The Scourge Of Racism
E-Book Availability 4/12-26
Released January 5, 2024
Download Your Copy
Now In The Strong Man Store!
Many professed Christian whites and some blacks as well do not like when I address the men, their issues, needs and troubles among those I share identity with as black Americans. However, seeking to please God who cares that the biblical Gospel be preached to all mankind and standing in the example of the Jewish Christ and Paul, the apostle to us Gentiles from every hue, I make no apology to those offended by my obedience (Matthew 10:1-15; Acts 1:4-8, 26:12-18; Romans 1:16-17; 1 Corinthians 9:19-23). Indeed, I purposely exclude no one in my preaching of the Gospel, but ensure that those of my own household, extended family and ethnicity are not left out either.
As I wrote in the March 7, 2021 post, black males from slavery have gotten a raw deal by not in many cases receiving an authentic proclamation of the Gospel or representation of biblical Christianity to include God’s will for us as men and manhood.1 The Gospel to all humanity as sinners “according to the Scriptures” is that God in love sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to die on the cross for our sins, be buried and rise again on the third day after to save us from His just wrath. Whoever repents from his sins believing the Gospel is forgiven and receives eternal life by the Holy Spirit (John 3:1-21, 35-36; Acts 2:36-39, 10:34-43; Romans 10:10-13; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, NKJV).
Now, since the Gospel is according to the Scriptures, every man can read it in the Bible for himself and as I wrote in my recent Black History Month post is without excuse.2 Even so, in His amazing grace God has also purposely ordained that those such as myself He gifts, calls and sends should preach the Gospel as joyful heralds (Romans 10:14-15)! But to be clear, black males with everyone else have the God granted right of free will to reject the Gospel as many have done and do though, I would this were not the case since what God has done for us as sinners in it is so awesome (Romans 10:16-17). Truly, no one has to convince us of our need having been sinners from birth.
God in wisdom has given each one of us a conscience that affirms and condemns us as sinners in our sinful thinking, attitudes, words and deeds. Knowing the sinfulness of our hearts and attempts to alleviate our guilt through deceitfully ignoring, covering or outright denying it, God also as Judge announced His condemnation of all mankind as sinners before Him from Heaven’s bench with no hope of deliverance except by His grace through faith in the Gospel of Christ (Romans 3:9-26). “For the wages of sin is death, but the (free) gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord,” (Romans 6:23, NKJV). Forgiveness of sins and a clear conscience is a great and precious blessing!
Therefore, I appeal to my unsaved black countrymen from the heart not to be proud in the face of the truth. Not “the white man” or “the system” is our greatest issue, need or trouble, but our own selves as embittered sinners who after rejecting the way of humble acceptance of the Gospel, have no other means of liberation from a guilty conscience! Outside of God’s salvation in Christ, I have felt you in feeling demoralized by the heavy-handed oppression we as men wired to be leaders and the sons of West African warriors and kings have experienced in real life and as portrayed in Alex Haley’s Roots for example, when Kunta Kinte was forced to accept his master’s assigned name “Toby.”3
In overwhelming powerlessness and longing for vengeance apart from Christ I have also wanted to be the fictional character played by Jamie Foxx in Django Unchained and surely heard you and myself in the vengeful anger of Michael B. Jordan’s character in Black Panther as he ran down the suffering of our captive forefathers during their transatlantic ship journeys from Africa to the New World. I too, with Jordan’s character and very likely you, missed having my father who was away on long military tours of duty during most of my pre-teen years. However, whatever else may be the issues, needs or troubles you grapple with whether it is in real life or captured as real talk in fiction, angry vengeance is not the God approved way to handle our business (Romans 12:17-21).4
So, the only right way to go is to first deal with our sin problem by turning to God in Christ through the Gospel to be saved from His righteous wrath. After this, let Him help us deal with our just anger at sins perpetrated against us as black Americans, other needs and troubles we have through His living Word and power in accord with what a man is and does by His design and perfectly modeled by Christ. He is the Strong Man of God the Father calls us to aspire to be like as I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics.5 He wills to set us fully free from all of the ties that bind our souls and keep us from being released to be like Him; walking in His eternal dignity, freedom and overcoming power (1 John 5:4-5)!6 For the Gospel is for black males too!
1 Read the March 7, 2021 post, Restoring Men In The Black Community, under the category, The Cause.
2 See the two-part post beginning on February 21, 2021, Willful Ignorance Destroys under the category, Black History.
3 See the good result for a proud Syrian Army Commander who submitted to God’s plan for healing in 2 Kings 5:1-14. Also, unless you or I are greater in Person and sta-
tus than Jesus Christ, the Son of God and King of Glory, then, we should consider and accept the healing truth that He too, has felt our pain since He also has been hu-
miliated, “oppressed” and “afflicted” (Psalm 69:7; Isaiah 53:7-8a; Matthew 26:46-68, 27:1-2, 11-31; Luke 22:53, NKJV). As a result, Christ in His resurrection victory
knows how to help all in similar circumstances cope and wait in hope for the final display of His overthrow of even the ultimate oppressor, Satan, accomplished on the
cross (Ephesians 6:12; Colossians 2:11-15)!
4 We know deep down venting through violence in vengeance is not right because this too, God has written upon our conscience and demonstrated His opposition or else
we would have lost our minds en masse by now to go for it only to be beaten back in defeat as for example, Nat Turner was in his 1831 slave rebellion and every rioter
thereafter. Turning our rage on each other as is seen in gang violence is not the sensible answer either. Don’t you know that when God disclosed the enslavement of
Abram’s Jewish descendants He also declared and carried out His vengeance on their oppressor while setting them free (Genesis 15:13-14; Exodus 10:7)? Not that we
in Christ hope for such a thing (though, we have seen it in this nation’s Civil War that freed our slave forefathers and the aftermath need for Reconstruction) since this is
our nation too, and we live here. Instead, as eternal sons and king-priests in Christ and His forgiveness, we desire the salvation of those who hate and would continue
to oppress us until the day of His global wrath and vengeance arrives.
5 The book is published by Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. and is available in print or digital formats at major internet booksellers. You can also purchase a
print copy in the Strong Man Store.
6 See the February 21, 2016 post, Ties That Bind Black Male Souls, under the category, The Cause.
I have an additional important concern in the aftermath of Black History Month and posts I made this year beginning with the cautionary anecdote of twentysomething, Devontay Rhodes, and followed by the one in two parts just concluded conveying God’s response from His Word to black American invented forms of counterfeit Christianity with all others.1 Counterfeit anything has negative consequences for those deceived and hurt by not having the real thing. Disconnecting the faith from God’s Word and obedient practice as counterfeit Christianity does has hurt especially black American men I share an affinity with among all those this Ministry targets in its cause to restore men!2
As the Lord had me to make clear in the two-part post, Willful Ignorance Destroys, manmade Christianity is not the genuine article. Whatever is not within the doctrinal confines biblically of “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” including all of its inherent freedoms and those not specified, but easily discernible as granted by God in conformity with what has been written in His whole Word is outside of it and counterfeit (Romans 14-15:6; 1 Corinthians 6:9-20, 8, 10-11:1; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18; Galatians 5; Colossians 2:16-23; Jude 1-4, NKJV). And while no one of us that professes to be followers of Christ is perfect, we aspire to it in God’s plan (Philippians 3:1-16)!3
Godly aspiration to perfection is not what many black men from slavery have encountered with whites or those that share their ethnicity because of intervening counterfeit manmade Christianity as religion. With whites, conveniently selected, self-serving practices of the Law and New Testament teachings maintained their supremacy while also permitting abusive conduct which many continue to this day. The same religious hypocrisy and corruption among blacks has turned many of our males away from God and the biblical faith they rarely saw displayed except by the family matriarchs. Today, even the faith and example of the black family matriarch is fading into historic memory.4
For those that demand specific examples to authenticate what I am writing, use your chosen search engine to find any number of white professed Christian duplicities and abuses from slavery and after to the present involving special slave Bibles, marital infidelity with and rape of black women, brutal beatings, lynchings and wanton murder of black men. The hypocritical sins and abuses of guilty black clergy and other leaders are searchable too. In recent times, the now, deceased Bishop Eddie Long, is slickly shown on video preaching against homosexuality from the Bible while allegedly having gay trysts by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. without comment in his black church documentary.5
In my labor among black males, I have met so many that want nothing to do with Christianity whatever its organized religious form. Their numerical absence in the churches reaches back to slavery and forward to this hour when their presence as thirty percent of a congregation is considered miraculous! Wired in their brains with logic and reason as most males, using these many black males easily deduce and see right through the inconsistencies of practice in the churches and the faith the Bible presents. It does not help when preachers in large numbers are found to be fleecing the flock financially, practicing sexual immorality, being abusive or abusing drugs and alcohol etc.
Add to the foregoing the ongoing hurtful acts of systemic racism by professed Christian white men that is allowed by their counterfeit forms of Christianity, the spiritual, mental and emotional injuries suffered and the even unconscious humiliation of usurpation by women within the churches of black religious invention they may have grown up in and it is not difficult to understand the typical unsaved black male’s disinterest in Christianity, agnosticism, embrace of religions such as Islam and hostile atheism. I have engaged a few that though they claimed to reject religion, are into New Age self-worship as their own gods. Still others are comfortable with counterfeit Christianity and care nothing about what it is or does since they are Christian impostors living as they please anyway.
Despite the challenges involved, reaching unsaved black males with the biblical Gospel toward the end of divine restoration is an absolute urgent imperative for their own eternal soul’s sake, the families they create and our wider community under lawless siege from their lost spiritual condition and anger.6 As a black male, I am a living witness of what God can do when He is allowed to through His cause of salvation and restoration in the Gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ! What is needed are more individual sold out holy vessels and faithful churches they make up to stand with Him (and us) in His cause; preaching, teaching and practicing sound doctrine from “the whole counsel of God” as it is written to include His order of mankind from creation electing men as leaders (Acts 20:27, NKJV).
1 Read the January 31, 2021 post, A New Year Cautionary Anecdote, under the category, The Cause and the two-part Willful Ignorance Destroys that begins on February 21,
2021 under the category, Black History.
2 Learn more about the cause of Strong Man Ministries to restore men, their families and communities on our Web Site.
3 This is the heart of every Christian man and woman that respectively aspires to be like Christ as strong men and great women of God I write about in my book, The Strong
Man Of God: Back To Basics. The book is published by Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. and is available in print or digital formats at major internet booksellers.
You can also purchase a print copy in the Strong Man Store.
4 See the two-part post beginning June 21, 2015, Mama’s Boys, under the category, Black History.
5 Dr. Gates wrote, produced and hosted the four hour, two-part documentary, The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song that aired this past February for Black
History Month on PBS. A brief clip of Bishop Long is shown as the consummate (and implied across the board hypocritical) Christian black biblically conservative outcry
against the God condemned practice of homosexuality in the Bible.
6 Read the February 19, 2017 post, Who Is Weeping For My People?, under the category, The Cause. Also, on The From Slavery To Victory Education Project Web Site,
learn more about how the spiritually bound up condition of black males is negatively impacting the family and community on its Help For Men Page.
Join The Strong Man Of God Resources Conversation!
Get Your Copy Of The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics Today!
Your purchase supports restoring men, families and communities through Strong Man Ministries!
Purchase It Now