Part II: Scripture and the “R” Word

We continue to examine this article of Timothy L. Cho. Cho produces the Image of God as Scriptural proof that “Racism” is not biblical. Cho in this proof finally gives us a definition of “Racism.” Cho offers:

“1. THE IMAGE OF GOD

In the opening verses of the Bible, we learn that the Creator of all things uniquely created humanity in His own image (Genesis 1:27). Inherent to humanity is image-bearing. It is actually inaccurate to say that people have the image of God, as though it’s something we have rather than who we are. It is more accurate, according to the Bible, to say that we are the image of God. What that means is that nothing can strip a person of that inherent dignity. Further, any attempt to ignore, hide, or demean that image-bearing is like smashing a portrait of God Himself. Racism is “a system of advantage based on race,” as Beverly Daniel Tatum states. Such a system directly attempts to contradict the inherent dignity that is due equally to every person. It is replying, “No, He didn’t,” to the Bible’s statement that God created humanity in His image and likeness.”

First, let us deal with Mr. Cho’s definition of “Racism,” as borrowed by Beverly Daniel Tatum, “a system of advantage based on race.” With this definition, we learn that all love for family is an example of “Racism.” Think about it. A father earns his paycheck. At the end of the week, he buys shoes and groceries for his family (and not for every other family on the block) and so provides for his family. At that point, per Cho and Tatum, the father is now a committed “Racist.” Family, and for that matter marriage, is a system of advantage based on blood (i.e., race). This definition is ridiculous and, if genuinely serious, is an attempt to completely destroy the family. So, we see that Cho’s definition of “Racism” is obscenely vacuous. If this is the true definition of “Racism,” then all men should plead daily that God would grant them the gift of “Racism.”

Second, we are happy to conceded that all men, regardless of their race, are image bearers of God.

Third, since Cho and Tatum’s definition of “Racism” is utter nonsense, we therefore reject the idea that people, who are of the same race, are denying the inherent dignity of other races when families prefer their kin over and above the stranger or the alien. Indeed, Scripture requires that men uniquely provide for their own distinct people:

“But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

I Timothy 5:8

Keep in mind that by Cho’s definition of “Racism,” St. Paul is a racist given what he wrote to Timothy above. So, the first Scriptural proof that Cho produces as proof against “Racism” is utterly bankrupt.

Cho continues with his hilarious proofs from Scripture that “Racism” is sin:

“2. MOSES’ CUSHITE WIFE

What many readers of the Bible fail to realize is that when God liberated the Hebrews from their oppression in Egypt, many non-Hebrews joined them in their sojourning (Exodus 12:38-39). This multitude was ethnically distinct from the Hebrew people, and among them was a Cushite woman whom Moses took as his wife (Numbers 12:1). “Cush,” in that time, regularly referred to a large mass of land south of Egypt, meaning that Moses’ wife was likely a Black African woman. Miriam and Aaron speak against Moses because of this interracial marriage, but in response, God curses Miriam with leprosy, making her “as white as snow” (Numbers 12:10). The play on words is intentional and striking. It’s as if God is saying, If you have a problem with the Cushite woman’s dark skin, I’ll make you as white as snow, Miriam. This account in the Bible is where the rubber really hits the road. Often, a test of racism is how integrated you are willing to have your life with those different from you. God’s curse on Miriam is a clear sign that interracial marriage is not only approved in His eyes but that any attempts to argue against it and an integrated life are fundamentally cursed by God.

Here Mr. Cho’s exegesis is suspect. The above turns on how we understand Numbers 12. There, we find that Moses marries a foreign wife but when his sister and brother speak against Moses, God strikes Miriam with leprosy and Aaron is not punished. How do we make sense of this? John Calvin’s Commentaries provide the answer and helps us understand this difficult passage.

Calvin says Miriam (mentioned first in verse 1) stirred up her brother, Aaron, and the two spoke against Moses out of jealousy for the special relationship their younger brother, Moses, had with God. God rebukes them, for He chose Moses for a closer relationship than all the prophets, as seen by God speaking face-to-face with Moses, rather than by visions. Rather than challenge Moses’ place, Miriam should have instead been thankful that she was gifted to prophesy and Aaron should have been thankful for the priesthood given to him and his sons — both gifts given to them because of their relation to Moses. God cursed Miriam with leprosy for instigating the rebellion and had mercy on whom He would have mercy (i.e. – Aaron), perhaps because of the priesthood. Seeing his sister’s leprosy, Aaron recognized the punishment upon both himself and his sister (“us” verse 11). He was also forced to acknowledge the place of his younger brother, Moses, by crying out to him for mercy: “my lord.”

Who was the foreign “Cushite” wife Moses married?

The notion that Moses took a second “Cushite” wife comes from the historian Josephus (Antiquities Chapter 10). Josephus claimed that a young Moses living in Egypt had married a Ethiopian/Cushite woman named Tharbis prior to fleeing Egypt and marrying Zipporah. Calvin says “the Cushite” was not a second wife but Moses first and only wife, Zipporah, the Midianite (descended from Abraham, Gen 25:2). Habakkuk 3:7 mentions together “the tents of Cushan” and “the land of Midian,” showing the close relationship between the names of those living in the region of Arabia. Augustine and the many other commentators agree with this view. Cho is just in error and this passage does not approve that Christians are more noble if they have lots of minority friends above those racist Christians who only have friends from their own race.

Cho next appeals to Ruth as a Scriptural proof that “Racism” is a sin:

“3. RUTH THE MOABITE

The story of Ruth is often told like a Hallmark movie, but we miss out if we neglect God’s love story underlying the love story between Ruth and Boaz. It was the duty of Israelite men to act as kinsman-redeemers when their relatives were found in dire straits. Because of the death of Naomi’s husband and both of her sons-in-law, both Naomi and Ruth were in a highly vulnerable state. When the closest of kin is asked to act as kinsman-redeemer, he at first agrees, but then changes his mind when he realizes that this would involve marrying Ruth, a Moabite woman. This man replaced the command of God to be a kinsman-redeemer for his own ethnic comfort.

Boaz stands in his place as someone who loved God more than personal and social discomfort. The ending of the book tells us as well that in three generations in the line of Ruth comes King David (Ruth 4:18-22). This is profound because of a previous law that stated that no Moabite or any of their descendants for ten generations may be admitted to the assembly of the LORD (Deuteronomy 23:3). This tells us two things. First, the prohibition of Moabites entering into the assembly of God’s people was temporary, likely to ensure that God’s people would not commit heinous idolatry. Second, and most importantly, God intentionally bent His own law in order to prove the point that ethnic superiority is contrary to His will. Ruth – in all of who she is – is listed not only within the genealogy of the great King David but also the Greater King Jesus (Matthew 1:5).“

Here, once again, Cho misinterprets Scripture. Although, we will allow that these passages are hotly contested among scholars as to the exact identity of Ruth.

First, this is supposed to provide a proof against “Racism” and yet even were Ruth a Moabite, she was still of the same race as Boaz. They were both Shemites. They would’ve been of different ethnic lines within the Shemite race, but they were of the same race. Therefore, even if Ruth and Boaz were married as Moabite and Hebrew, their marriage would not have provided a proof against “Racism.”

Second, nowhere in the account of Ruth is the closest relative, who refused Ruth, condemned as being unfaithful to God, or involved in sin, by refusing Ruth or as someone who loved his comfort more or God less than Boaz.

Third, there are scholars who contend that Ruth was not even an ethnic Moabite. This claim may be counter-intuitive, but there is biblical history which suggests that the Mobabites had long been destroyed before Ruth showed up in the land that was formerly Moab’s. In the history of this land, Amorites under their King Sihon wiped out the Moabites and occupied their land, sending the Moabites into captivity (Number 21:29-30). At a future time, Israel then pushed out the Amorites from this land, just as the Amorites had earlier pushed out the Moabites (Numbers 21:33-35; Dt. 2:30-34). Israel then crossed the Jordan, leaving to the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh the land which had belonged to the Amorites, and before that to the Moabites (Deut. 3:12-16; 29:7-8; Josh. 13:32), as those tribes requested land inheritance (Nu. 32). What all this tells us is that by the time of Ruth’s lifetime the Moabite people who remained were landless vagabonds. The land which had once belonged to the Mobabites remained known as the “land of Moab,” but the inhabitants were ethnic Israelis. This would mean that Ruth was, in point of fact, a descendant of Israel.

Then, there are several passages in Ruth that would seem to confirm the idea that Ruth was an ethnic Israelite. In Ruth 2:20 we read:

Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “Blessed be he of the Lord, who has not forsaken His kindness to the living and the dead!” And Naomi said to her, “This man is a relation of ours, one of our close relatives.”

Ruth 2:20

This language seems to point to the reality that Ruth was not a Moabitess, for how could Ruth have a close relative in Israel if she was a Moabitess? How could she have a Kinsman-Redeemer if she was not kin to Israel? Again:

“Stay this night, and in the morning it shall be that if he will perform the duty of a close relative for you—good; let him do it. But if he does not want to perform the duty for you, then I will perform the duty for you, as the Lord lives! Lie down until morning.”

Ruth 3:13

Boaz was a close relative of Ruth, as was another man who had first crack before Boaz. This forces us to say again that Ruth was not a Moabitess, since if she had been a Moabitess Boaz could not have been her close relative.

Then, there is the commandment of God that Moabites were not allowed into the Temple until the 10th generation. If Ruth was a Moabite, then King David could not have entered the Assembly since Ruth was only three generations prior to King David.

“An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord forever.”

Deut. 23:3

All of this is just to say that what Cho has provided does not prove that Scripture speaks against a system of advantage based on race, the dreaded “R” word.

Cho plods on to prove that the Bible speaks against a system of advantage based on race. Cho puts forth Jonah as his text proof:

“4. JONAH’S RACISM

Jonah believed he knew better than God, but in this way, he demonstrated that he was deficient in knowing how much he himself needed grace. His ethnic protectionism blinded him from the scandal of grace.

Another story that is well-known is that of Jonah. Though many may emphasize Jonah and the big fish, what is often missing is the fact that Jonah’s disobedience to God was at least in part racially motivated. Jonah knew that God would be gracious and compassionate and stop His hand from destroying the land of Nineveh if they repented (Jonah 4:1-3). Nineveh was the capital of oppression to the Israelite people. They were known for their immorality, tyranny, and heinous actions against God’s people. In Jonah’s eyes, they were beyond forgiveness. They were not only non-Israelites, but they were anti-Israelites. If he followed God’s command to preach in Nineveh, there was a chance that God would forgive them and they would be brought to equal footing with His own people. To prevent what he thought was the greatest nightmare imaginable, he disobeyed and ran. Jonah believed he knew better than God, but in this way, he demonstrated that he was deficient in knowing how much he himself needed grace. His ethnic protectionism blinded him from the scandal of grace.“

Contrary to Cho’s assertions, there are points for not calling Jonah “Racist.” Jonah’s sin is not found in his putative “Racism,” but in his falling into the sin of rationalism. Jonah lifted his well intended reasoning above God’s revelation. God had told Jonah to go to Nineveh. That is all Jonah needed to know. Instead, Jonah reasoned that God would be dishonored by his going to Nineveh and by the Assyrians’ repentance. Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh because he knew that God would give repentance to Assyria (Nineveh) and Jonah reasoned that would detract from God’s glory if the God-haters, who were not God’s people, repented; while the Northern Kingdom, where Jonah labored in calling to repentance, did not repent. Jonah understandably believed that if those who were not God’s people repented it would blacken God’s glory. Jonah had labored all his life in Samaria, among his own people, calling for repentance with no fruit. Those of the Northern Kingdom were God’s people. It was there that repentance should have been expected.

Secondly, Jonah did not want to be the instrument that God would use to bring Nineveh to repentance, because such an action would make Jonah look like a traitor to his own people. The rabbis held a similar position. According to M. Avrum Ehrlich, many rabbis concluded that, “their actions (Nineveh’s repentance) would show the Hebrews to be stiff-necked and stubborn.” Another Midrash explains that, “Jonah… chose to disobey God, so as to save his own people.”

So, contrary to Cho’s modern, progressive, knee jerk insistence that Jonah was a “Racist,” we might instead see Jonah as committing a sin of a rationalism that found Jonah lifting his own ratiocination above God’s explicit command. Jonah’s sin was born of two instincts gone wrong:

1.) A wrong headed desire to protect God’s glory that defied God’s explicit command; and

2.) A desire to protect his own people, born of love now misguided, from being shamed.

This great affection of Jonah’s for his people is something that was shared by others in God’s Revelation. Paul would go on to say in Romans 9:

“I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing me witness in the holy Ghost, 2 That I have great heaviness, and continual sorrow in mine heart. 3 For I would wish myself to be separate from Christ, for my brethren that are my kinsmen according to the flesh“

And, Moses uttered this same desire, that somehow his death may be the propitiation for his people when he said in Exodus 32:32:

“Therefore now if thou pardon their sin, thy mercy shall appear: but if thou wilt not, I pray thee, raise me out of thy book, which thou hast written.”

Exodus 32:32

Will we also accuse St. Paul and Moses of Racism?

So, if we are going to fault Jonah, let us fault him for the proper reason. Jonah’s fault was found not in some kind of 21st century progressivism. Jonah’s fault was that he loved his conception of God and God’s glory above the God of the Bible. Jonah was zealous for God’s glory according to his fallen human reason, as opposed to being zealous for God’s glory according to God’s command.

Secondarily, Jonah’s fault was that he loved his own people, just as Paul and Moses had done, above loving God’s command. Jonah’s sin was the sin of a wrongly directed love. Jonah’s sin was not the sin of a wrongly directed hate. Not wanting to go to Nineveh had to do with Jonah’s falling into the same kind of rationalism that Adam and Eve fell into when they lifted their reason above God’s command.

Jonah’s sin was not racism. Jonah’s sin was rationalism. Cho’s handling of the Jonah text is a mishandling of the text. Cho gives us eisegesis and then calls people who don’t agree with him “Racist.”

-By Pastor Bret McAtee