For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
The practice of assessment, diagnosis, and spiritual treatment of the human soul by the prayerful and studied application of Word, Sacrament, and Prayer remains the most potent method for human transformation. Such a practice is called pastoring. The cure of souls is the God-ordained vocation and central mission of the Christian shepherd. For instance, we witness evidence of a veritable Balkanization (i.e., fragmenting) of America (and other Western and English-speaking nations, e.g., Australia). Sadly, division and other pathologies of human society are an undeniable result of the poisonous flow of original and residual sins —the physical and metaphysical consequences of creaturely rebellion against the Creator—are well-known to the Christian shepherd and pastoral theologian. There is a particularly virulent and vicious strain of the sin of division: the degrading, dangerous, and highly infectious fracture between human beings because on based on accidental, non-contributing factors. We use the word accidental to describe those features, traits, and characteristics beyond one’s control (we are certainly not asserting that life is an accident in the usual first-meaning that word).
One cannot choose certain physical features, one’s bloodline, or even one’s socio-economic or geographic place of origin. Therefore, to isolate and harass, or to hate a person or group in any way, based on the offended party’s disdain for accidental causes in one’s life is not only cruel but illogical. One’s boorish behavior might put us off at a party. Still, such a factor is not accidental or inherited (though it is possible that no one ever taught the poor fellow about social etiquette). While possibly cruel or insensitive to the plight of another, we would, at least, be protesting a malleable factor. The poor fellow can change his ways. If, on the other hand, you were offended by the indelicacy of the man at the party because he was born with physical deformities, e.g., an irregular nervous system that caused him to spill his drink, you would be a fool. The man is incapable of choosing how his physical qualities. Shout, jump up and down, or leave the party in disgust, but you cannot expect the poor fellow to change. Yet, you can do something. You can ignore the man. You could even gather together a society for the hatred of those born with irregular nervous systems. However, your organization can never change the individual. Your club is only capable of prejudicial treatment of another based on disgust, spawned of pure, illogical hatred. The example is admittedly shallow. Yet, human beings routinely hate others based on their disdain for accidental factors: socio-economic classifications, sex (i.e., gender), religion, ethnicity, viz., race. Most of the epistles of the New Testament had their genesis in the sin of division. Whether Corinth or Galatia, Rome or Ephesus, Christian communities fragmented because of external or superficial differences. Apostolic letters were then drafted and dispersed to the churches to correct the behavior and warn of God’s wrath against such division.
1 John 4:20–21 (NKJV): 20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21 And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.
The Answer
So, we see that the Bible teaches that we were all of one race: the human race. There are differences, varieties, adaptations within the species, but we are all human beings. Therefore, for one person or group to ridicule, isolate, or injure another group of human beings because of accidental characteristics — variables within the human species they were born with — is a cruel and irrational response. Such tribalism promotes widespread division of people, degradation of humanity itself and makes the civil community at any level — from the family to the city, to the nation – an impossible vision. Since such prejudicial language and hostile actions against people flow from the accidental traits they carry from birth, there can be no other assumption that the source of such prejudice is pure hatred that leads to division and division that leads to violence. Such societal confusion that breeds national fragmentation, i.e., the Balkanization of America , is a well-known chapter in the anarchist strategies of Marxism, Communism, and Socialism. When we hate each other enough, an oppressive force then steps in to heal the breach. In thirty-two years of military service, including top-secret intelligence gathering and analysis in the Cold War, and the command of all Military Intelligence Readiness Command chaplains posted around the globe, I have seen the devious plan at work. I have also witnessed the consequences. As a theologian and curator of the human soul, I know the damage done for generations.
The Bible condemns this as an assault on the image of God in humanity. Every Christian leader should also decry the articles of such ethnic and cultural cleansing. Unfortunately, critical race theory, and books such as Ibram X. Kendi’s 2019 book, How to Be an Antiracist , have become mainstream. The views are not only immature, poorly stated, and riddled with historical errors. C. . They are contrary to God’s Word and, thus, harmful to human existence. Yet, their horrendous ideologies are being taught in grammar schools through the professional postgraduate course. There can only one conclusion to normalizing hatred grounded in accidental differences in humankind: the loss of necessary, rational, civil discourse, which invariably leads to civil violence, and violence which leads to self-destruction.
Receive God’s love in Jesus Christ, and you will not only be protected from such corrosive ideologies, but you will also overcome it. For good is stronger than evil, and the God who sent His Son to save one race, the race of humanity, will transform you. How did your mother sing it to you when you were a child?
“Jesus loves the little children, all of the children of the world; Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight; Jesus loves the little children of the world.“