Racism in the Church

Moses had taken to wife an Ethiopian woman. The narrative says Miriam and Aaron “spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married; for he had married an Ethiopian woman.” The double emphasis here is on the word ‘Ethiopian.’ Moses was eligible for marriage and who else would he marry except a woman? But why marry an Ethiopian woman? Why was this marriage a problem for Miriam and Aaron?

It goes without saying that the problem had to do with her race. The Ethiopian woman was not of their kind. Simply put, it was a racial problem. She was of a different skin color. She was darker and in the world’s scale of gradation she was at a lower round on the totem pole of human races.

The unbridled truth is that racism is not only a problem in our world but also in the church. That it is in the world in understandable. The unregenerate are struggling against sin and are constantly looking for anything that would give them an edge to keep their heads above water. If leveraging their color would get them one step ahead of the line then why not use it. But racism in the church is nothing short of an abomination for Christ has extinguished all such differences.

Church-goers of different races and cultures would readily cite brotherhood and greet one another with hugs and smiles but it is altogether a different matter behind closed doors and private spaces. And this is exactly what was happening in the congregation of the Lord that left Egypt. We are prone to thinking that the five million people who marched out of Pharaoh’s land were all of the same racial and cultural background but this is far from the case. The exodus was not just for the tribes of Israel but for anyone who wanted to leave (Ex.12:37-38). The point is that the congregation was well and truly multi-cultural and multi-racial. Aaron and Miriam and anyone else in the crowd of people leaving Egypt would have had no problem with the person next to them regardless of color or tribe. They were of one mind and desire and that is they all wanted to leave Egypt.

Sadly this is a picture of the modern church. From every nation and tongue and tribe we have left the kingdom of darkness for the kingdom of God’s Son. We walk alongside each other. We sing together and share testimonies of God’s goodness. We even have meals together and might even be good family friends. But this is as far as it goes. The moment we cross the race, or color, or social class barriers the love goes out the window. This is where Miriam and Aaron make their entrance. It is good for ‘these people’ to hang with us, sing along with Miriam’s songs, recite her Red Sea-crossing poem, break bread with Aaron, but come on Moses, marrying one of them is simply going too far. I submit that God is behind the obscuring of everything about the personhood of the man Jesus, just as he personally intervened to take care of the burial of Moses. He wants us to understand that in Christ he has extinguished all race, color and class (Gal.3:27-29; 1Co.12:12-13). In the grand and glorious scheme of eternal redemption the physical appearance of Jesus means nothing. Whether Jesus was black or looked Middle-Eastern means crap. God wants us to see Jesus in spirit. He wants us to see him in substance, what he represents, and not what he looks like in the flesh. When Jesus said “he who has seen me has seen the Father” he was not talking about God in outward appearance or physical form but in essence – his heart, will, and purposes. In fact if we were to see Jesus in his human form we may not like the picture for, “He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him” (Isa.53:2b). Thankfully, beauty is only skin deep and it is about time that Christians believe it.