Racism is a sin that has been biblically established. It was and is America’s original sin. Racism is notoriously both implicit and explicit, but covert and overt racism must be acknowledged and repented. When racism is made explicit and overt in the public arena, it must be named and called out for what it is — especially when the comments come from the president of the United States. Donald Trump’s tweeted and spoken racial assaults on four women of color, duly elected to the U.S. Congress, are a public sin that must be called out. Who will do that and who will not?

Trump’s tweets on Sunday and comments at the White House since, telling the four members of Congress — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib — to go back to the countries they came from is painfully reminiscent of what people and families of color have been told from the moment they arrived in America by far too many white people — all of whom were also immigrants at some point or were white settlers who stole the lands of Indigenous Peoples and tried to wipe them away.

Such comments are always racist. They are offensive to our founding ideals, despite how badly those principles were flawed and inconsistent by race and gender in their application. But an attack on persons of color, all made in the image of God and deserving of equal dignity and respect as God’s children and as U.S. citizens, is offensive to God.

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