Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

Racism is a sin – and we are all sinners

Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty Images

The current resurgence of debate about racism shows that we still need the concept of sin. Seriously, sin? Yes. Without this concept, we can’t really understand the BLM movement.

In the past, moral campaigns were tied to concrete demands for changes in legislation, or government policy. Ban the bomb, legalise homosexuality, overthrow capitalism, and so on. The BLM movement is rooted in frustration: it knows that laws already exist outlawing discrimination, but feels that such laws are hugely inadequate. For such laws cannot uproot systematic racism, which is built into the mindset of the majority. It declares that liberalism is too vague, too non-judgemental, too laissez-faire. In some ways, such radicalism seems to revive the absoluteness of Marxism, but it lacks the concrete goal of revolution. It is unconsciously reviving a more religious worldview: people should be judged according to the desires of their hearts. If you do not desire racial justice and do not express this desire in the proper pious way, you are complicit.

It is naive of the affronted conservative to deny that he or she carries any significant trace of racism

But when secular movements ape religion, they create something narrower than the original. By putting huge emphasis on one form of immorality, the BLM movement creates a dubious division between the pure and the impure. It implies that people who are free of racism, either because they are its victims or because they ardently side with its victims, are morally superior in a general way. This is where old-fashioned religion is crucially wiser: it says that we are all sinners, even if we zealously uphold this or that aspect of morality. Even if we do no discernible outward harm, we are prone to wrongdoing, we gravitate to it. Our hearts are not pure. In theory at least, this realism dampens the zeal of religious moralists: it reminds them that they share the same sort of impulses that result in the immorality they condemn in others.

To the BLM zealot, this sounds evasive and complacent.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in