The Scourge Of Racism
E-Book Availability 4/12-26
Released January 5, 2024
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Writing about the reality of racism in the first chapter of my book, The Scourge Of Racism, I am taken aback by how apparently many white Americans who also professed to be devout Christians nonchalantly tolerated, practiced and even advocated for racism to continue as the systemic social norm of the culture for over four centuries.1 So much so has this been the case that even now, it appears many especially white conservative evangelicals still feel like they are doing the objects of racism a favor to cease and desist from it as biblically and morally indefensible as it is. Indeed, some have believed God was and is like them in their outlook and supportive!2 But was and is He?
As always, God’s dealings with ancient Israel serve to instruct those of us who will receive correction from His Word objectively read, interpreted and applied! In Psalm 50, God Almighty presents Himself as He who “has spoken and called the earth from” east to west to witness His glorious, loud, fiery and “tempestuous” arrival as He comes to judge His people, Israel, “out of Zion.” Beyond question, “God Himself is Judge.” And while Israel is in view first as the saints gathered to God “who have made a covenant with” Him “by sacrifice,” followers of Jesus Christ the “Lamb of God” see ourselves assembled to the Judge too (Psalm 50:1-6; John 1:29; 2 Corinthians 5:9-11, NKJV).
In language and purpose remarkably similar to Christ’s as Judge among the churches in The Revelation Of Jesus Christ, God calls to His ‘“people’” to listen as He testifies ‘“against’” them (Psalm 50:7; Revelation 1:20-2:7, NKJV). Why do those that profess to be God’s people in large numbers seem to forget He sees and hears everything we do? One reason is clearly the spiritually deadening routines, worship rituals and works of religion! This is exactly what God rebukes the dull hearted, dutifully religious in Israel for as does Christ the church at Ephesus (Psalm 50:8-15; Revelation 2:4-5). Love for God in relationship is paramount; spurring ardent worship and works He rewards!
The foregoing truth explains why many white professed Christians for centuries to this hour could silently tolerate and practice racism in American churches. Just like many in ancient Israel and the churches already by the end of the first century, they were practicing Christianity as a spiritually dead religion of men.3 It was loosely based on the Bible, but became exposed when the racist cultural norms it upheld ran up on the Bible’s transcendent spiritual principles, morals and ethics. Without being born again, many did not have the teaching, will or power to resist the cultural status quo and went along with what their church going fathers, neighbors, co-workers etc. did as racists.4
In God’s sight, devoted racists that have filled and led churches would be among the wicked in Israel He now, turns Himself to judge in the Psalm. He wants to know, ‘“What right have you to declare My statutes or take My covenant in your mouth seeing that you hate instruction and cast My words behind you,’” (Psalm 50:16-17, NKJV)? Too, He indicts the wicked for giving if not overt, tacit consent to evil that included the harming of family and in American history, blacks known to be Christians (Psalm 50:18-20). Ostensibly Christian hate groups (a contradiction in terms if there ever was one) such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) terrorized blacks throughout the nation’s South.5
The KKK did this by burning crosses in targeted black yards, destroying property, raping the women, whisking away the men to assault and murder sometimes by lynching as their means of intimating the race to remain in its supposedly inferior place to whites. As with the wicked of Psalm 50, those that carried out their evil works of racism did so in the face of God’s silence believing He was completely like them and supported their evil deeds. But God declares not so and assures His ‘“rebuke’” that will set His charges ‘“in order before’” their ‘“eyes,’” (Psalm 50:21, NKJV).6 There is no place in Scripture God endorses, but only in sovereignty permits such evil until He judges it. He says, ‘“Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’” (Romans 12:19-21, NKJV) as many have painfully learned.7
Consequently, God the Judge of His people warns the apathetic religious and willful wicked to ‘“consider’” what He is about to say with a view toward repenting; both, He says, ‘“who forget God’” in their sinning, ‘“lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver,’” (Psalm 50:22, NKJV). So much for the latter day false teaching that contrary to His Word asserts God is no threat for temporal or eternal punitive judgment upon sinning professed Christians (Romans 1:18-2:11; Galatians 5:19-21; Hebrews 10:26-31). The Lord does not change or lower His standards. He receives only genuine praise from the heart of obedience He saves (Psalm 50:23)! Having been gracious, merciful, longsuffering and forbearing with racism in His house over four centuries His judgment has come.8
1 The Scourge Of Racism, Copyright 2023, ODCM Publishing Division, Portland, OR, p. 31-32. The printed book is available in the Strong Man Store, all major internet booksellers and brick and mortar bookstores. The just released E-Book is available widely for purchase through your favorite E-Book seller. Watch the book trailer.
2 Many white conservative professed Christians obviously did believe God endorsed their bigoted and discriminatory acts of racism such as notable evangelists Billy Sunday (see the July 13, 2015 Blog post by Dr. Tim Gombis, The Racist Roots Of Evangelicalism) and Bob Jones, Sr. who founded the university bearing his name that openly practiced excluding blacks through the early 1970s. The Fort Worth, TX seminary I graduated from, Southwestern Baptist, in their history is among many that did not warmly welcome non-white students as I briefly touch on in The Scourge Of Racism, p. 34-35.
3 Read the two-part post beginning August 21, 2016, Christianity The Religion Of Men, under the category, Instruction. Also, read the September 4, 2016 post, Christianity The Religion American Style, under the category, Call To Repent.
4 The status quo being preserved within the context of loveless professed Christianity is the arrogance of racial superiority and privileges. God as Wisdom hates ‘“pride and arrogance,’” ‘”the evil way and the perverse mouth,’” (Proverbs 8:13, NKJV). See the November 12, 2023 post, Loving With The Love Of God, under the category, Instruc- tion.
5 The KKK in their full regalia were prominently featured in some Southern white churches (see the image at about the 9:56 mark in the PBS feature, Backs Against the Wall: The Howard Thurman Story). Four school age girls in a Birmingham, AL church bombing were among those murdered by the violence of racial hate.
6 Those who know and love Him appreciate God’s silence in the face of evil is never His active support and approval. Any that would believe this run into serious trouble at- tempting to sustain such a twisted view of God’s silence in the face of His own Son’s suffering at the hands of evil men (Psalm 22). In His sovereignty, God Almighty chooses the how and when of His intervention against evil as in His perfect or permissive will He allows it always to some good end for the one who puts faith in Him (Ro- mans 8:28)!
7 It is a reality of living in an existence with the eternally just God (Deuteronomy 32:4): sin does not go without being judged by Him. This means no racist that has ever harmed or harms the objects of their racism gets away with it. Equally true, the objects of racism that entitle themselves to sin as victims do not get away with it either!
8 The only God ordained avenue of escape is repentance as the apostle Paul stresses (Romans 2:3-4)! Watch this Ministry’s Strong Man Of God Online Rally, Return To The Lord, on YouTube for help.
As the Lord leads me to make plain in the book, The Scourge Of Racism, racism leaves no one involved untouched; not the object or the perpetrator!1 In the book chapter similarly titled as today’s post, He leads me to firmly assert the very real resulting wounds of racism in the American Church require healing through God’s methodologies already prescribed in His written Word! Of course, one must first be biblically conservative to honor and preserve God’s instruction in His Word intact and willing to objectively interpret, apply and submit to it in obedience. Because all or some part of the foregoing is missing in the main, the Church is now, under God’s judgment!2
Through its human vessels beginning with guilty professed Christian white colonists from before the nation’s founding, their local assemblies and subsequent institutions, the Church in this land that came to be America has tolerated, practiced and enabled racism within its ranks.3 Some of the guilty professed Christian objects of racism in bitterness have returned the favor. Obviously, none of these persons were practicing biblical conservatism in preserving or obeying Christ’s commandment to “love one another” over the past four centuries nor are the guilty doing so now (John 13:34-35, NKJV).4 This ungodly reality is contrary to the example of many biblical personages.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the foremost example of a biblical conservative. He announced to Israel He had not come “to destroy the Law or the Prophets…but to fulfill” them (Matthew 5:17-20; Luke 16:14-18, 24:25-27, 44-45, NKJV). Every godly person in the Bible after Christ also treats the Word of God with reverence and acts on it as it is written (Joshua 8:30-35; Daniel 9:1-2; Luke 2:25, 23:50-51).5 Even Satan and his demon cohort take God’s Word at face value while corrupting it to whoever will pay heed (Matthew 4:1-7, 8:28-29; 2 Peter 3:14-16). No, Christ’s commandment that His disciples love each other has willfully not been honored, preserved or obeyed!
There is absolutely no excuse for disobeying Christ’s commandment for the real “born again” Christian because the impetus and spiritual substance of God’s love through the Holy Spirit fills our hearts providing what we need to obey (John 3:1-8; Romans 5:5; 1 Corinthians 13:1-8a, NKJV). Beyond yielding to the sinful flesh along with worldly family and cultural conditioning, this raises the prospect of fear and the outcome of cowardice which the Lord does not accept as a reason for disobedience (Romans 13:8-14; Galatians 5:19-25; Revelation 21:8). After these reasons only one other is plausible and that is the disobedient are not Christians at all, but impostors and apostates.6
In my book, I do not pretend healing racism’s wounds in the American Church will be easy. The biblical process will be spiritually, psychologically and emotionally challenging for authentic Christians that have been practicing even subtle racism a long time. For the personal sin of racism and that of one’s fathers must be confessed and repented from before God to receive His forgiveness (Daniel 9:8-11; 1 John 1:8-2:2).7 Also, the forgiveness of those known brothers and sisters one has been bigoted toward and discriminated against is to be sought. Guilty black and Christians of every other hue must confess and repent from bitterness and be willing to forgive those past and present who have brought harm through racism (Mark11:25-26; Ephesians 4:31-32; Colossians 3:12-13).
1 The Scourge Of Racism, Copyright 2023, ODCM Publishing Division, Portland, OR. Learn more about the book to be released October 5th and the specific chapter referred to, The Sting Of Racism, at this link. The book will be widely available in Ministry Web Site Stores, among internet booksellers and brick and mortar bookstores.
2 Read the June 10, 2018 post, God’s Judgment Upon His House, under the categories Bible Prophecy and God’s Creatures.
3 See the respective September 10 and 17, 2023 posts, Our American Heritage and Racism A Two-Fold Scourge, both under the category, Biblical Worldview.
4 Read the September 24, 2023 post, Racism In Christ’s Church A No-No, under the category, Instruction.
5 This is the heart of every aspiring strong man and great woman of God I write about in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics. It remains available in the Strong Man Store among internet booksellers and brick and mortar bookstores.
6 See the two-part post beginning August 21, 2016, Christianity The Religion Of Men, under the category, Instruction. Practicing and attempting to pass off a counterfeit form of manmade of Christianity, religious folk as impostors that grow worse and apostates who knowingly infiltrate local assemblies are foretold (2 Timothy 3:1-9, 13; Jude 3-4, 16-19). These are easily persuaded by Satan, sin and self to hate as racists because the love of God is not in them!
7 Racism is most assuredly among the sins of the fathers and one’s own the Lord is expecting those professed Christians who will return to Him to confess and repent from in His appeal through this Ministry’s Strong Man Of God Online Rally, Return To The Lord.
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