The Scourge Of Racism
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I wrote to guilty pastors, elders and churches in a January 27, 2019 post footnote, “How can you seriously expect the world to hear you from God’s Word and you do not even obey it?”1 The fact of the matter is blatant disobedience to God’s Word has characterized many professed Christians, their churches and other ecclesiastical bodies reaching back to the apostles (Romans 16:17-18; 1 Corinthians 5:1-2; Galatians 3:1-4). During the past 500 years, breakaway European Protestants protested the disobedience and corruptions of Catholicism only to find themselves in independence doing all of the same things as their mother (Revelation 17:1-6).
Both groups wickedly gave religious undergirding to the bigoted, violent and dehumanizing form of slavery my forefathers endured while passing down to them their manmade forms of Christianity the religion corruptly drawn from the Bible.2 Thanks to the continuing support of its many powerless manmade forms extant like yeast throughout American Christianity, racial bigotry and discrimination also remains a foil to the realization of a widespread display of biblically commanded, Holy Spirit fired love and brotherhood.3 This is to the glee of Satan who along with racial bigotry has initiated all of the deceitful strongholds of sin among the many harlot churches today God in His wrath will destroy (Amos 5:16-27; Revelation 16:17-19, 17:15-18:8)!4
Like our nation at this moment, American Christianity in the main is a racially divided house about to fall as I write in this edited 2013 Commentary.
Originally Published February 2013
The now deceased Rodney King's appeal, "Can we all get along" was moving, but not realistic for worldly men. His appeal came in the face of rioting after a 1992 trial acquitting white Los Angeles police officers of beating him that was captured on video and seen globally. For professed Christian American men, getting along in racial harmony is supposedly not to be the problem it is for worldly men since we have God resident in us. However, the nearly four centuries Christianity has been in America tragically presents contrary evidence. Aspiring strong men of God in the image of Christ celebrate diversity in His Body; fostering unity, harmony and where needed, healing.5
It is Black History Month again. The occasion may seem to be a purposeful discomfiting reminder to white Americans of the racism that once ran so deep among their forefathers, an attempt was made to destroy black contributions from American history. However, to prevent the loss of our history, help build appreciation in blacks and willing others, black educator and historian Carter G. Woodson created the special emphasis last century that now spans all of February. Nevertheless, as the uproar in Rodney King’s beating twenty years ago and subsequent events such as last year’s killing of black teenager, Trayvon Martin, show, racial tensions remain skin deep.6
Tensions are apparent too in churches that are racially homogeneous and wish to remain so. How could racial segregation as initiated by whites during slavery and continued by many of their descendants along with reciprocating black and other minorities professing to be Christians remain to this hour? Why can’t we come together in our racial diversity as Christians? As the Lord led, I explored this issue through a booklet I wrote in 2005 entitled, The Scourge Of Racism.7 In it, I conclude racism in the churches is a failure by professed Christians to obey the Lord's command to love one another (John 13:34-35).
I also write about the failure to love one another in a number of blog posts.8 This failure is tied to America's brand of Christianity the religion where impostors devoid of the Holy Spirit and weak believers quenching His fire in willful sin, practice all manner of evil including racism. America's Christian house is divided in defiance of the Lord all claim to follow and His teaching that "a house divided against a house falls," (Luke 11:17; NKJV). If the guilty do not repent from the toleration of racism and other sins that divide, the Lord's teaching will soon be fulfilled since it can be no other way (Luke 11:23, 21:33)!
As I assert in The Scourge Of Racism, God our Creator from the one man, Adam, has made us all different by purposeful design that mankind in all of their diversity might with common heart seek Him (Acts 17:24-28)! Our diversity of gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, language, body size, abilities etc. is all to the glory of God in this present age and to be celebrated.9 This, the aspiring strong man and great woman of God in the image of Christ do! For we all in Christ have been brought together in our diversity as sons by God through Christ, the blood He shed to save us on Calvary's cross and the new birth by the Holy Spirit. In Him, men are God's household and forever family held together in divine love (Galatians 3:26-29; Ephesians 2:11-22, 3:14-21)!
This is biblical Christianity that will only continue to seem as high idealism and deluded wishful thinking to professed Christians in divided churches until authentic repentance and revival sweeps through. In repentance, professed Christian white men must cease assuming they are superior to their brothers of color; that every way they see things or idea they propose is right because of their self-appointed standing as superior. They must also give up the notion that men of color should despise themselves and embrace every white value to gain acceptance. Truly, all are to be like Christ and obey His command to love each other as He has loved us (1 John 3:10-24, 4:20-5:3).
Professed Christian black and other men of color in repentance must let go of legitimate anger not just for past, but God knows about the ongoing racial injustices we suffer among many of our white, ostensibly Christian brothers. Bitter victimization is appealing, but is not God's way of love that forgives rather than keeps records of wrongs suffered (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). Also, stop looking for sinful men to fully vindicate your suffering. As aspiring strong men of God in the image of Christ we are waiting for divine vindication that will occur when Christ soon returns--unless you scoff at His coming (2 Thessalonians 1:3-12; 1 Peter 2:19-23; 2 Peter 3:1-9)?10 The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
1 The quote is found in the eighth footnote of the post, Contending For God’s Design Of Masculinity In Men, under the category, The Cause.
2 Read the two-part, August 2016 post, Christianity The Religion Of Men, under the category, Instruction.
3 See Christianity The Religion American Style posted September 4, 2016 under the category, Call To Repent.
4 Much of Western Christianity (my fellow black Americans well represented) continues to want to idolatrously recast God away from His eternal holiness, righteousness,
justice and enduring commands for this mortal age with ear scratching preaching (2 Timothy 4:1-4) and emotion charged, supposedly loving, female led so-called wor-
ship in sin. The worshipper may have “enjoyed” what was taking place, but the issue is did God? The God of the Bible’s ancient rebuke stands as declared by the pro-
phet Amos in the Scripture listed to which this footnote refers. He does not accept nor is He pleased with worship no matter how sincere or emotional that is mixed with
sin! Truly, before Amos, the prophet Samuel proclaimed, “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice…” and the Lord Jesus: “If you love Me, keep my commandments,”
(1 Samuel 15:22-23; John 14:15, NKJV). Read the three-part series of posts beginning January 4, 2015, Worshipping God Without God, under the category, Call To
Repent. The Lord’s judgment of the unrepentant is just!
5 Learn more about the aspiring strong man and great woman of God in the image of Jesus Christ from my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics and compan-
ion instructional resource, The Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study. They are available in the Strong Man Store.
6 Read the two-part post beginning on July 29, 2018, The Racial Double Standard, under the category, Call To Repent.
7 The booklet is available on the Resources Page of our companion Web Site, https://fromslaverytovictory.org.
8 Read the four March 1-22, 2015 posts on love as an inescapable requirement of biblical Christianity under the category, Instruction.
9 See the December 6, 2015 post, Celebrating God’s Racial Diversity Initiative, under the category, Call To Repent.
10 Read When The Glory Comes, posted on November 29, 2015 under the category, Glory To God!
In this final edited 2012 repost for Black History Month 2018, the Lord leads me to give sober warning to a new generation of black Americans and their leaders (Ezekiel 33:1-9). Their alignment and participation with those of the wider culture rebelling against God and the historic Christian faith of the Bible held to by our faithful Christian forefathers from slavery has not uplifted the entire community in a righteous and lasting way. It will not end well for the guilty since God shows “no partiality” and judges all in accord with their deeds (Romans 1:18-2:11, NKJV). My hope, then, is that rather than anger and resistance, this post will provoke heartfelt repentance to the saving of many!
Originally Posted September 30, 2012
As the Lord has led, I conclude my recent barbershop encounter with articles in the monthly Ebony Magazine by offering the following comments. First, Ebony (and its weekly little sister, Jet1) Magazine came into being only a short time ago when neglected by white owned media, black Americans needed an unbigoted window on themselves and their circumstances in a brutally oppressive and segregated nation. Founded by deceased black entrepreneur, John H. Johnson, in 1945, the nationally distributed magazine was a great encouragement and source of inspiration to black Americans; many of whom still believed God would make a way (Psalm 33). He did!
Ebony chronicled the black experience capturing the passion and suffering of our leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., during the Civil Rights Movement and the tiniest of moral victories as blacks began to successfully cross color lines into previously restricted areas of participation in American society. We needed that then and I am one that was greatly inspired in my youth. However, my second comment is this. Just as a new generation “who did not know the Lord nor the work He had done for Israel” arose after the death of Joshua and the elders that outlived him, so, now, among black Americans a new generation in like manner has risen up (Judges 2:7-13, NKJV).
The top, mostly female leadership at Ebony is representative of the new generation that has risen up and it appears, wholeheartedly adopted the secular worldview of political correctness, tolerance, equality, fairness, sexual immorality, feminism, narcissistic ambitions, materialism, self-serving religion, situational ethics, pragmatism and the edict, “don’t judge.” They are joined by many other black owned and operated media outlets, businesses, politicians, educators, sports and entertainment stars and religious leaders with their churches in this worldview. Though until now, politely tolerated as I know from experience, a biblical worldview2 is not considered “in touch,” “relevant,” “realistic” or welcome among this new generation of black movers and shakers.3
Yet, the liberalized trend away from the faith of the Bible that many of our Christian slave and segregated forefathers had is not bringing something better to our community, but worse if statistics on the disproportionately high rates of black male incarceration, for example, are taken seriously. All of the things supposedly gained by aligning with those in rebellion against God are not benefitting the whole community, but only the relative well connected few. Apparently, forsaking faithfulness to the God of the Bible is having the same result in negative consequences for this new generation as it did Israel’s new generation after Joshua and the elders that outlived him died (Judges 2:14-15).
Indeed, the once inspirational presentation of blacks in Ebony “that had made it” into the “Promised Land” of success is now a sickening, self-indulgent, sinful celebration of covetousness fulfilled and idol worship of the privileged successful relative few. A generation after the unofficial end of the Civil Rights Movement and Ebony’s ongoing crusade to hold up and re-make our collective self-image as a race into the middle and upper class success stories of the likes of fictional George Jefferson in television’s, The Jeffersons, impoverished, underachieving, female led single parent households are still the predominant reality of black America.
The success idols today are led by President Barack Obama who has been and will be supported by a large number of blacks that see especially all opposition to his leadership by whites as just “hatin” (racial resentment, envy). No doubt, some of the President’s white opposition is due to racism. He however, should not get a critical pass by Ebony and other black owned media because he is the vaunted lead success idol to be protected in the black community. Truly, he personifies their liberal trend away from the faith of the Bible in his social policies. Even so, to them his success at attaining the office of President of the United States serves as a not so subtle ratification of the trend.
But not so fast. My final comment is this. The problem with the liberal trend away from the faith of the Bible embraced by the new Ebony generation is not just its obvious failure to bring about a tangibly brighter day for or even superior hope to the entire black community. Pressing this trend by advocating sin (all rebellion against the written Word of God is sin), the new Ebony generation in its narcissistic now, is actually hastening community degeneration; failing as they have to consider that the God they still attempt to acknowledge is real and calls for an accounting! When (not if) the unchanging God of the Bible judges this nation, wealth, power, achievement and success will be of no avail to anyone as a bargaining chip to escape (Ezekiel 7).4
In that day very near, without repentance this new Ebony generation will painfully learn too late that success by any means necessary including abandoning the faith of our Christian slave and segregated forefathers was not worth it (Mark 8:36-37; Hebrews 12:16-17). They may have been impoverished materially, but they were rich spiritually and in Christ-like character--the stuff God eternally recognizes! This is the most important take away lesson the new Ebony generation should have received from the experience of those that went before them. Therefore, judgment day will be even more painful for them as they remember how nostalgically, yet blind and deaf spiritually they sang James Weldon Johnson’s hymn, Lift Every Voice And Sing especially missing the prophetic warning of its last stanza.5
1 Jet Magazine ceased print publication in June 2014 and Ebony was sold to a black owned equity firm in June 2016.
2 Most faithful Christians would define this worldview with me as preserving, applying, living out and proclaiming the historicity, prophetic declarations and transcendent
spiritual truths as well as Christian specific instructions and commandments of God’s Word in the Bible as written! The fact pastors and professed Christians in what-
ever numbers are among those holding a secular worldview is clear evidence of unfaithfulness to God and the need for biblically defined revival at best--see my Jour-
nal article series, A True Revival Of The Heart on The From Slavery To Victory Education Project Web Site; at worse, the foretold apostasy in progress (1 Timothy 4: 1-2).
3 Consider Ebony’s content in the Black History Month 2018 posts that precede this one.
4 The nondiscriminatory, calamitous impact of 2017’s hurricanes and wildfires more than adequately demonstrate this truth.
5 View the lyrics on The From Slavery To Victory Education Project Web Site.
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