Racism is the denial of the image of God and its implications to someone of another ethnicity. Racism in the church is a contradiction of the visible unity of all believers in Christ. Racism inside and outside the church is a contradiction of Jesus’ command to love our neighbor as ourselves and of God’s creation of all people in his image.
How 19th century Presbyterians simultaneously faithfully defended historic Christian orthodoxy against Enlightenment rationalistic anti-supernaturalism, and accommodated (indeed undergirded) America’s original sin: race-based chattel slavery (and later segregation).