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.“