Tag Archives: Racism

Let’s Not Stop With a Quote

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We heard a lot of Martin Luther King, Jr quotes in sermons on Sunday and in speeches on Monday.  There is a reason that Dr. King may just be the most quoted person on the planet.  His words lift us up, challenge us, calling us to be our better selves.

Sit back and read these words.  Let them soak into your spirit.  

  • “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: Only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate:  Only love can do that.”
  • “Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”
  • “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” 
  • “All we say to America is, ‘Be true to what you said on paper.’ …”
  • “Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think…The greater the lie, the more readily will it be believed.”
  • “I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.”  
  • “If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.”
  • “Everyone has the power for greatness, not for fame but greatness, because greatness is determined by service.” 
  • “Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.”

Today is Tuesday.  MLK Day is behind us.  

What will we do with these quotes?  Save them til MLK Day 2024?   

How about this:  Put the quotes into practice?

A Lesson From My Mom on Martin Luther King Jr Day

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As I celebrate the life of and lessons from Martin Luther King, Jr today, January 17, I am also thinking about my mom, whose 5th anniversary of her death is in two days, January 19 (I can’t believe it’s been 5 years). In the last 10 years of her life she and I had several conversations about social justice, as I was growing ever more passionate about the marginalized and justice issues. She expressed more times than I can count her regret over not participating in the march from Selma to Montgomery, March 7, 1965.

Her regret was deep, sincere, palpable.

In March of 1965 mom was a 31 year old mother of two daughters, ages 12 and 2, and one son, me, age 8, and a busy pastor’s wife of a growing Southern Baptist Church – which is a full-time, unpaid job. It’s understandable that she did not, could not, march.

“Phillip,” mom said to me, “I did not march. You can.”

Mom left me with a resolve to have no regrets…to do what I can to create a world driven by love and justice for all.

In response to Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech of August 28, 1963, Billy Graham said, “Only when Christ comes again will the little white children of Alabama walk hand in hand with little black children.”

Talk about a dream killer. If that’s true, why march? Let’s just sit and wait.

Mom didn’t believe that to be true. I don’t either.

I dream for a just, loving world. I will work to make the dream come true.

No regrets.

Just Listen.

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Just Listen

Amid the nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd, I’ve listened to the voices of the past and present.

Not to speak.

Not to react.

Not to defend.

Just to listen. 

As you read this post, I ask you to listen to the words of Coretta Scott King from her “Solidarity Day Address” delivered in Washington D.C. on June 19, 1968.

June 18, 1968, was the 15th anniversary of her marriage to Martin Luther King, Jr. Her husband had been assassinated two and a half months earlier (April 4, 1968), a victim of racial violence.

June 19, 1968, was two weeks after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (June 6, 1968). Her speech included a message from Ethel Kennedy, the wife of Senator Kennedy

Violence was on the mind of Coretta Scott King. 

But not the violence we might assume. Here are her words.  Hear them.  Feel them.  

“In this society, violence against poor people and minority groups is routine.  I remind you that starving a child is violence.  Suppressing a culture is violence.  Neglecting school children is violence.  Punishing a mother and her child is violence.  Discrimintion against a working man is violence.  Ghetto housing is violence.  Ignoring medical needs is violence.  Contempt of poverty is violence.  Even the lack of  willpower to help humanity is a sick and sinister form of violence.”

(Coretta Scott King, June 19, 1968)

 

The Creative Power of Words

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Words create worldsWords matter. 

Words have power.

Words are creative.

 

The poetry of the Bible colorfully expresses the creative power of words:

And God said, Let there be light… (Genesis 1:3).

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made  (Psalm 33:6).

…the worlds have been prepared by the spoken word of God (Hebrews 11:3).

 

With our words, we create worlds.  

 

I had a phone conversation yesterday with someone very close to Denise and me.  The call was on speaker so Denise and I could both participate. We are both involved in the sad, tragic situation which was the topic of the conversation.  The voice on the other end of the call told me that he was “done with me,” that I am, “dead to him,” that as far as he is concerned, I “no longer exist.”  

 

When the “goodbyes” were said. Denise and I looked at each other – in a state of disbelief – and she asked, “Does your stomach hurt?”  “Like a mother,” I answered. 

 

Words wrecked my world – at least my stomach. 

 

We create worlds with our words.  Maybe our words are not just a response to the world around us.  Maybe the world around us is a response to our words.

 

What kind of worlds are we creating with our words?  

 

A lot has been said and written since the shootings in El Paso and Dayton about our “environment of hate and racism” – our “world of hate and racism”.

 

Here’s my question:  

Have words created this world of hate and racism?

 

Yes. How can that be denied?  

Just read the manifesto of the shooter involved in the El Paso massacre.  

In it are words.  

Words of hate and racism. 

He refers to Latino/a immigrants as “invaders” who could only be stopped by deadly force.  He argues that interracial relationships are a reason to “send them back,” referring to second and third genertion Mexican-Americans.  

 

His words were fueled by hate.  His actions were fueled by words.  

 

Luke records the story of another terrorist in the 1st century who was fueled by hate.  The objects of his hate, the victims of his hate, were people of the Way – the Way of Jesus. Christ-followers.

Luke writes in Acts 9:1 that Saul was breathing threats and murder. The Greek word for “breathing” is “empnueo” from “en” and “pnueuo” – “in breath.”

 

Saul breathed the air of hate. He breathed it in. He breathed it out.

Inhale hate.

Exhale hate.

Commit acts of terror. 

 

Saul was a terrorist who lived in an atmosphere of hate.  His atmosphere changed when he “was blinded by the light” (Acts 9:3).

 

Whenever we speak we put words in the air.  

We create the air that others breathe.  

There are homes, schools, places of business and houses of government and worship where the air is polluted with hateful words. 

 

We can change the air quality.  We can create a better world.  Shed a little light. 

Yes, I am a master at mixing metaphors.  But you get the idea. 

 

Remember, this is not so much about the other guy as it is about me.  As it is about you. What are you and I doing to create with our words a better world?  

 

Is Racism Still a Thing?

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racism

 

“Why do you talk about racism?”  That’s the question I was asked by a man who had told me he was looking around for another church.

“Racism may have been a problem in your day, but we’re over it today,” the 30-something claimed.

“In your day” is kind of an “ouch” phrase, but I appreciate it.  I don’t want to be guilty of bringing into the present the problems of the past.

But, is racism an ancient problem of days gone by?  Oftentimes when I talk about racism, I get some push back:

“No one owns slaves.”

“I never see racism.”

“What I see is discrimination against whites.”

“We had a black President!”

What do you think?

Before you answer, read what happened to me last week.

I was at Sam’s Club in the fresh fruit section.   A food sampling stand made the aisle really narrow and crowded.  A narrow aisle and a wide cart.  And, I didn’t park my cart very well.  It was  sticking out into the aisle a bit.    Two African American ladies, maybe mother and daughter, were pushing their cart toward me.  I smiled at them and said, “Hey, how ya doing?” while pulling my cart closer to the fruit display to make room for them to get through.

You need to know that in the section of the cart where we used to set our kids, I now set my “man-bag.” Yes, I carry one.  That’s a topic for another post.

Another shopper passed by, leaned over to me, and said, “You were smart to protect your purse,” and kept right on walking.

I was stunned.

“Did I hear that right?”

“Did she really just say that?”
“Did she call my Man-Bag a purse?”
“Did she think I moved my cart out of fear that the two black ladies would steal my bag?”

Moving my cart, to her, was “smart?”  Really?

That’s why I talk about racism.

Racism is not a thing of yesterday.  It’s a thing today.

When I got home I told Denise about the experience.  “Did you say something to the lady?” she asked.  “No,” I answered, “I was too shocked.  By the time I came back to my senses, she was gone.”

Let’s be shocked by the labeling we see and the labeling we do.

Whenever we’re labeling, we’re not seeing.

Let’s come to our senses.

Let’s challenge ourselves and others.

Our youth choir at Forest Park Baptist Church, Joplin MO, used to sing a song called “Let There Be Peace on Earth.”

“Let there be peace on earth,  

And let it begin with me.

Let there be peace on earth,

The peace that was meant to be.

With God as our Father,

Brothers all are we.

Let me walk with my brother

In perfect harmony.”

Yes, that was “back in the day” – 1970 or 1971.

We needed it then.  We need it now.

“The Good Ship Jesus”

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Slave Ship Jesus

 

One of the most popular church songs during my teen years had these lyrics:

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus; there’s just something about that name.”

Master, Savior, Jesus; like the fragrance after the rain…”

The song was one of the hundreds of holy hits put out by the Gaithers – sung in churches all through the South.

The song reminded us of many attributes of Jesus.

Jesus:  Love, kindness, justice, gentleness, humility.  These are the words that come to my mind when I think of Jesus.

But how about these words?

Jesus:  Horror, suffering, injustice, slavery, torture.

The name of the first slave ship to kidnap Black Folks and take them to America was…are you ready?

“The Good Ship Jesus”

Yep, there was a slave ship named “Jesus.”  A place of suffering, injustice, slavery and torture, named after Jesus.

“The Good Ship Jesus” was captained by Sir John Hawkins.  Hawkins was considered to be a “religious gentleman” who insisted that his crew “serve God daily” and “love another.”  Worship services were held on board twice a day.

I’m pulling out my hair, right now.

A “religious gentleman”?

“Serve God” by enslaving people?

“Love another” except people of another race, I guess.

That was 1562.

Let’s move forward 300 years and look at and listen to Frederick Douglass – America’s most famous abolitionist.  According to an article in the January/February 2018 issue of Christianity Today, Douglass escaped slavery when he was 20.  Standing on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay one Sunday morning he cried out, “I am left in the hottest hell of unending slavery. O God save me!”

“I will run away…God helping me, I will.”  He did.

Douglass settled in Bedford, Massachusetts.  In 1841 he became a lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.  His assignment was to convince the American public of the immorality of slavery and the necessity of the anti-slavery cause. Douglass had a catchphrase.  You know, a catch-phrase is a well-known statement or phrase from a famous person or character, like these:

Harry Carry – “Holy Cow!”

Jack Buck – “That’s a Winner!”

The Terminator – “I’ll be Back.”

Han Solo – “May the Force Be With You”

Sheriff Brody in Jaws – “You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat”

Here is Douglass’ catch-phrase – a line he repeated in almost every address:

“Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible differences.”

In the Appendix of his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass condemned “corrupt, slaveholding women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity.”

Quoting from the Christianity Today article, “As Douglass knew from direct experience, the cruelest slaveholders were also often the most ardent church goers. ‘The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus.’”

Douglass continues with words that break my heart, “The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master…The slaveholder…covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity.”

Douglass lays it out there pretty plainly doesn’t he?

Here’s our “come to Jesus” moment:

What “infernal business” are we covering with the “garb of Christianity”?

Is there a difference between our Christianity and the Christianity of Christ?

What are we doing that Jesus wouldn’t do?

What are we doing to which Jesus would never attach his name?

I’m pretty sure Jesus would not want a slave ship to be named after him.

How did people in the past, who called themselves “Christians,” do things that, today, we so easily and readily recognize are nothing like Jesus?  Is anyone else besides me asking, “How could they have done that?!”

What things are we doing today, that people in the future will so easily and readily recognize are nothing like Jesus? Will someone in the future ask about us, “How could they have done that?!”

Jesus gave us some pretty good guidelines, which if followed, will keep us from today’s version of naming a slave ship after Him.

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

“As you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me.”

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. And love your neighbor as yourself. Do this and you will live.”

“Do not neglect the weightier matters of justice, mercy and faith.”

“Love one another as I have loved you.”

“…he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor…to set the oppressed free…”

So, by our lives, by our values, by our words and actions, what characteristics do people who know us attach to the name of Jesus?

Am I Racist?

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Am I Racist

 

One thing I did to honor Martin Luther King Jr. this weekend, was to take a test: The Implicit Association Test.  The test is designed to reveal how we really feel about certain topics.  The test-taker can pick from 14 topics.   I picked “Race IAT”.

The test took about 5 minutes.

“Are you a racist?” is a question that’s been in the news the last few days.  It’s a good question – a question I needed to ask myself, not just someone else.

Here’s what the test said about me:

“Our data suggests a slight automatic preference for European Americans over African Americans.”

Really? That’s terrible!  That’s not what I expected – at all.

Maybe I’m just a bad test-taker.

Maybe I got distracted.

Maybe I didn’t understand the questions.

Maybe it’s a bad test.

Or maybe the test is accurate and I’m not as unbiased as I thought.

It got worse.  The test-givers had a series of questions the test-takers might ask.  Here was one of them: “What can I do about an implicit preference that I do not want?”

That’s me. I didn’t want that evaluation.  I didn’t like my test score.  There have been a lot of test scores in my education path I haven’t liked.   But these results mattered more.  They hurt.

I don’t want to have any bias toward any group over another.  But I guess some part of me does. In Thomas Merton’s terms, that part of me is “the false self.”  So, what can I do to change it?  Here’s the answer from the test-givers: “Nothing.”  Here’s what they specifically said:

“Right now, there is not enough research to say for sure that implicit biases can be reduced, let alone eliminated.”

Well, that stinks.  I’m not going to accept that.  If I need to change, I will change.

I can be a “new person.”
“Old things have gone away, new things have come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). That’s hopeful!

“Everyone thinks about changing the world but no one things about changing himself.” Leo Tolstoy   That’s challenging.

No one comes out of the womb a racist.  No ones born harboring hateful, prejudicial thoughts or views toward others.  But, that baby grows up, and like a sponge soaks up the liquid into which it is dipped, children soak up the attitudes and perspectives of those people into whose lives they are submerged.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks to this when speaking of the Commissioners of Montgomery, Alabama who opposed him and his movement:

“They say the things they say about us and treat us as they do because they are taught these things.  From the cradle to the grave, it is instilled in them that the Negro is inferior.  Their parents probably taught them that; the schools they attended taught them that; the books they read, even their churches and ministers taught them that…”
“because they are taught these things.”
It was gracious of Dr. King to chalk up the hateful, racist, murderous views and actions of people to their upbringing.

If he is right, then Yoda’s words to Luke are right, “You must unlearn what you have learned.”  If I unlearn what I’ve learned, what do I relearn?  Maybe Jesus offers me the education I need:

“Take my yoke upon you. Learn of me because I am gentle and humble in spirit…” (Matthew 11:29).  

Jesus invites me to learn a new way. It is the way of my identity in God – my “true self” – Thank you Thomas Merton.  The way of gentleness and humility, the way of love.

God creates us in God’s own image.  Take a moment to let that sink in.  That’s big.  Teresa of Avila says our soul refers to our God-given godly nature.  Our God-given godly nature is the infinite reality of us.  Since God’s essence is love (1 John 4:8), we are love.

Let’s learn to live out who we are – to live out love.

And then let me take the test again.

 

 

Charlottesville and a Christ-less Christianity

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White Supremacist rally in Charlottesville

I’m still thinking about Charlottesville.  A lot of us are.

As a Christ-follower and pastor I am especially interested in the spiritual context in which these events of Charlottesville happened.

The symbols of the Charlottesville protests are familiar:

Confederate Flags.

Nazi Flags.

Nazi salutes.

We’re not as familiar with the spirituality of the symbols.

The symbols represent what I see as a “Christianity with Christ.”

Both Nazism and the Klan draw deep from the well of a “Christ-less Christianity. “

Nazi Germany was both a product of, and established in, Christian Europe.  Hitler’s favorite bed-time reading was Martin Luther.  Luther, though doing many good things (pretty good with a hammer and nail) was not perfect in his theology and practice – who is?
One view of Luther’s, embraced by Hitler, was his anti- Semitism.  Luther hated Jews.  I mean a deep down in his gut, burn down their houses, cut off their limbs, drown them, murder them, kind of hatred.

“Set fire to their synagogues or schools,” Luther wrote.

Jewish houses should be “razed and destroyed.”

“Force them to work, and deal harshly with them.”

“They must be driven from our country like mad dogs.”

Could the seed of Hitler’s hatred for and extermination of the Jews been planted by Luther?

Sure seems so.

On the night of November 10, 1938, Nazis killed Jews, shattered glass windows, and destroyed hundreds of synagogues.  Bishop Martin Sasse, a leading Lutheran pastor, immediately saw the connection between this event and Luther’s writings.  Shortly after the event, he published a collection of Luther’s anti-Semitic works.  In the forward, he applauded the “Kristallnacht” (The Night of Broken Glass), especially since it occurred on Luther’s birthday.  He also wrote that the German people should pay attention to the writings of Luther, who was the “greatest anti-Semite of this time, the warner of his people against the Jews.”

In his novel, “Mein Kampf,” Hitler himself named Luther as one of history’s reformers.  Hitler played the Jesus card.  In a speech on April 12, 1922, Hitler said,

“In boundless love, as a Christian and a human being, I read the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in his might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple broods of vipers and adders.  How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison.  I realize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that he had to shed his blood upon the cross.”

Also, in “Mein Kampf,” Hitler wrote, “By destroying the Jews, I am fighting Christ’s battles.”

Have you heard anything like the following?  “The national government…will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of out nation rests.  It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality.”  That statement is from none other than Adolf Hitler.  I guess not everyone who wants to protect Christianity is a Christian.

What kind of Christianity did Hitler want to protect?  On what kind of Christianity did Hitler base their “collective morality?”

On April 26, 1933, Hitler signed the Nazi-Vatican Concordat (Treaty) and said, “Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without religious foundation is built on air; consequently  all character training and religion must be derived from faith.”  I think I hear some “Amens!”

One last quote from Hitler.  It’s a clincher.  It’s from a speech he made in 1934 at Koblenz: “National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary it stands on the ground of a real Christianity.”  Wait.  One more…There are so many:  “We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the idea of Christianity…in fact our movement is Christian.”  

If you operate on the “A picture is worth a thousand words” philosophy, check out this “God With Us” belt buckle from Nazi German and a baptismal font showing Jesus hanging with Nazi soldiers:

god_with_ustruth-christ-church4

Is it possible that Christian teaching supplied the fuel for the crematoria?  Did Christian doctrine pave the way for the poison that filled the showers?  Did Christian teaching lead Germany’s church leaders to advocate murdering six million Jews?

I’m afraid so.  A Christ-less Christianity.  A love-less religion.

We are  more familiar with the connection between the KKK and Christianity.  This pic makes me laugh and scream at the same time.  It’s crazy.  It’s scary.KKK-Christian-Prayer-Meeting-1

The Christian connection still exists and is a prominent feature of the KKK.  Check out this note from kkknights.com, “Our goal is to help restore America to a white Christian nation, founded on God’s Word.” Or this one Frank Ancona, the imperial wizard of the Traditional American Knights of the KKK, “We are a Christian organization.”  

One of the organizers of the “Unite the Right” protest in Charlottesville was the neo-Confederate “League of the South.” Under the “Core Beliefs” section on their website are these words, “…our primary allegiance is to the Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Church.”  

I know.  Unbelievable.  My hands were shaking as I typed those words.

What does this mean?

First, we’ve all sighed with frustration over the, “We don’t recognize the user ID or password” error message we get when trying to log on to something.   I think I hear Jesus sighing as he looks at the Christianity practiced by these groups:  “I don’t recognize your Christian ID.”

The Christianity practiced by these hate groups is not Jesus.  

Is mine?  I have to look at my life, my behavior, my attitudes and ask, “Does my Christianity look like Christ?”  “Does Jesus look at me and say, ‘Yep, I recognize you as one of mine.’” “I see the love. I see the ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’”

Second, we need to admit that our brand of Christianity has failed to teach people to love others as they love themselves.  How can people continue to sit in our sanctuaries and Bible study classes and harbor hate toward others?  “And may the Lord cause you to increase and overflow with love for one another and for everyone else, just as our love for you overflows” (1 Thessalonians 3:12).

Third, Luke writes that Saul “was breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s followers” (Acts 9:1). The word “breathing out” is literally to “inhale” – “en pneo” – “in breathe.”  What I breathe in, I breathe out.   I need to spend some time each day breathing – breathing in the character and love of Jesus.  What I breathe in, I breathe out.

Fourth, let’s speak.  Let’s act.  “Where there is hatred, let us sow love.” 

Lord, save me from a “Christ-less Christianity.”

“White Christians Need to Act More Christian Than White” Jim Wallis

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The events of Charlottesville are heavy on my mind.  Yours too, I’m sure.

The question Marvin Gaye asked in 1971 is being asked today: “What’s Going On.”

The events did not happen in a vacuum.

There is a cultural, political, and a spiritual context.

Let’s talk spiritual.

American Christianity has a troubled relationship with race.  In the days of American slavery,  abolitionists and their opponents were inspired in their positions by their Christian faith.  As President Lincoln observed in his Second Inaugural Address, “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God…”  

How can two polar opposite views be based on reading the same book?  Doesn’t the Bible speak with a clear, unequivocal, singular voice?  Maybe not.

Many have found in the pages of the Bible

-comfort in and encouragement for their racist views.

-justification for slavery, for segregation, for feeling superior, for atrocious treatment of African-Americans and other minorities.

Christian slave-owners in the United States had plenty of go-to Bible verses.

“When a slave owner hits a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner should be punished.  But if the slave gets up after a day or two, the slave owner shouldn’t be punished because the slave is the owner’s property” (Exodus 22:20-21).  Really?  I honestly don’t know what to say about that.  That just doesn’t sound like Jesus.

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor” (Exodus 20:17).  Yep, #10 on the top 10 list of commands.  Do people really want to put a monument on public ground with this command?  A command that puts slaves and women, for that matter, on the same level as an “ox, or donkey”?  I’m afraid some do.

“Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all respect, not only for those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh” (1 Peter 2:18). Peter’s words were used by Christian slave owners ( and I use that phrase with reservation) to “control their Christian slaves” and keep them from protesting their brutal treatment.

The apostle Paul even returned a runaway slave (Onesimus) to his master (Philemon).  Slavery must be ok!  Look what Paul did.  Why didn’t Paul help Onesimus gain his freedom?  If Paul did not help an escaped slave, then we shouldn’t either!

Then there was the “Curse of Ham” in Genesis 9.  Genesis 9 has all the elements of an HBO special: nudity, sex, incest, dysfunctional families (Sounds like Game of Thrones!).  Genesis 9 describes how Noah cursed the descendants of his son Ham with slavery.  Over the centuries, Ham became widely portrayed as black.  Blackness and slavery and the idea of racial hierarchy became inextricably linked.  Many historians agree that by the 19th century the belief that African-Americans were descendants of Ham was a primary justification for slavery among Southern Christians.

Southern Baptists, the denomination in which I grew up, used a tucked away verse in Genesis to justify owning slaves.  It’s Genesis 4:15, which talks about the “mark of Cain.”  The Genesis story says God placed a “mark” on Cain for murdering his brother and lying about it.  Baptists in the South interpreted that “mark” to be dark skin.  Some Baptist pastors taught that there were separate heavens – one for blacks, one for whites.

In the early 1900s, William Archer, an Englishman, traveled by train and horse-back  through the South. He described the South as “sincerely religious.”  Yet, he also sarcastically observed, most southern Christians “would scarce be at ease in heaven unless they enter it, like a southern railway station, through a gate marked ‘for whites.’”

Ancient history?  Not at all.

Fundamentalist Bob Jones University continued its racist ways until 1971 when the IRS stepped in and threatened to remove its tax exempt status unless it integrated.  It was not until the year 2000 that BJU began to allow interracial dating.

And Southern Baptist?  It was not until 1995 that the denomination issued an official apology for its endorsement and  practice of slavery, segregation and white supremacism.

Biblically-based assaults on blacks have for sure decreased over the years but have not disappeared.

Mark Noll, in his book, “God and Race in American Politics:  A Short History,” said, “The Civil War solved the religion and slavery problem, but it did not solve the religion and race problem.”  

Do we still have a religion and race problem?  Consider:

1.   Barna Group released survey results regarding evangelical attitudes about racism in America.   For the study Barna interviewed some 2000 adults about racial tension in the U.S.  They found that evangelicals were almost twice as likely as the general population to agree strongly that “racism is mostly a problem of the past, not the present.”    Evangelicals were almost more than twice as likely to “strongly disagree” that people of color are socially disadvantaged because of race.

Brooke Hempell, VP of Research at Barna, put it this way:  “More than any other segment of the population, white evangelical Christians demonstrate a blindness to the struggle of their African-American brothers and sisters.  This is a dangerous reality for the modern church.  Jesus and His disciples actively sought to affirm and restore the marginalized and obliterate divisions between groups of people.”

Where are we in the survey?  Are we blind? Are we following the way of Jesus?

2.  How do we determine our ethics? Our values?  It’s a harsh fact that every person who values the Bible has to face:  the pro-slavery side in the days of the Civil War, the segregationists during the Jim Crow era and the Civil Rights battles of the 60s and 70s, and some of those who marched in Charlottesville, have more going for them in the way of Bible verses.

“The Civil War was also fundamentally a religious battle over how to interpret the Bible…” Mark Noll.

We’re still fighting that battle.  Have you met anyone whose philosophy of Bible reading is “Open it. Read it. Believe it. Do it”?  I have.  I was one.  But I didn’t know what to do with these slavery texts and many others!  Maybe there’s a further standard than the Bible.  Maybe ethics go Beyond the Bible to Jesus?

As abolitionist Gerrit Smith put it, “the religion taught by Jesus is not a letter but a life.”

Where do we get our sense of right and wrong?
On what do we base our ethics?
On what do we base our view and treatment of different races?

3.  Is it possible that the pervasive racism we see today was fomented by a church that was wrong. 

A church which took too long to recognize it was wrong.

And when it finally recognized  it was wrong took too long to confess it.

And in the confession of it, has not taken the necessary steps to

correct it,

condemn it,

make amends for it,

in order to eliminate it and prevent it from happening again?

Did the church help create the spiritual context for what we’re seeing?

Let’s work to create a new world: one of respect rather than rudeness, kindness not meanness, love not hate.

4.  How does Jesus counter the hate shown in Charlottesville?

 

 

 

Removing the Cheese Log Out of My Eye

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Image“If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.”  Paula Deen’s kitchen is pretty hot these days and some of her business partners are getting out.  They’re dropping her like a hot sweet potato covered in melted marshmallows – Ok, enough of the corny metaphors.  The situation with Paula Deen, along with the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case in Sanford, Florida and the Supreme Court’s action on “Affirmative Action” and the Voting Rights Act this week, and the protest of a Cheerios commercial showing a bi-racial couple,  show that race is still an issue in 2013.

In a teary interview on The Today Show, Paula said, “I am here today because I want people to know who I am and people that have worked beside me, have walked beside me, know what kind of person I am…People that I have never heard of are now experts of who I am.”

When Matt flat-out asked if Paula was a racist, she answered definitively, “No. No I’m not, no.”  I believe her, in that in her own mind, she doesn’t believe she is a racist.  In her eyes, she is not.  Honestly, I don’t think Paula hates black people. But her testimony in the deposition and other comments recorded on video indicates at least an insensitivity.

Admitting that she had used “the N word” with an “of course,” as if “everybody does it.”

Defending telling racial and ethnic jokes, “…Most jokes are about Jewish people, rednecks, black folks.  Most jokes target – I don’t know.  I didn’t make up the jokes, I don’t know.  I can’t – I don’t know…They usually target though a group.  Gays or straights, black, redneck, you know, I just don’t know. I can’t, myself, determine what offends another person.”

And wishing she could plan a “southern plantation wedding” for her brother, with African American servers in the part of slaves.

My point of this post is not to “pile on” Paula Deen.
I have some experience with people talking about me in ways that misrepresent me and my views so I am sensitive to that issue with others.
I respect her request of America to “not throw stones.”  While it’s easy to point a finger, I realize that there are three fingers pointed back at me.

I wonder if we like Paul Deen type episodes. They allow us to focus our attention on the splinter in the eye of someone else while ignoring the log in our own eye.

My point is to ask the Lord if I am blind to any behaviors or attitudes that are insensitive and/or offensive to people.

I just fixed some hot tea.  Love it.  The tea in the bag was diffused in the water – effortlessly, completely.  I think that’s what happens with prejudice.  It seems to infiltrate our hearts and culture – sometimes silently.     Psychologists talk about “symbolic racism” – instances of individuals using code words that tend to indicate racial prejudice without being overtly racist themselves.  For example: If you’re complaining that you aren’t allowed to use the N-word while other people get to, you just might be a symbolic racist.

I’m not a Paula Deen food fan.  I don’t put mayo on my corn on the cob. We have none of her cookbooks in our home. We don’t use her recipes.  I think she’s a nice person and I believe her when she says “I have never intentionally hurt anybody on purpose, and I never would.”  She is learning, and I hope I will as well, to know and avoid what hurts people.