No doubt the Jewish community is thriving in Berlin and Germany. However, there is an increasing amount of anti-Semitism in Germany in both words and physical violence that is palpably felt by the Jewish community. How much this will affect the future of Jews in Germany is an open question. For now, Berlin remains a popular destination for Jews, especially Israeli and Russian Jews seeking a new life. Nevertheless, Israel as a home and an automatic Israeli passport remains a source of comfort and hope should darker days return.
What does the Scriptures say about racism and prejudice?
I used a bit of “crowdsourcing” for help here. I asked brothers and sisters on Facebook to suggest Scripture passages that discuss this topic, or perhaps incidents in Scripture that are examples of racism and prejudice? I was surprised by the enthusiastic response to discuss this issue and I would like to acknowledge their assistance before proceeding1. Brother John Bilello also kindly provided an article on racism he had written for the Christadelphian Magazine2.
That prejudice, racism and bigotry have no place in the life of a brother or sister of Christ is one of those self-evident truths. I don’t feel that I can add anything new here that is not already known, but a review of why prejudice and racism is a denial of our Faith can be helpful.
All have the same wages
As we have seen, prejudice begins with beliefs and attitudes. If we believe we are in anyway superior to those around us, then the cross of Christ should bring us down to reality. I struggled with how to dig down to the basic problem of prejudicial thinking. Brother John Main of Esslingen brought everything into focus for me during his exhortation, which was based on Matthew 20.3In his discussion of the laborers in the vineyard, no matter how much work each laborer did, at the end of the day they were all paid the same. This seems quite unfair. Why? Our sense of fairness tells us that if we bore the burden of the heat of the day, then we should get a higher wage. Yet, each laborer started work having the same expectations of wages. The fault lay not with the paymaster but with the laborer. The Lord explained: “So the last shall be first, and the first last; for many shall be called but few chosen” (Matt 20:16). No matter what the effort, no matter might be achieved in life; the wages remain the same for all. “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”(Rom 6:23).
Lowliness of mind
It is the same wage and the same gift. How then is it possible for anyone to feel a sense of superiority over any person, group or race? This seems such a self-evident statement. Yet, prejudice and bigotry is very subtle and will ignore this truth. Yet it mattered a great deal to the Lord Jesus Christ because it underlined on of the major problems of accepting the Gospel, and for living it for those who did accept the Gospel message. The Apostle Paul addressed this problem to the Philippians:
“Fulfill ye my joy, that ye be like minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife of vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves” (Phil 2:2-3).
I must admit I thought I understood this passage, yet in the light of trying to understand prejudice, I saw it more than “just getting along with others in Christ.” For instance, we know slavery and racism against African-Americans was a major problem for the United States. We also know that racism still runs deep there, as we have seen with the recent attack in against African-Americans in Charleston, South Carolina. Thinking of this incident and the problem with anti-Semitism in Germany shined a really clear light for me on what the Apostle was trying to say to the Philippian ecclesia:
“Philippian brother, do you have slaves in your ecclesia or do you own slaves? Do you think having the saving hope of the Gospel makes you a better man than a slave or even those heathens in the marketplace? It is true that the slave is the bottom of the Philippian social ladder, but not amongst the redeemed of the Lord. In Christ, the last shall be first and the first last. In fact, dear brother, Christ put himself on the bottom of the social ladder to save you, and therefore you ought to do the same with others. And just to make this point clear, everyone else is higher on the social ladder than you and you are there to serve them just as Christ serves you.”
Prejudice a sign of weakness and not strength
We are always deeply moved by those who have literally put themselves on the bottom of the social ladder to try to save the oppressed Jews during the darkest days of Holocaust. Oskar Schindler saved over 1,000 Jews in occupied Germany. Raoul Wallenberg of Sweden saved over 100,000 Hungarian Jews. These are people who were “like-minded” with these oppressed people. They literally “esteemed others better than themselves.” These examples show in a concrete way both the destructiveness of prejudice and the courage and humility that underlies the “lowliness of mind” that the Apostle described. During the Third Reich, to associate with a Jew or even express sympathy with Jews could result in the same fate as Jews during the Third Reich. The Apostle was not expressing some sort of high ideal but a genuine belief and attitude that in some circumstances could lead to death. Seen in this way, prejudice and racism are very cowardly attitudes. They are signs of personal weakness and not strength.
The Apostle Paul tells the Galatians that no matter what the race, gender, or social status of a brother or sister in Christ, everyone is the same before God — sinners in need of redemption. In fact, sin is the great leveler of all humanity whether in Christ or not. The Apostle, discussing the advantages the Jews had by being provided with the Law of Moses4, reminds the reader that although in Christ the mercies of God abounds, there is no real advantage over the Jew who observed the Law of Moses in all its details. Both Jew and Gentile are all under sin. “As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.” Paul concludes, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded.”
Prejudice has a long history
Perhaps the first recorded act of prejudice occurred when Cain killed Abel. God accepted Abel’s offering but not his own. Cain thought that God should have accepted his offering because it was good enough. This was the false belief that led to hostility towards Abel. Here is a probable sequence of events after the rejection of Cain’s offering. Cain started taunting Abel and saying humiliating jokes (allocution). He then moved his tent to a new area and did not speak to his brother (alienation). He then demanded that his children (if he had any at this point) and family not communicate with Abel (discrimination). No animals could be purchased from Cain. After some time, his wrath seething in him, made an attempt to harm his brother (physical attack) finally succeeding in killing him. Yet he felt no remorse. The belief was so powerful that he ignored a reality — he had eliminated the potential for an entirely new tribe of people, which would have been the Abelites (genocide). He then boasted of his “avenging” as if he was doing a good thing. Prejudice and racism is a deceitfulness of the heart at its worse.
Prejudice seeps up from the pages of Scripture as one group attempts to exclude other groups, such as the “Children of God” were discriminated against in the times before the Flood, or the Egyptians who attempted genocide of the Israelites during the time of Moses.
Even the Israelites could not escape prejudice when Miriam and Aaron complained about Moses’ wife Zipporah. She was a Cushite, who were probably black Ethiopians. Moses’ siblings respected the authority of Moses, but resented a non-Hebrew being so close to the leader of the Hebrews. Bro. John Bilello noted that because Miriam’s racism was against a black woman, God turned Miriam’s skin into a pure but rotten white skin in the form of leprosy. “Do you resent a black woman being part of the camp of Israel Miriam?” God seems to say. “Well, I will turn you into pure white and you will die until you seek forgiveness for your racist beliefs and attitudes towards my chosen mediator and his wife”. Later Yahweh encoded in the Law of Moses a proscription against having one law for the Israelite and one for the non-Israelite5. The Israeli was to be completely impartial and this fairness and justice formed the bedrock of the Law of Moses.
When the northern ten tribes split from the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, a prejudice against the House of David seems to be a part of their decision. The rebels cried “What have we to do with the House of David” (1Kgs 12:16). Actually they had everything to do with the House of David. It was of God’s choosing not theirs. They had chosen their own king which they believed was “better than” the line of David. One wonders what jokes they must have made about the Judeans. And so they moved into an exclusive in-group that excluded their own brethren and sisters. True, Rehoboam made some stupid decisions, but the greater sin was by Jeroboam rejecting God’s chosen House and setting up as a rival king. In the end, the Jews, as they were to be known, were brought back to the land, while the remaining ten tribes became the mythical “Lost Ten Tribes of Israel”6.
We could speak of the discrimination and prejudice the Samaritans faced by the Jews well into the time of Jesus. These were non-Jews who after being forced to live in the unoccupied land of the former northern ten tribes had adopted the “local god” of the Israelites and made some changes to the Law of Moses. By the time of Jesus, they were severely discriminated against. Jesus showed what lowliness of mind means in practice by associating himself with the Samaritans, even asking a Samaritan woman for a drink of water. Prejudice had isolated this people amongst God’s people, but Jesus showed his disciples how to overcome prejudice by simply reaching out to the “out-groups” in humility.
Peter and the Gentiles
Perhaps the best example in Scripture of the subtlety and dangers of prejudice is the Apostle Peter refusing to eat with the Gentiles when he came to Antioch. (Gal 2:11-16)
To be fair to Peter, it is hard to fault a man who walked with Christ and indeed lived a life of lowliness and humility. He learned a hard lesson about prejudice from the Lord himself when he was given a vision of the clean and unclean animals. In the end Peter “perceived that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness is accepted with him” (Acts 10:34-35). And so Peter baptized Gentiles into Christ, which formed the first shift from a Jewish-centered community to a worldwide community of peoples of all nations.
Yet, soon the Jerusalem church of which Peter was a member seemed to have forgotten the lesson of Joppa. The Jewish converts began insisting on a return to elements of the Law of Moses, especially in the matter of circumcision and dietary restrictions. And this had a detrimental effect on Peter.
“But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?” (Gal 2:11-14).
Here Paul reprimanded Peter for his fear of the Jewish converts and the resultant discrimination against the Gentile converts. This goes to the root of the problem. Fear is often the beginning of prejudice. It is often fear of the “other”, the fear of an “out-group” that starts a false belief that works itself out in prejudicial attitudes. How often have we heard it said, “These minorities are going to take over our country”; “These people don’t know our ways and customs. They just won’t adopt our ways.” “We need to protect our way of life, our way of doing things. These people are going to come in and change everything.” “Why won’t they dress like we do? They are always wearing black clothes and funny hats. The just won’t fit in.”
And so out of fear of those who held wrong beliefs about Gentiles, Peter himself got carried away with it and separated himself from the gentile converts. This is often what happens. Prejudice is like a virus spreading from person to person and with the numbers it becomes harder and harder to stop. If Peter, a man of incredible faith and a dear friend of the Lord Jesus, succumbed to prejudice, what hope is there for the rest of us!
The challenge of racism
This is the great challenge of prejudice and racism. It is persistent, subtle and can often work at the core of our identity. We naturally categorize everything because we almost have to do so to make sense of the world. Our identity revolves around our home, our family, our country, our language, our ecclesia, and many other elements. It is natural that we categorize the world around us. However, when we begin to develop a hostile attitude towards a person who belongs to a group that we believe has objectionable qualities, we are moving into prejudice and bigotry. It is true the world if full of evil and sin. Most people are ignorant of the Hope of Israel. Yet, this did not stop Jesus from sitting at a well and asking a Samaritan woman for a drink of water.
Jesus indeed esteemed others better than himself. What if we encounter some member of an ecclesia, which may have a simple understanding of the Hope of Israel, and not understand all the details we expect of others? What if we enter an ecclesia that expresses their joy of salvation in unique or uncomfortable ways in which we are not used to? Consider Jesus and his acceptance of the Samaritan woman.
What if we hear someone making tasteless jokes about another race or group of people? What if we see discrimination against a brother or sister simply because of the ecclesia to which they belong? What do we do about prejudice when it occurs in our own community? This is where the challenge made to the Apostle Peter by Paul can help us. We need not “withstand one another to their face” but at least we can start by working on ourselves and see ourselves as Jesus saw others.
If our Lord is too high an achievable example, consider Oscar Schindler, who himself was a great failure for his Nazi connections, but in the end became the only Nazi ever buried on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. He overcame prejudice, bigotry and racism of the worse kind and associated himself with the lowliest people in Europe who were set apart for destruction.
The Apostle Paul concluded his thoughts about humility and lowliness of mind to the Philippians this way:
“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil 2:5-8).
We all want a great reputation. Imagine what Oscar Schindler gave up in his Nazi career to save those Jews? Yet, in the end he was given the highest honor the Jews could bestow on anyone. Paul continued,
“Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:9-11).
We do not compare Schindler to Jesus, of course, but the pattern is clear. Humility, kindness, fairness, graciousness, and lowliness of mind all go together. Prejudice is the exact opposite and is completely hostile to the mind of Christ, which we are all trying to develop. The first shall be last — “pride goeth before a fall” while the last shall be first — “wherefore God hath highly exalted him above every name.”
How then can we overcome prejudice? Paul answers this even before we ask the question:
“Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil 2:12-13).
We can overcome prejudice, bigotry and racism through the efforts of the God of our salvation because He wants us to share in the Hope of Israel with both the brethren who were lowliest of slaves to the great King David who sat on the Throne of Israel. And what is the connection between those two? They saw others better than themselves. One was a literal servant. The other was a king who saw himself as a servant.
Prejudice is a denial of the Faith and has no place amongst brothers and sister of Christ.
- June 26, 2015, Facebook Christadelphian Group.
- Racial Prejudice Examined In The Light Of Scripture, The Christadelphian, 1969, p. 109.
- Exhortation given by Bro. John Main, July 19th, 2015, Esslingen, Germany.
- Rom 3:10-11.
- Exod 12:49.
- Not all of the Ten were lost: Anna (Luke 2:26) was of the tribe of Asher, and many of the northern tribes settled in Judah: 2 Chron 30:11.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One