The Scourge Of Racism
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Just as Black History Month, so, Juneteenth is a commemoration started by black Americans for our people and fellow citizens to remember the end of American slavery. Juneteenth is the clever handle used for June 19, 1865 which marks the date the last slaves in Texas heard about the end of slavery with the defeat of the Southern Confederacy in the Civil War a few months earlier and over two years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. This year we have reached the one hundred and fiftieth year since that first Juneteenth. While this is a good thing and should be celebrated to the fullest, I am concerned about the condition of freedmen today.
There will be Juneteenth parades, picnics, concerts, church services, memorials and many community events featuring political, social, educational, religious and financial heavy hitters celebrating a great moment in our nation’s history; a moment when an evil chapter was brought to its end. Indeed, it was in 1865 Texas and should be today a celebration like unto ancient Israel’s Jubilee year that God instituted for them (Leviticus 25:8-17). Every fiftieth year the sound of a trumpet on the Day of Atonement announced the Jubilee when liberty was proclaimed in all the land. Slaves were set free, oppression banned, fields not planted and debts cancelled.
Launched as it was on the Day of Atonement, the Jubilee reconciled men to God and to each other as families were restored and neighbors brought back together after forced servitude along with other types of oppression due to disputes and indebtedness had divided them. In my mind’s eye I see the ancient Jews and my slave forefathers in their respective historical years of jubilee shouting, leaping, dancing and singing as the long wait to be released from heavy and painful burdens ended in freedom and hope for a better future! However, for both peoples the time of jubilee was all too short-lived as the evil works of human sinfulness in a fallen world overtook them.
For America’s black freedmen in the aftermath of that first Juneteenth, the realities of unabated racial bigotry and hostilities from many of their fellow white citizens have dogged them to some degree or another to this very hour. In spite of this, a relative few especially of those energized by the faith and love of Jesus Christ have been able to move past all artificially imposed barriers of race to achieve much. Accomplished African Americans are found in nearly every field of endeavor including the highest political and legal offices in the land. This post-slavery progress is undeniable and yet, there is still so much holding back the remaining number of freedmen.
Keeping it real, we cannot in all honesty assert the deep seated problems of over the top black male incarceration rates, gang violence, low educational attainment, joblessness, female single parent headed households and poverty are all caused by persistent racism--though most assuredly it has its surmountable in Christ part (John 16:33; Philippians 4:13; 1 John 5:4-5). No, the poor state of many freedmen today is due in large part to self-sabotage in that the guilty have chosen the sluggard’s way of victimization, entitlement, lawlessness and hedonism in all rebellion against God and His Word (Proverbs 6:6-11, 20:1, 23:29-35, 24:30-34, 28:19; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15)!
Freedom from physical bondage did not also equal freedom from the always deadly trio of Satan (the ultimate oppressor), sin and self for many blacks. As permitted by God in perfect mercy and grace, the black experience beginning with slavery was not intended to embitter us in perpetual inner bondage, but bring the willing among us to the greatest possible freedom (Lamentations 3:19-42). This freedom is found by faith in Jesus Christ alone. He is the eternal Jubilee for all yearning for liberty, new beginnings and a superior future (Psalm 146:5-8; Isaiah 42:5-9, 61:1-2; Luke 4:16-21; Romans 8:1-2)! In the freedom of the Son clung to through all adversity, we were meant to be powerful latter day witnesses to all men under the sun and bring much glory to the God of our salvation!
So, did God fail in His good purposes toward us because the greater numbers of freedmen one hundred and fifty years later are in dire straits spiritually and materially? No way! Those who have refused to muster the will to move beyond the admittedly real obstacles of racism even through faith in Jesus Christ from that first Juneteenth until now have failed themselves and their children. Truly, generational patterns of alcohol and drug abuse, irresponsibility, sexual promiscuity and out of wed-lock births (all of which I also once had my time) have taken hold to produce entrenched poverty. To be sure, generational patterns of sin that only a personal life changing faith walk with Jesus Christ can permanently reverse are by no means limited to the physically poor.
The Liberating Gospel Of Jesus Christ!
“For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, NKJV).
The Scriptures teach that if a man will repent from his sins and believe the Gospel he will be forgiven and declared righteous. Such a man will also be indwelt by the Holy Spirit and brought to spiritual life; beginning what is intended by God to be a lifelong journey of growing faith, love, obedience, transformation and empowered service (Romans 1:16-17, 3:21-31, 8:1-17, 12:1-21).
This is the second of an edited two part 2013 blog I have reposted for Black History Month. Only God could have foreknown the timely need for this fresh exhortation (and truly the whole body of messages I have delivered from Him since 1979 as a former pastor of mine from Fort Worth, TX, Rev. Tom Franklin recently called to tell me) to professing Christian black Americans in our churches given the heightened uneasiness now in black communities across the nation over the deaths of unarmed black males. As well, there are the overabundance of other community needs the Gospel, Word and power of Jesus Christ alone expressed through the churches can meet--if they will.
Originally Posted February 10, 2013
Black churches are the place oppressed souls came for a momentary release from burdens too great to otherwise bear and carried too long from the last service. My heart is in complete empathy with the black pastors since slavery that have looked out on seats filled with beleaguered black humanity in expectant anticipation of church services that would all too briefly yet necessarily transport them to a plane of existence away from their painful troubles in this world.
Primed by the soul stirring performance of musicians and singers, the preacher’s job was to deliver a message that would cause his own and the burdened souls present to take flight! The preachers knew then as they do now that among the sea of sweaty, shouting and dancing ecstatic souls there was a number who were not saved and many more that really did not care to deepen their spiritual maturity through purposeful Christian education. Still, the born again, relative faithful few growing in grace through daily meditation on the Word of God and walking in the Spirit were in the assembly too and apparent even to their oppressors on the outside.
Truly, it was the faith, hope and perseverance of those faithful few slave and free maturing saints among my forefathers that drew out the mercies of God to enable His bringing us “a mighty long way.” For as surely as many a gospel singer today belts out, “I shoulda been dead and gon” celebrating the mercies of God to save sinners, such is also true for our African ancestors who like all other Gentiles were of no great note to the Almighty. Many Gentiles nations have been destroyed from the face of the earth or where for example, are the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians Philistines, Moabites and more recently the Aztecs and Incas?
Slavery as it turns out, is a preferable alternative to eternal death since this is the deserved end of all sinners (Ezekiel 18:4; Romans 6:23). Thus, in the humility of Daniel and Levites in the days of Nehemiah who found themselves ministering during and after the judgment of God poured out on His only chosen people, Israel, respectively, my faithful Christian forefathers understood the spiritual realities (whatever men in the flesh might speculate) surrounding the enslavement and suffering of our people as the permitted, less than deserved remedial judgment of the sovereign God upon sinners (Daniel 9:1-19; Nehemiah 9:1-37).2
These aspiring strong men and great women of God in the image of Christ waited on God’s deliverance from their suffering in His timing because He would do so out of the same mercy and grace He had already shown to spare their physical lives and souls from eternal damnation! Additionally, the record of the Lord’s dealings with Israel in the Bible including their deliverance from Egyptian bondage stood as irrefutable evidence that God could and would someday do the same for them.
Faithful Christian slaves instilled this faith and hope in their children rehearsed thousands of times in their unique spirituals and work songs and left as a legacy to descendants as well as faithful Christians the world over as a latter day witness of what biblical perseverance is all about. I confess that I am unworthy of the example of patient endurance empowered through God’s strength left by my faithful Christian slave and free forefathers that continued in the blatant evil of Jim Crow segregation, racial bigotry, discrimination, injustice and terrorism right up through the mid-20th century.
Greater than their roles as a haven and outlet for emotional release, black churches have also been the incubators of leadership not only among their ranks, but extending out into the larger community. In fact, there was a time especially immediately following slavery through the Civil Rights Movement where church and community leadership was nearly identical. Reconstruction preachers such as Hiram R. Revels who served as a United States Senator from Mississippi and later, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. a Congressman out of New York are representative of a wide network of black clergy involved in all levels of the political arena. Most of them, however, served effectively in their local towns as social liaisons between the community and the white power structure.
It was on the historical shoulders of social activist black preachers that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood leading participating pastors and their churches to what will be known until Christ shortly returns as the pinnacle of their spiritual potency as national Civil Rights advocates during the period from 1955-1968. While King Lieutenants such as Rev. Jesse Jackson continued on nationally, Rev. Aaron Johnson of North Carolina is among preachers that made an impact in individual States.
Though it is true much religious, political and social good has come historically from black churches in all of their denominational configurations, tragically, after the “mountain top” experience of the Civil Rights Movement, there has not been a similar widespread, unified and concerted effort to refocus on their biblical mission commanded by the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 28:18-20. If there had been such a refocus, most of our communities in cities across America would not resemble war zones with violence, murder, other forms of lawlessness and familial irresponsibility ruling the streets.
Indeed, while not perfect, born again, faithful, spiritually maturing folks do not practice willfully sinning against God! Yet, for example, most incarcerated black Americans (overflowing the nation’s prisons) will tell you he or she is a Christian and grew up in the church. So, what happened? Nearly all grew up with Christianity the religion of men in churches still locked in the “safe house” mentality and shackled by human traditions that do not major on determining authenticity or insist on purposeful Christian education leading to spiritual maturity as should have been the case with a post-Civil Rights Movement refocus. This state of affairs cannot be blamed on “the white man” since again in pride, black churches belong to blacks!3
Black communities now need the churches to fully be the Church of Jesus Christ! This means as Civil Rights activist and entertainer Harry Belafonte strongly implied in his recent appeal to black churches on a NAACP Image Awards telecast, they must step up and go beyond being a place of religious refuge, political and social activism. Authentic, spiritually maturing black American Christians in their assemblies are needed as the “church of the living God” (1 Timothy 3:14-15, NKJV) led by Jesus Christ as Lord, to stand firm on God’s Word and moral order; infused with power from on high, to liberate prospective strong men and great women of God from the chains of Satan!
Christianity the religion is utterly worthless to set these men and women truly free or get them to God as the Lord Jesus plainly taught (John 8:31-36, 14:6)! As in impassive white, so, in emotionally fervent black churches practicing Christianity the religion of men, the Lord calls the willing to repentance, revival and the strength He supplies His people to please Him and do His will (Colossians 1:9-12). Get my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics to learn more about God’s strength.4
2 Visit https://fromslaverytovictory.org/, a Web Site sponsored by Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. to journey through a very concise, biblically accurate and satisfying elaboration of this point in a presentation entitled, Does God Care About African Americans?
3 I stand ready to offer Christian education consulting or assistance to any interested pastor. Contact me by any of the ways listed on our Web Site Contact Page.
4 The combined work of E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Church in America and C. Eric Lincoln, The Black Church Since Frazier published in 1974 by Schocken Books, Inc. served as a reference source for this blog.
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