Why Words Matter: Helping Kids Think About Terms Like "Racist"

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Words have power, but how do we help kids use them wisely? In this episode of the Foundation Worldview Podcast, we explore a thoughtful, biblical approach to discussing terms like "racist" with children. Learn a four-step process to investigate meanings, apply Scripture, compare worldviews, and take action. This practical episode equips parents, teachers, and ministry leaders to guide children in evaluating ideas through the lens of a biblical worldview. Discover how intentional training in careful thinking can help kids stand firm in truth and avoid cultural confusion.

Transcript

Note: The following is an auto-transcript of the podcast recording.

Hello, friends. Today's podcast question says, "how do I best help kids understand why the word racist can't just be thrown around flippantly? As a middle school teacher, I hear this word used so often in response to a comment, a book, even just using any word such as black during a lesson, how do I help them respond more thoughtfully?" Now, this is a good question, and even though you as a listener may not be dealing with this exact same question, I think it's important for us to think through how do we help our children critically think through the terminology that they're exposed to and the terminology that they're using? Because words are very powerful tools, and so we want to teach our children to think carefully through the language and the words that they hear and think carefully about the words that they use.

So that's what we're going to dive down deep into today on the Foundation Worldview Podcast, where we seek to answer your questions so that you can equip the children that God has placed in your care to carefully evaluate every idea they encounter and understand the truth of the biblical worldview.

Now, as we think through this concept of words and how words are used and making sure words are evaluated and used carefully, those of you who have gone through our Careful Thinking curriculum here at Foundation Worldview, you know that this is exactly what we seek to do in unit two of that curriculum. We actually have several lessons where we have kids evaluate and investigate different definitions of the same word, and then we give them situations where they have to decide, okay, which definition of the word is being used? Can I tell just from the sentences that this person said or do I have to ask further questions to determine how this person is defining this word? So if you are working with children ages 10 on up, I highly recommend that you check out our Careful Thinking curriculum. Of all of the curriculums we have available at Foundation Worldview, our Careful Thinking one has the fewest number of license holders, meaning that it's our curriculum that is used least frequently of all of our curriculums, but the content in it is so vital for equipping kids to carefully and biblically navigate all that they are going to face in culture. So highly recommend you check out our Careful Thinking curriculum.

Now, what I'm going to walk us through is a formula that we do go through in this curriculum as well as our Careful Thinking or our Comparative Worldview curriculum that I think can equip us to help our kids think critically and biblically through any topic. So I'm going to go through a four part formula. First, I'm going to give all four steps. Then we're going to dive down into each of the four steps specifically regarding this questioner's question about the term racist. So the four part formula that I think we can take our kids through is first one, investigate the meaning of the word. Two, ask what Scripture says about this topic. Three, compare and contrast what Scripture says about this topic with what the world says about it. And four, ask what you should do now that you know this.

Okay, so the first step, investigate the meaning of the word. So if you're talking with kids about their use of the word racist or racist, just go to a dictionary and investigate what does the dictionary say about this word? So according to the Oxford English Dictionary, racism is "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual community or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized" and say, okay, this is how our world is defining racism. And talk through it. Break down the definition, look at keywords there. You can actually print out the definition, have your kids highlight keywords, talk through what they mean, so you get a full understanding of how is this word being defined.

The second step is ask what Scripture says about this topic. Okay, so what does Scripture say about treating people with prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism based on some certain feature that they have? Well, I think there are several key biblical principles we want our kids to know about this and we can take them, right Scripture. The first biblical principle that we want them to glean is that all humans are created in God's image. Genesis one verse 27 says, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." So we want to take our kids to this person and say, what truth does this reveal about humans? It reveals that all humans are created in God's image.

Another truth we want our children to see from Scripture is that all humans come from one common ancestor, Adam. This is made clear in Acts chapter 17, verses 26 through 27, this passage reads, "And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each of us." So we can read this passage with our children and say, okay, what truths are revealed in this passage? That he made from one man, Adam, every nation. Okay, so there aren't truly different races of people. There is just one race, the human race, because we as humans have a common ancestor, Adam.

Another biblical truth we're going to want our children to understand is that showing partiality towards one person over another is sin, is that's what racism actually is. Racism is the sin of partiality. And in James chapter two, in the first nine verses, James outlines the sin of partiality. Now, because this is a short podcast, I'm not going to read all nine verses. I'm just going to read verses one, eight and nine, but you can read all nine with your children and verses one, eight and nine in James chapter two, say, "My brothers, show no partiality as you hold faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. If you really fulfill the royal law according to Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors." So this makes clear, James makes clear that showing partiality towards one person over another is sin. It's breaking God's moral law. So we want our kids to understand this, that showing partiality is a sin.

Then we want our kids to also see that God desires for his people to act justly. A very clear passage of Scripture that shows this as Micah chapter six, verses six through eight, and this passage reads, "'With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?' He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? So that is what God has required of his people to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with God. So God does require his people to act justly.

And then one other truth that I think it's important for us to help our children see is that just treatment includes everyone, not just the marginalized. Yes, God has a special heart for the poor and the downtrodden and the outcast, but justice is not just limited to marginalized people. This is made clear in Exodus chapter 23 verses one through three. This passage says, "You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit." Okay, so in this God is explaining what justice looks like in the courts as people are put on trial, and one of the things he says is that you're not to show partiality towards someone just because he is poor. Now, if this poor person is being mistreated, that is unjust. And what is made clear in this passage is that you are to pursue justice. So seeking justice for this poor person is what is just, but you're not supposed to give to someone what they're asking for in court just simply because of their economic situation. So just treatment includes everyone, not just the marginalized. Okay, o that was the second step to ask what Scripture says about this topic.

Third, we need to compare and contrast what Scripture says about this topic with what the world says. Now, if you have already taken your children through Foundation Comparative Worldview curriculum, this is going to be super easy because your kids have already gone through this formula. They're already used to looking at different worldview issues, investigating what Scripture says, and then comparing and contrasting what Scripture says with what other worldviews teach. So if you've already gone through that curriculum, you are set on the trajectory to do this in all other areas of life. If you've never gone through those curriculums, one, I highly recommend you go through the curriculum with your children. But two, here's how you can do this. So we just looked at one of the biblical principles is all humans are created in God's image. That's what Scripture teaches. What does the secular world teach? Well, the secular world teaches that humans are the product of blind unguided evolution. Okay? We're not created in God's image, so therefore we create our own meaning and our own value. That's vastly different than the biblical view that all humans are created in God's image and therefore have inherent meaning and value and worth.

Next biblical principle we looked at is all humans come from a common ancestor. Adam, what's the secular view? The secular view is that humans have evolved from different hominids. Therefore, there truly are different races. According to the biblical worldview, there are no different races. There is one race, the human race, but according to the secular view, there genuinely are different races that when we look different than different people, that's because we have come from different common ancestors, and so we are genuinely different races, but that's not what the biblical worldview teaches.

Okay. Next, we looked at, according to the Bible, showing partiality towards one person over another is sin, where according to the secular view, partiality is a sin if you are in the dominant group. Partiality is okay, it's even a good thing if you are part of an oppressed group. So the biblical view is partiality towards anyone from anyone is wrong. The secular view partiality is wrong in certain situations. It's okay in others.

Next biblical principle we looked at is God desires for his people to act justly. Now, the secular view is that humans should act justly, but this justice is a subjective, manmade justice. It's not rooted in God's standard and God's character in nature. It's just rooted in however humans at the time, subjectively view just treatment.

Then we looked at the final biblical principle. Just treatment includes everyone, not just the marginalized, where the secular view is that only the marginalized know what true justice is, and only the marginalized can speak on justice through their lived experience. Okay. So we see that the biblical view of how we're supposed to view racism is very different than what the secular view is because of these foundational principles, these worldview principles that are so different in the biblical worldview than the secular worldview.

So then the fourth step is to ask what you should do now that you know this. Well, one, we should seek to treat all humans as God's image barriers that we should treat all humans justly. Then we also should seek justice as God defines it, that we need to look for what does God describe as just, and so then how does this apply to the word racism or racist being used? Well, the accusation of someone or something being racist should not be thrown around flippantly because it's clear from Scripture that partiality is a serious sin. And before we label someone or something as racist saying that they're participating in the sin of partiality, we need to ensure that that is an accurate description. We need to make sure that we are not throwing around a false accusation. And then when someone or something is genuinely racist, if they truly are participating in the sin of partiality, we should be faithful at confronting that sin even and especially when it costs us something. So when we do this, when we go through this formula, I hope you see how it can help us and our children think clearly. It can help us think biblically. It can help us see how biblical thinking is different than secular thinking, and then it can give us a clear path forward for what to do.

Now if you are listening to this podcast and you're thinking, oh my goodness, Elizabeth, that was really great. I think what you did was accurate. I think it was biblical. I think it was needed, but there's no way I could sit down and have a conversation like that with my kids. I don't know. I need you to do this podcast with them. That's exactly why we create curriculum here at Foundation Worldview so that as long as you know how to press, print and play on a computer, you can have us at Foundation Worldview walk, you and the children God has placed in your care through all of these things. So highly recommend you check out our Comparative Worldview and our Careful Thinking curriculums because exactly what I modeled for you in this podcast is what we do in those curriculums. Now, I have to give you a warning. Going through these curriculums involves time, and it involves energy. So it's going to involve an hour of your week every week for 25 to 30 weeks. I know that is a huge investment. However, you have to view it just as that an investment. It's an investment that will pay dividends in the future. If you invest one hour per week now, you are equipping your children to think critically and biblically, and the goal is that through this one hour investment per week, you are going to save yourself and your children years of heartache in the future that they're not going to get entangled in these lies of the culture. Now, is it possible that you can go through these curriculums and they still get entangled in those lies? Yep, that's possible. But you know what? It is much less likely that that will happen with this proper training. So by investing an hour once a week, you are potentially saving yourself and your children years of heartache from them getting ensnared in the lies of the culture. Friends, it is so worth it to train your children well.

That's a wrap for this episode. If you found the content of this podcast beneficial, please make sure you invest the few seconds that it takes to write a review, to like and to subscribe. Also, if you have a question that you would like for me to answer on a future Foundation Worldview podcast, you can submit that question by going to FoundationWorldview.com/podcast. As we enter our time together, my prayer for you is that no matter the situation in which you and the children God has placed in your care, find yourselves that you would trust that God is working all things together for your good by using all things to inform you more into the image of His Son. I'll see you next time.