A recent TIME Magazine article, “The Civil War, 150 Years Later,” claims that we’re still fighting the Civil War. The sub-heading of the article includes these lines, “North and South shared the burden of slavery, and after the war, they shared in forgetting about it.” The front cover bears a picture of Lincoln shedding a tear and includes the words: “The endless battle over the war’s true cause would make Lincoln weep.” Did Lincoln die in vain?
Slavery was the fundamental reason why the North and South went to war, but according to the TIME article, you wouldn’t know it based on how history and Hollywood have often portrayed the conflict and its origins. No one likes to admit guilt, unless perhaps it is someone else’s. But Lincoln viewed things differently. He believed the entire country was to blame for the war (a point often lost on us Northerners). Lincoln no doubt knew what the TIME article claims: “Slavery was not incidental to America’s origins; it was central” (p. 48).
This TIME article got me thinking further about the matter. I reviewed three of Lincoln’s most famous speeches: his first inaugural address, the Gettysburg address, and his second inaugural. I came across a “This American Life” documentary on the second inaugural. The following statement from the program puts the matter well: “In his second inaugural address, Lincoln wondered aloud why God saw fit to send the slaughter of the Civil War to the United States. His conclusion: that slavery was a kind of original sin for the United States, for both North and South, and all Americans had to do penance for it.” Assuming that this is correct, if the Lincoln of the second inaugural were here today, I wonder if he would claim that those who died in the Civil War to do penance for the nation’s “original sin” died in vain based on the North’s and South’s ongoing denial of the war’s true cause.
So often, we function with pragmatic and collective amnesia for the sake of pursuing progress. Like Teddy Roosevelt who according to the article became the champion of reconciliation and the prophet of progress, we grew up as a nation post-Civil War receiving “a master tutorial in leaving certain things unsaid in the pursuit of harmony” (TIME, p. 48). But there can never really be progress where there is no ownership and repentance of personal and corporate sins. As 1 John 1:9 declares, “If we confess our sins, he (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” No confession, no forgiveness, no cleansing, no true progress. This is not simply an individual matter. What some of us take to be true personally for our spiritual condition and relationship with God must be taken to be true corporately as a church and as a nation.
Lincoln did not view slavery as the sin of the South for which the North brought judgment during the war. As stated above, Lincoln saw the war and its carnage as the judgment of God on the North and the South. Lincoln’s words taken from the second inaugural come to us from the grave:
If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether” (link).
The American church is often so rootless. While you and I may not have not committed any act to reinforce the evolving structures that slavery and its post-Civil War legacy generated, are we doing something—anything—to overturn those structures the previous generations put in place and nurtured? If not, we are still reinforcing those evil structures, for failing to act righteously is just as bad as acting in an unrighteous manner. Both forms of sin flow from a hardened heart and both forms of sin harden fallen structures. We must understand that history is with us. It lives into the present. Lincoln saw the connection between the nation’s past and its present trial at the time of the Civil War. The connection was and is organic. As such, we are not talking about fatalism. Fatalism involves a sense of helplessness, being bound to impersonal cause and effect forces beyond our control. Corporate guilt passed down from generation to generation is not a problem we are powerless to challenge. We can bring an end to it by owning it and restructuring our individual and corporate existence, beginning with acknowledging the real cause of the War and repenting of our nation’s ongoing disengagement from our racialized story.
By not seeing that North and South alike were to blame for the Civil War (TIME, p. 51) and by not advocating for racial equality and unity in our day, the people who according to Lincoln died to do penance, from his perspective, may have actually died in vain. The same might be true for Lincoln. If only we could talk to him now.
I believe we listen more to General George McClellan today than we do President Lincoln. McClellan had been Lincoln’s chief general at the outset of the war and later Lincoln defeated McClellan on the way to his short-lived second term in office as President of the United States. McClellan viewed the race question as “incidental and subsidiary” to unity (TIME, p. 42). But what kind of unity is it when there is no reconciliation? McClellan “did not perceive…that the Union and slavery had become irreconcilable” (TIME, p. 46). The same held true during the Civil Rights era, but Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his movement sought to show us that separate but supposedly equal is no real equality and cannot sustain a nation—or a church.
Things still have not changed all that much as a country and as the church in this country (See the consumingjesus.org post by Daniel Fan titled “Is Racism Over Now That a Black Man is President of the United States?”. See also the link to The Oregonian “Opinion” piece by Clifford Chappell titled “Is Racism Gone for Good?” along with the ensuing interview at consumingjesus.org with Rev. Chappell). In all too many quarters, we are still separate and nothing more than supposedly equal. As Black Theologian James Cone said in a 2006 interview, in some ways the situation is actually worse in terms of such things as health care, education, employment, and the prison system. In the interview, Cone exhorts white theologians to speak out forthrightly about the unrighteous situation in which we find ourselves, claiming that the white Christian establishment is complicit. As a white theologian, I believe we should listen to Lincoln and Cone, among others, and speak out and live forthrightly. Otherwise, I fear that not only Lincoln’s death but also Jesus’ death may be robbed of its redemptive, catalytic power in our lives (See 1 Corinthians 1:17 where Paul talks about the possibility of emptying Christ’s cross of its power in his ministry if he were to preach the gospel with words of human wisdom). Sins of omission (righteous acts we have failed to do) are just as evil as sins of commission (evils we have committed). Jesus died for both. May we live to please him in every way, making sure we contend against sins of commission and omission.
What does speaking out and living forthrightly look like—especially in the church? For starters, we need to denounce the McClellan version of the church growth principle that claims that the race question is incidental and subsidiary to Christian unity. What kind of unity are we talking about when we claim that we are separate but equal in our ecclesial experience (separate churches for whites and blacks and others)? The McClellan church growth principle is pragmatic, though not practical if we mean missional. Christendom’s collapse in our country is bound up with the Civil War: Christianity came to be viewed as captive to cultural trends—the North and South had the same red, white and black letter Bible but read and preached it differently on matters black and white. Christian America took a further hit during the Civil Rights era, as many Christian conservatives stood in opposition to King’s biblical mandate. The Evangelical church will take another hit shortly if white Evangelicalism doesn’t make far greater space for unity along ethnic lines in its worship centers across the land, for America is becoming increasingly brown, decreasingly white.
However, our concern is not political correctness, opportunism and penance, but biblical justice and repentance. Again, 1 John 1:9 puts it well: “If we confess our sins, he (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (This is not simply an individual, personal matter. The prophets of old identified with their people’s sin and confessed on their behalf; see Daniel 9:1-19). No confession, no forgiveness, no cleansing, no true progress. What kind of unity and progress are we talking about when we are talking about unity and progress based on non-confessed sins of commission and omission? There is no prophetic power and progress in such unity.
Lincoln was seen as a rabble rouser in his day. That’s why he got shot in the head. King was seen as a rabble rouser in his day. That’s why he got shot in the head. Jesus was seen as a rabble rouser in his day. That’s one key reason why he was hung on a cross. Each one died to bring unity and create one people out of the ashes of disparity. While as a Protestant, I do not believe in doing penance, I do believe that we are responsible for our sins of commission and omission. When we don’t own the sins of our past and present disunity whereby we fail to love our brothers and sisters of diverse ethnicity in concrete forms of ecclesial and civic engagement, it is almost as if we are saying with our lives that Lincoln, King, and the Lord Jesus died in vain. Did they?
I am currently reading, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing. I want to offer some of the author’s insights in response to this post. The book’s author, Dr. Degruy-Leary, is a literal neighbor to those in Portland and she is a Prof. at Portland State University in the School of Social Work. Based on her insights below, I think she would be an interesting neighbor to invite over to the front porch (I know I would be honored to have a conversation with her):
“With endorsement of slavery as a legal, acceptable and justifiable institution, the founding fathers committed America’s original sin, a sin that has continued to plague America. Allowing slavery to persist at America’s inception caused those who signed off on the sentiments so eloquently represented in their Declaration of Independence to perjure themselves in its face and doom the nation to a future of lies, pain and struggle.” She continues, “The behaviors associated with maintaining and justifying slavery, as well as the consequent assault on the generations of African Americans that followed, has resulted in yet unmeasured injury to the American psyche. America’s resistance to accepting its responsibility for slavery and repairing the damage done, continue to prevent the nation from taking its place as the world’s moral leader” (24). The first chapter ends with this point, “When material gain becomes the god before which all must be sacrificed, even one’s own humanity, all manner of crimes and pursuant justifications become possible. And when crimes become heinous enough, as in wars of aggression, genocide and enslavement, the perpetrators have little choice but to dehumanize their victims” (46).
I agree that slavery was a horrible injustice and that the founding fathers were complicit in their agreement and practice of it. What I have a problem with is the fact that people still believe the Civil War was primarily fought over it.
Lincoln made it clear on a number of occasions that he could care less about the plight of the slaves. The Emancipation proclamation was one such instance. He said, paraphrasing, that if freeing the slaves could be used as a tool to “preserve” the Union so be it.
We are not reminded that slavery was still legal in New York and other Northern States until after the war.
The EP was another tool for Lincoln to impose the will of the North on the South. This was about power over States rights. Slavery was becoming unsustainable economically and likely would have ended within a number of years in any case. Many of those who fought on the side of the Southern states were not slave holders and were, like Jefferson Davis abhorred by it and said so publicly.
They did not, however, believe that the Constitution allowed Congress to tell states what they could and could not do. They also did not take kindly to the extremely high tariffs imposed on their goods alone the day before Lincoln took office.
Many of the problems we have today with prejudice and injustice toward all non-white ethnicities can be traced to the wholesale slaughter of thousands of southern civilians by the Northern generals under Lincoln’s orders. He was a murderer
The cultural memory is still deeply embedded in southerners. It will take much prayer and reconciliation to heal those wounds. Hopefully as that occurs, the injustices perpetrated by our nation on those who are “different” will be mitigated. I pray that we will see it soon as I fear without it the tensions and frustrations could lead to racial wars, especially in some of our larger cities.
If the church does not step up we will again see government trying to impose things that people will not tolerate. Government can never be an answer to any problem faced by men. The Love of Jesus Christ expressed through His body is the only answer. The lack of it was the primary reason the government began taking care of the poor and needy in the first place. The White American Church’s refusal to do something about the civil rights injustices in the 20th century led to the government’s woeful injustices in parts of the Civil Rights Act.
Government always addresses injustice with violence and different injustices. It cannot Love nor can it ever have real solutions. Only God’s people are able if they will choose it.
Sorry I was a bit harsh there. Please forgive me.
Tony
Hello Serena,
Great comment/quote. Indeed, it would be great to connect with the author. Deep and troubling reflections worthy of sustained conversation.
Hello Tony,
Thank you for your rigorous reflections. I would encourage you and Serena to post the same comments at http://www.consumingjesus.org. You will find the same entry posted there. I will wait to receive other comments before providing a response(s).
Thank you once again.
All best wishes,
Paul
It is no more proper to throw all the causes of the Civil War in to the basket of states rights than to throw them all in the basket of slavery. The causes of the war were complex, but to turn a blind eye to slavery as a main issue is simply not acceptable historically or morally. The rhetoric of both the public and religious media before and during the war was filled with vitriolic attacks and counter attacks over the issue of slavery. Preachers in the south used the Bible regularly to defend slavery while preachers in the north used the Bible to denounce it. It was a major issue. And as far as Lincoln goes, surely he was a pragmatist in some ways, his main goal being to preserve the Union. And surely he used the Emancipation Proclamation as a means for keeping the northern intelligencia from abandoning the cause when the going got tough. But it seems clear, at least by the time of the second inaugural address that Lincoln’s thinking on slavery was certainly not merely pragmatic. He realized that slavery was at the heart of the nation’s troubles, structurally and morally.
What I see Paul Metzger doing in this post is not to argue that slavery was the sole cause of the civil war, but to focus on it as an issue that continues to stain our national consciousness and as a foundation to the racism that still degrades us. And this racism is still ingrained in the church which is less able to construct racially diverse communities than is the government. Surely, the love of Jesus Christ is the answer to racism, not secular government, but this idea that the church should never work through the government to bring about the values of the Kingdom of God is neither helpful, nor biblical. The Bible says that God ordains government to reward good and punish evil. Therefore he does see government as a means of providing moral structures, and the church should encourage government in that direction whenever possible. Many of the great leaders of the Bible worked through ungodly government to bring about good (Joseph, Daniel, etc.). While the church cannot depend upon government to bring in the Kingdom, it should call upon the government to support kingdom values whenever possible and helpful. So on the issue of racism, the church needs both to look at its own sins and to call upon the government to reward good and punish evil.
God’s work throughout the Bible was done with decisive action. If wrongs were done; consequences and repentance was inevitable. In today’s society, we piously discussion and lament over our sins we have inflicted or inflict on the marginalized of our society. Seldom do we take action, we need to take lessons from the Bible, which is or should be the Christians’ “Constitution,” repent, and make right the sins of this world. I believe there is no time such as this to repent. Look around, what is God saying to us through nature? Our land is groaning. I resonate with 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” We need to each ask ourselves, “What have we done? Have I confessed my sin of promulgating slavery and what have I done lately to demonstrate my true acts of attrition?” Racial reconciliation is the healing balm.
When I read my Bible, I see in it nowhere, where sin disappeared by ignoring it. Yes, sin has to be confessed and repented of for cleansing to come as 1 John 1:9 states. My understanding of repentance is like a 180-degree turnaround that requires some follow-up action along with the confession. Oh, and that word “confession” that requires some form of ownership and acceptance of responsibility. It amazes me how the whole issue of slavery and racism can be so easily ignored. Slavery was an awful evil inflicted upon this country, an evil that was sanctioned by the church and its residuals still affect this country today. Because of its spiritual roots, government can do so much, but the church has to do its part in order for the nation’s consciousness to be cleansed. Ignoring the problem is to continue to commit the sin of omission. The white evangelical church spends millions of dollars and resources on missions work in Africa and other regions around the world, and I commend them for that, because they are doing a great work. But to spend so much energy and resources overseas and then come back home and maintain their segregated churches and lifestyles speaks volumes about their heart and real concern for the cause of Jesus Christ. Because the White Evangelical church is in the position of privilege and power, once it accepts responsibility, confesses this sin and repents of this evil, then make the 180-degree turnaround by investing resources and energy as it does overseas, I believe our nation can be healed within a generation.
Lincoln Didn’t Die In Vain
My favorite subject growing up was history. It was the study of history that helped me gain an understanding of my southern community. I grew up in “Jim Crow” Louisiana. It was this caste system that let the races known how life was to be lived and what the boundaries were. In the spring of 1967 our teachers told us that this coming school year we would be going to school with white kids. I didn’t realize it at the time, but we were about to upset the social order. Those southern white folks didn’t take to kindly to the federal government challenging their “states’ rights” way of life.
This coming school year would be an eventual one. The “Orangeburg Massacre” occurred in Orangeburg, South Carolina on the 8th of February 1968. The students from South Carolina State University (A Historically Black University) participated in march that a protest that opposed the segregation of a nearby bowling alley. In the struggle three students were killed and 27 others were wounded by state policemen. (long before Kent State) On the 4th of April 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assignated in Memphis, Tennessee. After Dr. King’s death, there was a march in his honor from New Orleans to the capitol in Baton Rouge. The word in my home town was that you had to hang a black piece of cloth from your home showing respect and honor of Dr. Kings’ death. My brother painted our screened door black. I remember hearing the news of a man’s store being burned down because he didn’t honor Dr. King’s death. There were race riots in cities across the country because of the death of Dr. King and school desegregation. Those events of 1968 allowed me to taste the hate of that year and my soul mourned the losses.
Why was all this happening? I asked my father why the white folks hated us so much. I don’t hate them. My father calmly said “Gerry in order to understand these currents events, you have to know history.” It was my father that planted this seed of my love for history. Many of the challenges that we a facing has a direct link to our history of social policy and the judicial system, in others words the law that we pass.
First and foremost slavery was the economic engine of this country. Did you know that slavery was in all of the 13 colonies of the US for more than 200 years? Slavery lasted longer in the South because of the agriculture society and because of the North began to industrialize. Slavery was the economic engine of the South and the North as well.
At the founding of this country slavery was imposed. For hundreds of years the Blacks where chattel. The Blacks were not considered human, they were the beast of burden, who needed to be cared for as you would care for an animal. The unfortunately thing is that American literature, Christians churches and other intuitions supported this belief system. Therefore, slavery is woven into the very fabric of American life. There was literature circulated that Blacks were savages, that if not properly supervised they would rape white women because of their uncontrollable sexual desires. That was the basis of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest in 1867 in Pulaski, Tennessee formation of the Ku Klux Klan, an American terrorist organization created to keep the Blacks in their place. The KKK’s battle cry was they were just good Christian folks trying to protect-defend the purity of their white women, that could be raped by Blacks men. Did you know that in 1948, President Harry Truman couldn’t get federal legislation passed for an anti-lynching bill through congress? However, on the 26th of July 1948, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981integrating the armed forces. (The actual desegregation of the army didn’t begin until 3 years to the date of being issued
There has been major legislations about what do we do with the African. Examples include but are not limited to the following:
1787 Constitution apportioned direct or capitation taxes and membership in the House of Representatives in accordance with population, but counted a slave as only three-fifths of a person. Constitution required that escaped slaves be returned to their owners.
12 February 1793Fugitive Slave Law Act,
Provided that any person who should harbor or conceal a fugitive after notice that he was a fugitive from labor should forfeit and pay to the claimant the sum of $500, to be recovered by action of debt, saving also to the claimant his right of action for any damages sustained.
1850 The Missouri Compromise Provide three separate bills a free Maine, a slave state Missouri and no slavery north of 36 degrees 30, exception for Missouri.
1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act
Declared the Missouri Compromise “inoperable: and divided the remaining territory of the Louisiana Purchase into two segments, Nebraska to the north and Kansas to the south. This introduced slavery into the southern portion of the territory. As a result fighting broke out in Kansas over the introduction of slavery, and: Bleeding Kansas became a tragic signal of where the nation was headed.
1856 Dread Scott v. Sandford
The federal government has no power over person or property of citizens except what citizens of the United States have granted and no laws or usages of other nations or reasoning of statesmen or jurists on relations of master and slave could enlarge powers of government or take from citizens’ rights reserved. No federal tribunal may deny the right of property in slave, or deny to slave owners benefit of provisions and guarantees provided for protection of private property by the Constitution, since the Constitution recognizes such right of property and makes no distinction between slaves and other property. Under federal Constitution, federal government has no right to interfere with reserved power of states to regulate slaves for any other purpose but that of protecting rights of owner).
In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896The U.S. Supreme Court decided that a Louisiana law mandating separate but equal accommodations for blacks and whites on intrastate railroads was constitutional. This decision provided the legal foundation to justify many other actions by state and local governments to socially separate blacks and whites. The arrest of Homer Plessy (1862-1925) on June 7, 1892, was part of a planned challenge to the 1890 Louisiana Separate Car Act by the Citizens’ Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law, a small group of black professionals in New Orleans.
Soon after its organization in 1891, the committee appointed Albion Tourgée its legal representative. After successfully leading a test case in which the Louisiana district court declared forced segregation in railroad cars traveling between states to be unconstitutional, the committee was anxious to test the constitutionality of segregation on railroad cars operating solely within a single state. The committee’s strategy was to have someone with mixed blood violate the law, which would allow Tourgée to question the law’s arbitrariness.
Homer Plessy, a native of south Louisiana who could “pass” as white, agreed to be the test case. The committee arranged with the railroad conductor and with a private detective to detain Plessy until he was arrested. When Plessy appeared before the Louisiana district court, the court ruled that a state had the constitutional power to regulate railroad companies operating solely within its borders and concluded that the Louisiana Separate Car Act was constitutional. The decision was appealed to the state supreme court in 1893 and was appealed again to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896.
By the time Plessy v. Ferguson arrived at the Supreme Court, Tourgée and his colleagues had solidified their strategy. Tourgée argued that Plessy was denied his equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment and violated the Thirteenth Amendment by perpetuating the essential features of slavery.
Eight of the nine justices were unconvinced by Tourgée’s arguments, and ruled that neither the Thirteenth nor Fourteenth Amendment was applicable in this case. The majority opinion delivered by Henry Billings Brown attacked the Thirteenth Amendment claims by distinguishing between political and social equality. According to this distinction, blacks and whites were politically equal (in the sense that they had the same political rights) but socially unequal (blacks were not as socially advanced as whites):
Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based on physical differences, and the attempt to do so can only result in accentuating the differences of the present situation. If the civil and political rights of both races be equal, one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them on the same plane.
The majority also attacked Tourgée’s Fourteenth Amendment claims by arguing that enforced separation does not “stamp” blacks with the badge of inferiority, because both blacks and whites were treated equally under the law–in the sense that whites were forbidden to sit in a railroad car designated for blacks. In his famous dissenting opinion, John Marshall Harlan attacked the constitutionality of the Louisiana law and argued that while the law may appear to treat blacks and whites equally, “everyone knows that the statute in question had its origin in the purpose, not so much to exclude white persons from railroad cars occupied by blacks, as to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or assigned to white persons.”
The majority decision in Plessy v. Ferguson served as the organizing legal justification for racial segregation for over 50 years.
Not until 1954, in the equally important Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, would the “separate but equal” doctrine be struck down.
I heard a professor from Hunter College of New York; say that history tells a people who they are, what they have been and how far they have to go. If we know the facts about history, it may shed light upon today’s events. I believe in historical accuracy. Yes many of the southern people believed in states right, however, those state rights involved the owning of people and their right to exploit them for financial gain.
I believe that Lincoln didn’t die in vain. The Bible tells in 1st John 1:9 says: If we confess our sins he is faithful and will forgive us our sins and purify from all unrighteousness. After the Civil War, America didn’t confess their sins and they made no compensation to those they had exploited-the slaves. As a result America was fractured as a nation, southern society felt violated by the North and many of the Blacks continued to be terrorized by the whites. Unlike South Africa after apartheid, the President Nelson Mandela commission Bishop Tutu to develop and truth and reconciliation meetings. At this meeting both black and white people were able to resolve some of their difference about apartheid. I saw Black South Africans confront White South Africans about how they were treated and I heard White South Africans admit their transgressions and ask for forgiveness. It was a beautiful process to behold. I felt blessed reading the Time magazine article and I appreciate it’s historically accuracy.
Notes on Readings
Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery by Anne Farrow, Joel Lang, and Jenifer Frank of the Hartford Courant ISBN: 978-0-345-467-836
Inheriting The Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History by Thomas Norman DeWolf ISBN: 978-0-807-072-820
The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward ISBN: 978-0-195-146-905
At the Edge of the Precipice : Henry Clay and the Compromise that Saved the Union by Robert V. Remini ISBN: 978-0-465-012-886
Race and Culture: A world View by Thomas Sowell, Ph.D. ISBN: 978-0-465-067-961
Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon ISBN: 978-0-385-506-250
Right now, people are angry, and they are looking for a scapegoat, ANY scapegoat to put tthe blame for their problems on. Racism will always be a problem, and they will do anything and everything they can to build on the backs of others to get what they want. And if you don’t believe me, come down here to Bakersfield, CA and observe it firsthand.
And I agree with what Cliff says. But saying it and doing it are going to be two separate things.
Forgiveness and restoration of relationship without repentance is really what we white people seem to want…maybe it’s what all humans want. The Sermon on the Mount says we are blessed when we see the depth of our sin and mourn over it. We have all partaken in, or benefited by, the perpetuation of slavery, stealing the land from the First Nations People and then placing them on reservations, redlining, gentrification and a whole host of other forms of oppression. One would think the white Evangelical Church and those who are justice-oriented in the Church would be the first ones to think about, and apply, the depths of what Paul talks about in the letter to the Ephesians. Yet 11:00 on Sunday mornings remains the most segregated hour in the U.S. Christ’s finished work on the cross broke down the walls that divide us, Jews & Gentiles, Black & White, men & women, and yet we blindly carry on allowing walls and structures to divide us as if this is “as good as it gets.” The Apostle Paul essentially says that that God’s glory will be seen when Jew and Gentile [all ethnicities] Black, Red, Yellow and White are worshipping together when he says, “God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was his eternal plan, which he carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord.” And then …“When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.” Eph. 3:10-11, 14-16 NLT Let us who have “eyes to see” continue to move forward by the grace, wisdom, and perserverence that is in Christ toward getting to know the “others” in all our spheres and experiencing authentic love relationships and communities of allies who will stand together in greater and greater numbers. No, Lincoln did not die in vain and neither did Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s just hard to fathom that we fail to comprehend the magnitude and power of Jesus’ finished work on the cross.
-Both the US and the British navies, at the expense of their citizenry, went to great lengths to eradicate the international slaving enterprises, throughout the 19th C.
-Throughout the history of African slavery—which existed during a thousand years of Muslim conquest before the English ever got into it—local cultures also willingly participated, because they saw the opportunity to get rid of unwanted members in exchange for something the slavers offered.
-“People of color” often have far more robust family lives than Caucasians. Ever analyze the fertility rates of each? In our culture starting a family early, even if it stems from lack of Christian morality, bestows certain advantages, so if they can keep it together in the long run they do very well.
-The entire world is now benefiting from the foundation of the English industrial revolution. I don’t see them complaining when they get modern medical care, communicate via the internet, travel to the US to learn new things or perhaps get in on taxpayer funded programs. The birth tourism industry is now thriving in many part of the world, benefiting virtually only “people of color.”
We have been fighting the “War on Poverty” since LBJ started it in 1964. Longest war in US history. It’s time to stop flagellating ourselves.