Is Racism My Unforgivable Sin?
Wrestling with faith, forgiveness, and the fractured church
One of the quiet truths I’ve learned with age is that it’s possible to be surrounded by scripture and still never really see yourself in it.
I was raised in a Christian home. My early understanding of right and wrong was shaped by sermons, Sunday School, and the soft thud of worn Bibles landing on wooden pews. I knew the stories—David and Goliath, the Prodigal Son, Jesus healing the sick, dying for our sins, rising again.
I believed it all.
Still do, in some ways.
But then life started happening. I began seeing things that didn’t align. The world I was told was shaped by divine justice often looked more like a cruel game of survival—rigged and racially ordered. And I found myself asking:
Is this really what God intended?
Then came the harder questions:
What does it mean to follow Christ in a world where those who most loudly claim His name are also those who legislate against the vulnerable, excuse racial violence, and prop up systems of white supremacy?
And what do I do with the contradiction of Christ’s call to forgive—and my own deep resistance to forgiving those who harbor racist beliefs or behaviors?
Is racism just another sin in the long list of human failings that Jesus died for?
Or is it something more insidious—something that cuts so deep, desecrates so much, and deforms so many lives that it demands a response more serious than a quick “we all fall short” and a group prayer?
I’ve sat with these questions in the quiet places.
I’ve brought them to the texts.
And I still don’t have all the answers.
But here’s what I know.
Christianity Has a Racism Problem
Let’s tell the truth.
The American church—particularly the white evangelical church—has long been complicit in racial injustice. It baptized slavery. Endorsed Jim Crow. And today, it offers sanctuary not to the marginalized, but to the status quo.
It champions “family values” while separating families at borders.
It rails against “wokeness” but never against racial apathy.
It upholds the Ten Commandments but breaks the greatest one: to love your neighbor as yourself.
We were told “God is love,” yet found His American emissaries often practicing something else entirely.
So when I ask if racism is an unforgivable sin, I’m not really asking about God's mercy—I know that’s endless.
I’m asking about our human capacity to forgive in a world where racism is not a slip-up or an isolated mistake.
It’s a structure.
A system.
A pattern of behavior, policy, and power that kills.
When people say “Jesus died for all sins,” I agree. But that can’t mean a free pass. It can’t mean ignoring the devastating impact of racism just because the perpetrator “found God.”
Because the damage doesn’t disappear.
And repentance without repair is not repentance—it’s spiritual bypassing.
But What Would Jesus Do?
It’s an age-old question, made popular in the 1990s with bracelets and bumper stickers: WWJD?
What would Jesus do?
It’s a powerful inquiry—but also a complicated one.
Because if we really pay attention to what Jesus did, we see someone who defied expectations. He didn’t cling to power—He emptied Himself of it. He didn’t condemn the outsider—He embraced them. He didn’t just preach love—He embodied it, often at great cost.
Jesus ate with tax collectors—those who exploited the poor.
He offered living water to a Samaritan woman—despised by His own people.
He healed a Roman centurion’s servant—an agent of an occupying empire.
He welcomed children, honored women, uplifted the poor, and chastised the religious elite.
So maybe the question isn’t whether we forgive—but how.
What would Jesus do? He would call out the hypocrisy.
He would walk with the oppressed.
He would flip the tables.
He would challenge the systems that harm, even when those systems wear religious garments.
Forgiveness, in this context, must come after truth. After accountability. After the hard work of change.
Otherwise, it’s just enabling.
Yes, Christ calls us to forgive.
But He never calls us to be complicit.
Remember: Jesus flipped tables too.
A Different Kind of Resurrection
What if this moment—our social reckoning with racism—is itself an invitation to a different kind of resurrection?
What if we could resurrect a Christianity that is honest, courageous, and aligned with justice?
What if we could let die the versions of faith that protect privilege and perpetuate harm, and instead rise with something more whole, more true, more like Jesus?
What if the church became known not for its dogma, but for its decency?
Not for what it opposes, but for what it heals?
Not for who it condemns, but for who it embraces?
Where do we start?
We start by asking questions:
What do we do when forgiveness feels impossible?
Can we separate a person’s sin from their system of belief?
What is our responsibility to those who’ve been harmed?
And what is our responsibility to those doing the harming?
We start by listening—to Black and Brown voices, to the margins, to the Spirit whispering in the wilderness.
We start by acting—with courage, with compassion, and with the conviction that love without justice is not love at all.
So, Is Racism My Unforgivable Sin?
No.
But it is the one we’ve been too quick to forgive—and far too slow to confront.
I still believe in God. But I also believe God is grieved.
Not just by the sins of racists, but by the silence of the church.
Not just by what is said, but by what isn’t.
And maybe the real question isn’t whether God forgives racism.
Maybe it’s whether we have the courage to truly repent of it.
Because forgiveness doesn’t change systems—people do.
And truthfully, it’s not my place to determine what is or isn’t unforgivable. That belongs to God alone.
But what I do know is this:
Wrestling with this question has changed me.
It has softened me, sharpened me, and clarified what kind of follower of Christ I want to be.
Because in the end,
I don’t just want to be forgiven.
I want to be transformed.
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