This is how we come to the passage that inaugurated our journey in this article, 1 John 4:20–21 (NKJV):
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.
Removing Racism
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 is a well-known chapter in the Marxist-Socialist-anarchist’s playbook. Books by communists in America have never hid their agendas \cite{ignatiev2007abolish}: “Make no mistake about it: we intend to keep bashing the dead white males, and the live ones, and the females too, until the social construct known as 'the white race' is destroyed—not 'deconstructed' but destroyed."
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 naval intelligence gathering and analysis in the Cold
War, and the Chaplain Command of all Military Intelligence Readiness Command (MIRC) Army 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 by racism and its wake of burning fuel for generations.
The Bible condemns racism as an assault on the image of God in humanity. For those who say that the clergy should just keep quiet in the sanctuary, I would remind us all that it was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was forced by history to make the matter the centering place of his vocation. Though a scholar, a Ph.D. in Religion, and a shepherd of souls, he sacrificed the life of a "vicar" for the role of a "prophet." It was the great John Donne, the preacher-poet of St. Paul’s Cathedral who reminded us,
No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lessee, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Manner of thy friends or of thine owne were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.\cite{john1624}