The Reaction to George Floyd’s Death
In the wake of George Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020, a forty-six year old African American who was wrongfully killed by a police officer, thousands upon thousands of people in North America have hit the streets to demand justice and to protest against racism with the mantra “Black Lives Matter”. In some cases, the public demonstrations have been peaceful, in others, violent. What has garnered the most media attention, however, and not without reason, have been the riots spanning across the United States resulting in damage to private and public property, injurious harm to civilians and policemen, and several deaths.
It was Edmund Burke who wrote in the 18th century: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Such was the case with Floyd who could have been saved by the people around him. One must think that what we are seeing on the streets with the protests and riots are an attempt to remedy that for the future, but there is much more going on under the surface. In fact, what we are witnessing is an unfolding revolution, a movement that isn’t afraid to engage in violence to further its agenda. If what we have been seeing on the news or on several social media streams is any indication, we are bearing witness to the slow gradual collapse of American society, what has long since been predicted since America’s departure from its predominant Christian consensus. Of course, this does not mean that the end of North American society is upon us, but rather, that this latest attempt by humanistic cultural Marxists – those who believe (amongst many other things) that structural transformation can be achieved from the outside-in – is just another step closer toward society’s inevitable collapse. Like a heavily loaded train traveling downhill with failing brakes, we inch ever closer to the consequence of our religio-cultural apostasy.
These past few months have been moments of uncertainty, not only because the pandemic of COVID-19 has brought about the “stillness” of the world, and thus its restlessness, but also because the most recent events have led to this particular cultural moment. A line has been drawn in the sand, and you are either on the side of the victimized cultural Marxist, under the banner of “equality” and “liberty”, or on the side of the oppressors, bearing the mark of fascism, bigotry, white supremacism, racism, etc. Most Christians do not see this, they have not discerned this, and instead of providing a biblically informed response to our present cultural situation, they have hopped on the bandwagon, parroting all the popular mantras without understanding their underlying presuppositions. By doing so, they have been helping to prop up the new religion while being unfaithful to the true faith of our spiritual forefathers, the faith firmly rooted in the Bible. Before we can broach this matter, however, we first need to have a discussion as to how we should understand “race” and “racism”; after all, we can achieve nothing without the right biblical presuppositions.
Understanding “Race”
What is “race”? The term is so often used non-chalantly that people use the term without realizing what it actually means. The terms “race” and “racism” do not mean what people think they mean. To elaborate, the term “racism” is defined by Oxford Languages as: “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.”[1] What might be the problem with this definition? Or put differently, what might be the problem with the term “racism”? The answer is in what it presupposes. It presupposes that humanity is not one race, it is instead a number of races, and if that is the case, then how are to refer to one another? Am I human? Is my neighbour human? How? Are we not different races? What makes us “human”? The Oxford Languages defines the term “human race” as “human beings in general; humankind”,[2] and yet that definition contradicts what it presupposes when it comes to defining “racism”. I will later address when exactly the concept of “multiple races” gained prominence; it is a concept that is presupposed by the use of the term “racism” (whether or not people are aware of that), and contrary to what people believe, it further perpetuates the ethnic divisions that society desperately seeks to reconcile.
First, however, we need to consult what the Bible teaches about “race”. After all, as the inspired, revealed word of God it is the ultimate authority for all true knowledge, it is the only authoritative interpretation of creation, and thus furnishes us with a right understanding of the world, our world-and-life view in other words.
It should be of no surprise that the term “race” is not found in the Bible. The term was coined in the sixteenth century via the French language from the Italian word razza, beyond that there is no knowledge as to its ultimate origin.[3] What the Bible does use is the term “kind”, the Hebrew min which is first found in Genesis 1. The definition for “kind” is provided by K.A. Mathews in The New American Commentary: Genesis 1-11:26, who writes:
Just as ‘separations’ are integral to creation, so are distinctions among living beings as indicated by their ‘kinds.’ Creation and procreation according to ‘kind’ indicates that God has established parameters for creation.[4]
We are all, therefore, in a sense one kind, just as cats (lions, tigers, leopards, etc.) are one kind, dogs (wolves, coyotes, foxes, etc.) are one kind, etc. That is why we are considered mankind, a term originating from the Old English man-kende.[5] But we cannot quite use the term “kind” for humanity because there is something that sets apart from the rest of the creatures of creation. Mathews goes further to explain:
But the term [kind] is never used of humanity, showing that we are a unique order of creation. Furthermore, ethnic distinctions are incidental to the commonality of the human family.[6]
What makes us a “unique order of creation”? The fact that we are created in the image of God, the fact that every person, irregardless as to the level of melanin in their skin, irregardless as to the language that they speak, or their place of origin, bears the image of the Creator God of Scripture. Jonathan Sarfati, a CMI scientist and scholar, explains what it means to be created in God’s image:
We are similar but not identical to God. We are similar in that we share God’s communicable attributes such as reason, love, will, discernment, morality, and language. We are not identical since we are creatures, so we could never share God’s incommunicable attributes such as omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and self-existence.[7]
In other words, we are like God as much as a creature possibly can be. That means that African Americans are created in the image of God, that Latinos are created in the image of God, that Native Americans are created in the image of God, that Europeans are created in the image of God, etc. All of humanity, in spite of the marring of sin, equally bears the image of the Creator. I will return to the significance of this fact given that it is precisely because we presuppose God’s image in man that we can rightly condemn the killing of George Floyd. We could go even further by saying that it is because we presuppose the biblical truth of man and God that we can uphold and fight for the protection of human dignity.
Understanding then that all of mankind was created equal in the imago Dei, according to the inscripturated word of God (Gen 1:28), if we insist on using the modern term “race”, then its proper usage (irregardless as to its past history) must be in reference to the human race as one race. It cannot possibly be applied to ethnic distinctions within the human family, allow me to explain why.
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[1] “Racism”, Lexico: Oxford Languages. Accessed June 8, 2020, https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/racism/.
[2] “Human Race”, Lexico: Oxford Languages. Accessed June 8, 2020, https://www.lexico.com/definition/human_race/.
[3] “Race”, Lexico: Oxford Languages. Accessed June 8, 2020, https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/race/.
[4] K.A. Mathews, The New American Commentary: Genesis 1-11:26, Vol. 1A (USA: B&H Publishing Group, 1996), 153.
[5] “Mankind”, Etymology Online. Accessed June 8, 2020, https://www.etymonline.com/word/mankind/.
[6] Mathews, The New American Commentary: Genesis 1-11:26, 153.
[7] Jonathan Sarfati, The Genesis Account: A Theological, Historical, and Scientific Commentary on Genesis 1-11 (Powder Springs, Georgia: Creation Book Publishers, 2015), 250.