Racial Animosity is a Counterfeit Liturgy
The Bible offers a better politics because it begins with a truer anthropology; not one that plays footsies with hideousness by offering opaque negations.
Conversations about race are often masked by negation. No one wants to claim their skin color makes them superior to others. So, usually they offer a standing list of negations.
“I don’t mean all of them. I just mean the ones with low IQ like the Haitians.”
“I am not referring to the blacks; I am just speaking of the ones who commit crimes.”
or,
“I am not saying it’s a sin for a white man to marry an Asian woman; I am just saying it’s relatively sinful.”
Of course, no one is a racist! But whoever claims not to be sure spends a plentiful time breathing the same air as those who thrive in racial disinformation. As Doug Wilson is fond of saying,
True conservatives get accused of this stuff. True conservatives don’t care. But true conservatives are also interested in making sure the slander remains a slander.
As I have thought through this over the years, I’ve realized that various forms of racial and ethnic animosity are a common thread in a disenchanted world. It is far easier to find massive scapegoats to absolve our people of their political and social sins, or even our own. And whatever amount of energy spent in negating is often a mere attempt at disenchanting oneself slowly, but surely.
