The term “White Privilege” originated in the late 20th century, popularized by Peggy McIntosh’s 1988 essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” where she described it as unearned advantages granted to white people. Rooted in critical race theory, it built on earlier ideas from scholars like W.E.B. Du Bois about systemic racial benefits.

The concept became mainstream in recent decades, amplified by social movements like Black Lives Matter, and increased discussions in media, education, and politics about so-called “racial inequalities” and the need for structural change that would result in the redistribution of power and wealth from Whites to non-whites in predominantly White nations.

The movement essentially rests on the premise that wealth and power held by individuals of European Christian descent were gained unjustly, often by seizing them from non-Europeans and non-Christians. In effect, it recasts divinely inherited blessings as the product of injustice that must be renounced, not as the fruit of righteousness that ought to be received with thankfulness.

It’s a general rule that children reap what their fathers sow, with obedience to God bringing personal and national blessings, both immediate and generational, as promised in Exodus 20:6 to the thousandth generation of those who love Him and keep His commandments. The Western world reflects this universal reality.

God designed societies to thrive under specific rules and standards; the closer they align to God’s Law, the better they function—compare a society tolerating theft to one respecting property per the eighth commandment. Western nations, under the rule of Christian 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 within Christian European countries? Anti-Western sentiments arose from the evil ideology behind “critical race theory”—the ideology that has overtaken institutions, inverting the notion of God-blessed obedience. It claims Western prosperity isn’t a result of righteousness but of sin, denying the Gospel’s millennium-long influence and attributing the West’s success to injustice, oppression, theft, and inequality.

In their minds, the socioeconomic 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.

Ultimately, it is a nation-destroying, 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).

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). Blessed obedience is now cast as an injustice. And injustice, in this instance, is characterised as “White Privilege.”

Of course, complaining about “White Privilege” in predominantly White nations makes as much sense as complaining about “Chinese Privilege” in China, or “Indian Privilege” in India. It’s nothing more than the pejorative term for the blessings European Christian nations acquired through generations of obedience to God’s Word.

People who lament “Whiteness” and “racial inequality” are essentially saying that it’s “not fair” that the ancestors of European Christians fulfilled their God-given responsibility to secure a future for their grandchildren, while the grandparents of non-European, non-Christians reaped the product of years of enslavement to superstition and false gods.

Unfortunately, to some extent, European Christians brought this criticism on themselves. Christendom had a responsibility to export the Gospel, not to import disobedience. The Church was instructed to go into the world and bless the nations. They were to achieve this through the advancement of the Gospel. Yes, many nations have collectively rejected countless missionary efforts, and they’re reaping the reward of that rejection to this day. But the Western world has now largely opted to do the opposite of the Commission’s mandate. Rather than going, they’ve invited the nations to come, and that, to the detriment of their own Christian heritage.

As a result, nations in the West have allowed the non-Christian world in, undermining long-established Christian institutions, morals, and laws. In effect, they introduced the curse of false religions and destructive cultures that created such a stark distinction between the children of European Christians and the children of non-European pagans. 

As such, inheritance envy is rife, and it has fueled the “anti-White” sentiments that have dominated the institutions and media for decades. Rather than cultivating a similar Christian inheritance for their descendants, many have sought to guilt the children of Christian Europe into forfeiting theirs. And unfortunately, when coupled with the West’s widespread abandonment of Christianity, the plundering of our Christian inheritance is inevitable.

As God warned the Israelites in Deuteronomy 28:43, 47: “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.”