The Biblical Answer to Racism
Lesson Overview
The Biblical Answer to Racism with Ken Ham
This standalone message is given by Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum, based on the book One Race, One Blood, which he co-authored with the African-American pastor Dr. Charles Ware. Ham argues that the Bible’s history in Genesis provides the true answer to racism: because all people descend from Adam and Eve, there is biologically only one race, everyone is related, and the differences we notice are superficial. He debunks racist misuses of the Bible and calls the church to lead on race by standing on God’s Word. Use this overview to review the key points after watching the full video.
One Race, All Related
Ham’s foundational claim is that Scripture presents all humans as descendants of Adam and Eve, so biologically there is only one race and every person is related to every other. He supports this from 1 Corinthians 15:45 (Adam the first man), Genesis 3:20 (Eve the mother of all living), and Acts 17:26 (God made from one blood, or one man, all nations). Because we are all one family, the gospel is for every tribe and nation, and Jesus, the “last Adam,” became our relative to redeem us.
He addresses the common question “where did Cain get his wife?” by noting that Genesis 5:4 says Adam had sons and daughters, so in the first generations brothers married sisters, which carried no genetic danger before mutations accumulated. He argues that the later prohibition on close-relative marriage (from the time of Moses, Leviticus) makes sense as the “genetic load” of copying mistakes built up over generations after the fall. This last piece is part of his young-earth model; see the note for students.
Why the Church Should Lead
Ham observes that the church in America has often not led on race relations, and at times has harbored prejudice, especially about skin shade. He ties this to the argument of his companion talks: because much of the church set aside Genesis as real history and treated the Bible as only “spiritual,” it lost the biblical answer to race that was there all along. If Christians stood on God’s Word from the first verse, he argues, they could lead the way.
Variation Within Kinds
To explain human differences, Ham first teaches basic genetics using dogs. From one original pair with rich genetic variability, isolated groups (through breeding and environment) end up with different combinations, producing the many dog breeds, wolves, dingoes, and coyotes, all still dogs. He argues this is not evolution but a sorting and loss of already-existing information, never the gain of brand-new information that molecules-to-man evolution would require, and that natural selection and adaptation are this downhill sorting rather than evidence for evolution. This “no new information” and “natural selection is only downhill” framing is young-earth creation science and is disputed by mainstream biology, which holds that mutation and selection do produce new information and new species over long ages.
The Tower of Babel and Skin Shade
Ham applies the same logic to humans. The event that split the human gene pool into isolated groups, he argues, was the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11), after which separated families developed distinct combinations of traits. He stresses there are no truly different “colors” of people: everyone has the same brown pigment, melanin, in differing amounts, so the right question is not “what color” but “what shade.” Using a simplified gene model (while noting real skin color involves many genes), he argues Adam and Eve were most likely middle-brown, carrying mixed genes, from whom children ranging from very light to very dark could come, which is why middle-brown is the majority of the world’s population and why two middle-brown parents can have children of widely different shades. The observation that human skin color is a matter of melanin quantity is scientifically sound; the Babel-based timeline and the young-earth framework around it are the minority-position elements.
Darwin and Scientific Racism
Ham documents the real and dark history of evolutionary racism. He recounts how Australian Aboriginal people were treated as “missing links” and even hunted for supposed evidence, cites Darwin’s Descent of Man (which contains genuinely disturbing predictions that the “civilized races” would “exterminate” the “savage races”), and points to the actual 1925 Scopes-trial-era biology textbook (Hunter’s Civic Biology), which taught a hierarchy of five races with Caucasians as “highest.” He quotes the Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, who acknowledged that biological arguments for racism increased enormously after evolutionary theory was accepted.
Ham is careful here: he says evolution is not the cause of racism (sin is), and acknowledges racism existed before Darwin. His argument is that evolutionary thinking gave racism a supposed scientific justification. The historical facts he cites are real; the broader claim that accepting evolution today leads toward racism (and other moral ills) is his contested worldview argument, and mainstream science holds that evolutionary biology, properly understood, actually refutes any biological basis for racism.
Terminology and the Human Genome
Ham urges Christians to change their language: to speak of “people groups” rather than “races,” to recognize everyone as a “colored” person (all having melanin), and to remember we are all related. He notes, with some irony, that the secular world has led here: when the Human Genome Project mapped human DNA, researchers announced there is only one race, the human race, and that the external features used to classify “races” reflect a tiny fraction of our genes. Ham argues Christians should have been saying this all along from Scripture. (On this conclusion, that race is not a biologically meaningful category, Ham and mainstream science agree.)
The “Curse of Ham” Debunked
Ham confronts head-on the false teaching, once widespread in American churches, that dark-skinned people descend from a “curse of Ham” and are therefore inferior. He states plainly that there is no curse of Ham, tracing how the idea spread (he cites racist teachings historically published by groups such as the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses) and repudiating it entirely. Reading Genesis 9 carefully, he notes the curse fell on Canaan, not Ham, and had nothing to do with skin color. He says that anyone who has believed or taught that Black people came from a curse needs to repent before God. This is Ham repudiating a racist misreading of Scripture.
Interracial Marriage and the Two Spiritual Races
Ham argues that, biologically, there is no such thing as interracial marriage, since there is only one race. He received heavy criticism from some Christians for saying so. The only “interracial marriage” Scripture warns against, he argues, is spiritual: the marriage of a believer to an unbeliever (2 Corinthians 6:14, do not be unequally yoked). There are, he says, two spiritual “races,” the godly and the ungodly, those on the narrow way and the broad way, and that is the distinction marriage should honor.
His conclusion is anti-racist: a man and woman of any skin shade, eye shape, or culture who both love the Lord, with no other biblical barrier, are free to marry. He illustrates with Rahab, a Canaanite who joined God’s people and appears in the lineage of Christ, showing that the barrier was always spiritual, not biological. He adds a caution, which he applies to all couples but especially those from very different cultures, to seek strong premarital counseling, since differing backgrounds can create challenges.
Look at the Heart
Ham closes with 1 Samuel 16:7, “man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” He urges believers to stop judging by skin shade or appearance and to see each person as a relative who may need the Lord. With practical examples, he calls Christians to look past the outside to the person, and reminds young people choosing a spouse that what matters is not looks (which change with time) but whether the other loves the Lord. His final charge is to change our terminology, stand on God’s Word, and be salt and light with the biblical answer to racism.
Key Terms
One race, one blood: Ham’s thesis that all humans descend from Adam and Eve and form a single biological race.
People groups: the term Ham prefers over “races” to describe human diversity.
Melanin and shade: the single brown pigment, present in differing amounts, that Ham says makes “shade,” not “color,” the accurate word.
The Tower of Babel: the event (Genesis 11) Ham credits with splitting humanity into isolated groups with distinct traits.
The curse of Ham: the false, racist teaching, which Ham debunks, that dark skin came from a curse in Genesis 9.
The two spiritual races: Ham’s reading of the believer/unbeliever distinction as the only “interracial” line Scripture draws.
Verses to Know
Genesis 3:20, Eve the mother of all the living. Acts 17:26, God made from one blood all nations of men. 1 Corinthians 15:45, Adam the first man. Genesis 11:1-9, the Tower of Babel and the confusion of languages. Genesis 9:18-27, the account concerning Noah and the curse on Canaan. 2 Corinthians 6:14, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. 1 Samuel 16:7, the Lord looks at the heart.
Takeaway
Ham argues that the Bible’s history is the true answer to racism: because everyone descends from Adam and Eve, there is only one race and we are all related, the differences we call race are superficial shades of one pigment, the “curse of Ham” is a lie to be repented of, and the only division that should matter for marriage and fellowship is spiritual, so Christians should drop the language of “race,” see every person as a relative made in God’s image, and look at the heart rather than the outward appearance.