Wednesday, January 4, 2023

Every Nation, Tribe, And Tongue

The relationship between Christianity and racism is often misunderstood, sometimes intentionally, by both the political left and right, who try to use the former as a tool to persuade people to adopt their political ideas about the latter.  Few of them care about the truth of the matter in the sense of what Christianity actually holds about racism or what would be true whether or not Christianity is, letting political assumptions drive the rest of their worldview instead of avoiding assumptions and recognizing politics as an expression of more significant and foundational matters.  Christian conservatives thus tend to ignore that the Bible is very pro-diversity and pro-individualism, with its condemnations of discriminating in favor of or against the rich, the poor, those of different nationalities, and so on, and Christian liberals tend to confuse the Bible for a racist book while still selectively citing some of its tenets.

Due to fools who misrepresent Christianity while thinking they are living it out and due to other fools who assume without any thorough Biblical analysis or rationalistic contemplation that Christianity does support racism or sexism--after all, all assumptions are irrational!--there is a false association of Christian/Biblical moral and broader metaphysical concepts with things like racism despite the Bible so obviously conflicting with such forms of discrimination.  Then, among those who at least think they are more sincerely opposed to racism, there are those who think the Bible is consistent with their racism against various groups besides the one they like to focus on.  In America, liberals exemplify this when they pretend like white-on-black racism is the only kind, when whites and people who are neither white nor black can be treated in racist ways as well.  Where would one start with finding out what the Bible actually teaches about this?

Of course, as I have previously addressed, Mosaic Law and the Genesis creation account would be the most important parts of the Bible where the morality of racism is concerned, as Mosaic Law condemns discrimination against foreigners (with skin color potentially playing a factor when one culture of egoists encounters another), which is the core and most exhaustive set of moral clarifications in the whole Bible, and the affirmation in Genesis 1 that all humans bear God's image and would equally share the obligations of stewarding the planet already excludes racism (and sexism, ageism, and discrimination based on looks or disability, for example) from the start.  It is not as if what I am about to draw attention to is either the most vital or obvious part of the Bible that, directly or indirectly, addresses racism, but it is an expression of these preceding teachings.

Revelation 7:9 describes, in what is not the most pivotal passage on the matter but one that still perfectly reflects it, a glimpse of the Biblical heaven that the author John says he experienced--and it is a place full of diversity.  He states that he saw a multitude of "every tribe, tongue, and nation" before God's throne.  Whether in the sense that someone from all or most cultures even before Christ was saved or in the sense that every group specifically reached by the gospel has some representative of sorts in heaven, Revelation 7:9 clearly is incompatible with the idea that Christianity prescribes or tolerates racism.  In Revelation, of all places, there is further confirmation of how the Biblical deity does not show favoritism to anyone on the basis of skin color or lineage (Romans 2:11, Deuteronomy 10:19, Exodus 22:21, and Leviticus 24:22 are some of the relevant verses here).

The heaven of Scripture is full of every kind of possible diversity in a morally perfect world--diversity of gender, race, family line, linguistic background, nationality, and geographical location does not dictate who truly submits to God, and as such it would be reflected in the human recipients of eternal life as happens to be mentioned in Revelation 7:9.  It should not be surprising to anyone who read Genesis 1 without making assumptions that this would be something in an eschatological vision at the other end of the Bible.  This "great multitude" does not even reflect something that suddenly appears in the New Testament, as some liberal Christians might be irrational enough to think.  What it reflects is a central part of Christian ethics.

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