Actress and singer Selena Gomez has shared a tearful video on social media this week, expressing her heartbreak over the deportation of illegal immigrants from the United States.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “All my people are getting attacked.”
Political theatrics aside, what’s interesting about this is that despite being born in the United States, Selena primarily identifies with a people defined by common ethnic descent. “Her people” are not merely fellow American citizens, but blood relations. She feels a bond and sense of loyalty based solely on family ties.
We can fault her naive message, but not for that. This way of thinking is almost universally accepted. Jews still talk about “their people,” despite where they live or hold citizenship. Arabs, Asians, and Indians do the same — even if, like Selena, their ancestry is mixed. And do you know what? There’s nothing wrong with that. It is entirely natural.
What’s peculiar is that people of European descent are the only people group that have been conditioned NOT to think in that way about each other. Everyone is a “brother,” even if they don’t share a similar sentiment. Everyone is “their people,” even if those people prefer to identify with those of common ancestry.
Not only that, anyone of European descent who expresses any sort of in-group preference will be promptly branded a “racist” or a “supremacist” — even by their own relations. Everyone can think this way about their own people group unless, of course, they’re “white” — then it’s a sin, or at least, a potential sin that must be renounced immediately before it turns into a genocide.
But if it is not a sin for everyone else to naturally think this way, then why should it be regarded as a sin for Europeans to think this way?
There’s no virtue in self-loathing or self-deprecating attitudes towards those you’re called to honour and love (Ex. 20:12). Not even if they’re accused of committing historic sins. If it didn’t dissuade the Apostle Paul from identifying with those who crucified Christ (Rom. 9:1-3), then it shouldn’t dissuade Europeans either.
In the Bible, we are commanded not to “bear a grudge against the sons of our own people,” but rather to, “love your neighbour as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). These two commands are connected – one is expressed in the negative (“do not bear a grudge”), the other in the positive (“but love”). To love your neighbour as yourself is to not bear a grudge against “the sons of your own people.” Even if they’ve given you a reason for doing so.
Of course, some will say, “Ah, but my people are God’s people and God’s people are of every tribe, family, nation, and tongue!” This is true, but only half-true. The fact that Christ’s Father is now my Father does not relieve me from any obligation, or prohibit any preference or affection towards my own father according to the flesh. Spiritual realities do not flatten earthly realities, nor do they exempt us from our obligations to those earthly realities — not even if you’re “white.”
Family sentiments are good, natural, God-given affections that are necessary to cultivate stable families and societies. That is why God employs these concepts to communicate heavenly and spiritual realities. We have a Father in heaven, we belong to the household and family of God, and fellow saints are our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Furthermore, Paul compares the relationship between Christ and the Church with the loving and respectful relationship between a husband and wife. These heavenly realities do not replace their earthly counterparts, but rather, they bring them greater meaning.
J.C. Ryle was correct in saying:
“Next to the grace of God, I see no principle which unites people so much in this sinful world as family sentiments. Community of blood is a most powerful tie. It was a fine saying of an American naval officer when his men insisted on helping the English sailors in fighting the Taku forts in China, ‘I cannot help it: blood is thicker than water.’ I have often observed that people will stand up for their relatives, merely because they are their relatives, and refuse to hear a word against them, even when they have no sympathy with their tastes and ways. Anything which helps to keep up the family sentiment ought to be commended.”
So, if family sentiments are natural, universal, and God-given, then why is it only wrong when those of European descent embrace them? Either we all get to express these sentiments or none of us do. Because having arbitrary rules for some people but not others, and that, according to the colour of their skin, is quite literally the Left’s definition of “racism.” But then, when has consistency ever been on their side?
