Cain and Abel and the Blind Spot of Racism
Written by Derek Carson. Republished June 2020.
Right on the heels of the Fall, Cain killed Abel. And so it began. Brother against brother.
Nowhere is this brotherly division and hostility more apparent today than along racial lines, despite our nation’s progress in this area.
We have no trouble condemning racism in the abstract because we don’t see it as implicating us.
Nevertheless, it’s easy for those of us who are white to think of racism as a thing of the past or as something that is only true of small town outliers. That is why we have no trouble condemning racism in the abstract—because we don’t see it as implicating us.
But have you ever told a joke you wouldn’t have told if an African-American person had been present? Or told a story using mannerisms you wouldn’t have used if a Hispanic person had been there?
What neighborhood do you live in? Did the demographic makeup of the neighborhood influence your decision to move there?
What about your reaction to the recent protests in Ferguson and Baltimore? Did it reveal a uniquely heightened anger or defensiveness in you that you don’t usually experience when you watch the news?
Our answers to questions such as these can be telling. Before we dismiss them as not revealing anything about our hearts, we would do well to consider that perhaps racism has prevailed in the church for so long largely because of our unwillingness to call it what it is when it shows itself. If history has shown us one thing on this issue, it’s that we cannot ignore the potential for blind spots in our lives.
“Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness”
1 John 2:9
God tells us through the pen of John that “Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness” (1 John 2:9). This is why we must take the potential for racism in our hearts seriously. “We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother” (1 John 3:12). “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20).
I don’t know about you, but this is convicting for me. In this regard, you’ll notice that I have addressed this blog post primarily to my white brothers and sisters. To engage the issues relating to racism in a gospel-focused way, I submit that we must speak to them with Matthew 7:3-5 in mind, considering the planks in our eyes before considering the specs in our brother’s or sister’s. And that is the point of this post: to consider the planks in our eyes.
Most of us haven’t murdered anyone. But recall Jesus’ words that “everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment” (Matthew 5:22). We display disdain and a lack of love for our brothers and sisters of other races in all sorts of subtle ways, such as by shutting our hearts to them, making no effort to learn about them, or avoiding them. We also do it in less subtle ways, such as by applying unfair stereotypes and making insensitive comments about societal issues that, if we’re honest, we know very little about. Those of us in predominately white churches often view racism as a permissible, understandable type of sin that is merely an unfortunate byproduct of how we were raised. But the truth is that God hates the injustice of racism, and every trace of it in our hearts must be eradicated.
Fortunately, there is good news for us. When we sin, “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:1-2). Praise Jesus who has satisfied the Father’s wrath against our racist hearts and who has accomplished our reconciliation—both to Himself and to our brothers and sisters of different races (Ephesians 2).
In this hope, we can follow “this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:21).