I was 15 years of age (growing up in White-ruled and racially segregated Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe) when I read in Time<\/i> magazine about the Bible Belt of the southern United States. I still recall my disbelief and puzzlement. How could the \u201cBible Belt\u201d be the most Christian region in the United States and also be the most segregated and racist? <\/p>\n
To me there was a clear-cut difference between Whites who were Christians and those who were not. I had seen the difference in the love and kindness of Father Mangan, the Catholic priest who was my high school headmaster. I had seen the difference in the empathy and love of Elder Norman Doss, an American Seventh-day Adventist pastor, who with his wife used to visit our family in the Black township.<\/p>\n
Indeed, I used to think that if all the White people were like Father Mangan and Elder Doss there would be no \u201ccolor bar\u201d (segregation by race) in Rhodesia. And this wasn\u2019t a naive youthful imagination. I was deeply impressed that Elder Doss and his missionary associates challenged the \u201ccolor bar\u201d after my father was refused the permit to build the regional headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (projects of that size were reserved for White building contractors). As a result, my father got the contract, which made him one of the wealthier Blacks in Salisbury (now Harare) in the late 1950s. <\/p>\n
As it is, such was the impression of Father Mangan and Elder Doss on my youthful sensibilities that in my teens whenever I was called \u201ckaffir\u201d (a derogatory equivalent of \u201cnigger\u201d in Rhodesia and South Africa) or racially victimized, I used to say to myself, \u201cThat White person is mean and hateful because he\/she isn\u2019t a Christian like Father Mangan and Elder Doss.\u201d Again because of their influence, I didn\u2019t accept the facile popular view (in preindependence Zimbabwe) that the Bible justified White superiority, Black inferiority, and slavery, or that Christianity was an accomplice of colonialism and racism.<\/p>\n
These unarticulated childhood memories and views came to mind recently as I read White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity<\/i> (2020), by Robert P. Jones, the CEO and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). That Jones, a White American Christian from the Deep South\u2014Mississippi\u2014can clearly see and forthrightly expose and condemn as unbiblical and unchristian \u201cthe unholy relationship between American Christianity and white supremacy,\u201d confirmed my childhood intuition that there is a clear difference between Whites who are Christians and those who are not.<\/p>\n
And to be sure, there must be a clear difference between a Christian and the non-Christian members of his\/her race, tribe, or nation, and even his\/her family. For at the foundation of the Christian faith is the call to break with familial or natural relations\u2014a break so radical that Jesus expressed it as \u201chatred\u201d of one\u2019s family members and even one\u2019s own life (see Luke 14:26). Natural relations must be \u201chated\u201d because they are tainted with self-interest, hypocrisy, and betrayals. They are not based on genuine love because they are not based on God, and God is love. In the case of racial, ethnic, or national relations, they are actually based on hatred and the demonization of the other. <\/p>\n
To put it differently in the words of S\u00f8ren Kierkegaard: \u201cThere is genuine conflict between what God and the world understand by love. . . . Purely human conception of love can never go further than mutuality.\u201d But far different from mutuality is what God\u2019s love is and does. Unconditional and universal, it embraces everyone, even the vile. \u201cGod demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us\u201d (Romans 5:8).* \u201cThis is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. . . . Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another\u201d (1 John 4:10, 11). Or in Jesus\u2019 own words: \u201cAs I have loved you, so you must love one another\u201d (John 13:34). <\/p>\n
Jesus made love the mark of Christian identity. \u201cBy this everyone will know you are my disciples if you love one another\u201d (John 13:35). And Jesus Himself exemplified this love on the cross. \u201cThis is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters\u201d (1 John 3:16). If the Christian life is an imitation of Christ\u2019s self-sacrificing love, the standard is painfully too high\u2014indeed, it\u2019s humanly impossible. This impossibility is what is expressed in the Protestant doctrine of sola gratia<\/i>, by grace alone. <\/i>For God\u2019s grace alone<\/i> can enable us to imitate Christ\u2019s self-sacrificing love. <\/i><\/p>\n
But even with divine grace, self-sacrificing love is still painful and repulsive. Early Christians shrunk from it, and sought to diminish the self-denial and humility it demanded. That\u2019s why Paul called it \u201cthe offense of the cross\u201d in Galatians 5:11. As a matter of fact, the history of Christianity is a history of diminishing, or eliminating outright, \u201cthe offense of the cross.\u201d And this elimination of \u201cthe offense of the cross,\u201d or the imitation of Christ, as the sine qua non of Christian life is what deformed the gospel into religious ideas, traditions, and rituals that could be used as cultural artifacts for building Western civilization and for justifying racism and White supremacy. <\/p>\n
Note must be taken, however, that the New Testament predicted and warned about the corruption of the gospel by self-seeking false prophets and false christs: Matthew 24:4, 5, 11, 23, 24; Mark 13:5, 6; Luke 21:8; John 15:2; Acts 20:28-31; 2 Thessalonians 2:3-10; 1 Timothy 4:1, 2; 2 Timothy 4:3, 4; 2 Peter 2:1-3; 1 John 4:1-3. Yet curiously, all these predictions and warnings are overlooked in the narratives of the historical crimes blamed on Christianity\u2014the Crusades, Inquisition, anti-Semitism, colonialism, racism, slavery, oppression, White supremacy, and so on. But by overlooking them, we have the supreme irony of Christianity being criticized and condemned for crimes it foresaw and condemned as the work of the antichrist. <\/p>\n
To return to \u201cthe unholy relationship between American Christianity and white supremacy,\u201d it must be seen as the predicted corruption of the gospel, a species of the \u201cspirit of the antichrist\u201d (1 John 4:3). For against Christ\u2019s explicit commandment, it set up a master\/slave relationship in the church, the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27). Yet Jesus Himself said, \u201cAll ye are brethren. . . . Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, <\/i>even Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant\u201d (Matthew 23:8-11, KJV). Again, \u201cthe rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave\u2014just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many\u201d (Matthew 20:25-28).<\/p>\n
On this reading, if Whites are \u201csuperior,\u201d as White supremacists claim, then they are to serve, be slaves, of the \u201cinferior\u201d Blacks. Their \u201cattitude\u201d should the same as that of Christ Jesus: \u201cwho, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant\u201d (Philippians 2:6, 7). If the idea of \u201csuperior\u201d Whites being willing<\/i> \u201cslaves\u201d of \u201cinferior\u201d Blacks is incongruously inconceivable, scandalous to racial sensibilities, that\u2019s the \u201coffense of the cross,\u201d the radical implication of Christ\u2019s servanthood, which inscribed, as Phillips Brooks put it, \u201cthe right of the weaker over the stronger as part of the moral structure of the universe.\u201d <\/p>\n
To be sure, Christ servanthood\u2019s \u201ctransvaluation of values\u201d is what revolted Friedrich Nietzsche, the self-described antichrist, because, as he argued, \u201ca higher culture can come into existence only where there are two different castes in society.\u201d He derisively called the gospel \u201cslave morality.\u201d For by elevating the weak it destroyed the \u201cmaster morality,\u201d pagan aristocratic values, and culturally the consequence was\u2014mediocrity and degeneration. \u201cWe must all agree to the truth, which sounds cruel,\u201d wrote Nietzsche, \u201cthat slavery is essential to culture,\u201d and a strong, healthy society. That\u2019s why democracy and equality, \u201cChristianity made natural,\u201d as he called them, are a cultural catastrophe, an \u201cabolition of society.\u201d <\/p>\n
White American Christianity, to be sure, was not influenced by Nietzsche, but judged by its justification of slavery, embrace of White supremacy, its cruelty and violence\u2014it\u2019s not Christian but Nietzschean. It \u201ccovers [its] infernal business with a garb of Christianity,\u201d to cite Frederick Douglass. Indeed, below the garb is a \u201cwill to power,\u201d Nietzsche\u2019s countergospel of the Superman and the elite, which sacrifices the weak to the gods of culture and aristocratic way of life. It\u2019s pagan, all too pagan. It reflects the dictum of Tacitus, the Roman historian that \u201cthe gods are on the side of the stronger.\u201d Essentially, like Nietzsche, White American Christianity is a revolt against the fundamental message of the Hebrew prophets and of Jesus, that God is on the side of the weak, the poor, the stranger, the widow, and the orphan.<\/i><\/p>\n
Indeed, in the final judgment our eternal destiny will turn on one point:\u2014whatever we did for \u201cthe least of these\u201d (Matthew 25:40). \u201cWhy do you judge your brother or sister? For we will all stand before God\u2019s judgment seat\u201d (Romans 14:10). So \u201cdo nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves\u201d (Philippians 2:3). Again, \u201chonor one another above yourselves\u201d (Romans 12:10). Christianity recognizes the reality of human distinctions or hierarchies, but completely eliminates them. \u201cThere is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ\u201d (Galatians 3:28). And it is \u201cby winning the victory over the temptation of distinctions [that one] becomes a Christian,\u201d as Kierkegaard wrote in Works of Love.<\/i> <\/p>\n
Victory over the temptation of distinctions is really victory over pride, which has been rightly called the root of all sin, for it\u2019s the self playing God. It\u2019s the divisive force that incites envy and rivalry, hatred and discord, in all areas of human relationships in a futile bid to realize or actualize an imagined godlike self. White supremacy is collective pride. As a cultural phenomenon it\u2019s not unique. All ethnic, tribal, cultural, and national identities are rooted in collective pride or egoism. The scandal of White supremacy is its unholy relationship with White American Christianity\u2014a relationship that replaces Christian core values with their very opposites: humility with pride, love with hatred, peace with violence, equality with hierarchy, and inclusion with exclusion. <\/p>\n
White supremacy converts Christianity into a tribal religion. But \u201cis it not written,\u201d said Jesus in Mark 11:17, citing Isaiah 56:7, \u201c\u2018My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations\u2019?\u201d To be sure, White Americans are not the only ones guilty of converting Christianity into a tribal religion. If we want to be honest with ourselves, all Christians are guilty. Very few Christians are able to rise above tribal, racial, national, or cultural prejudices, and truly see, in the different other, a child of God, and love sincerely, sacrificially as Christ commanded. For the majority of Christians their faith is mere familiarity or assent to some biblical stories, theological doctrines, or rituals\u2014modified, to be sure\u2014to suit personal whims and cultural tastes. <\/p>\n
In other words, many who call themselves Christians are completely ignorant, and I suspect willfully, of the fact that the acid test of Christian faith is an imitation of Christ\u2019s self-sacrificing, all-embracing love, commanded by Christ Himself. This willful ignorance goes back to the early Church, to be sure. That is what occasioned the writing of the First Epistle of John: false prophets interpreting the gospel intellectually denied the reality of the Incarnation, that Jesus came in the flesh. They shifted the gospel from the context of love to the context of knowledge (gnosis). As William Barclay rightly noted, this \u201cproduced a spiritual aristocracy who looked with contempt and even hatred on lesser men.\u201d <\/p>\n
John opposed them by insisting that imitation of Christ\u2019s self-sacrificing love is the true test of Christian faith. \u201cWhoever says, \u2018I know him [Jesus],\u2019 but does not do what he commands [love] is a liar, and the truth is not in that person\u201d (1 John 2:4). Again, \u201cwhoever claims to love God yet hates his brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen\u201d (1 John 4:20). <\/p>\n
In the Bible the term antichrist<\/i> first appears in First John to describe false prophets who interpreted the gospel intellectually to evade imitating Christ\u2019s self-sacrificing love. They set up a counterfeit gospel for people to call themselves Christian, while living in sin. And that\u2019s what White American theologians did. By interpretating the gospel racially and culturally to protect White economic interests and social status, they set up a counterfeit gospel for White Americans to call themselves Christian, while harboring pride, prejudice, hatred, and racism. To this, Jesus would certainly say: \u201cThese people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules\u201d (Mark 7:6, 7). <\/p>\n
In the conclusion to White Too Long<\/i>, Jones wrote that \u201creckoning with white supremacy, for us, is now an avoidable moral choice,\u201d and asked White Christians to awaken and see what White supremacy has done to them and their relationship with their fellow citizens and even with God. Indeed. But if White Christians are to awaken, they must see that behind White supremacy is \u201cthe spirit of the antichrist,\u201d which John traced to the devil himself. \u201cThis is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who doesn\u2019t do what is right is not God\u2019s child; nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister\u201d (1 John 3:10). In other words, reckoning with White supremacy is a choice between hatred and love, God and the devil. <\/p>\n
White American Christians must learn from Paul. About his ethnic pride and privileges as \u201ca Hebrew of Hebrews\u201d (Philippians 3:5) he wrote: \u201cWhatever were gains to me I now consider loss. . . . I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ\u201d (verse 8). Paul considered them garbage because he grasped that in Christ God had \u201cdestroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,\u201d between Jews and Gentiles, and created a single new humanity (Ephesians 2:14, 15). This single new humanity, said Paul, is God\u2019s household \u201cbuilt on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone\u201d (verse 19). And it\u2019s \u201ca dwelling in which God himself lives by his Spirit\u201d (verse 22). <\/p>\n
This dwelling of God in the single new humanity is what renders ethnic pride and privileges garbage. And as Paul emphasized again and again, it\u2019s the fulfillment of God\u2019s promise to bless all peoples of the earth through Abraham. This single new humanity is not a homogenized, undifferentiated mass. The eternal gospel preached by the first angel of Revelation 14 fully recognizes difference, the particular identities of \u201cevery nation, tribe, language and people.\u201d The difference<\/i> about the new humanity is that animated by Christ\u2019s love and united in worship of God, differences do not make a difference.<\/i><\/p>\n
*Unless otherwise noted, Bible texts are from the Holy Bible, New International Version.<\/i> Copyright \u00a9 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was 15 years of age (growing up in White-ruled and racially segregated Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe) when I read in Time magazine about the Bible Belt of the southern United States. I still recall my disbelief and puzzlement. How could the \u201cBible Belt\u201d be the most Christian region in the United States and also be<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[341],"tags":[173],"class_list":["post-6576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-may-june-2021","tag-may-june-2021"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}