Many people claim they want to “come together” to solve America’s racial problems. Many claim they want “unity.” And those are vital goals. But to be helpful, unity must be grounded in truth. Where do we find truth and unity? Here are 19 of the most important things from God’s Word that unify us all:

19 Points of Racial Unity from God’s Word

1. We are all created in God’s image: “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:26)
2. We are all of the same race: “God made from one blood every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth.” (Acts 17:26)
3. We all have objective legal guilt before the true Creator: “There is none righteous, not even one.” (Romans 3:10)
4. We all have evil thoughts: “There is none who understands.” (Romans 3:11)
5. We all have evil and anti-God motives: “There is none who seeks after God.” (Romans 3:11)
6. We all have an evil will: “All have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:12)
7. We all say evil things: “Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving; the poison of asps in under their lips; whose mouth is full of bitterness and cursing.” (Romans 3:13, 14)
8. We all treat others in evil, destructive ways: “Their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known.” (Romans 3:15-17)
9. We are all by nature alienated from God by our own choice: “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:18)
10. We are all accountable to God for these sins and face judgment: “so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God.” (Romans 3:19)
11. We are all guilty of sin against God and others: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23)
12. We are all loved by God: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son” (John 3:16)
13. We must all be pardoned through faith in Christ’s sacrificial death: “being justified [pardoned and pronounced righteous] as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as an atoning sacrifice in His blood, through faith.” (Romans 3:24, 25)
14. All who accept Christ’s pardon are one spiritual body: “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews, or Greeks [Gentiles of all ethnicities], whether slaves or free, and were all made to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13)
15. All who are in the risen Christ are empowered to live by the Spirit that unifies us: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-24)
16. All are called to renounce the works of the sin nature, actions that would eliminate racial hatred, among many other sins. All are called to put off: “immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealously, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing . . . Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.” (Galatians 5:19-21, 26)
17. All are to reject treating members of classes either with favoritism or disdain: “do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism . . . if you show partiality, you are committing sin.” (James 2:1, 9)
18. Members of all ethnicities who are cleansed by Christ will dwell with Him in Heaven forever: “I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and people and tongues, standing around the throne and before the Lamb [i.e., Christ].” (Revelation 7:9)
19. All who reject Christ will be exiled away from God in a place of true justice: “they were judged, every one of them, according to their deeds . . . This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown in the lake of fire.” (Revelation 20:14-15)

Ultimately, there will be only two groups: People joined in sin and death, and pardoned sinners joined together forever in Christ. John Newton was a former slave trader and admitted murderer of a black child — and author of the hymn Amazing Grace. He said, “I am a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior.”

Is Anyone Guiltless?

The problem is sin. Countless sins are running rampant across the globe. They are rushing through the streets of our nation. They are flowing through the spiritual veins of every individual soul, including yours and mine. Countless sins. No person, of any ethnicity, is guiltless.

Yet Americans are tearing our country apart picking at each other’s sins and perceived sins. We’re reading the lines from a diabolical script written to abolish our system of government, destabilize our social order and marginalize biblical Christianity. Those with power agendas are dividing and conquering. Too many Christians are falling for it.

There are some Christians who downplay the church’s problems with race. They should not; the reality is that those problems have existed, and to an extent still do.

Yet now there are “woke” Christians who say ethnically white individuals should have no voice. They claim all whites are at best “passively racist” because they are part of the white “system.” Whites, they say, need to be quiet. To sit down, or even kneel. To listen to lectures and testimonies about racism until they feel sufficiently guilt-stricken and sign on to dubious political “solutions.”

What Will Help?

There is no Utopian cure. No magic pill. The most basic personal solution is to love your neighbor, of any skin pigmentation, as yourself. And we should practice individual repentance and reconciliation for specific, personal, individual sins, as prescribed by the Bible. Beyond that? There are many tools available:

• Meditate on the 19 biblical truths listed above — they are humbling yet hopeful.
• Don’t roll back religious liberty, but allow Christian values to pervade the culture.
• Model natural, unforced, non-token relationships between ethnicities — both in churches and outside of them.
• Forge alliances between churches that are predominantly one ethnicity or another.
• Mutual dialogue without recriminations or condemnation.
• Common sense police reform in screening, hiring, training and accountability.
• Welfare reform to combat the cycle of poverty, dependency and family breakdown.
• Addressing lack of fathers (in all ethnicities). Less than 25 percent of black children are raised in intact families, compared to more than 75 percent in the early 1960s. Most social scientists agree this feeds many problems and leads to social friction.

• Businesses can weed out employment inequities without eradicating merit.
• Implement school choice to give education freedom to minorities. Polls show minorities want this reform, but both progressive unions and “conservative” suburban school boards often stand in the way.
• Give merit pay to teachers, especially in disadvantaged communities, as Dallas has done with promising results.
• Stop aborting babies, a disproportionate number of whom are people of color, and foster a culture of respect for all life.
• Bring together local African-American leaders and law enforcement to candidly discuss how police can handle the high rates of crime by blacks without degrading members of the general African-American community — the vast majority of whom are law-abiding citizens — in routine patrolling. Camden, New Jersey, is an example.
• Follow up on the Trump administration’s recent bipartisan “First Step Act” for criminal justice reform, which was a landmark law that helped African-Americans.
• Keep advancing the administration’s Opportunity Zones; Opportunity Scholarships; and tax reforms that have benefited minorities in employment and work against the cycle of poverty.

Those are all doable, and will help a lot. And this list is only partial.

What Won’t Help?

Ignoring the issue. Defunding the police. Villainizing all law enforcement. Voting for Socialists. Eliminating free enterprise. Destroying law and order. Screaming at police and motorists. Blocking roads. Tearing down the nuclear family. More welfare dependency. Reparations. Unbiblical forms of repentance. Pandering and tokenism. And perpetuating mentalities of victimhood or false guilt based on skin color.

We’re united in our rebellion against God. We’re united in our desperate need of His grace, mercy and forgiveness. So let’s be humble. Let’s focus. Let’s not think unwisely, but biblically. Let’s not play into malevolent secular agendas from any direction. Then, and only then, can those of good will join in unity to address what injustices we can before our brief lives end or Christ returns.

Christopher Corbett is a writer working with policy organizations and ministries. He was a vice president at a national religious liberty legal organization, and helped facilitate a racial reconciliation process at a Bible college/seminary. He holds a political science degree from the University of Chicago.