Racial Discrimination

Racial discrimination is unfair or unequal treatment because of someone’s race, ethnicity or skin colour. It can affect access to employment, education, housing and public services. Prejudice is an attitude or judgement; discrimination is the unfair treatment that can follow from it.

Discrimination can take different forms. Direct discrimination includes refusing to employ someone because of their ethnic background. Indirect discrimination can occur when a rule applied to everyone disadvantages a particular racial or ethnic group, even without an intention to discriminate. Institutional racism involves an organisation’s policies or ways of working systematically disadvantaging particular groups. Racism is therefore not limited to openly hostile individuals.

Why Christian teachings reject racial discrimination

Christians believe that every human being is created in God’s image: Genesis 1:27 teaches that God created humanity in his own image. This belief, known as Imago Dei, gives all people dignity and equal value. Their worth does not depend on their ethnic background, appearance or social position. Treating someone as inferior because of race contradicts this understanding of creation.

Jesus’ command to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ in Matthew 22:39 provides a guide to behaviour. Love requires concern for another person’s wellbeing, not simply avoiding openly racist language. In the Good Samaritan parable, a Samaritan helps an injured man despite hostility between Jews and Samaritans. The example challenges people to show compassion across group boundaries rather than restrict care to people like themselves.

Galatians 3:28 teaches that there is ‘neither Jew nor Greek’ because believers are one in Christ. This does not mean that cultural differences disappear. It means that ethnic identity should not determine a believer’s worth or membership of the Christian community.

Acts 17:22–28: one creator and a shared humanity

In Acts 17:22–28, Paul addresses the meeting of the Areopagus in Athens. He has noticed the Athenians’ objects of worship, including an altar ‘to an unknown god’, and uses this as a starting point to explain the God Christians worship.

Paul describes God as the creator and Lord of the whole world, rather than a deity confined to a human-built temple. God gives everyone life and breath. All human beings therefore depend on the same God, not on separate creators who give different peoples different levels of worth.

The central teaching for racial discrimination is Acts 17:26: ‘From one man he made all the nations’. Paul presents humanity as having a shared origin. Christians apply this to racial equality: differences between nations do not justify claims that one racial group is naturally superior to another.

Paul also speaks of God determining nations’ times and boundaries so that people would seek him. God is ‘not far from any one of us’, and Paul quotes the words ‘We are his offspring’. Together, these teachings present God as the source of life for all peoples and accessible to them all. Racial exclusion conflicts with this shared relationship to God.

How discrimination harms people and society

Discrimination creates unequal opportunities. For example, if equally qualified applicants are treated differently because of ethnicity, some are denied jobs or promotion. This can reduce their income and make suitable housing harder to afford. Discrimination in education can also limit qualifications and future employment. Disadvantages can accumulate and contribute to poverty across generations.

It also harms wellbeing. Repeated rejection, insults or unfair treatment can cause distress, anger, low self-esteem and a feeling of not belonging. Persistent stress can affect mental and physical health. The harm is therefore more than the loss of a particular opportunity: people may feel that society does not value them.

At community level, discrimination weakens social cohesion. Unfair treatment can reduce trust in institutions and other people. Segregation limits contact between groups, allowing prejudice and misunderstanding to persist. These divisions can contribute to hostility, conflict and social unrest.

Society also loses when people cannot develop or use their abilities. Excluding someone from education or employment wastes talents that could benefit others. For Christians, these consequences are serious both because they cause suffering and because they deny the dignity of people who share the same creator.

Christian responses: turning belief into action

Christian responses can include challenging racist behaviour, supporting people who experience discrimination and changing unfair organisational practices. Micah 6:8 calls people to act justly and love mercy: opposing discrimination is an expression of faith, not merely a matter of personal politeness.

The Methodist Church’s Strategy for Justice, Dignity and Solidarity provides a concrete example. It acknowledges that discrimination and exclusion have occurred within the Church and calls for repentance and change. Its recommendations include mandatory equality, diversity and inclusion training for Methodist leaders, reviewing recruitment practices and a Discrimination and Abuse Response Service through which people can disclose harm and receive support.

These responses address different causes: training challenges assumptions, recruitment changes tackle structural barriers, and support services help those harmed. They are commitments to change, not proof that discrimination has already been eliminated. The underlying aim is to make Christian behaviour match the belief that every person is loved by God.