", he might have prayed something like this: "God, I thank thee that I am not as unenlightened persons are, racists, sexists, homophobes, transphobes or even as this unconsciously biased white male. I shout down those whom I deem offensive and give a tenth of all my income to Black Lives Matter." The point of this being, the "woke" tend to have the exact same self-righteous pride and false sense of moral superiority as the Pharisees of old did. The only difference is that the Pharisees based their self-righteousness on how well they kept (or thought they kept) the Old Testament law, while the "woke" base their self-righteousness on how "enlightened" and "tolerant" they believe themselves to be. But God hates the self-righteous pride of the "anti-racists" every bit as much as He hated the pride of the Pharisees, and just as much as He hates the pride of racists. All forms of pride, self-righteousness and despising others need to be repented of, no matter who you are or what your politics might be.
So that wraps up what racism IS from a Biblical standpoint. But in today's society, there is also a kind of "racism falsely so-called". There is no question that racism exists, and that every day, some people in the world are victims of it in one form or another. However, there are often times when people are FALSELY ACCUSED of racism for all kinds of strange reasons. So now I want to examine what racism is NOT, regardless of what the mainstream media, Black Lives Matter or the "wokesters" would have you believe. Be sure to check out the second and concluding part of this study.
UPDATE (27/3/21): There was a sobering story in The Sydney Morning Herald today about far-right extremists in Australia. It concentrated on about half a dozen men who were trying to get involved with a far-right American group called The Base. One of them speaks quite highly of the wicked man responsible for the Christchurch mosque attacks (that person was also Australian). He said that he "ate several meals" while watching footage from the mass murderer's live stream. (The callousness of someone being able to eat while watching innocent people be senselessly slaughtered truly boggles the mind.) This same person boasts about how his eleven-year-old daughter had "attacked a couple of Africans" thanks to his indoctrination of her. You can listen to him in the first of two audio clips in the article. The men in general had visions of creating civil unrest (through terrorist attacks) and perhaps even sparking a civil war with the aim of creating some sort of fascist white supremacist state. (I think Black Lives Matter and Antifa also want to start a civil war in the US, but their aim is to establish a Marxist or Communist state.) The hatred in these evil men's hearts is very evident. Hopefully, now that they have been exposed by the SMH, they will not be able to carry out any acts of violence.
Meanwhile, in Auckland today, the Asian community held a big march to protest against hate crimes that are apparently being committed against Asians here. (I say "apparently", because I have not seen many stories about anti-Asian hate crimes in our media, and usually they would be all over that sort of thing.) Although I think part of their complaint is people calling them rude names and suchlike (which is certainly not on). Donald Trump calling COVID-19 names like "the China Virus" and "Kung Flu" has not helped matters, although the belligerence of the Chinese Communist Party over many things probably contributes too in a way. One young woman interviewed on 1 News said that some of the racism she's experienced was "extremely subtle so you don't really notice it". I didn't hear too many specific examples given from her or anyone else spoken to. That said, New Zealand has a rather dark history of treating its Chinese community rather poorly (this was especially the case in the 19th Century and early 20th Century). And in World War II, the Japanese here were not treated that well (because Japan, along with Germany and Italy, was one of the enemies of the Allies). Without doubt, there are people in this country with anti-Asian attitudes, and like anyone who despises someone of another skin colour or ethnicity, they need to repent of that.
One of the aims of this march was to "end hatred", or at least substantially reduce it. Unfortunately, you can't change the wickedness of the human heart with protest marches. (A lesson that people protesting for Christian causes also need to learn.) Hatred is one of the symptoms of our fallen condition:
"For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another." (Titus 3:3)
"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." (Galatians 5:19-21)
"He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes." (1 John 2:10-11)
The only lasting solution for the hatred that resides in the human heart (whether racial hatred or other forms of hatred) is for people to come to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith. Only when people are born again and their heart has been changed by God can they finally be rid of hatred for their fellow-man and learn what it truly means to love their neighbour. No amount of protesting or law change can accomplish that. People who harbour such hatred may learn to hide it (until they're among those with like mind, which is probably what attracts some of them to extremist groups), but they'll still have it. Again, only by being born again through repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ can people be cured of their racism and other forms of hatred.
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