preview

Racial Equality In Christianity

Good Essays

Throughout Christian communities around the globe, the widely accepted image for God is a white and all powerful being. While widely accepted, this concept of the most powerful being and creator of the world being a white male has led to a feeling of racial dominance and white supremacy throughout Christian communities. Yet while it is important for racial groups to use religion within their specific cultures to encourage further understanding of God’s role in specific cultures, giving God a specific race classifies him as more important to one race than another, therefore fueling inequality within Christianity. Along with trying to classify God as a specific race, another factor that has the potential to be equally as harmful to religious …show more content…

Christianity has been fueled primarily by white individuals therefore making God’s image take the form of a white male and this misconstrued image of God has made racial equality a continual struggle throughout generations. In “The Cross and the Lynching Tree,” James Cone talks about how theology is a dominated by white theology and how “whites needed theologians to interpret the gospel in a way that would not require them to acknowledge white supremacy as America’s greatest sin” (Cone 159). While religion certainly has a past plagued by white supremacy, I disagree with Cone’s interpretation of white theologians creating a translation of God’s messages in order to appease white Christians. Cone makes it seem like slavery and black oppression were fueled by white theology but in my opinion the cruelty committed against blacks in America were actually fueled by white individuals who had turned their backs on Gods messages of love and equality. For the same reasons that I disagree with giving God a specific race, I also disagree with creating race specific branches of religion because religion is supposed to be a higher power that views us all as equals and by making it race specific it contradicts the message of equality. Race specific theologies can be helpful for helping specific …show more content…

Trying to pinpoint God’s race fuels a sense of racial and religious inequality which goes against what God intended Christianity to do. God can’t have a specific religion because it fuels racial superiority within the confines of religion because it makes the racial group that God identifies as superior to other races. Religion shouldn’t be divided into race specific factions, instead religion and Christians should be working towards trying to fuel religious equality. Without religious equality, Christians will never be able to truly live out God’s message because both God and Jesus preach a message of loving everyone equally. I don’t believe God would want to be classified as a specific race because God created people of all colors therefore God loves all races equally. Ultimately giving God a specific race to identify himself as doesn’t fuel racial equality instead if we continue trying to classify God as one race or another it will only fuel racial superiority and religious inequality within

Get Access