Ken Ham: The Only Cure for Racism is Jesus

In case you were wondering if any response to the racist march in Charlottesville, Virginia could be worse that Donald Trump‘s both-sides-ism, look at what Creationist Ken Ham tweeted this morning.

Ham sounds like the old Stephen Colbert character, who always claimed he wasn’t racist because he just didn’t see race. In his head, it sounds great. In truth, he’s ignoring a very real problem by pretending it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t mean he’s racist, only that he’s ignorant of the issue.

And the idea that legislation and laws can’t help is absurd. I’ll take the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act over Jesus any day. God won’t fix racial gerrymandering — especially when the people perpetuating racism tend to be white Christians.

Ham should recognize that a book that never condemns slavery isn’t exactly a beacon of light on matters of race.

And history shows that secular people are more likely to advance civil rights. Here’s researcher Dr. Phil Zuckerman (who has written the definitive books on secular societies):

As psychologists Ralph Hood, Peter Hill, and Bernard Spilka have noted, in their comprehensive The Psychology of Religion, and basing their assessment upon decades of research, “as a broad generalization, the more religious an individual is, the more prejudiced that person is.”

Perhaps this helps explain why secular white people were more likely than religious white people to support the Civil Rights Movement, or why secular Americans today take a more accepting/generous attitude towards immigrants of color than religious Americans, or why secular white South Africans were more likely to be against Apartheid than religious white South Africans, or why secular Israelis today are more likely to support the human rights of Palestinians than religious Israelis.

…

… When it comes to racism, it is more likely to be found among the religious, and less likely among the secular.

Zuckerman isn’t saying that religious people are racist or that religion can’t be an inspiration to fight racism. Only that racism is less likely to be found in secular societies. Often times, God gets in the way of a more equal society.