Teaching Kids About “Race”

Terms like racism, prejudice, a black race, and a white race are common in news items these days. How should God’s people respond to matters of “race”? What should we teach our children about it?

AiG is providing powerful new resources for families and churches to help lead the way in dealing with this hot-button topic in the culture.

In 1975, my first year teaching science in a public school in Australia, I taught a class where we covered the topic of human evolution as presented in the textbooks. As a Christian, I explained to the students that I rejected Darwin’s ideas of apelike creatures evolving into man as well as his belief there were different races of people, both lower and higher.

Instead, I explained to my students that we’re all descended from Adam and Eve, and then Noah, and from those who were scattered at the event of the tower of Babel. I taught them that all humans are one race, one family, all equal before God.

After one class, three Aboriginal girls came up and asked me to explain more about what I just said. You see, Darwin taught in The Descent of Man that the Australian Aborigines were closer to apes than people with light skin. Yes, Darwin’s ideas fueled racism.* What a difference it made for these girls when I explained they were related to me and that all humans belong to one race—Adam’s race.

The Lord then gave me a burden—one I’ve had ever since—to teach the truth concerning the “race” issue, based upon the true history of the human race given in Genesis.

It’s a topic we tackle inside our Creation Museum, at the Ark Encounter, and in my coauthored book One Race, One Blood (p. 14). In the museum, we walk people through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation in what I call the 7 C’s of History: Creation, Corruption, Catastrophe, Confusion, Christ, Cross, Consummation.

People all over the world are now using these 7 C’s to teach generations the true history of the world. In our museum’s walk-through, our guests see a striking teaching exhibit on the origin of all people groups.

At AiG, we also teach what we call the 7 F’s of dinosaur history, which are found in my book Dinosaurs for Kids. Based on the 7 C’s I mentioned above, I teach young people the seven ages of dinosaurs: Formed, Fearless, Fallen, Flood, Found, Faded, and Fiction. Kids and parents have loved this approach.

I’ve just written a new book called One Blood for Kids—What the Bible Says About Race. It’s also based on the 7 C’s teaching concept. In detail, I cover seven different biblical and spiritual “races”: Created Race, Fallen Race, Rescued Race, Divided Race, Saved Race, Lost Race, and Lamb’s Race.

Lots of fascinating topics are covered in this new book, which can be used for different age groups (but is written at a reading level for ages 8–teen). They include:

• skin color and the science of skin tones (humans are the same basic color but are different shades)
• Darwin’s impact on racism
• what the Bible teaches about slavery
• what happened at the tower of Babel and how the various people groups arose
• the gospel message, with a clear challenge to be a member of the Saved Race and Lamb’s Race
• and much more Bible-upholding content!

This is a highly unique book—there’s nothing out there even remotely like it!

By the way, our vacation Bible school (VBS) program for 2019 deals with these same topics. Our VBS, praise God, is now in the top three sold in the world.

We recently previewed our 2019 VBS—titled The Incredible Race—in front of 2,000 children. It had a phenomenal impact on those kids! They loved it! And they got to see that all humans are of one family and one race, and that the gospel was intended for every tongue, tribe, and nation!

AiG’s VBS programs are unique in that they deal with apologetics, biblical authority, and are always very evangelistic. Also, we do not shy away from dealing with the relevant issues that affect our culture!

Thousands of churches now use AiG’s VBS program, and we receive rave reviews about all aspects of this professionally produced, action-packed program. The outreach has about 100 specially made items. It’s astounding!

I’ve often said the church should be leading the way in dealing with racism and prejudice in our culture! I want to urge Christians all across America and the world to use these powerful resources to help raise up generations to have the correct understanding of race.

I’ll close with these verses for you:

And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.” (Revelation 5:9)

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, (were) standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands. (Revelation 7:9)

*Even famed evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould wrote, “Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859 [the year Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was published], but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory” (Ontogeny and Phylogeny, 1977).