Theological Journal – June 8 Racism, Job, and the Other

I believe our problems valuing and respecting each other as people bearing different skin pigmentation has to do with our problem with God. That may seem an odd, even wrong-headed, statement to make, but let me play it out a little bit.

Loving one another, which surely involves respecting and valuing others, means at bottom embracing and acting in the best interest of a person truly different from ourselves. Too often we dilute love down to embracing and caring for those who are like us. Jesus teaches us this:

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.  If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again.” (Lk.6:32-34)

Jesus call is for his people, following him, reach out to, embrace, and act in the best interest of those we deem truly other and less than us, our “enemies” (Lk.6:35). Loving those folk we tend to deem other and less than us is God’s kind of love. In fact, God’s love for humanity is rooted in just that kind of love!

As fallen creatures, having broken off our relation to God, though, whose life project is gaining significance and security for ourselves (Gen.11:1-4), we seek those goods at the expense of each other. Devaluing and demeaning others’ humanity is a key way we do that.

There are lots of factors that go into how that works out from one people group to another in different times and places. The rise and emergence of Western (white) civilization, however, as the de facto world civilization (buttressed by global capitalism) has made “whiteness” the race that stands head and shoulders above the rest. And we have not been slow to press that advantage. To be continued . . .