By: Robert Jones
Discussing racial issues is something I have often avoided. Mainly this is because I don’t like arguing, especially over matters where solutions seem inevitably out of grasp. So it is against my normal instincts that I sit down to write these words. Even now as the thoughts swirl in my head I feel overwhelmed at the immensity of the topic at hand. However, I do believe in the power of ideas to change a life and I only hope that the thoughts I present here will impact someone in a profound manner.
First, it is my opinion of all the possible reasons for humans to draw distinctions among one another and found their indefatigable conflicts, race is the most frivolous. In fact racism only highlights a degenerate human tendency to treat all things different as a threat to one’s own safety and wellbeing. Ravi Zacharias captured this sentiment when he says, “for reasons of pride of race, place, grace or face, human beings somehow make room for hate.” This depravity or corruption or, biblically speaking, this fallen state of man seems ubiquitous throughout human history. In this I find the Christian understanding of humanity to hold true. Man, created by God in God’s image, and thereby granted intrinsic dignity and worth which must be recognized, respected and protected, has, as C.S. Lewis put it, “gone badly off the rails”. Because we are fallen and have lost God as our standard for human ethics and source of human worth we struggle to recognize the value in others. Prone now to selfishness we seek to enhance our own standing often at the detriment of another’s. Dr. Zacharias sums the thought up by saying, “when much of the world’s agonies are uncovered they reveal the immense capacity of humanity for rejection and an undying search to find someone, or some class, toward whom to vent its anger. In this, of all the centuries, we have caused so much hurt to one another that it has made even the most optimistic of us sober-minded about the tenuous nature of human relationships.”
I hope the reader can see why the fallen state of human nature is so important in the matter of racism. First it sobers our minds and makes us aware that all human establishments, institutions, governments, groups and classes tend toward corruption and evil because the human individuals that comprise the group cannot, although their efforts are valiant and their intention pure keep from unethical practices. Like the snow ball often indiscretions start small among these human groups but amass size and momentum over time. Second it reminds us that man needs a standard for ethics and a spring for human value. James Q Wilson once noted that since, “God is dead or silent, reason suspect or defective and nature meaningless or hostile. As a result, man is adrift on an uncharted sea, left to find his moral bearings with no compass and no pole star, and so able to do little more than utter personal preferences, bow to historical necessity, or accept social conventions.”
The second point is very important and deserves more attention. It is not enough to merely declare that racism, or any other institution or doctrine is wrong. More importantly there must be clear understanding as to why it is wrong. For example, the UN in 1948 drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The resolution declared the “inherent dignity” and “the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.” The declaration goes on to state, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” When asked to explain the foundational basis for the declaration’s language one of the writers responded, “We agree on the rights, providing we are not asked why.
With the why the dispute begins.” The universal “why” is gravely important. Racism is wrong. Why? All humans are equal. Why? Treat your neighbor as yourself. Why should I? All ethical imperatives, and surely the abolishment of racism and its effects is an ethical imperative, must answer the ever present why if they are to gain adherence. I hope the need for fallen man to acknowledge God our source for morality is becoming clear. God is the answer to the universal why of the human ethical dilemma. This is why Authur Leff proclaimed, “…no person, no combination of people, no document however hollowed by time, no process, no premise, nothing is equivalent to an actual God in this central function as the unexaminable examiner of good and evil. The so called death of God turns out not to have been just His funeral, it also seems to have affected the total elimination of any coherent or even more than momentarily convincing ethical or legal system…”
I find the two major principles presented here foundational to the understanding of racism. First that man is fallen and his systems, institution and groupings tend toward depravity. Second that recognition of God is needed for moral grounding and human value sourcing. These principles, a creator God and fallen man, of Christianity are to be understood and applied universally. They bring light to all human moral dilemmas not just that of racism.
