{"id":41130,"date":"2025-03-10T17:25:08","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T00:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=41130"},"modified":"2025-03-10T17:25:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T00:25:16","slug":"made-in-the-image-of-god-the-same-yet-different","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/made-in-the-image-of-god-the-same-yet-different\/","title":{"rendered":"Made in the Image of God – The Same, Yet Different"},"content":{"rendered":"

Previous Knowledge<\/strong><\/p>\n

Race is a topic that I am passionate about, but the reality is that race along with ethnicity are terms that I do not like.\u00a0 Today most people understand that race is a concept developed to differentiate people based on skin color and other physical features.\u00a0 For years due to concepts such as ethnocentrism societies developed biases regarding these differences.\u00a0 Many of these biases were negative, seeing some different people groups as less human than others.\u00a0 However, as believers in God I believe that all of mankind was made in the image and likeness of our triune God.\u00a0 However, we know that differences in people occurred.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. When our reproductive cells split forming egg and sperm the DNA splits is not the same leading to diversity even among siblings.<\/li>\n
  2. In Genesis 10 the people started spreading out across the earth, with the assumption that this was caused by God as described in the story of the Tower of Babel found in Genesis 11.<\/li>\n
  3. If (some people consider the story of the tower of Babel to be fiction) languages were confused<\/em>, we can assume that those who spoke the same language migrated together forming different tribes.<\/li>\n
  4. Each tribe developed their own culture based on their values, beliefs, customs, and norms differentiating themselves from surrounding tribes. Within each culture there are variations forming subcultures that can be as small as an individual family. Here I suggest that it takes at least two people to develop a culture.<\/li>\n
  5. Whether you believe in evolution or not, science seems to clearly demonstrate that adaptations to the human body have occurred over time, many of these adaptations were a result of where people lived, for example, the darkness or lightness of skin depending on a people group\u2019s proximity to the equator.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The difference between humans is really a difference between cultures not what the body looks like.\u00a0 Of course, how we look, where we live, where we worship, etc. all impacts who we are.\u00a0 Because we as humans naturally do not like differences, those in the majority have emphasized the differences that exist in the minority cultures living among us.\u00a0 Many times, using it to the majority\u2019s benefit and the minority\u2019s detriment.\u00a0 I could write other convictions, beliefs, and understandings but now it is time to pick up and do an inspectional reading of Coleman Hughes\u2019 The End of Race Politics<\/em>.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

    Something that confirms what you already believed\/knew <\/strong><\/p>\n

    Doing an inspectional reading of Hughes book confirmed many of my beliefs.\u00a0 One belief is that we are all made in the image and likeness of God and differences are really about culture and not skin color.\u00a0 Coleman writes<\/p>\n

    \u201cA close cousin of colorblindness is the idea of common humanity: that there is only one race that realty matters, the human race.\u00a0 What it takes for us to flourish has nothing essential to do with our skin color or ancestry or any other traits that people have used throughout history to divide themselves into racial groups.\u00a0 When we look at all the different ethnicities, races and cultures of the world, we see that fundamentally people are more similar to one another than they are different\u2014especially when it comes to the basic principles of human flourishing.”[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

    Coleman also affirms my belief that we are tribal and that we naturally focus on differences between tribes or cultures.\u00a0 Coleman writes \u201cHumans have an inbuilt tribal instinct\u2014a tendency to identify strongly with a group, to aim empathy inwards towards its members and suspicion and hatred outward.\u00a0 That tendency appears to be baked into each of us at a biological level.[3]<\/a>\u00a0 This is reinforced with his reference to a recent survey. \u201cA recent survey found that only 30 percent of \u2018Asian Americans\u2019 thought of themselves as \u2018Asian.\u2019\u00a0 Most thought of themselves as belonging to a specific ethnic group, such as \u2018Korean\u2019 or \u2018Pakistani.\u2019\u201d[4]<\/a>\u00a0 It seems that the majority of Asian Americans wanted to see themselves identified based on a specific geographical background, closer to their actual tribe, than a much broader one.<\/p>\n

    Something that runs counter to what you thought you already knew.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    One thing that Coleman discussed that ran counter to something I recently began to consider was found in his list of falsehoods found within neoracist theology, the Myth of Inherited Trauma[5]<\/a>.\u00a0 Brett Fuller in Dreaming in Black and White<\/em> brings up the idea of inherited trauma.[6]<\/a>\u00a0 After discussing a research study from 2013 that suggested the presence of inherited trauma on mice, Fuller writes<\/p>\n

    \u201cThe Black man\u2019s four hundred year experience in America has been painful. Successive generations of trauma have conditioned us to be aware of the potential danger; indeed the smell of it.\u00a0 That said, I am not to blame all my present day dysfunction on my ancestor\u2019s trauma.\u00a0 Still, I do not think it is a stretch to conclude that generations of inhumane treatment endured by my forefathers might well have a negative genetic cascading effect on me.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/p>\n

    Fuller, having cited a scientific research article appears to make a fair generalization giving the ethics involved in repeating such an experiment in humans.\u00a0 After reading Fuller, I found the entire research study online and have been processing it, keeping it in the back of my mind. Coleman on the other hand presents two reasons why inherited trauma is a myth, epigenetics and that we should see this in all of humanity.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Coleman\u2019s writing gave me a different perspective than what I had previously considered, however, overall, I found that we probably see eye to eye on more of his ideas than not.\u00a0 I end with this thought.\u00a0 Reading books that challenge ideas that we often hear in mainstream media today such as Coleman, Frank Furedi and Yascha Mounk, I find myself being challenged to figure out what is fact, fiction, or a result of different lived experiences.[8]<\/a> What do I throw away or keep and what criteria am I using to make that determination?<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    [1]<\/a> Coleman Hughes, The End of Race Politics: Argument for a Colorblind America<\/em>, (New York, NY:Thesis, 2024).<\/p>\n

    [2]<\/a> Coleman, 61.<\/p>\n

    [3]<\/a> Coleman, 25.<\/p>\n

    [4]<\/a> Coleman, 7.<\/p>\n

    [5]<\/a> Coleman, 107.<\/p>\n

    [6]<\/a> Brett Fuller.\u00a0 Dreaming in Black and White<\/em>. (United States: Brett E. Fuller. 2021), 128-129.<\/p>\n

    [7]<\/a> \u00a0Fuller, 129.<\/p>\n

    [8]<\/a> Furedi, The War Against the Past: Why the West Must Fight for Its History (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2024); <\/em>Mounk, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time<\/em>, (New York, Penguin, 2023).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Previous Knowledge Race is a topic that I am passionate about, but the reality is that race along with ethnicity are terms that I do not like.\u00a0 Today most people understand that race is a concept developed to differentiate people based on skin color and other physical features.\u00a0 For years due to concepts such as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":200,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3433],"class_list":["post-41130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hughes-dlpg03","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/200"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41130"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41132,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41130\/revisions\/41132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}