Racism Part 2 - What It Is Not (Racism Falsely So-Called)

     Welcome to the second and concluding part of my study on racism. In the first part, I examined what racism is from a Biblical standpoint (rather than concerning myself with political definitions). In this post however, I want to look at what racism is NOT, because in the world right now, there is a kind of "racism falsely so-called".

     Firstly, racism is not just a sin of white people. (As I noted in Part 1 of this study, racism is sin, and specifically the sin of despising others on the basis of skin colour.) Yes, there are white supremacists in the world, and yes, there is a sad history with things like the Jim Crow and apartheid laws of the past, and yes, people with black, brown or other "non-white" skin tones sometimes (or often in some places) suffer racial harassment and abuse from whites (which is not acceptable in any way, shape or form). I don't dispute any of that in the least. However, it is also a simple reality that we all have the same sin nature inherited from Adam (see 1 Corinthians 15:22), which means that everyone, regardless of their own skin colour, is capable of despising people who have different coloured skin than what they do. A black or brown person who despises whites is no better in God's eyes than a white person who despises non-whites (or people of colour, if you prefer). Remember that God is no respecter of persons, so He judges all racists by the same standard, irrespective of their skin colour. Moreover, whites can also be victims of racially motivated attacks, especially in the United States. But the mainstream media doesn't want to know about it, because they insist on promoting a narrative that only white people are capable of racism. So they push any story that fits their preferred narrative, and ignore any story that doesn't. Hence, if a group of white supremacists beats a black person to death, the mainstream media will be all over that story. They'll cover it for days and weeks. But if a group of black supremacists (yes, they really do exist, and they're not that hard to find online) beats a white person to death, all you'll get from the MSM is the sound of crickets. (Sometimes the latter kind of story will get a bit of traction in the alternative, mainly conservative media.) By giving more weight to stories of racist violence committed by whites and almost no weight to stories of racist violence committed by non-whites, the MSM is actually respecting persons. (But in the past, where the MSM was too favourable to whites and unkind to non-whites, that was also respecting persons. So they have essentially gone too far the other way now, but are still sinning by respecting persons.)

     Secondly, criticising the behaviour of someone who just happens to be black, brown or otherwise "not white" is NOT racist. If you criticise someone like Donald Trump, a white man, for his behaviour, no one accuses you of racism. They may vehemently disagree with your criticism, but whatever rude names they may call you, "racist" won't be one of them. Now try criticising someone like Meghan Markle, a mixed-race woman, for HER behaviour. Suddenly, you're deemed to be racist! This is completely illogical. Now, if someone were to use a racial slur against Ms Markle, you could justifiably accuse them of racism then. What is more, I would agree with you. That would clearly and indisputably be racism. But to simply say, "I don't like this or that aspect of her behaviour" is no more racist than taking Donald Trump to task over HIS behaviour. The same is true when challenging the veracity of someone's claims. It's fine to "fact-check" Donald Trump, but NOT fine, according to some, to do likewise with the Duchess of Sussex! (Piers Morgan knows that only too well.) To hold Meghan Markle and Donald Trump to different standards is to respect persons. Any time you see a double standard like this, the respect of persons is in operation.

    I'm sure many people who consider themselves "anti-racist" would probably revere Martin Luther King, Jr. (I used to admire him myself, and once did a lengthy study about him in my secondary school history class.) His finest hour was probably his "I Have a Dream" speech, and perhaps the best line of that speech was when he said that he had a dream of a world in which his four children would be judged not by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character. Yet people who do exactly that with Meghan Markle are falsely branded "racists". Those who make these false accusations are contradicting their own hero by making the issue about skin colour rather than character! Oh, the irony!

     Thirdly, just because somebody SAYS they have been the victim of racism, doesn't mean they actually HAVE been. Nowadays, it seems that all somebody has to do is cry "Racism!", and everybody automatically believes them without bothering to examine their claims more closely. ("The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going." - Proverbs 14:15) And those who DO make the effort to carefully scrutinise a person's claims of racism are ironically branded racists.

    Let's be clear about something: people lie all the time. The Bible has a LOT to say about lying, and it is very clear that lying is a sin God particularly hates. Moreover, God is all about truth, while lies are the domain of the Devil (John 8:44). A particularly pernicious form of lying is false accusation. Many innocent people have had their lives ruined or otherwise seriously disrupted because somebody falsely accused them of something. Some people have even been killed as a result of false accusations. This is one reason why the Bible instructs us NOT to believe everything we hear, but examine it more closely (see for example Acts 17:11 and 1 Thessalonians 5:21). But if an incendiary enough accusation is made, people seem only too willing to believe it. There are examples of this in the Bible, such as when Potiphar's wife falsely accused Joseph of attempted rape after she had sexually harassed him (read about that in Genesis 39:6-20). (If she were alive today, she probably would have been an enthusiastic member of the MeToo movement.) Nobody bothered to check her allegations out more closely, and Joseph was thrown in jail. (While the crime of rape obviously does happen, and is a very wicked thing when it does, there are women today who falsely accuse men of it, and these men often wrongly go to jail or have their reputations ruined as a result.) We also see in 1 Kings 21:1-15 how two men who had been hired by wicked Queen Jezebel falsely accused Naboth of blaspheming God and the king. Nobody bothered to test whether those claims were true. Naboth was stoned to death for his supposed crime. (In those days, and in that particular culture, an accusation of blasphemy was every bit as incendiary as accusations of racism are today.) There are several examples in the book of Acts where the apostles would be falsely accused of things and quickly put in jail. Often, the false accusations resulted in mob violence. All it took to stir up the mob was someone saying the right "trigger words" in a convincing enough fashion.

     Why would somebody lie about experiencing racism? Well, one motive (which we are certainly seeing in the case of Meghan Markle) is to deflect attention from their behaviour. What more effective way, in the current day and age, to distract people's attention away from criticism of your behaviour than to cry, "I'm a victim of racism here!" (Disclaimer: if you're white, this tactic won't work. You could try it, but you would end up being savagely mocked.) Suddenly, people are worked up into a lather over the supposed racism that has occurred and all thoughts about the bad behaviour that was originally the issue are pushed well into the background. A second closely-related reason might be covering up wrong they have done. (This was exactly why Potiphar's wife falsely accused Joseph of attempted rape - so that her own sin would not be found out.) What better way to evade accountability for something than by claiming that your accuser is being racist? Now suddenly that person is the "bad guy" in everyone's eyes. In our current times, it is all too easy to do something like this. A third reason is political gain. If you're running for office and it seems like you're losing to your opponent, find some way to brand him or her a racist and the voters will come flocking to you. You'll also become a darling of the mainstream media. A fourth reason might be just plain malice. Right now, there is no better way to ruin an individual's life, or cast aspersions on an institution, than making accusations, however unsubstantiated, of racism. There's no need to prove anything when people will just believe you automatically. Going back to politics, a fifth reason might be divide and conquer. Stir up some racial division between people who might otherwise unite to criticise your government, and they'll forget about your shortcomings while they attack each other. I'm sure there are plenty more reasons, but those are some of the most significant ones I can think of.

    It is NOT racist to question the validity of somebody's claims, especially when those claims have no supporting evidence (and there is moreover evidence that contradicts the current claims). Also, questioning a person's claims about racism does NOT mean that you're somehow a "racism denier". It is perfectly possible to acknowledge the existence of racism and express condemnation of it while questioning whether one person's specific claims of racism are true.

    Fourthly, if you were born white, that does NOT make you automatically racist. There is this thing called Critical Race Theory, or CRT, that asserts, among other things, that just being white makes you racist. (Frankly, this is Orwellian - we have entered the domain of "thought crimes", except now thoughts are being assumed! A particularly Orwellian term associated with CRT is "unconscious bias". What that basically means is that no matter how abhorrent you might find racism, or how loudly you might condemn it, you're racist anyway because you're white, so you just naturally have "unconscious bias" to those who are not white.) The "theory" is really based on a logical fallacy that goes something like this. "Some white people are racist. Therefore ALL white people are racist." (Feminists use much the same faulty logic: "Some men are rapists. Therefore ALL men are rapists.") Now if I said, "Some Maoris are criminals. Therefore ALL Maoris are criminals", you would cry, "That's racist!", and you would be right. You'd probably also say it was stupid, and again, you would be quite correct. It would be absurd to assume that all Maoris are criminals just because some are. (Of course, some Pakeha - to use the Maori word for white person - are criminals too, so you could apply the exact same logical fallacy to them.) Likewise, it is absurd to assume that all whites are racists just because some demonstrably are. Moreover, it is actually, dare I say it, just as racist as assuming all Maoris are criminals.

    However, CRT and radical feminism have the same root: Marxism, and more specifically, cultural Marxism. In a Marxist narrative, there has to be an "oppressor class" and an "oppressed class". Everyone in the "oppressor class" gets tarred with the same brush - hence the malicious claim by radical feminists that "all men are rapists" and the new lie being promoted that "all whites are racists". Just as with classic Marxism, which pitted the "upper class" or "bourgeoisie" against the "working class", cultural Marxism seeks to create divisions in society that will ultimately result in the "oppressed class" rising up to overthrow the "oppressor class". (These Marxist narratives are moreover promoted with great gusto by the mainstream media and universities.) And if or when that happens, it will be hello Communism, and goodbye freedom. History has shown, over and over again, that when the so-called "oppressed" overthrow their "oppressors" in the name of Marxism, they end up becoming even worse oppressors.

     Fifthly, being conservative does NOT make someone a racist. Now, there may be some people who identify as conservative and who also hold to some sort of racist beliefs. But I would posit that most conservatives abhor racism every bit as much as their liberal counterparts. (Certainly, everyone who professes Christ should absolutely abhor racism, for reasons explained in the previous part of this study.) Where conservatives differ from liberals is that the latter are more likely to believe somebody's claims of racism unquestioningly (because it suits one of their favoured Marxist narratives), whereas conservatives are more likely to want to test the claims and require evidence to be produced. There may be some conservatives who will dismiss a person's claims of racism out of hand, and frankly this is just as wrong as accepting such claims without question. (See Proverbs 18:13) But merely expressing scepticism about somebody's allegations of racism, especially when there appear to be good grounds for doing so, is not in itself racist. I might add that in America at least, the Democratic Party was FAR more racist than the Republican Party up until about the 1970s or 1980s. The Democrats were all in favour of segregation during the Jim Crow years, while the Republicans opposed it. (Although to be fair, the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed under a Democratic President in Lyndon B. Johnson.) The Republicans were also established during Abraham Lincoln's Presidency, and he of course opposed slavery while the Democrats mostly favoured it. The earliest black Congressmen were Republicans, while the earliest members of the repugnant Ku Klux Klan were Democrats. So for the Democrats to now smear Republicans and their supporters as racist (one of their favourite sports nowadays) is really pretty rich. (Read more about the Democrats' less-than-stellar history with race relations here.)

    Sixthly, just because the mainstream media says it's racist, doesn't necessarily make it so. This is somewhat similar to my third point. The mainstream media like to push certain narratives, and frequently favour cultural Marxist narratives. You are expected to believe what they say without question. Anyone who dares challenge mainstream media narratives is viciously smeared. When the MSM warn you against "disinformation" or "misinformation", it's code for "Don't listen to anyone who disagrees with us". (That said, some people who challenge mainstream media narratives CAN be guilty of disinformation - be discerning.) In order to make their narratives seem credible, they selectively report stories, while ignoring stories that would contradict the narratives. Sometimes they also make a (racist) mountain out of a molehill. Case in point: the George Floyd incident last May. I have watched the entire 35-minute video from the body-cam of Thomas Lane, one of the police officers involved in the incident. It paints quite a different picture of that whole situation than what the mainstream media did in their reporting of it. The MSM only showed you a very small part of what went on. We've all seen and heard Floyd famously wailing, "I can't breathe!" as Officer Derek Chauvin placed his knee on his neck (that was not proper police procedure, so Chauvin does have a case to answer). But he said this many times during his confrontation with the police officers. He said it when they weren't even touching him! It was almost like a mantra with him, he was saying it that often. Now, he may well have been having breathing difficulties caused by the drugs in his system (which he lied to the officers about), but it is debatable whether his ability to breathe was any more compromised by Chauvin's actions (although that is certainly possible).

 

    At no stage during the video do the officers make any racist taunts or say anything that could be remotely construed as racist. Yet the MSM basically portrayed this as some sort of racially motivated hate crime. (If Derek Chauvin is so racist, why is he happy to work with an African-American and Asian American? And for that matter, why didn't they intervene in his apparent assault of a black man? And let's not forget that this happened in Minneapolis, a very liberal and left-wing city in America's Midwest [and decidedly far north too]. It did not happen in say, Birmingham, Alabama or Jackson, Mississippi - known havens of racism during the Jim Crow era.) They only showed a very small part of the video so the public would not understand the wider context of the situation (which becomes much clearer if you watch Officer Lane's 35-minute body-cam footage). As a result of the MSM's slanted coverage, widespread rioting broke out across the United States as groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa took full advantage of the outrage stirred up. The MSM then shamelessly continued to push their narrative by claiming the riots (especially the ones after the first few days) were "peaceful protests" and portraying most attempts to quell the riots as "police brutality". Donald Trump was vilified constantly for condemning those involved in the riots and sending National Guard troops to the worst-affected cities. Everything he said or did was deemed by the MSM and Democrats to be "divisive".

 

    Then just more recently, we have seen how, in the Oprah Winfrey interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, which aired on CBS in the US, headlines purporting to prove racism against Meghan were flashed up on the screen. But The Daily Mail quite conclusively proved that many of these headlines were doctored, and a lot of them were not even from the British press, but rather the American or Australian press! So once again, the mainstream media has effectively manufactured evidence to support a narrative it wants to foist on people. But if you dare question either the narrative or the methods used to "prove" the narrative, you get branded a racist, or bigot, or something similar. It is not racist to question the authenticity of something you see on television or read in the newspaper if there are obvious inconsistencies and holes in it! As I have pointed out above, racism exists, but lies about it exist as well!

 

    A seventh point I'd like to make is that opposition to immigration is not NECESSARILY racist. This is a trickier one. People opposed to ALL immigration most likely are motivated by either racism or at least some form of bigotry against foreigners. (To any professing Christians who dislike those who are not of your nationality, please read what the Lord had to say to the Israelites: "Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." (Exodus 22:21) "And thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." (Exodus 23:9) "Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." (Deuteronomy 10:19) The word "stranger" in these verses means "foreigner". God wants us to be kind to the foreigners in our midst and treat them well.)

    That said, I do not believe that opposing unrestricted immigration is racist (although there may be some who do oppose it on those grounds). There need to be some reasonable checks and balances to ensure that bad apples don't get in. (And those bad apples could of course be any skin colour, nationality or religion.) In the United States right now, there is a crisis on that country's border with Mexico because of the Biden administration's extremely lax immigration policies, and loosening of laws around illegal immigrants. It has been going on for quite a while now and shows what can happen if your laws in this area are too loose. It is very unjust to accuse a person of racism if all they want is a bit of common sense to be applied to immigration policy.

 

    Finally, preaching against the sin of homosexuality is not akin to racism. One of the biggest lies that has been told to the world's population over the past couple of decades is that homosexuals (or sodomites, as the Bible calls them) are "born that way". Therefore, to preach against homosexuality is "bigoted", because they supposedly can't help being the way they are any more than a person can help the colour of the skin they're born in. Now, the Bible never forbids people to have a certain skin colour, or eye colour, or hair colour etc. And why would it? These are indeed things that people are born with. They are things beyond your control. There is nothing moral or immoral about having skin a certain colour or hair a certain colour. So to despise someone because of their skin colour really is foolish and actually quite irrational.

 

    However, the Bible does prohibit and condemn homosexuality - in both the Old and New Testaments. It forbids homosexual acts for the same reason that it forbids adultery, incest and bestiality - they are all forms of fornication (sex outside of marriage, which God created to be between a man and a woman). Homosexuality is additionally described as being "against nature" (Romans 1:26), which means that it is biologically unnatural. Just as you can choose to commit adultery, incest or bestiality, you can also choose to commit a homosexual act. That is the difference between homosexuality and natural features that you are really born with like skin colour. You have no choice about how light or dark your skin is, or the colour of your eyes etc. God will never judge you for those things. But you DO choose who you sleep with! And God WILL judge you for every act of fornication that you commit!

 

    Now if homosexuality somehow WAS in fact an in-born trait, then God would have made an allowance for it. He would have explained why He created some people that way and made special provisions in His Law to enable homosexuals to live normal lives with each other. But the fact is, God never created anyone homosexual. (To do so would go against His original design for marriage in any case.) For a variety of reasons (sin nature, how you're raised, media influence, possibly sexual abuse), people make the choice to become involved in that sin. They choose homosexuality for the same reason that people choose any sexual sin (or any type of sin at all, really): "But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed." (James 1:14) And like all sins, it's always a choice, and like all sins, it must be repented of. God would never prohibit something if you genuinely couldn't help it. So to compare Biblical preaching against homosexuality (a SINFUL BEHAVIOUR) with racism (despising someone because of THEIR OUTWARD APPEARANCE) is utterly absurd and illogical. Yet much of the world has fallen for this nonsense, mainly because it scratches their itching ears. It is nothing more than a cunningly devised fable (2 Peter 1:16). And fables are much more attractive than truth to many nowadays (2 Timothy 4:4).

 

     I do acknowledge however that there are some people who despise homosexuals (a notable example is Steven Anderson). While it is right to preach against homosexuality and call it the sin that it is, it is NOT right to despise homosexuals. (As I pointed out in the first part of this study, it is wrong to despise anyone for any reason.) ALL of us are sinners in God's eyes for all sorts of reasons. We have ALL broken His law in a host of different ways. So we have no business looking down our nose at anyone, whatever sins they're into. But, once saved, we do need to preach the Gospel and call people to repentance, and not shy away from declaring something sin if God's Word declares it to be sin, no matter what "popular opinion" says. However, if you are despising homosexuals, you should repent of that. DON'T repent of calling homosexuality sin (which is Biblically correct), but DO repent of your prideful, "holier-than-thou" attitude.

 

    I'm sure that there are probably other forms of "racism falsely so-called", but those are the main ones I can think of. If I think of any others, I'll update this post with them. Meanwhile, I'll conclude with this: it is God's Word, and not mainstream media narratives, that is truth (John 17:17). No matter what the MSM might say, you are not a racist if you question their narratives. You are only a racist if you despise or hate people whose skin colour is different, or show respect to persons (undue favour or partiality) on account of their skin colour. So if you're doing either of those two things, you should repent of that. And if you're believing some heretical nonsense that says only whites can be saved, you should DEFINITELY repent of that! But you are absolutely not racist if you happen not to believe everything the mainstream media or Hollywood celebrities say - a great deal of which is shameless propaganda and should be taken with a very large grain of salt.

 

    This has been a pretty heavy topic to discuss, so I'll end on a lighter note: the only time when it is acceptable to discriminate between whites and non-whites is when you're doing laundry! 😎

 

 

UPDATE (22/3/21): Over the last few days, the media ("mainstream" and conservative alike) have been consumed with a story about a mass shooting at a couple of different massage parlours in Atlanta, Georgia. A 21-year-old white man shot and killed eight people, six of whom were Asians. Naturally, the mainstream media has assumed that he had a racial bias against Asians. So they have given the story a great deal of air time and deplored anti-Asian sentiment in the US. (I don't doubt that such sentiment exists there, and New Zealand does not have a particularly good track record, especially with respect to how Chinese people used to be treated in the past, and during World War II Japanese people also got a pretty hard time here.) However, the murderer himself says that his attack was NOT racially motivated. Normally, when someone murders others based on racial hatred, they have no qualms about acknowledging that as their motive. In fact, they often brag proudly about it. Certainly, the shooter in the Christchurch mosque attacks here in New Zealand was very open about his racial hatred. Moreover, two of the Atlanta shooter's victims were white (or at least, not Asian). His explanation is rather hard to follow, but it seems he had some sort of sex addiction and was "punishing" his victims for "tempting" him or something like that.

 

    Now, what this man has done is unquestionably very wicked. He has shed a good deal of innocent blood and must absolutely be held to account for that. However, it is debatable whether he was specifically seeking to kill Asians, even if Asians ended up being the majority of his victims. He himself denies any kind of racial motivation (although a murderer's word is not the most reliable witness). But the mainstream media have seized upon this ghastly event with gusto, because it fits one of their favourite narratives beautifully. And surprise, surprise, protests are now starting to break out across the United States (they're peaceful so far, but the MSM's stirring has done its work, just as it did with the George Floyd incident last year).

 

    Meanwhile, in Rochester, New York, two black teenagers have been arrested for murdering a disabled young white boy. (I don't know what their exact motive was for this evil act - it may not have been racist.) The conservative media have made some mention of this story, but the mainstream media? Chirp-chirp-chirp! (In other words, crickets.) Had two white teenagers murdered a disabled young black boy, the MSM wouldn't have been able to get to Rochester fast enough to cover the story. But two black teens murdering a white boy doesn't fit their Marxist narrative. It doesn't fit Critical Race Theory, which the MSM uncritically embraces. Therefore, this story is not deemed worthy of their time. This is a prime example of the mainstream media committing the sin of respecting persons by giving far more weight to one type of story than another. 

 

 

UPDATE 2 (29/3/21):  A few days after the Atlanta shootings, there was another mass shooting at a shopping complex in Boulder, Colorado. This time, most of the victims were white. The shooter was of Syrian extraction. The mainstream media couldn't really ignore this story since about ten people were shot. But because they couldn't spin a "hate crime" narrative, they didn't spend nearly as much time on it as what they had done on the Atlanta massage parlour shootings. Of course, they did use the story to push a bit of gun control propaganda out (I am of the view that people have a right to defend themselves in whatever way they see fit, as long as it's within the bounds of God's laws). But otherwise, this was not a story they wanted to devote so much time to. Which, for the umpteenth time, highlights the US mainstream media's double standards.

 

 

UPDATE 3 (14/4/21): Rioting has broken out in Minneapolis over the last three days. There has also been unrest in Portland, Oregon. The trial of Derek Chauvin is currently taking place in Minneapolis, but this is not what has caused the riots. Instead, the trigger has been a tragic shooting of a young black man by a white police officer. I say tragic because it clearly looks to have been an accident. The officer in question was a 48-year-old lady named Kim Potter. She had a confrontation with 20-year-old Daunte Wright at a routine traffic stop. Mr Wright was unarmed, but it transpired there was a warrant out for his arrest. So he was asked to get out of the car and an officer (not Mrs Potter) began to handcuff him. Now, had Mr Wright complied at this point, he would still be alive. But he decided to resist arrest, breaking free of the officer and getting back into his car. Mrs Potter then ran at him yelling "Taser, taser, taser!" It appears she fully intended to use a taser on Mr Wright. Unfortunately, she had drawn her gun instead by mistake and shot him. She immediately uttered a distressed exclamation.

 

    This is a very sad and tragic incident, both for Mr Wright's family, who have lost their loved one, but also for Mrs Potter, who has to live with this for the rest of her life. Of course, the mainstream media are emphasising the fact that this is another shooting of an "unarmed African-American" by a white police officer, implying that it was some sort of racist hate crime. And just as with the George Floyd incident in May 2020, people are taking to the streets to vandalise and loot public property in the name of "fighting racial inequality". In my view, this is a smokescreen, and what they really want is to turn America into a Communist state. "Racial justice" has long been appropriated by Communists and other Marxists to advance their evil agendas. They had more to work with in the past when there were genuinely unjust laws like the Jim Crow ones in the US and apartheid ones in South Africa. Those laws were rightly overturned and democracy hung on. But nowadays, there is more racial equality in the United States (from a legal standpoint, at least) than ever before. That's not to say that bigotry doesn't exist there - it unquestionably does. However, Black Lives Matter and their allies want to use every excuse they can, no matter how flimsy, to cause violence in the streets. Make no mistake: they are no more interested in racial equality than the Ku Klux Klan. What BLM, Antifa et al. are really after is social chaos. They are using the pretence of "fighting racial injustice" to create it. Overthrowing the Constitution and replacing it with a Communist dictatorship is the end game.

 

    That said, Christians in the US need to remember that the battle that all Christians face is not against flesh and blood, but the powers of darkness. "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)" (2 Corinthians 10:3-4) "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." (Ephesians 6:12) Therefore, Christians in the US should not engage in carnal warfare (fighting in the streets, posting abuse on forums and suchlike) against Black Lives Matter and their allies. (Of course, if you're attacked directly, then defend yourself and your family as you are able.) Rather, what born-again Christians in America need to do is pray, fast, study the Word of God and preach the Gospel while there is still an opportunity to do so. At the end of the day, what these BLM people need is not racial equality (not that there's anything at all wrong with that!), but salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. That needs to remain uppermost in the minds of American Christians. Focus on the real battle (the spiritual one) and don't be distracted by carnal ones.

 

    Incidentally, a common denominator in the George Floyd incident and this new one with Daunte Wright is that they both resisted arrest. Had they both been compliant with the police officers, it is likely that both men would still be alive today. Certainly, Mr Wright would. Of course, the mainstream media conveniently overlook that. After all, it wouldn't fit their pet CRT narrative too well. Another common denominator is that there was no racial abuse. In the George Floyd bodycam video that I have seen, the officers do swear a bit at Mr Floyd early on, but not once do they hurl any racist insults. And likewise in the Daunte Wright tragedy, the officers are just following standard procedure until Mr Wright breaks away from them and gets back in his car. Then the tragedy ensues. This could just as easily have happened to a white person who did what he did. In fact, I'm sure there probably are incidents of white people being accidentally shot by police, likely for similar reasons (resisting arrest or trying to flee). However, these seldom if ever make the news, for the usual reason that they don't fit the media's favoured narratives. The only one I can remember is a white Australian woman who was shot dead by police in Minneapolis (where she was living at the time) after she had called them but they mistook her as a threat as she approached them and opened fire. So that story did get some coverage, but even with that, the MSM didn't make nearly such a big deal over it. I think the officers in question were prosecuted though.

 

 

UPDATE 4 (21/4/21): So, big news today is that Derek Chauvin has been found guilty on all three counts that he was charged with: second-degree involuntary murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter. The jury in his trial, which took place in Minneapolis, only took about ten hours to reach their verdict. Many people, even in the conservative media, believe justice has been done. And perhaps it has been. But I do have to wonder whether the jury truly believed beyond reasonable doubt, on the basis of the evidence that they saw and heard, that Chauvin was guilty, or whether they feared the rioting that would inevitably take place if they found him not guilty, even on some charges. Things were certainly very tense in Minneapolis (and elsewhere in the US), with National Guard troops and tanks rolling in as the jury began their deliberations. Threats from a mob can lead to incorrect verdicts. Consider how a mob succeeded in getting an innocent man condemned and having a guilty one (and guilty of murder, no less) released:

 

    "But the chief priests moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas unto them. And Pilate answered and said again unto them, What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call the King of the Jews? And they cried out again, Crucify him. Then Pilate said unto them, Why, what evil hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify him. And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified." (Mark 15:11-15)

 

     See how the mob would not see reason, but kept clamouring louder until their demands were met. When asked for specific evidence, they provided none. Notice also how Pilate caved in, giving them what they wanted rather than doing the right thing. Of course, this had to happen so that Jesus would die for our sins, but all the same, it is a real lesson in how "mob justice" works. 

 

    Now I'm not saying that Derek Chauvin was innocent in this matter. I might add that I was rather disappointed that he chose to say nothing in his own defence. So I don't regard him as any sort of martyr here. What I am saying though is that it seems to me that the jury in this case was as much swayed by fear of the mob as they were by the evidence presented in the trial. That does not bode well for a country that calls itself "The Land of the Free", and indeed has been one of the most free nations in the world for the past 200-odd years.

 

 

UPDATE 5 (22/4/21): Just a quick postscript to my update of yesterday. On The Daily Wire and also FOX News (and probably in other conservative media like Sky News Australia), the very salient point has been made that at no stage of Derek Chauvin's trial did the prosecution ever say anything about race. This is a point I have made as well. I quote from my above observations of the Thomas Lane video: "At no stage during the video do the officers make any racist taunts or say anything that could be remotely construed as racist. Yet the MSM basically portrayed this as some sort of racially motivated hate crime." Well, it's not just the mainstream media, but left-wing politicians are running with this same narrative. In their reaction to the verdict, both President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris referred to the United States as being a land of "systemic racism". Supposedly, the guilty verdict in the Chauvin trial proved that. But in reality, it proved nothing of the kind. All it DID prove is that Chauvin was a bad cop who used excessive force to subdue a suspect - although no force would have been necessary if George Floyd had only been more cooperative. There is not one shred of evidence that Chauvin was motivated by racial hatred. Not only that, but it was never once suggested in the trial.

 

    But as also sagely observed by Ben Shapiro and others, Chauvin's trial has become a sort of trial of the United States as a whole. The way the mainstream media and Democrats in the US have painted it, Chauvin being found guilty of second and third-degree murder and manslaughter equates to the United States being found guilty of systemic racism. But while the mob has been momentarily appeased, they are not going to rest. Especially when they are dog-whistled by comments such as this from Kamala Harris: "A measure of justice isn't the same as equal justice. This verdict brings us a step closer. And, the fact is, we still have work to do. We still must reform the system." Or this from Joe Biden: "The murder of George Floyd launched a summer of protest we hadn’t seen since the Civil Rights era in the ‘60s — protests that unified people of every race and generation in peace and with purpose to say, “Enough.  Enough.  Enough of the senseless killings.”" And also: "But it is not enough. We can't stop here." Seriously? The rioting and looting was just protesting "that unified people ... in peace and purpose"? But these phrases about the verdict not being enough and there being work still to be done is code for "keep up the protests", and a number of activists have stated openly that they do intend to keep fighting. So we will see more riots. Because just as Neville Chamberlain's desperate attempts to appease Hitler ended in World War II, attempts to appease the mobs who have spent the last year turning the US into something resembling a banana republic will lead to more and more violence in America's cities, and perhaps even civil war. The United States survived one civil war, but I'm not sure whether it would survive a second. And if the United States falls, that is going to be a very dark day for the world.

 

UPDATE 6 (29/4/21): News in the past day or so is that the Idaho Senate has voted to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory in the state. This video by Sky News Australia explains that when Donald Trump was President, he signed an executive order banning CRT teaching from the United States in general. The Sky News Australia report includes a quote by the former President about CRT that I fully agree with. It also includes an excerpt from a speech by a black Conservative MP in Britain's Parliament who rejects the way CRT turns her blackness into victimhood (the word "blackness" is hers). Again, I completely agree with what she says. Of course, since Joe Biden became President, he has overturned a number of President Trump's executive orders, including the one on banning CRT. However, individual states can still make their own laws about it, and that is why Idaho has now passed this legislation.

 

    Now, I'm a big believer in freedom of speech, and I'm all for people learning a range of different ideas and points of view, but one of the many problems with CRT is that it is not taught as just a theory that can then be critically analysed for pros and cons, or dissected to see what is logical about it and what isn't. Much like the Theory of Evolution, Critical Race Theory is being presented in schools as fact. Not only that, but anyone who disagrees with it is accused of being "offensive" or "harmful to others". In a CRT classroom, there is little to no room for any kind of reasoned discussion or debate. So instead of learning critical thinking and objective analysis, students exposed to this are, quite frankly, being indoctrinated. And it's really that indoctrination which is being banned by the Idaho lawmakers. I'm sure other states, especially "red" (Republican) ones will follow suit.

 

     Leaving aside the political angle, one of the biggest dangers I see with CRT is that it sows discord and creates division where none previously existed or needs to exist. Every Marxist theory does the same thing in the way it creates artificial classes of oppressors and victims. (To be fair, there are certainly non-Marxist doctrines that do this sort of thing too. Whether such teachings come from the left or right, they are all evil.) The "oppressed" are taught to bitterly resent their "oppressors" and blame all their problems on them. Then they start getting violent, justifying their actions on their "victimhood". Eventually, the "oppressors" get fed up with the violence and with being falsely demonised, and start to push back. The mainstream media then cite this as "evidence" CRT is true, when in fact CRT itself created the situation. And so after the discord has been sown, you then get a society that is divided against itself. This is the great danger the United States is facing at present. It is still powerful enough to fight off a foreign invader, but is in real danger of tearing itself apart from within. 

 

    The Lord Jesus Christ warned, "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand". (Matthew 12:25) The United States is on the brink of being brought to desolation by civil war. It is in this position because of the division created by the discord being sown. Satan is doing all he can to divide the American people, and Critical Race Theory is one of the key weapons he is utilising for that. (I also think he is using things like QAnon to stir up unsaved people on the right.) This same destructive weapon is being used to foster similar divisions in other Western countries like the UK, Australia and New Zealand. However, none of these countries are in danger of civil war the way the US is. The United States is a key target for the Devil right now, because for all its many flaws, it continues to stand for freedom and to be a roadblock to unbridled globalism and Marxism. At this point in time, the power of the United States keeps countries like Russia and China in check. Another reason why Satan wants to destroy the United States is because it is a crucial ally of Israel. It has vetoed many unjust United Nations resolutions against Israel. So if the United States falls due to tearing itself apart internally, it would unleash all manner of chaos and darkness in the world. Critical Race Theory is pushing the US (and other countries) towards self-destruction. For that reason and the fact that it is nothing more than poisonous indoctrination, I am all in favour of Idaho banning it and hope more states and even countries will wake up to just how pernicious it really is.

 

 

UPDATE 7 (16/5/21): An article in today's New Zealand Herald shows that Critical Race Theory is sadly alive and well in the schools of Aotearoa. However, it appears as if it is being introduced by stealth, through Ministry of Education programmes such as Te Hurahanganui (which I have to admit I had never heard of until I read this article). Part of the Blueprint for this programme makes its Marxist goals pretty clear. I quote the article's quote: "Building critical consciousness means reflecting critically on the imbalance of power and resources in society, and taking anti-oppressive action to do something about it for the better. It means recognising white privilege, understanding racism, inequity faced by Māori and disrupting that status quo to strengthen equity." Now this is the kind of word salad that is cunningly designed to hide the true aims of the author(s) in vague language that nobody understands. (What does "anti-oppressive action" mean, for instance? It could mean just about anything you want it to, because it's so vague.) However, one phrase sticks out: "white privilege". David Seymour, the leader of the ACT Party (which I would never vote for after it introduced the law that legalised euthanasia in this country), makes the following excellent point about so-called white privilege: "What are teachers supposed to say to a 'white' child who may have no money or food at home, be abused, face a learning challenge, or any other challenge? How is it that their colour makes them privileged regardless of their individual circumstances?" Indeed! CRT doesn't care about that though. According to CRT logic, if you're white, you're "privileged" and an "oppressor", regardless of your circumstances.

 

     Mr Seymour quotes another phrase (from a reading list for teachers called "Ka Hikitia") that also demonstrates a clear CRT mentality: "many whites believe their financial and professional successes are the result of their own efforts, while ignoring the fact of white privilege". At this point, it's worth looking at what the Word of God says about how to achieve material success, and conversely, what really causes poverty: "He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich. He that gathereth in summer is a wise son: but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame." (Proverbs 10:4-5) "The hand of the diligent shall bear rule: but the slothful shall be under tribute." (Proverbs 12:24) "The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat." (Proverbs 13:4) "Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep; and an idle soul shall suffer hunger." (Proverbs 19:15) "The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing." (Proverbs 20:4) "The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour. He coveteth greedily all the day long: but the righteous giveth and spareth not." (Proverbs 21:25-26) "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men." (Proverbs 22:29) "I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man." (Proverbs 24:30-34) "By much slothfulness the building decayeth; and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through." (Ecclesiastes 10:18) "For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat." (2 Thessalonians 3:10)

 

     There are other verses and passages besides that I could quote, but this is a plentiful enough sample. What does the Bible say leads to success? Is it privilege, racial or otherwise? No, it's HARD WORK. Does the Word say that only whites can achieve success through being diligent in their labour? No, these verses apply to EVERYONE. Conversely, what tends to lead to poverty? Systemic racism? Class oppression? No, the root cause is LAZINESS. Also called slothfulness in the King James Bible. Anyone, of any skin colour, can be successful if they work hard. That is true even in these COVID times. I have seen stories of people who lost their jobs because of COVID-19, but instead of sitting around feeling sorry for themselves, they took stock of their skills and applied them to a new type of work. And thanks to their diligent labour, they have enjoyed success. But conversely, no matter your skin colour, if you're lazy, you won't do too well in life.

    Now, there are some people who can struggle due to no particular fault of their own, and the Bible has much to say about helping the poor and needy. Those who have much should give to those who have little or nothing, but they should not be forced to give to those who just don't want to work. (Neoliberalism is frankly just as ungodly as socialism, since it goes to the opposite extreme.) Nevertheless, far too much blame for failure in life is attributed to things like "class oppression", "racism" or "privilege" when the real cause is, more often than not, the sin of slothfulness. And again, I am not pointing the finger at any one group of people, because this applies universally.

 

     Back to the Herald article: although the writer of the article, one Michael Neilson (a political reporter) gives David Seymour a reasonably fair hearing, I get the impression that he accepts "white privilege" as a fact of life rather than a product of Marxist teaching. Observe this wording for example: "Te Hurihanganui comes off the back of numerous reports and studies that have highlighted systemic racism in New Zealand's education system, and how it holds back the learning of our children." Now, he could have instead said that the studies CLAIM or PURPORT to highlight systemic racism. That would offer a more neutral slant. But instead, his wording strongly implies that he accepts it as fact. He then highlights an example that purports to prove systemic racism: "Stark examples include how in 2019 NCEA level 2 attainment was 64.1 per cent for Māori, compared to 82 per cent for Pākehā. Meanwhile in Māori medium education, 78.7 per cent of Māori school leavers achieved at least NCEA level 2 equivalent." This doesn't prove anything except that Māori children may perform better in schools more specifically tailored to them. It certainly doesn't prove systemic racism. The only way this statistic could "prove" systemic racism is if you read that into it. There could be any number of reasons why Māori children perform worse than Pākehā ones. Laziness could be one of those reasons. Not in every case, I'm sure, but maybe some. However, those Māori who DO achieve good marks work hard for them, without doubt - whatever type of school they're in. In other words, their achievements are based on their own merits, just as for Pākehā children.

 

     The article goes on to quote Kelvin Davis, Associate Education Minister. Naturally, he disagrees with David Seymour. However, he does acknowledge that Te Hurihanganui "is about addressing systemic racism and building relationships". Again, there is that very CRT phrase, systemic racism. After waffling on a bit, he concludes by saying, "David Seymour is making it sound like some subversive thing to indoctrinate children, when it is all about addressing systemic issues." Well if it is teaching CRT, then as I said in my last update, that IS indoctrinating children! It is indoctrinating them with Marxist propaganda that will sow division and hatred if it is allowed to take root in our schools.

 

    Three other people are quoted to finish off the article. Mr Neilson appears to accept their views without question. To be fair, he quoted David Seymour without much comment, but then he has quoted a number of people taking a different view to Mr Seymour, while nobody else is quoted who agrees with him. So Mr Seymour is "outnumbered" in the article. You can usually tell where a journalist's own views lie, or what narrative they want to promote, by how much weight they give to specific viewpoints. In this case, four people are quoted who believe in white privilege and systemic racism, while one person (Mr Seymour) is quoted taking issue with it being taught in schools. Furthermore, statistics supposedly proving systemic racism (despite doing nothing of the kind) are cited and accepted without question.

 

     One of the two remaining people quoted is Dr Ann Milne, an education consultant. She calls white privilege a "reality", and this is not challenged at all. The journalist accepts it, so by implication, we are meant to accept it as well. She claims that it's not to do with race (which quite frankly, is not borne out by what happens in classrooms where this stuff is taught) but "cultural norms". She then says, rather bizarrely, "It is not about white people per se but whiteness as a system." As Manuel in Fawlty Towers liked to say, ¿Qué? Then she launches into some serious word salad: "One way to look at it is you are walking down the street and have a $10 note just put in your pocket, for no reason. It is something you get just by the nature that everything works for your normal reality, not to do with wealth or anything." Again, ¿Qué? Or as Oprah Winfrey said a couple of months ago, "What? WHAT???" What she appears to be saying is that our current system gives white people an unfair head start in life or something. Which would seem to have something to do with white PEOPLE, and not merely "whiteness as a system". Anyway, we are then told that "[Dr Milne] had never encountered any pushback from students nor their teachers teaching about white privilege". If the above quotes are at all representative of her teaching style, I'm not surprised. They probably have no idea what she's on about. Another possible reason for the lack of pushback however may be to do with fear. She insists that "Not teaching it does Pākehā a disservice, and Māori children will continue growing up thinking their position at the bottom of the heap is their fault, rather than the systems that keep them there," and furthermore that "It is not separatist, it is not racist, it is just acknowledging the system does not work for everybody". What this really means is that Māori children will be taught to develop a victim mentality, just as occurs when CRT is taught overseas. It's all the racist system's fault. Nothing to do with them at all. Eventually, they will want to fight the system that "oppresses" them, at which point, we could start to see scenes like in the United States. And how are Pākehā being done a disservice by not being made to feel ashamed just for being born white? As for acknowledging that the system does not work for everybody, well that could easily done without all this CRT nonsense. There are plenty of constructive ways that the education system could be improved for Māori rather than indoctrinating them into believing that the "white system" is holding them back. Only problem with those better ways however is that they don't involve shoving Marxist doctrines down schoolchildren's throats.

    Meanwhile, Whetu Cormack, who used to be president of the NZ Principals Federation, claims that the education system is "already racialised". We read, "His Māori mother was beaten in schools for speaking her reo". Now that actually used to happen a number of years ago (especially in the early and middle 20th Century), and it is a genuinely shameful aspect of New Zealand's history. It is important to acknowledge how wrong something like that was. I might add that I think moves towards teaching Te Reo in our schools is a good thing. But that doesn't mean it is OK to force Critical Race Theory on our children, whatever guise it may be presented in. One other person called Jo Brand is quoted at the very end, claiming that "great things will come from this". Yeah, big NAH. Unless of course you think the race riots in the United States over the past year is a "great thing".

    In my view, a far more effective approach to racism would be to teach, very simply, that no one should despise another person because of their skin colour, and that no one should get any special or different treatment because of their skin colour. And a little "Love thy neighbour as thyself" wouldn't go amiss either. As I said in my first post about racism, the Bible does not make any exceptions when it comes to loving your neighbour. Keeping it simple and eliminating all the Marxist propaganda and incomprehensible word salads would do all children in this country the world of good, whether they're Māori, Pākehā, Asian or whatever other ethnicity that we have (and we do have quite a "melting pot" here). Unfortunately however, the further New Zealand society goes from God and His truth, the more it will embrace the lies of the Devil, including Marxism, CRT and other spiritually and morally destructive philosophies.

Racism Part 1: What It Is (A Biblical Examination)

   "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.