One Blood, One Earth, One Humanity — So Why Does Empire Still Divide Us?

By Dr. Gloria Zuurveen, Minister, Branch of Christ Outreach Ministry (BCOM)

Acts 17:24-26 declares a truth that mankind has struggled to accept since the beginning of civilization: “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else… And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.”

Before there were kingdoms, crowns, races, borders, governments, or empires, there was God. The Creator made the heavens, the earth, the dust, and man himself. Therefore, no man possesses authority greater than what has already been allowed by the Creator of all things. Humanity did not create itself. Civilization did not breathe life into itself. Even the dust from which man was formed belongs not to man, but to God. The Bible makes clear that all nations came from one blood, one source, one Creator.

It is from this biblical foundation that the modern conversation about race, empire, and civilization must begin.

The book Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered by historian and archaeologist Peter S. Wells challenges many long-held assumptions about the formation of European civilization. Wells does not argue racial mythology, nor does he claim that one race exclusively built Europe. What he does expose, however, is the false narrative that Europe emerged solely from a superior, isolated civilization untouched by migration, cultural blending, warfare, trade, and outside influence. Instead, the archaeological evidence reveals a far more interconnected and complicated story about the peoples once labeled “barbarians” and how they eventually transformed into organized kingdoms and empires that reshaped the world.

 

The Southern Truth is that once the myth of racial purity collapses, history itself begins to look very different.

Wells explains that the so-called “Dark Ages” were not simply a collapse into chaos, but a period of transformation. The peoples outside of Rome who were once dismissed as uncivilized eventually learned how to organize political systems, military power, trade networks, and religious institutions strong enough to create what later became the foundation of modern Europe. The former barbarians became kings. Kingdoms became empires. And empires eventually stretched their influence across Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the rest of the world.

That matters today because modern politics still operates under the shadow of those old imperial systems.

The British Crown continues to carry symbolic global influence. European alliances continue shaping military strategy, finance, diplomacy, and economics.

America remains deeply tied to European geopolitical interests while simultaneously negotiating new economic realities with nations like China. As former President Donald Trump engages China in discussions surrounding trade and global economics, many Americans increasingly wonder whether modern nations are functioning less like independent democracies and more like interconnected confederacies of financial and military power operating beyond the understanding of ordinary working citizens.

Meanwhile, many Americans are simply trying to survive.

The descendants of enslaved Negro Americans of African descent continue to battle systems that were originally designed to exclude, exploit, and economically disadvantage them, while political leaders spend billions abroad defending global interests that many working Americans neither benefit from nor fully understand.

That contradiction did not emerge by accident. It was built over centuries through empire, conquest, slavery, colonization, and the creation of racial hierarchy.

The Southern Truth is that race itself became one of empire’s greatest inventions. Once European colonial powers built economies around slavery and expansion, they needed a justification powerful enough to normalize domination. Whiteness became associated with citizenship, ownership, and political protection, while Blackness became linked to servitude, exclusion, and economic exploitation. Entire systems of law, education, religion, banking, media, and government were constructed around maintaining those divisions.

 

But Acts 17 destroys the very foundation of that lie.

God made all nations from one blood. Not separate bloodlines. Not separate creations. One human family sharing the same earth and ultimately returning to the same dust. Dust does not discriminate. Graves do not segregate. Every empire, every king, every president, every laborer, and every citizen eventually returns to the earth from which humanity was created.

And perhaps that is what makes truthful history so dangerous to systems of power.

The descendants of enslaved Negro Americans of African descent were stripped not only of labor and land, but also of language, lineage, culture, historical continuity, and identity. Many were taught slavery as their beginning rather than understanding the deep global contributions of African civilizations to science, mathematics, spirituality, architecture, trade, philosophy, and human development long before European colonial expansion. Disconnect a people from their historical identity, and they become easier to control politically, economically, and psychologically.

At the same time, many working-class Americans of every race are beginning to question why global conflicts and international alliances consistently receive massive financial investment while communities at home continue struggling with housing instability, failing infrastructure, healthcare costs, educational inequality, inflation, and economic insecurity.

The Southern Truth is that empires throughout history eventually overextended themselves when maintaining global dominance became more important than serving ordinary people. Rome did it. Britain did it. Colonial powers did it. And modern nations risk repeating the same cycle when power replaces humanity as the central objective.

Yet Acts 17 reminds the world that no empire stands above God.

He is not confined to temples made by human hands. He is not dependent upon crowns, armies, governments, economies, or political systems. He alone gives life, breath, and all things. Every nation rises under His allowance and falls under His authority.

And perhaps that is the deeper lesson hidden beneath both scripture and history itself: humanity keeps dividing what God already declared united.

One blood.
One earth.
One Creator.

Until the world confronts that truth honestly, the wounds of race, empire, historical deception, and division will continue poisoning generations who were never meant to hate one another in the first place.

That is the Southern Truth.