Racism

I've been thinking about racism for a while, for obvious reasons - it's in the news.  I remember being sent on a 'Racism Awareness' course when I transferred into the Methodist Ministry.  It wasn't good.  I got into an argument with one of the men running the course (nothing new there!)  I told him I didn't believe in his view of races.

I explained some of my background, but didn't mention that one of my uncles was black and his children were what is called 'mixed race', but that wouldn't have affected him.  He was determined to call me a racist because, as he said in a flash of anger 'all white people are racists!'  I had him at that point and went on to explain that, in fact he (a black man) was a racist and that comment was racist, so maybe he needed the course.

I know!  You would want to slap me wouldn't you!

But my argument was biblical.  God created male and female in his image.  What colour were Adam and Eve?  Paul, arguing with the ethnically superior Greeks, said, 'From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth.  He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries'. (Acts 17: 26 NLT).

Racism is not found in the Bible.  The thing that separates people in the Bible is language.  It still separates people today.  Even in the UK accents and dialects separate people.

This current attention to racism should consider the basis of modern racism - the teaching of evolution.  Surely this is an argument for not teaching evolution (which no one has observed, and for which there is still no scientific evidence) in schools.  At the very least, creation should be taught as an alternative view.  We are not talking science against faith here, we are talking about two worldviews: one leads to racism; the other does not.

Charles Darwin, in 'The Descent of Man', wrote: "The Western nations of Europe ... now so immeasurably surpass their former savage progenitors (that they) stand at the summit of civilisation....  the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races through the world."

There is a statue of Darwin outside Shrewsbury Library ; I don't suppose anyone will tear that down.