What Does the Bible Say About Racism?

The short answer: The Bible teaches that every human being, of every colour and nation, is made in the image of God and belongs to one human family. Racism is a sin against God and against people He loves. Christians have sometimes failed terribly here, and the right response is honest repentance and active love.

You may have experienced racism yourself: a comment, a joke, being followed in a shop, being treated as if you don’t belong. Or you may have heard racist things from people you know, even people at church, and wondered what God thinks. The Bible is clear.

One human family

The Bible’s story begins with all humanity made in God’s image: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). Not one group. Everyone. Every person you will ever meet carries that image, and that is where their worth comes from.

Paul told the philosophers of Athens, “From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth” (Acts 17:26). The idea of separate, superior races has no place in the Bible’s story. There’s one human family, with many beautiful variations.

God’s plan has always included every nation

When God called Abraham, He promised that “all the families of the earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3). When Peter was sent to the house of a Roman soldier, he learned, “I now truly understand that God does not show favoritism, but welcomes those from every nation who fear Him and do what is right” (Acts 10:34–35). And the Bible’s picture of the end is breathtaking: “a multitude too large to count, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9). Heaven is not one colour. Diversity isn’t a problem God puts up with. It’s part of the glory.

In Christ, the barriers that divide people come down. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Jesus “has torn down the dividing wall of hostility” (Ephesians 2:14).

Why racism is sin

James is direct: “if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors” (James 2:9). Treating people as lesser because of their skin, their ethnicity or where their family is from is favouritism of the worst kind. John goes further: “anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20). You can’t love God and despise the people He made.

Even Bible heroes failed here. Peter, after all he had learned, drew back from eating with non-Jewish Christians “for fear of those in the circumcision group” (Galatians 2:12), and Paul confronted him publicly. Racism can creep in among believers. It has to be named.

The church’s failures

It would be dishonest to pretend Christians have always got this right. Some churches have kept Black worshippers in separate galleries or turned them away. Some Christians defended racial segregation, and some churches in South Africa supported apartheid, using twisted readings of the Bible. (Book 2 answered whether Christianity was used to defend slavery.) These were real sins, and many churches have since confessed them.

But it’s also true that many who fought racism did so because of their faith, from Christians who opposed slavery to Black pastors who led the struggle for civil rights. They knew what the Bible said, and they called the church back to it.

What to do

• Check your own heart. Do you think of some groups as less than others? Ask God to show you, and to change you.
• Refuse racist jokes. Don’t laugh, don’t share, and when you can, say kindly, “That’s not okay.”
• Build friendships across lines. Listen to friends whose experience is different from yours.
• Stand with those targeted. If someone is bullied because of their race, step in or tell a teacher.
• If it’s happening to you, it is never your fault. Tell a trusted adult, and keep telling until someone helps. If it’s online, keep the evidence. If you ever think about hurting yourself or not wanting to be alive, tell a parent or trusted adult right away.

God “has shown you, O man, what is good... to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

Think about it: Is there a joke, attitude or assumption about another group of people that you need to let go of?

Go deeper: The Key Teachings of Julia A. J. Foote — Julia Foote, a nineteenth-century Black preacher, tells how her parents had to wait in the gallery until every white member had taken communion, and asks plainly whether a church that divides the Lord’s table by colour is being led by the Holy Spirit. Start with chapter 10, “O Prejudice”.