Anthropology, much like its subject matter, has always been rife with debate and controversy. As history unfolds in real-time, studying humanity only proves itself to be an uphill battle to diagnose the human condition. Intentional or not, a recent book published by Founders Press finds itself wading into the discussion. “Just Thinking: About Ethnicity” was published at the start of 2024 and written by Darrell Harrison and Virgil Walker. Described as “a biblical response to the issues of ‘race’ and social justice,” the book aims to be a “theologically-rich exploration into what the Word of God says about such issues.” It had been a while since I’d read a book of this nature, and, needless to say, I was curious.
Once I started reading, the strengths of the material became immediately obvious. Setting itself against the social justice narrative, the book launched multiple attacks on critical race theory, black liberation theology, and the lies of the racial reconciliation grift. It responded directly to arguments from men like Jemar Tisby and James Cone, taking a distinctly anti-woke approach to the subject matter. Walker and Harrison keep the gospel at the center of their analysis, never straying too far into the weeds of political discourse. The book employs a heavy spiritual emphasis throughout, accented by references to the gospel’s fundamental message of individual salvation. “Christ came into this world to save sinners,” they write. “Christ did not come into the world to save society.”1p.55
Yet, some may see this overly-spiritual approach as a weakness of the book. No doubt, the authors’ theologically focused response to these social issues can be a breath of fresh air to some audiences, but for readers who may have been interested in establishing a distinctly Christian political response, this approach left very little room to flesh out a positive civil vision. In fact, one of the central tenets of their relevant political theology is a denial, not just of racial politics, but of race entirely!
This theory, woven throughout nearly every chapter, maintains that race, as a biological phenomenon, does not exist. A strange assertion, yet the authors’ insistence on this point throughout the book cannot be ignored. In one sense, they agree with Critical Race Theorists that race is not a tangible phenomenon but a social construct. But they also claim that the social constructs of these social constructs (such as “whiteness”) are also not real. After all, how could something come from nothing?
Yet the boundaries of this alternate reality are ill-defined. For some reason, the authors believe that racism exists, and yet, if race does not exist in any biological or socially constructed form, how could someone even commit such an -ism? By simply asserting that race is real? As a reader who has now finished the book in its entirety, I still have no idea how racism is even defined. In short, Walker and Harrison have heavily relied upon unconventional definitions and categories in their response to the social justice movement. Though this may not bother some readers, others may find this argument to be utterly incoherent.
The Case For Not-Race
Before we even reach chapter one, the authors’ revised definitions have already begun to peek. Phil Johnson, in his foreword to the book, issues the provocative warning that understanding humanity as a tree of diverse lineages is a mistake.
Here is the starting place for gaining a biblical understanding of ethnicity in contrast to the spirit of our age: The very idea that humanity comprises multiple “races” is a fallacy.
Phil Johnson, Foreword to Just Thinking About Ethnicity
Frankly, it is difficult to understand the argument at all, much less how it combats this “spirit of the age.” Johnson seems to suggest that tree branches cannot exist since the tree has only one trunk in the ground. It’s a confusing assertion, and for this to be the starting point for a discussion on ethnicity is an extremely tall ask. Regardless, when we reach chapter five, the argument for this aforementioned “biblical understanding of ethnicity” appears.
Scripture is unambiguous that God created ethnicities, not races. We know this from such texts as Acts 17:26, “And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation.” The word “nation” in that verse is the Greek noun ethnos, from which we derive the English word “ethnicity.” So the correct and biblical term to use is ethnicity, not race.
Darrell Harrison, Virgil Walker, Just Thinking About Ethnicity (p. 85)
A bold claim, to be sure. This argument seems to function at a semantic level, attempting to renegotiate terms. But selling “ethnicity” as the proper, biblical word is far more complicated than merely pointing out its Greek roots. For David Riesman, the man who first popularized the term in the 1950s, ethnicity was used to describe the cultural characteristics and social affiliations that define people groups, particularly in the context of American society, where second- and third-generation immigrants were retaining cultural practices and distinct identities despite pressures to assimilate. Considering this context, re-reading Acts 17:26 with “ethnicity” instead of “nation” makes the verse a strange lesson about minorities and unassimilating subcultures rather than the intentional handiwork of a God who, from one man, formed all the nations of men. Frankly, it’s hard to see how anyone would accept this fumble of a translation.
But the word ethnicity has changed over time from its initial, specific context. Nowadays, it’s used so casually that many people often infer the very thing it was intended to exclude: race. To that end, the authors must not only make their case for treating a niche word invented in the last century as the historic biblical term but they must also contaminate the word that, historically, has fit the phenomenon perfectly.
Biblically speaking, there is no such thing as race in terms of how the culture defines the word. It is a made-up social construct with no bearing in science whatsoever.
Darrell Harrison, Virgil Walker – Just Thinking About Ethnicity (p. 85)
The poisoning of the word is repeated on page 90, where the authors employ a silly caricature to define the opposition. Though certain races are often referred to by their skin color, Walker and Harrison seem to be under the impression that this melanin-reflective label encompasses the entire racial boundary. And yet, this laughable, surface-level representation is only further cited as a popular belief of “the world.”
Christians must stop being ignorant and uninformed on this issue. The world defines race strictly in terms of skin color. […] Skin color is not race; there is no such thing as biological race.
Darrell Harrison, Virgil Walker – Just Thinking About Ethnicity (p. 90)
The authors conclude that Christians, on the whole, should not use the term race at all. But they don’t stop there. Rather, they go so far as to suggest that Christians who employ these “unbiblical categories” would be making an unethical choice.
The racialists have desired to divide mankind based on this pseudo-scientific race. Today, those advocating the advancement of these unbiblical categories of race do so with the same sinful intention. So, Christians, please stop using the word “race.” The word you should use is “ethnicity.” So, Christians, please stop using the word “race.” The word you should use is “ethnicity.”
Darrell Harrison, Virgil Walker – Just Thinking About Ethnicity (p. 90)
Frankly, it makes no sense to put this unorthodox argument in 186-page book about social justice. It makes very little sense in its current form and requires a far more robust treatment than Virgil and Darrell have given it. It’s sloppy and raises far more questions than it answers.
Destroying The English Dictionary
The problem with eliminating the word race is that it is impossible to do so without inadvertently affecting other terms in the process. Even if you are the kind of American who puts very little emphasis on racial issues, you will still be affected by the destruction. I have already written about how theistic evolutionists deny the biological nature of race, opting for a socially constructed vision of the Imago Dei. However, that is not the only area where the language of race has been cheapened to serve a particular agenda. Much of the social justice movement, the very faction they are attempting to debate, has rejected the concept of biological race in favor of a socially constructed vision. Even men such as James Cone, the father of black liberation theology, can be found laying the groundwork for such a view.2Cone’s views on race and culture are complex, to say the least. One of his claims was that, since race has no basis in biology and that racism was the act of believing in those biological taxonomies, black people could not be racist against whites. “While it is true that blacks do hate whites, black hatred is not racism. Racism, according to Webster, is ‘the assumption that psychocultural traits and capacities are determined by biological race and that races differ decisively from one another, which is usually coupled with a belief in the inherent superiority of a particular race and its rights to dominance over others.’” — James Cone, Black Theology and Black Power (1969) p. 15 So the salient question becomes a question of prudence. What do we stand to gain by removing the word race from our vocabulary?
Frankly, it is a monumental task powered by little more than wishful thinking. The mere thought of removing this nuanced expression from our dialect isn’t just an impractical, barbaric measure—it’s unconscionable. Our language has long reflected a deep understanding of race that goes beyond mere physical appearance. We all intuitively knew that it was defined by more than just skin color, and the English language properly reflected that reality.
RACE, noun [Latin radix and radius having the same original. This word coincides in origin with rod, ray, radiate, etc.]
1. The lineage of a family, or continued series of descendants from a parent who is called the stock. A race is the series of descendants indefinitely. Thus all mankind are called the race of Adam; the Israelites are of the race of Abraham and Jacob. Thus we speak of a race of kings, the race of Clovis or Charlemagne; a race of nobles, etc.
2. A generation; a family of descendants. A race of youthful and unhandled colts.
3. A particular breed; as a race of mules; a race of horses; a race of sheep.
Of such a race no matter who is king.
-- Noah Webster, 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language
In the English language, we can see that race encompasses everything from lineage to family to breed. The biological ramifications of this linguistic structure should be immediately obvious. Race is not only real, but with its emphasis on family and descent, it is often a significant factor in defining ethnicity as well. That’s why using the word “ethnicity” at the exclusion of “race” would be a bastardization of the English language. It would be like trying to describe “family” without being allowed to use the word “mother,” “father,” or “son.”
This is also reflected in Greek Scripture. If a man spent some time translating the Bible from Greek to English, he would find the concept of race impossibly entangled with interrelated terms such as nation, kin, lineage, and tribe.
1085. γένος genos, ghen'-os; from 1096; "kin" (abstr. or concr., lit. or fig., indiv. or coll.);—born, country(-man), diversity, generation, kind(-red), nation, offspring, stock.
1484. ἔθνος, ἔθνος, eth'-nos; prob. from 1486; a race (as of the same habit), i.e. a tribe; spec. a foreign (non-Jewish) one (usually by impl. pagan):--Gentile, heathen, nation, people.
3965. πατριά patria, pat-ree-ah'; as if fem. of a der. of 3962; paternal descent, i.e. (concr.) a group of families or a whole race (nation);—family, kindred, lineage.
5443. φυλή phulē, foo-lay'; from 5453 (comp. 5444); an offshoot, i.e. race or clan.—kindred, tribe.
-- James Strong, 1890 A Concise Dictionary Of The Words In The Greek Testament
The same reductionist tendency that tries to reduce ancestry to “skin color” is the same reductionist tendency that tries to reduce ethnicity to “a people group defined by anything but race.” The Greek language, in its historical understanding, clearly used ethnos to describe a wide variety of things — even a nonhuman classification. This broad application brings a broad meaning and flexibility to the term, which would be lost if we limit its translation to a single word. By contrast, the word “ethnicity,” coined in 1953, primarily functioned to distinguish the immutable racial component that defines people groups from the more permeable characteristics of a society. So, for someone to insist that ethnos should be translated as “ethnicity,” they would have to prove that the ancient Greeks primarily understood nations as cultural conceptions rather than as groups defined by inherent, unchangeable traits tied to descent and lineage. Yet an honest look at the ancient Greek context disproves this theory. Ethnos was deeply interconnected with concepts such as shared descent, kinship, and race. It was a flexible term, and in the context of nationhood and the ancient Greeks, it unequivocally imported assumptions of common descent.
…although the use of the word ethnos is not restricted to to ethnic groups, it is often coupled with the terms genos and syngeneia which do explicitly introduce the notions of descent and kinship which are so central to ethnic consciousness.
Jonathan M. Hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity
Because of this, we get no closer to the Biblical understanding of a nation or people group by eliminating the word race from our vocabulary. In fact, by rewriting the Greek context into modern categories, I would argue that we get further away from this biblical understanding.
Been Tried Before
So, what does a rejoinder on social justice stand to gain from this argument–the insistence that race is not real? Honestly, it’s hard to say. It seems to operate under the belief that groups of people cannot be defined by, or even acknowledge, the biological facts of their origin. And yet, the social justice movement has fully embraced this argument without question. Suppose the authors are positing that we have a moral imperative to deny the reality of race. How is this any different from the egalitarian cries of the civil rights movement?
Frankly, the authors’ call to action — for Christians to replace every instance of race with ethnicity — can be seen as little more than a hastily and ill-conceived effort to avoid uncomfortable discussions of race. It becomes a matter of avoiding one difficult subject at the cost of another. We know this because this idea has been suggested before; it is not the first time that scholars have attempted to purge the word race from our English lexicon. The genesis of the modern word ethnicity was a thinly veiled attempt to do just that, yet it only resulted in people using ethnicity when what they really meant was race.
Scholars have strained, often ingeniously,
to conceptualize ethnicity as something different from race. “Race” can have disturbing implications, especially in the wake of events of the mid-twentieth century, and too often since. “Ethnicity” seemed a less combustible, a more sanitized, term. But the arbitrary shift does not alter the substance of the matter. If ethnicity is conceived of in terms of biology and heredity, it is quite indistinguishable from race, and there is no meaningful advantage in using the one term rather than the other.Erich Gruen, Did Ancient Identity Depend On Ethnicity?3Erich Gruen. (2013). DID ANCIENT IDENTITY DEPEND ON ETHNICITY? A PRELIMINARY PROBE. Phoenix, 67(1/2), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.7834/phoenix.67.1-2.0001
Indeed, the substance of the matter has not changed. Attempting to clean and appropriate ethnicity into some kind of “biblical term” is a fruitless exercise if you have not dealt with the root of the debate. People groups are more complicated than having a common language or a shared culture. Throughout history, it has been extremely common for a people’s race to function as a common denominator. After all, when a people group has a common descent and has lived amongst each other for generations, race functions as a commonality, whether they intentionally acknowledge it or not.
People love to use modern sociological arguments to barge in and tell people how they should think about their society, to imply that their ancestry is basically meaningless and that the only thing that gives them a sense of kinship is their shared language and culture. When you push back, they accuse you of racism and xenophobia, as if you are foolish for not thinking that your entire society can be recreated without you or your heritage.
Given the current cultural moment, it sometimes feels as if this book is an attempt to firebomb the conversation rather than move it forward. I was already aware that Virgil Walker had a very negative impression of Christian Nationalism, voicing concerns about ethnocentrism and ethnic pride. He was extremely critical of the Case for Christian Nationalism, and thought that “…Wolfe’s ambiguous language (i.e., his exchange of the word “ethnicity” for “nation”) is […] no different from nationalism in its basic form.” But, given his understanding of Acts 17:26, is this not exactly how he uses it in his own book?
I am forced to conclude that this entire argument is not about recovering the “biblical definition” of ethnos. Rather, this is a debate tactic at a definitional level, forcing opponents to use terms in such a way that prevents them from challenging certain imported assumptions, preconceived political notions, and sociological concepts. Challenging those assumptions directly makes you a racist. Challenging those assumptions indirectly still makes you a racist, but people will ask, “Why did you use ‘ethnicity’ when what you really meant was ‘race?’”
There is no doubt in my mind that the social justice movement needs to be defeated, and I am grateful for any help we can get in that respect. But what are we willing to lose in order to defeat it? Are we truly prepared to enshrine modern sociological dogmas as “Biblical Christianity” just to spite Jemar Tisby? I would hope not. And yet, I fear that this has already been done.
Sources:
- 1p.55
- 2Cone’s views on race and culture are complex, to say the least. One of his claims was that, since race has no basis in biology and that racism was the act of believing in those biological taxonomies, black people could not be racist against whites. “While it is true that blacks do hate whites, black hatred is not racism. Racism, according to Webster, is ‘the assumption that psychocultural traits and capacities are determined by biological race and that races differ decisively from one another, which is usually coupled with a belief in the inherent superiority of a particular race and its rights to dominance over others.’” — James Cone, Black Theology and Black Power (1969) p. 15
- 3Erich Gruen. (2013). DID ANCIENT IDENTITY DEPEND ON ETHNICITY? A PRELIMINARY PROBE. Phoenix, 67(1/2), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.7834/phoenix.67.1-2.0001
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