A Good Question to Ask “Social Justice” Church People

At the beginning of his latest video, James White tells of an online conversation he had with a professing Christian espousing various “social justice” themes.  White decided to ask him a simple question: Is there such a thing as Black racism?  Can a Black person be racist?

The social justice person hemmed and hawed and talked about history . . . and would not give a straight answer.  Whereupon, White decided to politely end the conversation.

White’s reasoning is cogent.  Scripture teaches that all are capable of sin and do sin.  And people are so fallen that they often sin in ways we might not expect.  The rich can be envious; the poor can be covetous; and so on. And, yes, people of all ethnicities are capable of racism. None are exempt.  

So to explain away or redefine sin as to exempt large groups of people is a thoroughly unscriptural view of sin.  And so it is with redefining racism to be just a White thing, and not a Black or Brown or whatever color thing.

Thus White’s question in a very simple, straightforward way smokes out whether someone’s “social justice” concerns come out of scripture (or a well-meaning misinterpretation of scripture) or are imported out of worldly ideologies incompatible with orthodox Christianity and with the orthodox view of sin such as Critical Race Theory.  

No, it is not the perfect question, if one exists, but it is one that reveals a lot.

I may revisit this.

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N. B. Since CRT defines “racism” as prejudice plus power, and since in some countries Blacks are dominant in holding political and/or economic power, a more on-target way to ask the question may be, “In the American context, can a Black/Brown person be racist?”