Race is not righteousness — Jesus died for our sin, not our skin

For as often as the phrase “Christ is King” trends on social media, it seems like a growing number of self-professing Christians have forgotten that it was sin — not skin — that kept Jesus on the cross.

Millions of Americans gathered this past Easter Sunday to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Apart from that ultimate sign of self-sacrifice, we would still be in bondage to sin and face the penalty for indulging it — spiritual death and eternal separation from God. That’s because, according to the Bible, we are all born in sin and remain spiritually dead unless we turn from our sin and place our hope and trust in Christ.

No argument reveals a smaller mind than the impulse to link sin to skin for ideological gain.

Messages circulating on X often sound wildly different, but many follow the same script. On any given day, you’ll find someone — often claiming to be Christian — warning that a specific group poses a unique threat to the American way of life.

Some wrap their claims in the pseudo-academic language of “race realism” and genetic determinism. Others frame it as cultural criticism. But the message stays the same: Those people over there are the real problem.

Years ago, I noticed this pattern in how some black progressives invoked slavery and Jim Crow to argue that “whiteness” itself is an inherently evil force driving racism.

Today, a growing number of white conservatives fire back with crime statistics, claiming black Americans are inherently violent.

Meanwhile, a rainbow coalition of agitators — including Hispanics and Asians — spends its time urging followers to “notice” Jewish control of everything from pornography to U.S. foreign policy.

Different faces, same poison.

Ethnic and political tribalism has convinced many Americans that moral decay is always someone else’s fault. It’s not our problem. It’s their problem.

They chase any story or video that reinforces their worldview and dismiss anything that challenges it. A white police officer involved in a fatal shooting of a black man becomes proof that policing itself is systemically racist. A black teenager who commits a crime becomes a symbol of supposed racial dysfunction — not an individual but a statistic.

Many in this mindset obsess over IQ scores and genetic theories. But no argument reveals a smaller mind than the impulse to link sin to skin for ideological gain.

Christ’s death on the cross should convict every one of us to examine our own hearts. The moment you start measuring your worth by someone else’s failure, you’re already losing the moral battle. Comparative righteousness is a foolish and dangerous game.

The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18 illustrates the danger of self-righteousness. Pharisees prided themselves on strict adherence to the law, so it’s no surprise that the one in Jesus’ story thanked God for his supposed moral superiority. He fasted, tithed, and avoided obvious sins. He was especially grateful not to be like the tax collector — a judgment that, on the surface, seemed justified.

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

Jesus shocked the crowd with the conclusion: It was the tax collector — not the outwardly religious Pharisee — who went home justified. He drove the point home with a final line that still cuts: “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The world would look very different — better, even — if more people, especially Christians, followed the example of the tax collector instead of the Pharisee.

Every person, family, and community carries its own burdens. Certain sins may show up more often in some groups than others, but that only looks like moral deficiency when we stop measuring ourselves against God and start judging others as the standard.

That’s why I advocate an “inside-out” approach to social commentary. I focus first on the issues that are common, pressing, and personal. Telling hard truths is difficult enough. It’s even harder when the messenger comes off as an outsider taking shots rather than someone who cares enough to speak from within.

Conservatives have every right to criticize America’s cultural collapse — but they should think twice before using China’s Xi Jinping to deliver the message. And if even Vivek Ramaswamy can’t offer light criticism without backlash, maybe it’s not just the left that has a problem hearing the truth.

The inside-out approach beats the alternative. It forces us to confront our own flaws instead of obsessing over everyone else’s. The outside-in method puts the sins of others under a microscope, while hiding the mirror that would show our own.

That’s why I don’t understand black pastors in neighborhoods torn apart by gang violence who spend their sermons denouncing “white supremacy” or DEI. Those things may be worth discussing — but they’re not why kids are dying in their streets.

Likewise, a white pastor in Wyoming would do much more good addressing his state’s sky-high suicide rate — often involving firearms — than speculating on how rap music and absent fathers are ruining black teenagers in Chicago.

Nothing’s wrong with offering honest insights about what plagues other communities. Tribalism shouldn’t stop us from grieving or rejoicing with people who don’t look like us. But the problem comes when we frame both vice and virtue in ethnic terms.

The apostle Paul didn’t tailor his warnings about idolatry, greed, lust, or murder based on ethnicity. His message was universal because the human condition is universal.

That’s why Christians must always remember: Jesus died for our sin, not our skin.