Sin not Skin

One of the things we personally learned during those early days of the Civil Rights Movement was that all of us are prejudiced to one degree or another. By virtue of original sin, we all inherited prejudice through our common human father, Adam. We have prejudice against other humans because of our innate sin and selfishness. Every baby is born with a selfish, self-seeking nature. A baby always wants its way in everything. That’s why King David reflected: “Surely I was sinful at birth” (Psalm 51:5).

To one degree or another, all of us are like Cain, who killed his brother Abel. The biblical record of that first murder is succinct: “Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him” (Genesis 4:8).

This description is as current as the recent news reports about police officers killing blacks and people killing police officers. Like Cain, some

15

kill their brothers in the streets with stones or bullets. Others do so with angry words of hatred. Still others do it quietly in the secret recesses of their hearts as they muse over how they believe themselves to be superior to those of other races. But personal and relational death still occurs in each situation.

In addition to having pride and prejudice through birth, we all have residual racism by culture, conditioning, and choice. None of us is totally color-blind. We all have overt or covert prejudice against others racially, sexually, and socially. And we often use economics to reinforce those prejudices and “keep people in their place.” We use our economic superiority to segregate ourselves in gated communities with expensive walls of prejudice that buffer us from them.

So, our message today is the same as it was back in 1968: racism is not a skin problem, but a sin problem!

16