There’s no shortage of “anti-white” rhetoric being thrown about these days. It’s mainstream, normalized, and has come to be expected in movies, television, and even government policies.

A recent example of socially acceptable disdain for “white people” comes from Amandla Stenberg, lead actress in Disney’s Star Wars series, The Acolyte. In an interview on The Daily Show, she said the goal of the new series was to make “white people cry,” which, of course, was met with laughter and applause.

The show is doomed to fail, obviously. Everything “woke” does. But the question we should be asking is, what’s behind the utter hatred of all things “white”? Is the hostility skin-deep, or is it something deeper?

The “anti-whiteism” we often see propagated under the guise of “anti-racism” is not just about skin colour, because it’s not merely the colour of skin they find objectionable. What’s offensive is what that skin colour has come to represent: Christianity.

In the minds of many, Christianity and “whiteness” are inseparable. After all, white people today are children of the “Christian West.” As such, predominantly white nations today still experience great blessings, prosperity, and security due to the faithfulness and hard work of those who built before us, even if we are just running on fumes.

It’s a general rule that children reap what their fathers sow. There are real blessings in obedience to God. Personal blessings and national blessings. Immediate blessings and blessings that are handed down through generations. This is the promise that God gave Moses in Exodus 20:6 when he vowed to show steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love Him and keep His commandments. The Western world is evidence of that.

This is because God created human societies to work best when they operate a certain way, under particular rules, and according to a specific standard. The closer a society reflects that standard, the better it will function for the good of those within. It’s the difference between a society that tolerates theft and a society that respects private property in accordance with the eighth commandment.

Western nations, under the rule of law, have spent centuries conforming and reforming societies to best promote justice and freedom, to secure human rights and property rights. Much blood has been spilled to protect and preserve those gains for future generations. It’s why nobody has to convince non-Westerners to live in predominantly white countries. It’s obvious: the migration flow is only ever in one direction.

So, how did the hatred and self-loathing emerge? It arose from an ideology that has infiltrated and now dominates almost every institution. It’s an evil ideology that turns the idea of God-blessed obedience on its head. It says Western prosperity is not the fruit of righteousness, but the result of sin. It says the good the West has known is not due to the Gospel working itself out in all of life over a millennium, but is the product of injustice, oppression, theft, and inequality.

The socio-economic differences between the Westerner and the non-Westerner can essentially be boiled down to a power struggle between the dominant oppressor and the weak whom they oppress. If the Christian West gained anything, it is because they stole it from somebody else. All wealth and prosperity is ill-gotten gain.

Of course, wealth can be acquired through unrighteous means (Prov. 10:2), but that’s not to say that this is the only way in which good things are secured. To suggest otherwise is to say there’s no practical difference between obedience and disobedience to God.

It is a Marxist mindset that breeds covetousness and envy, and this, in turn, quickly becomes resentment and hatred. When coupled with power, this envy-fuelled resentment eventually leads to theft through taxes, wealth distribution, property acquisition, and at times, even murder.

This way of thinking simply cannot fathom the idea that God rewards good behaviour, or that disobedience to God’s commands will bring ruin. It should go without saying, but a sure way to ruin your marriage, destroy your family, and forfeit half of what you own is to violate the seventh commandment prohibiting adultery (Ex. 20:14).

Unfortunately, as is often the case for many of us, we tend to expect the benefits of obedience without the obedience itself. But when we expect to reap where we did not sow, envy quickly turns to hatred (Ex. 20:17).

Nathaniel Vincent aptly said: “How much of hell is there in the temper of an envious man! The happiness of another is his misery; the good of another is his affliction. He looks upon the virtue of another with an evil eye, and is as sorry at the praise of another as if the praise were taken away from himself. Envy makes a hater of his neighbour, and his own tormentor.”

Of course, they’ll tell us their resentment is about historical injustices. And yet today, they have nothing at all to say about the fact that there are more than nine million men, women and children living in modern slavery throughout Africa. Is slavery only an issue when white people are involved?

It doesn’t matter how many studies prove that predominantly white nations are the least racist countries on earth. The narrative that white people are all racists persists. It doesn’t matter how many non-white nations are still currently practising slavery. The preoccupation with historical sins will continue.

In reality, they don’t insist on calling all white people “racists” because they care about ending racism. They call white people “racists” so Westerners will be too scared to resist their “anti-Western” and anti-Christian agenda.

The hatred of “whiteness” is a hatred of Christianity, but what the Western world fails to understand is that while the blessings of God come from faithfulness to God, those blessings are forfeited by unfaithfulness to God. When those blessings are forfeited, God promises to hand them to those who didn’t sow the fields or plant the vineyards.

God warned the Israelites in Deuteronomy 28:43, 47 of what would happen to them if they were unfaithful to Him: “The sojourner who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower… because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart.”

The militant de-Christianization of the West promised freedom. It gave us slavery. It could deliver nothing else. If we want to return to the freedom and prosperity that the West once knew, we have to return to the Christianity out of which that freedom and prosperity grew and flourished.

At this point, there is only one possible way forward for the Western world. It’s not in kneeling to the “anti-racist” mobs. It’s not in bowing to their demands to forfeit what we’ve been given. It’s not in erasing our history. It’s not in dishonouring our ancestors. When you’re heading in the wrong direction, the only way forward is backwards. The only way forward is repentance:

The LORD said, “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land” (2 Chr. 7:14).

The envy of Marx expects to reap good where it did not sow good. Today, the Western world is no different. We’re no longer sowing good, so why should we expect to reap a good harvest? There needs to be an about-face. There needs to be an acknowledgment of sins, personal sins and national sins. There needs to be repenting of those sins, personal sins and national sins. There needs to be a seeking of Christ, in prayer and humility. Not to the hurt of our neighbours, or even the foreigner – but to their good!

When the Western world is blessed, then the Western world can truly be a blessing to the rest of the world. We must believe that God wants our good, and that our good is found by acknowledging Him and living within the bounds of the commands of Christ the King. Until then, we can expect to sink “down lower and lower” in our own homelands.