I once had the privilege of chatting with a thoughtful and creative young African American man. He was raised in a Christian home, but a friend exposed him to arguments that denounced Christianity as the means by which slavers of old and modern racists justified policies that hurt African Americans. The young man came to view Christianity as the inherently racist “white man’s religion.” He eventually gave up his belief in God altogether.
The young man brought up his accusation that the Bible is inherently racist. Politely yet passionately, he started with Old Testament passages that he believed condoned slavery and ended with his claim that in the New Testament, neither Jesus nor the apostle Paul condemned the practice. The young man believed all religious beliefs fostered the kind of tribalism that pits people groups against each other and inevitably results in racial prejudice. With all of that, he had enough to disqualify Christianity as a racist, sexist, white man’s religion.