Is Your Baby Racist?

Now, they didn’t put it quite that bluntly. They stated:

At birth, babies look equally at faces of all races. At three months, babies look more at faces of those that match their caregivers.

Well, isn’t that what one would expect?

This is just another example of the ridiculous claims regarding so-called “race” that are being taught as fact in our public schools and by the media.

By cherry-picking and misinterpreting data from a 2005 study (as this author explains), the authors of this graphic claim that three-month-old babies have racist behaviors because they look more at faces they’re familiar with. This is just another example of the ridiculous claims regarding so-called “race” that are being taught as fact in our public schools and by the media. Such claims distract from the real issues regarding the sin of racism and actually perpetrate racism by pitting groups against one another (and furthering the idea that there are different “races” which, biblically and scientifically, is utterly false!).

Now, while I don’t agree that three-month-old babies are racist, I do agree that “they’re not too young to talk about race.” We should be teaching our children a biblical worldview when it comes to diversity long before the world can poison them with woke ideologies that perpetuate the very thing they claim they want to stop. So what is the biblical worldview? Well, when I teach kids on this topic (like in my book One Blood for Kids), I share about the “7 Spiritual Races in the Bible.”

1. Created Race: God created two people in his image—Adam and Eve—on day six of creation week. We all descend from Adam and Eve and are all made in God’s own image. God put the genetic diversity for the people we see today into the DNA of Adam and Eve. Diversity in skin shade, eye shape, height, weight, etc. was God’s “very good” plan from the very beginning! All people are members of Adam’s race.
2. Fallen Race: When Adam sinned, God’s “very good” (Genesis 1:31) creation was broken. So now Adam and Eve were fallen; they were sinners in need of a Savior. Since we all descend from that first human couple, we are all sinners. Because we’re sinners, we don’t love God or others as we should. When it comes to not loving others, the issue isn’t really skin—it’s actually sin! That’s why various forms of what we call racism have existed throughout human history in all different cultures. It’s because we’re all sinners with evil hearts, and people will often judge others by their outward appearance!
3. Rescued Race: The Bible tells us that Adam and Eve had children and that the human population grew and became increasingly wicked. In fact, it became so wicked God had to judge the world with a global flood. But in his mercy, God rescued a righteous man, Noah, and his family (along with two of every kind of land-dwelling, air-breathing animal) aboard the ark. This reminds us that God judges our sin but provides a way of salvation. That way of rescue is the Lord Jesus Christ.
4. Divided Race: After the flood, Noah’s descendants rebelled, desiring to stay together and make a name for themselves in defiance of God’s command to spread out over the earth. To judge their sin, God divided their language, scattering the people over the earth. It’s because of this event in history that different people groups and different cultures formed. As groups were isolated by geography and language, certain genetic traits became dominant within the different groups. The division at Babel explains our differences!
5. Saved Race: Because of our sin, every single person deserves the penalty of death. But Jesus, the God-man, stepped into history and lived the perfect life that we cannot live. He willingly died in our place on the cross, taking the penalty for our sin upon himself. He then rose from the grave and now offers the free gift of eternal life to all who will put their faith and trust in him. When we receive this gift of salvation, we become part of the “saved race.”
6. Lost Race: To be part of the saved race, we must be born again (trust in Christ for salvation) because, on our own, we’re part of the lost race—we’re dead in our sins and separated from God. That’s the condition of every single person, apart from Christ. Those who remain lost will spend eternity separated from God. But we don’t have to suffer that punishment for our sins because Jesus took our penalty for us. If we repent and believe, we receive forgiveness and eternal life through Christ. Because this has eternal consequences, it’s vital we tell everyone we can about the free gift of salvation that Jesus offers! This offer is available to every single person.
7. Lamb’s Race: Jesus is the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). Yes, all humans are members of the “created race” made in the image of God, the “fallen race,” having a sinful nature from Adam, and the “divided race” of all kinds of ethnic groups. But it’s so very important that we also become members of the “rescued race” given grace by God, the “saved race” saved from God’s judgment, and the “Lamb’s race” covered by Jesus’ blood. Please don’t remain a member of the “lost race” under judgment for your sin. The good news is that God has provided a way back to him, so we don’t have to remain a member of the “lost race.”

The 7 “races” above are explained in detail in the book “One Blood for Kids.”

Don’t let the world influence your children to be “anti-racist”—the new buzzword that really means “defeat racism by developing a racist attitude towards a different group of people and treating certain groups preferentially.” In other words, for many in our culture, their answer to the sin of racism is more racism. Teach them what God’s Word says so they can think biblically and tackle the real problems that exist in our culture in a way that is both honoring to the Lord and his Word and that will actually help people and restore broken relationships.

As always, the answer is found in the truth of God’s Word and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

If you’d like more resources for teaching your children, your whole family, your church, or yourself, to think more biblically on this topic, consider:

• One Blood for Kids
• All God’s Children: Why We Look Different
• 7 Biblical Races Swivel Book (Great for Sunday school classes or evangelism)
• One Race, One Blood: The Biblical Answer to Racism
• One Race, One Blood (a video presentation)
• One Race, One Blood DVD Curriculum
• Answers TV, our streaming platform that features videos from our 2019 Answers for Pastor’s conference on this topic of racism, videos from Grace Relation’s Dr. Charles Ware, and more, that will encourage and equip you.

Get More Answers on Answers News

I discussed this item today on Answers News with cohosts Dr. Georgia Purdom and Bodie Hodge. Answers News is our twice-weekly news program filmed here at the Creation Museum and broadcast on my Facebook page and the Answers in Genesis Facebook page. We also covered the following topics:

• LGBT artist tops iTunes Christian charts.
• Did mountains disappear for a billion years?
• Do young galaxies grow up fast?
• And more!

Be sure to join us each Monday and Wednesday at 2 p.m. (ET) on my Facebook page or the Answers in Genesis Facebook page for Answers News. You won’t want to miss this unique news program that gives science and culture news from a distinctly biblical and Christian perspective.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.