Racism… or more broadly, Separatism!
Racism, what is it? Bottom line, preferring one race over another.
Separatism, what is it? Preferring one group over another. This includes racism.
At the heart it is preferring one person or group over others.
This in itself is not wrong. Yet it is used to separate the world along racial lines: black, white, yellow. Separatism also includes divisions based on: gender, religion, sexual orientation, economic class, political affiliations, philosophies and the list can go on to what kind of toothpaste you use. Alright, that does seem to be stretching the point yet it exists somewhere. The largest groups are: race, religion and politics. It is more powerful when two or three of these combine.
I believe that the Bible is the word of God. It includes our early history. That history reveals that mankind didn’t want to separate at all. They wanted to be one people. They wanted to build. They wanted to reach for the stars. They wanted to become… gods, masters of their own fate and captains of their own souls. Sound familiar? Invictus by William Earnest Henley. Sounds wonderful right? Yet this is not what God wanted. He came down to the earth and created different languages and speech. The different groups could no longer understand each other, they separated and left to populate the planet as God wanted.
It was not the natural state of man to separate. They wanted to be one. Yet to accomplish God’s plan and purpose they needed to spread abroad. And it happened. We know as bible believers that “ The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” That is the natural state of man. It is the result of the fall. Because of this man took what God had done and began to create barriers. Understand, there is nothing wrong with separation. It is what we do with it that counts. Everyone is free to do what they will, but we know that everyone will have to give an account of what the individual has done when that person appears before God.
How did it begin? Perhaps after coming out of the garden, Adam and Eve had children. Were males and females held in different regard? How about religion, perhaps the different sacrifices by Cain and Able? Did the occurrence at Babel start divisions based on race, religious thought, slave and free, etc. The darkness of man’s heart really knows no bounds. Just look to the ovens at Auschwitz, Hitler’s final solution, or Communism’s own death camps.
What am I trying to say? Separatism, including racism, is in itself not evil. But what man does with and within those separations can be evil. In fact, it is the natural inclination of man’s heart to treat others who are different than themselves with different degrees of actions. It can go as far as the cruelest bond’s of slavery (including male and female sex slaves) to crucifixions on a cross to starvation of a race of people.
All of these things are still being done somewhere in this intolerant world. And it is in the heart of every living man and woman on the planet. Oh, but we are enlightened people. We are one. We tolerate everyone and everything, except those who are intolerant in our own opinion. I have heard it said that blacks are not racists. Yet they have racism in their own hearts. They can’t help themselves. If we could all recognize this fact, then we can begin to stop ourselves from acting out in negative ways. All of us must do this. In good times this can be easily done. In hard times it is easier said than done. With the help of God’s Spirit we can become a more spiritual man than a carnal man. At times it may seem to disappear altogether. Yet don’t be fooled. As long as you have flesh and bone the seed is there only waiting to spring to life. Understand that and you can begin to make a real difference in your life and in the lives of others. Keep yourself smug and secure within your own self-justified group and the evil we hate will spring up and trap us, over and over again.
In my mind I try to resist the flesh, while in my spirit I know…
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.