My goal in this article is to reduce the instinctive, white and evangelical reaction to the idea of structural racism or systemic racism. Not that I suppose only white people, or just evangelicals, have problems with these terms, but this is the band I know best. and who I’m most connected to.
My strategy is to show that if your mind is saturated with the Bible, you will find it absolutely surprising that structural racism is not widespread wherever sin prevails. In other words, people shaped by the Bible should expect to see structural racism almost everywhere in a fallen world.
- My other strategy is to show that structural racism is the son of structural pride and brother of fraternal triplets.
- Structural greed.
- Structural fear and structural lust.
- My hypothesis is that people shaped by the Bible will resonate with the idea that pride.
- Greed.
- Lust and fear are rooted in social structures and institutions such as entertainment.
- Advertising.
- Capitalist business processes.
- Academic domination procedures.
- Party political practices and more.
So that’s a very limited goal. This will leave the reader with several questions such as: “So you say . . . ?”. If I don’t say it, it would be better not to assume that I do.
Let’s be crazy and start with the definitions. It’s crazy, because racism is the kind of thing worth being inaccurate about. Everyone is against racism. Even racists. So why not continue with the article and avoid problems?Moreover, it seems suspicious to consider definitions. Looks like you’re trying to get away from something. Looking for a gap to escape. Well, I don’t want to run, I want the exact opposite. I want to close all escape routes. I want to fill in the gaps.
Definitions can do that. I don’t like to walk in a fog of inaccuracy, people tend to escape like this. But that’s how they also fall off the cliffs, I don’t think it’s worth much of this agreement, which only survives in the fog.
So here it is. Those are my definitions. I didn’t borrow them anywhere, they just tell the reader what I mean when I use these terms, if they neglect important realities it’s because I have blind spots, prejudices, insufficient memory or all three things, hence the vulnerability to try. Definitions.
Raza. La difficulty of defining race is reflected in the fact that Barack Obama will forever be known as America’s first black president, though genetically speaking, he is as white as black. Why? Mainly because we expand the color of the skin, the type of hair and the characteristics of the face at the decisive level of racial differentiation, this means that the genetic basis of our usual way of conceiving the breed is approximately 0. 01% of our genetic makeup. .
In addition, it is impossible to draw a line between races with this design. There are many variations in appearance for each breed. They’re merging at the edges. Not only that, but there are so many or more differences of greater physical and intellectual importance within appearance-based groups as there are between them.
This leads many of us to want to talk about mankind in the image of God, rather than giving excessive weight (with historically destructive power) to the divisions of humanity based on non-essential superficial differences.
However, virtually everyone who shared this concern has no choice but to use the term “racism” and “racist” for the injustices that exist, historically and today, on the basis of these non-essential differences. incorporated into the term “racism”?a hypothesis about the meaning of the word “race”.
For this reason? Use the term racism? In a way that relates to our current situation?Don’t define her? Race? Scientifically or sociologically, but on the basis of appearance, with all the ambiguities and disadvantages mentioned above.
A breed is a group of people who are distinguished mainly by the color of their skin, but also by their facial features and their hair type. I choose this simplistic definition, at street level, only to be able to communicate when I talk about racism.
Racism is an explicit or implicit feeling, belief, or practice that values one race over other races or devalues one race over another.
Racist, as a name, refers to a person characterized by racism, without hating, without giving up and seeking to eliminate his own racist attitudes and actions and its harmful effects, the implication is that if everyone, as sinners and self-centered by nature, is contaminated by racist tendencies, not everyone should be called a racist.
Racist, as an adjective, refers to the quality of any feeling, thought, act, discourse, object, idea, expectation, rule, rule, politics, law, procedure or any other element that incorporates or expresses racism.
Structural racism is the cumulative effect of racist feelings, beliefs and practices that are incorporated and expressed in policies, rules, regulations, procedures, expectations, norms, premises, guidelines, plans, strategies, objectives, practices, values, norms, narratives, stories. , registries and others, which therefore harm the devalued breed and favor the valued breed. This definition implicitly includes the important fact that structural racism can therefore have its racist effects, although non-racist people now live in institutions where racist structures still dominate.
With these definitions, I will now show why it would be surprising if structural racism did not prevail in institutions where sin prevails; the reason is that human sin, a supernatural devil, and a perverse global system conspire to weave pride, greed, fear, lust, and racism in all human institutions.
Biblical worldview attributes great glory and corruption to human beings. Human beings began as the culmination of God’s creation on earth (Genesis 1:26, 31) and redeemed humanity will one day be like children of God (Jn 1:12), according to the second incarnate person of the Trinity (Rom 8. 29; 1Jn 3. 2), sharing his dominion of the universe (Apoc. 3. 21), judging angels (1C 6. 3) and being, the fulness of those who fill everything in all things?( Ephesians 1. 23).
This glorious destiny exists because of God’s merciful intervention in the present evil of mankind; this is not due to our value or our intrinsic ability to improve. God sent His Son into the world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15; John 3 :dyy).
In our present condition, without God’s saving grace, we are all, without exception, sinners (Romans 9-23). We change God’s glory for his creation (Romans 1:23). By nature, we prefer other things to God, and our understanding is obscured (Ephesians 4:18). In our natural condition and fall, “we do not accept the things of the Spirit of God,” but we consider them madness. Can’t we understand them because they are spiritually discerned? (1Co 2. 14).
In our refusal to submit to God’s law, we show that we are deeply “hostile to God,” even when we feel warm thoughts about Him in our uncompromising selfishness (Romans 8:7-8). Are we slaves to sin? (Rom 6,17) Are we in this condition?Away from God’s life? (Ephesians 4:18) and are we by nature children of anger?(Ephesians 3).
Not only did God send His Son as Savior to this horrible human uprising, but He also exercised common grace to prevent mankind from doing as much harm as if it did not exercise grace (Genesis 20; 2 Ts 2:6-7). Still, the amount Man does against man is incalculable Listen to the words the New Testament uses to describe the types of sins human beings commit against human beings: malice, envy, murder, conflict, deception, gossip, defamation, arrogance, insolence, pride, inventors of evils, disobedience to parents, foolish, ruthless, hateful, and hateful (Rom 1 : 29-32; Titus 3).
And what is the effect of all this sin on race and ethnic relations?The Bible uses a main word: “Hostility? (Ephesians 2:14). If you let your eyes review the list of sins in the previous paragraph, ask, in each word, what the effect would be on our attitudes toward other races, this will not surprise you. If we’re “malicious, ” let alone with people other than us. If we “murder,” let alone those who are different. If we “cheat, ” how much more foreigners. If we “slander,” how much easier it is to slander those who are different. If we are “arrogant and insolent,” how much easier it is to get excited about the “other”?that we consider inferior. If we “hate,” who better to hate than those who don’t?
Human history has not a million chances of not being a history of racism. Where racism does not dominate uns selected sinners is because common grace has limited it. , willing to corrupt appearances of racial harmony.
Now add to this fallen condition of the human heart, the fact that there is great supernatural power in the world that works against God’s designs. Is his name, Devil and Satan? (Rev. 12. 9) and?Prince of the world? (Jn 14:30), or Did the God of this century [who] blinded the understanding of the disbelievers?(2Co 4. 4). Is it attractive worldwide? (Ap 12. 9). His deception goes hand in hand with his intention to destroy. “He was a murderer from the beginning . . . When he tells lies, he talks about his own, because he is a liar and a father of lies?”(Jo 8. 44).
He doesn’t work alone, but he has demonic subordinates who do their destructive work in the world. The eldest of demons? (Lk 11. 15). When Paul described the demonic adversaries of Christians, he said, “Our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against principalities and powers, against the leaders of this dark world, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly regions (Ephesians 6:12).
So the power of human depravity to produce racism?With all other sins he is aggravated by supernatural demonic power to guarantee and intensify this evil. This supernatural influence is so widespread in human affairs that John says that “is the whole world in evil?”(1 John 5. 19), and Paul says so?(Ephesians 2).
Like you? Modus operandi has been lying and killing for a long time, it should surprise us if it works in all the social institutions of this world to cultivate misunderstandings, mistrust, prejudice, prejudice, suspicion, ill will, antagonism, hostility, murder, massacre. , lynchings, ethnic cleansings, holocaust and genocide? The persistence, spread and global reach of racist horrors and ethnic conflicts bear witness to a type of evil that corresponds to the biblical image of deception and supernatural death.
Then add to human depravity and supernatural demonic power, the fact that the Bible sees that this collusion of human and superhuman iniquities produces a “bad world” (Galatians 1. 4), one?Dark world? (Ephesians 6. 12). ) And a? World?That we should not love (1 John 2. 15), whose wisdom is madness (1Co 1. 20), whose spirit is not of Christ (1Co 2. 12), whose appearance is passing (1Co 7. 31). ), whose elementary principles are slaves (Gal 4:3) and which we must overcome (1 John 5:4).
Sin in the heart, mind, and human acts is reinforced and amplified by Satan in a global matrix of evil called “World,” “Perverted World,” or “Dark World. “The purpose of this language is to help us see that the global and historical reality of evil is greater than the sum of its human portions. Evil in the world is much more than the sum of individual human sins. The effort to capture this reality leads us to a lot to use the phrase “worldly system” for the biblical word “world”.
In this worldview, I cannot think of any sin other than systemic or structural (I use the terms interchangeably).
The sinful father of all sins
The great-grandfather of all sins is pride; pride is the love of self-definition, exaltation, dependence, and superiority over others, including God; therefore, pride prefers to be served than to serve, to be praised (when it is strong) rather than praise, to feel sorrow (when it is weak) rather than compassionate, and to be respected rather than respected. Deep in the satisfaction of pride is the self, not God.
God abhors pride (Pr 8. 13; Am 6. 8). The proud eyes of men will be lowered and their pride will be humbled; only the Lord will be exalted that day. ?(It’s 2. 11). This was the fall of Satan (Jd 1. 6), and after the human race, Adam and Eve adopted self-direction, self-reliance, and self-out when they rejected God as in whom they were to place their trust (Gen 2:16-17; 3. 6).
No sin is more systemic and structural than pride; is woven into all human institutions. In selfish ambition, in vanity, first caring for our own interests, valued the world above God?Are these the foundations of all human life and of all institutions, including the spirit of Christ?(1Co 2. 16; Fp 2. 5) to replace the?Do you like meat? (Rom 8), make the glory of God supreme (Phil 2:11) and free ourselves from “considering others superior to us” (Fp 2:3). Until then, even philanthropy (1C 13. 3) and Christian ministry (Phil 1. 17) are systematically imbued with selfishness and God’s decline.
Only where the gospel of Jesus breaks the power of this darkness and places God’s grace at the bottom of life, and the glory of God at the top (2 Ts 1:11-12), the structure of structural pride begins to crumble. The exaltation of man and the marginalization of God will remain rooted in the policies, rules, regulations, procedures, expectations, norms, assumptions, directives, plans, strategies, objectives, practices, values, norms, stories, stories, and archives of all. Institution.
Fraternal triplets born of pride are greed, fear and lust, I call them fraternal because they are not the same, but I call them triplets because their motivational DNA is so similar.
Greed is the desire that means (usually money) to obtain what satisfies me, while I consider God as unsatisfying and people as consumable. Pride creates and fuels greed as an uncompromising principle of self-centeredness under an unselected desire.
Fear is the reflection of anxious greed that fears losing what greed aspires to. He despises God not only for his satisfaction, but also for his protection (Is 51, 12-13). As a result, other people are not just disposable; threaten. The only respect and kindness that greed and pride can show is manipulation. Who can I use to get what I want? Who do I remove to keep what I have? Pride creates and feeds fear, feeding the dominant predisposition that I deserve what I want.
Lust is the younger brother of greed. Your desire is limited, but as strong as death. He just wants sensual pleasure. Greed may want a large library, lust only wants the librarian to take off his clothes, it is a reel that spins with the winds of sexual stimulation, in the lustful heart God is repressed and people become objects, although they offer sexual euphoria, they are sought; otherwise, they are rejected. When pride is not occupied by creating hypocritical ascetics, it creates and nourishes lust, feeding the mindset that the desires of the body are its rights, so lust is particularly effective in reducing the human soul to a small cauldron of desires that blinds the soul to glory. things, like the image of God in all people and races.
When the Bible talks about ‘World’, ‘Naughty World?’o ‘Dark World’, does it remind us that the systems and structures of the world are imbued with sin, such as pride, greed, fear, and lust?The fact is not that policies, rules, regulations, institutional procedures and more can feel pride, greed, fear and lust, is that they reflect, incorporate, preserve and promote them, institutionalize the mindset of the proud, greedy, fearful and lustful who believe them.
While Satan is the “God of this global system,” while humans, at best, are only partially freed from the “tendency of the flesh” and while God’s common grace restricts only a part of the cancer of pride, metastasizes in every human institution. , there will always be structural pride, structural greed, structural fear and structural desire.
There will be policies that promote a visible hierarchy that nurtes and promotes pride; there will be wild competition strategies that will grow with the nutrients of greed; there will be micromanagement procedures that wake up and exploit fear; there will be proposals for clothing to explore lust.
In this world, it would be inconceivable and absolutely surprising that there was no structural racism, in this world of sin, Satan, and a decadent global system, it is incomprehensible that a sin has the privilege of escaping this systemic context. true not only for statistical reasons, but also for organic reasons. Racism is the pampered son of pride. And structural racism is the solid thread of structural pride. They’re connected organically. Pride gives rise to racism; structural pride gives rise to structural racism.
Racism is an explicit or implicit feeling, belief, or practice that values one race over other races or devalues one race over another. Why are we doing this? He’s a pride. Egolâtrie. Arrogance. Ses bragging. What could be clearer than the fact that we devalue other races to exalt ours and obtain the benefits derived from them?Fear and lust. We value our own race and devalue others for profit (greed), avoid imaginary loss (fear). And at the same time, lust helps and promotes the process by sucking the remnants of our soul’s decency.
I therefore conclude that in a biblical view of the world, structural racism is a fact that finds expression in all places where pride, greed, fear and lust reign, where cultural winds blow against them, which fortunately happens today, tends (tragically) to hide.
But don’t forget to think that the way structural racism spreads is the decisive cause of any injustice or inequality, the widespread presence of a type of cancer cell in the body is not the cause for all diseases, so it is rarely useful to wave the flag of structural racism without finger-pointing to specific events. The probability that you played a role can be high. But a good doctor does his tests.
Jesus Christ is the decisive antidote to the disease of pride, greed, fear, lust, and racism. The only sin we can successfully overcome is a forgiven sin, and only the death and resurrection of Jesus guarantee forgiveness before God. faith, death and justice matter to us. Our punishment has passed (because of his death); perfection is imputed to us (because of its justice). We are now in a position to wage war against pride, greed, fear and lust.
In Christ, the garment of the flesh that opposes God is crucified (Gal 5:24). In Christ, the Spirit of Christ? That exalts God (Gal 6:15; Fel 2. 5). At the heart of this novelty is the miracle which, out of humility [we] consider ourselves superior to [us]?(Fp 2. 3). It is the end of pride, greed, fear, lust and racism. Humility and servitude replace pride and selfishness. Generosity replaces greed. Peace replaces fear, love of covenant replaces lust.
This type of person, this new creation in Christ, not only renounces racism in his heart and actions, but seeks to discern and dismantle the structures that have developed around him, one way to do so is to invite different ethnic groups to take a close look at how an institution works and what they see. You may not agree with your assessments, but we have little hope of overcoming blind spots without seeing the world with other eyes.
The person who has the spirit of Christ is not surprised by what he finds in the fallen world, nor is he willing to spend much of his energy on blaming others, he knows a lot about his own sin and the remaining imperfections, he is neither utopian nor naive about the limited possibilities of justice in this fallen world. Nor is he paralyzed or intimidated by these limitations. Your job is not to create the kingdom of God. Your job is to exalt the great satisfaction of Christ and do all you can (1P 2. 12; 3. 11, 17; 4. 19).