Billy Graham: Prejudiced God

QUESTION: I enjoy my friend’s company, but sometimes he gets off on racial issues, and his intolerance and bigotry really make me very uncomfortable. I tried to say something to him about it once, but it just made him angry. How should I handle this? — W.J.

It sounds to me like WJ tried to do the right thing, and maybe has to give saying something about it another go. If he continues to react so strongly then there is a choice to be made. How often does this happen, and how much does it bother you? The answers to those questions will determine if you should just try to deal with it, try to reason with them, or cut ties completely.

Nope, God is totally against ethnic prejudices. He would never
put one people above another, much less order one destroyed,
right. Right...?

I can understand the confusion of people always being drawn toward certain issues. I know people that can and will turn any unrelated conversation on it's head and just bring up 'illegals', gays, or people on food stamps completely out of the blue. I have more than once found myself flabbergasted by the abrupt change of topic to something so unrelated. In many cases, I find that it's a case of people believing misconceptions, or watching too much Fox News. So don't feel disheartened. Sometimes the solution is just a few corrections to falsehoods they may have heard brandied about as fact from suspect sources.

ANSWER: Racial or ethnic prejudice is a sin in God’s eyes,

What?! Seriously, what!? Has Billy ever read the Bible? It is rife with God commanding his people to kill and conquer other peoples. Actually, the fact that he even chose one group of people to be his chosen ones and condemn those that were worshiping other gods is an obvious example of the Christian god playing favorites.

And when he's not telling his people to kill, he tells them to take their slaves from the nations around them. This is yet another example. One that was used by southern Christians to justify their claimed right to keep African slaves. Furthermore, holy books have even been used to claim that 'darkness of skin' was either the curse of Kain, or the curse God bestowed on Noah's son Ham and his descendants. The latter has been a common teaching in some Jewish and Christian sects (though it is far less common now).

and it should be wrong in our eyes, as well.

And to a lot of it it is wrong. The problem that religions have that Billy is ignoring, is that they can and are used to justify the very prejudices that he is claiming they are actually against...

How do we know this? We know it for many reasons, but most of all because Jesus Christ died on the cross to save people from every race and ethnic background. Even some of the earliest Christians had a hard time understanding this at first, but in time they did, and God confirmed it by bringing all kinds of people into His kingdom.

Sorry, but allowing anyone into Heaven doesn't make up for condoning the owning of people from other nations or ordering the slaughter of other peoples for incredibly petty reasons. The Bible still promotes ethnic prejudices any way you slice it.

What's more, God separates people for ridiculous reasons once more by destining some to Heaven and some to Hell. While this may not be ethnic or racially motivated, it is certainly proof that God certainly doesn't love everyone the same.

-Brain Hulk

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