Racism is a symptom, not the source. It’s the effect, but not the cause. It’s the manifestation of evil, but not the root of evil. We hear about racism everyday as if it’s the reason for all conflicts in our country. But America doesn’t have a skin problem—we have a SIN problem. And racism is based on a Satanic lie of the real essence of ALL sin—pride. The notion that some people think they are just better than others. And when one thinks he or she is better, that person believes they shouldn’t have to be held to the same standards. Political division is also fueled by pride—those who believe their ideas and their policies and the people they support are just better. And the result is that different standards are applied. The reason that Rosa Parks was told to sit in the back of the bus was that the arrogant pride of some people who didn’t think she was as good as they were. The reason that a teenager named Clarence Henderson risked his life to sit at a lunch counter at a Woolworth in North Carolina was because some people didn’t think he deserved to be seated at the same lunch counter because they didn’t think he was good as they were. The reason that 9 young high school students had to be escorted to Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957 was due to some in the community not believing those kids were as smart and capable as their kids were. All of those things were racist. They were all evil and sinful. But all were because of the real sin of pride. It showed itself as racism; it was rooted in pride.

Whenever there is a double standard, it’s the same root sin as racism. If the Governor of CA orders the citizens to wear a mask in public but he takes his off at a football game, it’s his pride in thinking he’s just better than you. If members of Congress demand to get the transcript of a phone call between President Trump and the President of Ukraine and actually impeach the President because of what was said in the call, but the same members of Congress don’t demand public disclosure of a phone call between President Biden and the President of Ukraine this week, it’s because they believe their side is just better than your side. If a podcast host like Joe Rogan gets crucified for allowing highly competent scientists to say lockdowns and masks don’t work and is called out for spewing medical misinformation, even after the CDC releases a report that actually says the same thing, it’s not misinformation people are going crazy over—they just think the people they listen to are better than the people you listen to. If protesters in many major cities burn police stations, loot and firebomb private businesses and beat up innocent people on the streets yet politicians defend them as “mostly peaceful” but when protesters go to the US Capitol and protest, they are insurrectionists doing more harm than 9-11, Pearl Harbor, or the Civil War, they aren’t really that crazy to believe that—they just think the protesters they support are better than those they don’t. If Hillary, Joe Biden, Stacey Abrams and others can question the integrity of an election and claim it was rigged, but Donald Trump is permanently banned from Twitter and FB for saying it, it’s just another example of the arrogant pride that some folks think their armpits don’t stink—but yours do. Like racism, it’s a symptom of deadly and dangerous pride. It’s not political—it’s a spiritual sickness. But we will never correct it if we misdiagnose it and fail to see it for what it really is—selfish arrogance of pride that is willing to put a different standard on you than on themselves because they actually believe they are better than you!