I have felt a lot like one of the Old Testament kings recently when it comes to Scripture and the injustices in my land. I feel like Josiah when the Torah was accidentally found during a repair job at the temple (2 Kings 22). Generations of doing things a certain way, now confronted with God’s original will and design for his land, what would Josiah do? What would Josiah’s sons do? What will I do?
The prophet Jeremiah brought some pretty condemning words to Josiah’s son King Jehoiakim:
Jeremiah 22:13 “Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness,
his upper rooms by injustice,
making his own people work for nothing,
not paying them for their labor.
14 He says, ‘I will build myself a great palace
with spacious upper rooms.’
So he makes large windows in it,
panels it with cedar
and decorates it in red.
15 “Does it make you a king
to have more and more cedar?
Did not your father have food and drink?
He did what was right and just,
so all went well with him.
16 He defended the cause of the poor and needy,
and so all went well.
Is that not what it means to know me?”
declares the LORD.
I wish we still had Old Testament-style prophets in America. A prophet could point to this Scripture and say to the American Church: this applies to you, your country, and the racial inequity and segregation still in your land and in your Church.
We don’t have mouthpiece-of-God prophets like Jeremiah any more. We have the words of the prophets and the words of Jesus within the Bible, and we have the Holy Spirit, and then we have guys like me who read this stuff and try to apply it to our context in America.
What would a prophet say to the American Church?
Is it okay to assume he would say something to us? Or have we really arrived?
It’s ironic that the prophets were killed for their messages, Jesus was killed for his message, and Jesus tells his killers “you killed the prophets and now you’re going to kill me,” (Matthew 23:29-39) to which we smile and nod and say “yep that’s true, but we’d never do that,” (just like the Pharisees said in Matthew 23:30). Then when a confrontational prophetic-type message from the very words of the prophets is brought by a contemporary church leader, our first response is usually to say, “How dare you accuse me of that?” Or how we say we believe in the authority and relevancy of Scripture, yet we respond to these confrontations by saying, “Well that’s not relevant for today” and assume it requires no action on our parts.
I’m really challenged by the prophets of the Old Testament. I don’t know if they are still speaking to you or not, but they are still speaking to me, and I’d like to tell you what they’re telling me.
Jeremiah 22:13 “Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness,
his upper rooms by injustice,
making his own people work for nothing,
not paying them for their labor.
Privileged white society in America was built by the unrighteous genocide of Native Americans, unjust legal treatment of anyone non-white, and brutal enslavement of African Americans, all for white economic greed and gain.
- 1492 – Columbus sailed the ocean blue
- 1493 Doctrine of Discovery – stated that any land not inhabited by Christians was available to be “discovered,” claimed, and exploited by Christian rulers”
- Systematic genocide of Native Americans ensues
- Three-Fifths Compromise of 1787 – Slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person when determining how many seats that state would have in the US House of Representatives
- The Naturalization Act of 1790 – Only “free white persons” of “good character” could be US citizens
- Immigration Act of 1924 – The number of immigrants admitted from any country was limited to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States in 1890. The purpose was “to preserve the ideal of American homogeneity.”
- Late 1940’s – The G.I. Bill gave federal money to returning soldiers, allowing them to purchase homes and build financial capital. This money was denied to blacks returning from the war, and banks and mortgage agencies refused to loan to blacks
- 1876-1965 Jim Crow Laws – Inferior conditions for blacks and major educational and social disadvantages to blacks. Segregation of public schools, public places, public transit, restrooms, restaurants and drinking fountains.
- Redlining (legal until 1975) – Blacks are refused loans in better resourced parts of town, being forced into under-resourced urban ghettos.
What strikes me as a white pastor who deeply loves the Church is how the white evangelical church stood on the sidelines and watched all of this happen or worse, participated and perpetuated it.
Great American theologians Jonathan Edwards and James P. Boyce both owned slaves.
Many white pastors owned slaves.
The Bible was manipulated by whites to endorse slavery.
Once slaves were freed in 1865, they weren’t allowed to hold leadership positions in white churches or denominations or to attend white seminaries.
So blacks started their own churches, denominations and seminaries.
Did you know Billy Graham did racially segregated rallies? Don’t want to offend those white people by having black people around. Don’t want to risk someone not hearing Jesus’ gospel because you are busy obeying Jesus’ teachings…
And here we sit in 2015.
With wealthy white churches and wealthy white church planting movements (“We’re not a white movement, we’re just a movement!”…if almost everyone in your movement is white, you are a white movement…) hoarding the resources from churches and Christians of color.
With the disparaging gap of inequity between a white household’s net worth versus a black household’s only getting worse, not better. (see chart at right, from Pew Research Center) $141,900 in comparison to $11,000 ought to take your breath away.
Meanwhile the white church trudges on… doing it our way according to our culture. Alienating ourselves from people of color.
The black church trudges on… doing it their way, as they’ve never been welcomed at the white table. Unless they paint themselves white in the way they function and relate to God.
What would the prophets of the Old Testament say to the American Church?
And how would you respond to them?
Will it be inconvenient to respond to them? Of course it will. Just as it was inconvenient for King Josiah to smash all of the idols in Judah after he discovered the Torah.
It was not popular.
It received huge backlash.
It went against all known societal norms.
It was incredibly inconvenient.
But it was God’s will.
Rather than responding to all of this with defending ourselves, we need to respond with humility, conviction, prayer and fasting. We need to respond with repentance, sackcloth and ashes.
We need to let the prophets speak.
I’m tired of playing games. I’m tired of obeying man instead of God. I’m tired of our excuses and my excuses. I’m tired of minimizing the gospel to a self-centered formula that nullifies Jesus’ commands as inapplicable. I’m ready to see a movement of God sweep over the American Church and subsequently over America itself.
I’m ready to obey God’s word that he spoke through his prophets.
Will you join me?
Related Posts:
What does Jesus say about segregated churches?
What does the New Testament Church say about our segregated churches?
Related posts:
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Some of the problem you have identified is perpetuated by the fact that people naturally cluster into groups of similar interests and idiosyncrasies. This may be innocent in and of itself, but the end result is that you see racial/ ethnic segregation, denominations and such. Demographics also play a role: my city of residence simply does not have a large non-white population, though for what it is worth, speaking as a white male, I like to think that I helped the cause of diversity by marrying a Latina from South America. 🙂
Other thoughts: It is quite understandable to look after one’s own first. Nevertheless, the way we run things in modern America is different from the NT church in many ways: the churches back then would take collections to help believers at churches that most of their members had never been to. I do not see that happening much today, although my home congregation does help a church in the Carribean.
Other suggestions on how to help increase diversity?
Hello Brian! I wanted to leave a quick reply here. I am so grateful that you are thinking about what your congregation can do to racially integrate. The observations you made are accurate and are very much based on the historical events Noah outlined above. Do we tend to socialize in our communities without reaching outward? Yes. The question is if our communities have equal resources (no), why not (the historical events outlined above), and if we can ethically accept a position of more prestige that is based upon abuse and injustice. Can we say that we did not actively take a part in abusing minorities when we support a society that systematically discriminates against minorities? These are some of the questions we need to be asking. As a pastor who wants to address these issues, I recommend you read Divided by Faith and anything written by John Perkins. God bless!
Great question Brian. The best way to increase diversity in your own life is to increase your proximity to people of color. Honestly, for a lot of people that want to be really serious about this, this should include where they live. It’s not a sin to live in the suburbs and obviously a lot of people are stuck in their homes even if they wanted to move for whatever reason, but I do think it’s important to understand the racist / sinful way suburbs were created via white flight: http://www.atacrossroads.net/past-of-racism-polluting-our-present-how-white-suburbs-were-made/
There’s rural communities as well, which are predominantly white and were not originally created by white flight. Good advice I heard from John Piper is that for churches who are surrounded by a very homogenous community where becoming multiracial is likely not a possibility, they need to still be preaching the texts about race and increasing their people’s cultural intelligence. These churches also need to bring in persons of color as guest preachers on a regular basis.
Personally, you should try to increase your proximity to people of color as much as you can. Attend community events. Put yourself in a stream where you’ll be able to make authentic friendships with people of color. Be intentional about these friendships. Have people over for dinner etc. Depending on someone’s current church context, a white person can join a minority church, something that is very impactful.
That’s great that you have married a Latina lady! This actually should help you be less threatening / more relatable to people of color.
Great questions Brian, I applaud you as you pursue a more diverse Christian life!
Can I ask where the picture of the white women with signs in front of the Calvary chapel were taken? Or the source?
This is an older article of mine. Just did some research on the photo, it is from Fort Worth, TX according to the Library of Congress. Here’s a list of the same image: https://www.google.com/search?docid=5NtADJVQj-S_YM&hl=en&bih=637&biw=1317&q=church+segregation&tbm=isch&tbs=simg:CAQSHQk38lls4lwC0hoSCxCwjKcIGgAMCxCOrv4IGgAM&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9uJC8zvPMAhUj6YMKHQw1CZ0Q2A4IGygB#q=church+segregation&docid=5NtADJVQj-S_YM&hl=en&tbs=simg:CAQSHQk38lls4lwC0hoSCxCwjKcIGgAMCxCOrv4IGgAM&tbm=isch&tbas=0&imgrc=_ –as well as a Library of Congress location: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiJtI-lz_PMAhVIzoMKHXtYAe0QjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.loc.gov%2Fitem%2F98512051%2F&psig=AFQjCNETyH1cQ4bm_IIo0Cfo2RhxMg2S2Q&ust=1464210495132825
Thank you for your response!