Recently I challenged a Wesleyan theologian to complete the Methodist Revolution by adding justice to love. Wesley excelled at love for the poor, but he was a novice at justice for the oppressed poor. And his famous disciple, Wilberforce, who was instrumental in ending the slave trade and slavery, paid reparations to slaveholders, not to the freed slaves.
The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church recently demonstrated marvelous and amazing grace after its pastor and eight other members were murdered by a white racist. Now is the time for white, northern Methodists to add justice to grace and love. Now is the time for Methodists/Wesleyans of all stripes to demonstrate sweeping, radical, and extreme biblical justice to end white ethnocentrism/racism/oppression.
As a nation, we are approaching the Fourth of July when we celebrate our independence and honor the flag---the Stars and Stripes. Because of long standing white ethnocentrism/racism/oppression, the Stars and Stripes are as tarnished as the Confederate flag. As a result, even though the Pledge of Allegiance ends with this great phrase---"with liberty and justice for all," I see little comprehensive and sustained effort by white northern Methodists/Wesleyans to actually do justice. Since the Pledge also contains the phrase "under God," I see myself as a hypocrite by mouthing fine words that have little reality. So until justice floods the nation and washes ethnocentrism/racism/oppression away, I can no longer, in good conscience, say the Pledge.
The sanctimonious North has been engaged in a lot of self-righteous blather about the Confederate flag. But the North itself is deeply racist, both in the past and in the present, though it has never flown the Confederate flag. Is the North's ethnocentrism/racism/oppression tied to the Stars and Stripes?
1. The North was the center of the slave trade---think New England, think the DeWolf family clan (which was worse than the Klan) from Bristol, Rhode Island. The slave trade was even more evil than slavery.
2. At one stage in American history, the North engaged in slavery also; they just ended it sooner than the South.
3. The North partially financed slavery and it profited greatly from the cotton trade, a product grown with slave labor.
4. The North is currently heavily involved in both mass incarceration (including extensive racial profiling), and the massive racial wealth gap. The Confederate flag does not fly over Northern prisons.
5. Senator Ernst and Representative King from Iowa (for the geographically illiterate, Iowa is located in the North) both accepted campaign contributions from an openly white supremist organization.
6. Senator Ernst and Senator Grassley are from Iowa, a state that from time to time has ranked number one in the nation in terms of its black-white incarceration ratio. Strangely, both have been quite silent about this evil in their midst.
7. The Big Banks and Wall Street are largely Northern entities; they drive the racial wealth gap. Wall Street once traded slaves; Wall Street flies no Confederate flag.
8. I see no sign of a deep-seated repentance or restitution by whites in either the North or South. Genuine repentance and biblical restitution would result in the Northern white church aggressively attempting to end both mass incarceration and the racial wealth gap.
9. Hint: Even if the South gets rid of its evil flag, racism will not end in the South.
10. Lincoln and most abolitionists were racists; they believed that whites were superior and blacks were inferior. At one time, Lincoln wanted freed slaves to go back to Africa---self-deport.
For documentation, see PBS documentary Traces of the Trade, section 'Northern involvement in the Slave Trade.'
God said (Isa. 61:8): "I love justice."
God said (Amos 5:24, The Message): "I want justice---oceans of it."
God said (Luke 4:18-19, Noble paraphrase): "Biblical justice releases the oppressed."
My application to the American church: "God wants the church to do works of love and justice to release the oppressed and to repair their damaged individuals, families and communities. If the poverty and oppression is extreme, then justice must be equally extreme, radical, sweeping." So 50 percent of a church's budget should be spent on justice ministries, release the oppressed ministries.
What are the specific steps that are required?
1. A biblical church needs to identify and confront the oppressors. Who are the oppressors?
2. A biblical church needs to identify and release the oppressed? Who are the oppressed?
3. A biblical church must identify and destroy the systems of oppression. What is the nature of oppression? Gender, racial, economic?
Biblical grace, faith, worship, prayer must be mobilized so the church can engage in works of love and justice. The kingdom of God demands justice. The Holy Spirit empowers the church to do justice---set things right.
Both the OT prophet Amos and the NT prophet James were clear, blunt and specific about who the oppressors were---the rich; and who the oppressed were---the poor. So why is the American church so confused about economic inequality issues? Why is most of the American church not busy about releasing the oppressed? Why are the rich oppressors so comfortable and welcome in the American church? Why are the rich oppressors honored and the poor oppressed blamed and dishonored?
In his Introduction to Amos in The Message, Eugene Peterson writes: "Prophets sniff out injustice, especially injustice that is dressed up in religious garb. They sniff it out a mile away. Prophets see through hypocrisy, especially hypocrisy that assumes a religious pose. . . . Amos towers as defender of the downtrodden [oppressed] poor and accuser of the powerful rich who use God's name to legitimate their sin."
Another prophet, Jesus, the Christ, roared his disapproval of the religious rich, the ones who turned the holy Temple into "a den of robbers." The Pharisees who were greedy and lovers of money are described by Jesus (Luke 11:39-42) as ones who "neglect justice and the love of God." When Jesus finished his six woes in which he severely critiqued the religious rich Pharisees, how did they react? Luke 11:53: "The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely." Opposition, persecution, even death may hound those who do justice.
In Amos 2, the religious rich are described : "people for them are only things---ways of making money. They'd sell a poor man for a pair of shoes. They'd sell their own grandmother. They grind the penniless into the dust." (The Message)
I myself am a Wesleyan/Methodist. I have been around Wesleyans/Methodists most of my 88 years. I have lived in the black ghettos of Jackson, Michigan and Jackson, Mississippi for 35 years. I have been on a pilgrimage to understand and change white American ethnocentrism/racism/oppression since April 1968.
To my knowledge, no Wesleyan/Methodist scholar has written a comprehensive analysis of the extensive biblical teaching on ethnocentrism/oppression. As a result, by either sins of commission or sins of omission, most Wesleyans either tolerate or participate
in the oppression of blacks.
To my knowledge, no Wesleyan scholar has ever rejusticized the English NT; in the NIV, justice is found 16 times. In a typical Spanish, French, Portugese, or Latin NT, justice occurs around 100 times. The absence of biblical justice creates a social vacuum into which rushes ethnocentrism/racism/oppression. In terms of social evil, Methodists are more American than biblical.
I long for the day when white, northern Wesleyans will repent and then restitute to the degree that even the secular world will be stunned at the amazing justice they see flowing out of the church. May the time come soon when Wesleyans/Methodists will lead the charge to abolish mass incarceration and the racial wealth gap. I long for the day when the biblical faith of white, northern Methodists will match the amazing biblical faith of Emanuel AME Church.
Out of grace should flow works of love and justice. (Eph. 2:8-10)
Out of faith must flow works of love and justice. (James 2)
Out of worship must flow works of love and justice. (Amos 5:21-24)
Out of love must flow works of justice. (I John 3:14-16)
As Graham Cray asserts: "The agenda of the kingdom of God is justice; the dynamic of the kingdom of God is the Holy Spirit."
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