American history as seen through the eyes of G.E. Thomas, Reginald Horsman, Ronald Takakiu, Forrest Wood and Ronald Wells.
Though I earned two BA's, two MA's and a Specialist in Arts degree [mini-Ph. D.], and three of these degrees were from evangelical Christian liberal arts colleges, I never learned any of the information that I am about to summarize and reveal in this article. Now it seems as though there was conspiracy of silence to hide much of America's past from me; unlike the raw truth of the Bible, our history was sanitized. Some of our past approaches the brutality of a Hitler or a Stalin so I guess shame alone may have driven our scholars to hide some of our inglorious past. Few of my friends today fully know about this past so it is still hidden from most Euro American evangelical Christians; when told many reject this truth still convinced that the Puritans and our founding fathers were great persons, even Christians.
One of the first shockers for me was the reading of The Wars of America: Christian Views [1980]. I found myself shaking my head in disbelief as I read the true account of why we fought our wars from the pens of eight Christian historians. Only one of the eight is a pacifist; the other seven believe in the just war theory. All eight authors are members of the Conference of Faith and History, but this book is not an official project of that organization.
Prior to reading The Wars of America: Christian Views, I would have believed, in large part, this statement: America is a nation with a Christian heritage even a chosen people, to spread democracy and Christianity around the world. Therefore, our wars were in large part justified wars or even legitimate crusades. Though the prior Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War had begun to raise some serious doubts, these were countered by what appeared to be a legitimate crusade against Communism which at one time looked like it might conquer the world.
After reading Wars of America, I came to realize that we have often been imperialistic---dominated and/or conquered other peoples---it all started by us illegitimately conquering [on our maps it is often politely called annexed], Indian and Mexican territory. I concluded:
- We rely too heavily on military power to achieve our purposes, and too little on negotiation.
- We, like Israel, have often arrogantly misused the idea of being God's chosen people. Has this been a form of idolatry? Instead of using our power and resources to serve [in times of disaster we sometimes do so], we too often have used them to dominate. Example: our relationship with the Central American and Caribbean countries over the years; again and again we have sent in troops to force our policies on the region.
- What we jealously guard---our own national sovereignty---we blatantly ignore for other nations. We fell justified in interfering in other nation's affairs if it is in our national interest.
- War is often oppression on a massive systematic scale; it is often motivated by ethnocentrism and/or nationalism. But public propaganda somehow justifies war by tying it to national security or even peace and justice.
Ronald Wells, editor of Wars of America asserts that:
"To examine a nation's experience of war and its response to it, is to learn something fundamental about a nation's values and social order." [Emphasis added]
What values are our young people willing to fight and even die for? What values are mothers and fathers willing to sacrifice their sons and daughters for? Do we take the time to sort out truth from ideological propaganda? Patriotic sounding words may not always equal truth; they could be used to cover deception.
War is serious business. This is why it reveals our basic values. Are we willing to die for freedom, for justice, for materialistic gain, for patriotism, for territorial expansion, for God's will and purposes, for perceived threats to our national security, for cheap oil, for ethnocentrism [to preserve our supposed superiority?].
Why have Americans been so gullible, especially American Christians, and swallowed ideological propaganda to justify unjustified wars? Listen to the pious religious cover given by
President McKinley to legitimate our invasion of the Philippines and the brutal and wanton slaughter of thousands of Filipinos; his speech drips with ethnocentrism/racism:
"I walked the floor of the White House night after night . . . . I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance . . . . one night late it came to me . . . . that we could not give them [Philippines] back to Spain . . . . that we could not leave them to themselves --- they were unfit for self-government --- . . . . that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died... And I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly."
Then the slaughter began. Only in preparing for a trip to the Philippines, did I discover the magnitude of the horror of our oppression; previously, I had gullibly believed that we did have the good of the Filipinos in mind. After all, we had established an American style education system and a public health system. Even the account in Wars of America, which is critical of our intervention, severely underestimates the number of Filipino deaths. An American general who had successfully developed techniques to conquer and destroy Native Americans was sent to do the same there. Tragically, he succeeded.
Our founding fathers said they wanted to avoid war because they did not want to repeat Europe's mistake. Europe had been torn by war again and again. But inspite of these lofty sentiments, we have fought many wars, some of them over imperialistic expansion and greed. Violence turned out to be as American as apple pie. We took this land from Native Americans by violence and deceit. Even the often glorified American Revolution was unnecessary violence as we shall see.
George Marsden is the historian who fearlessly analyzes the American Revolution and asks, "Was the Revolution a Just War or a Crusade? As two nations fight a war both usually rationalize that their cause is just, but their opponents are unjust. Both may pray to the same God for victory. Usually the ideological propaganda does not square with the facts. In the case of World War II, racist America fought a racist Hitler; it was not entirely the good guys versus the bad guys.
Marsden argues that for Christians war should be the last resort:
"Christian citizens should be willing to kill at the command of their leaders only in cases in which the killing is the only means available to protect the innocent and thereby promote justice and restore peace. This is the essence of a "just war" theory."
In reality, American Christians have too often "been in the forefront in turning their 'just wars' into such crusades," when the supposedly righteous cause justifies the most aggressive violence against the unrighteous enemy. Marsden asserts:
"The American Revolution is a pivotal instance for understanding how modern nations have transformed supposed "just wars" into secular crusades. It is pivotal for considering other wars of America, since the patterns of nationalism and civil religion established at the time of the Revolution became important elements of the mythology that determined America's behavior in subsequent wars." [Emphasis added]
After a thorough discussion, Marsden concludes that
"the rebelling colonists . . . . appeared to have been dead wrong in concluding that without armed rebellion absolute tyranny was inevitable."
But many of the Christian leaders believed the ideological propaganda that the tyranny was terrible and that God was on their side. So many religious leaders fueled the rhetoric of rebellion, not caution and constraint based on love and justice. Thus the American revolution became not only a just cause, but a "sacred duty." Out of the American Revolution a
"new religion was born. This new religion is the now-famous American civil religion in which the state is an object of worship, but the imagery used to describe its sacredness is borrowed from Christianity."
Legally, in this country church and state are separate. But American civil religion is a way to blend the two.
This same syncretistic spirit was carried over into the War of 1812 and expressed by
Francis Scott Key:
"Then conquer we must, when our cause is just, and this be our motto: "In God is our trust".
During World War II, this sentiment was expressed a little more brashly:
"Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, and we will all stay free."
Jefferson argued against the War of 1812, but materialism and expansionist ideology won the day. Christians both supported and opposed the War, but civil religion won the battle; deception won over Biblical truth.
The War with Mexico provided an opportunity for the future expansion of American civil religion legitimated by many Christians during the American Revolution. Some Americans saw the war for what it was --- "a blatant act of aggression against a helpless neighbor." But those who believed in Manifest Destiny, that it was God's will for the American nation to spread from coast to coast, won the ideological battle. National interest won over human rights and international justice.
The war with Mexico was an easy sell to the American public in the sense that it was easy to characterize Mexicans as an inferior race. Racism/ethnocentrism seemed to fit hand-in-glove with Manifest Destiny. Lacking a good theology to counteract ethnocentrism and oppression, the majority of American Christians either tolerated or supported the war.
Even in the year 2000, American Christians are still using a twisted theology to justify or excuse ethnocentrism and oppression. We still lack a theology to expose and oppose it. Christianity Today has a one page "Good Question" column. My good friend, Ronald Potter, an Afro American scholar, was asked to answer this question: "Was Slavery God's Will? Some Christian writers have said slavery in America was divinely sanctioned because it helped bring Africans to Christ. Is it true?"
Potter began his reply with this true story:
"At the 1996 Promise Keepers pastors conference in Atalanta, a Native American brother stood up and chronicled the many gross sins committed by white Americans against Native Americans over the centuries. He reminded the audience of the violation of hundreds of treaties, the slaughter of millions of buffalo, and the near genocide of numerous tribes. His conclusion, however, disturbed me. In spite of the horror, he told the gathered pastors, most of whom were white, if the white man had not come to the Americas, we would not know Jesus. The crowd of 40,000 shouted "Amen!" in stirring unison. I returned home in a quandary."
In a letter to the editor, I replied:
"Was Slavery God's will? . . . . because it helped Africans to Christ?" [CT, May 22, 2000]. For this question even to be asked and the implied answer approved by thousands of pastors at a meeting promoting ethnic reconciliation, indicates the low level of Christianity in America today. The question is an insult to God and a disgrace to the church. The real question should have been --- why were Christians so often involved in the oppression of Native Americans, Afro Americans and other ethnic groups? Why did the Puritans turn arrogantly ethnocentric and start oppressing
Native Americans --- at times killing whole villages, slaughtering men, women and children, even paying money for the scalps of Indians? Why did Jonathan Edwards, the great early American theologian, own slaves? Why did the Bible Belt engage in cruel slavery and later brutal segregation? In the kingdom of God, Christians are called to love their neighbors, to do justice.
Reread Mt 28: 18-20 and Acts 1:8; these verses say nothing about oppression being a part of evangelism."
Both sides in the Civil War believed that their cause was just, that God was on their side. The founding fathers left some issues such as slavery unresolved. Later President Jefferson introduced a bill to prevent slavery in new states; it lost by one vote. The great national sin almost destroyed these United States. A fearful price was paid to keep the Union intact.
In the Spanish-American War high-sounding motives such as free Cubans from Spanish imperialism quickly degenerated into "a war of American conquest." Manifest Destiny, American ethnocentrism and imperialism soon combined to fuel the war. Many evangelicals joined the fusing of the gospel with racism and nationalism. President McKinley, a "devout, church-going man" mixed humanitarian motives with raw imperialism and the war became a "righteous crusade."
The Filipinos did not accept this occupation as "God's will", so they fought bitterly to keep their freedom. US troops brutally suppressed the Filipinos; oppression, again, had become a part of Manifest Destiny. Oppression and "God's will." Oppression and "God's will." This reminds me of Jeremiah's many warnings about deceitful distortions of God's truth [Jer. 8:10-12]:
"From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit. They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. Peace, peace [shalom, shalom]. they say, when there is no peace. Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all."
There can be no shalom in the midst of oppression and idolatry.
World Wars I and II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War are also discussed by an expert in each war. Each of these wars had serious flaws from a Christian perspective even though most Christians supported them. For example, in World War II, we copied Hitler's bombing of civilians as a legitimate war tactic, a clear violation of just war theory.
In a concluding chapter, Wells asserts the American ideology including Manifest Destiny, corrupted Christian theology. Our theology of society and justice was weak so theology could not correct American theology. The American church desperately needs a theology of society based on justice and shalom and against ethnocentrism and oppression so that it can challenge rationalizations and deceptions promoted in the name of God.
Americans, American Christians, do you really want your sons and daughters to be sacrificed in unjust wars? Don't believe everything you hear even from fellow Christians. Over the years, Christians have been tragically gullible. Why have so many Christians supported unjust wars fully convinced that they were doing God's will?
I believe that our founding fathers and the Puritans bear a heavy responsibility for setting America on a course of bleeding Christianity with American ethnocentrism/nationalism. Does the good they did atone for the bad they did? G. E. Thomas documents "the rest of the story" --- largely untold and unknown in Christian circles --- better than anyone I know ["Puritans, Indians, and the Concept of Race," New England Quarterly, March, 1975]. He quotes but disagrees with Alden Vaughan that orthodox history believes "that the New England Puritans followed a remarkable human, constructive and just policy in their dealing with the Indians." Thomas' conclusion, however, is that
"the record of Puritan attitudes, goals and behavior in every major area of interaction with Indians reveals a continued harshness, brutality, and ethnocentric bias, which . . . . had fatal consequences for the Indians as a race."
In addition to fighting wars with Indians, and, at times, slaughtering whole villages, the Puritans began offering money for the scalps of Indians on a sliding scale with the most money being paid for the scale;ps of young men and adult males. Puritans saw the hand of God in the widespread deaths of Native Americans from disease. Forrest Wood declares:
"The belief that God had cursed the Indian population in order to prepare New England for his children was preached from every pulpit and quickly became an enduring part of Puritan folklore . . . a part of a divine plan to establish the Kingdom of Christ in the New World. With this type of twisted theology, it would be easy to move to believing that slavery was also God's will."
Puritans had an English background and the English and done much the same to the Irish.
Ronald Takaki documents the savage treatment of the Irish in A Different Mirro: A History of Multicultural America[1993], pp. 26-28 and 140-141.
"While the English were generally brutal in their warfare practices at that time, they seemed to have been particularly cruel toward the Irish. The colonizers burned the villages and crops of the inhabitants and relocated them on reservations. They slaughtered families, "men, woman and child,". . . .
The death toll was massive but this was good because it meant vacant land for English resettlement. The British took Irish heads as trophies. The British called the Irish savages, but it seems the savage British is more appropriate. "The first English colonizers in the New World found that the Indians reminded them of the Irish." So it is not surprising to find the English settlers soon treating the Indians as savagely as they did the Irish using some of the same methods. The Puritans brought British ethnocentrism and oppression with them. Their brand of Christianity did not purity them of these evil social values; instead it seemed to legitimate them.
Another feeder of British and American ethnocentrism was the mythology of the superiority of Anglo-Saxons. Reginald Horsman has examined in exhaustive detail the origin and development of "racial Anglo-Saxonism" in Race and Manifest Destiny, [1981. In essence, Horsman argues that the American brand of racism was developed as a rationalization/justification for Manifest Destiny --- the belief that it was God's will for the so-called super Judeo-Chrisitan heritage to spread from coast to coast and also impact the world. Manifest Destiny was supported by a religion-politico-economic-cultural and even linguistic sense of superiority which justified an ethnocentric oppression of any ethnic group that got in the way. It legitimated cruel slavery, the near genocide of Native Americans, and oppressive imperialistic expansion against Mexico.
The idea of a distinct Anglo-Saxon race has no basis in fact; it is an ideological myth. But this myth took hold as if it were fact. The people of England were a mix of original Celtic tribes, Germanic tribes, Viking settlements and Norman conquest. There are no pure Teutonic or Aryan roots. But the founding fathers, especially Thomas Jefferson, were enamored with this superior Anglo-Saxon myth. Horsman states:
"this view of Anglo-Saxon England was in its way as unreal as those writings which pictured Arthur's England as a Camelot of brave knights, but it persisted in English and American thinking long after Jefferson's death."
The myth of being from a race of superior qualities [Anglo-Saxon] was blended with the myth of being a chosen people. False history and false biology mixed with faulty theology combined to create a zealous, militant, arrogant ethnocentrism/nationalism which led to oppression carried out in the name of God.
Forrest Wood, author of The Arrogance of Faith: Christianity and Race from the Colonial Era to the Twentieth Century [1990], was born and raised in a conservative Protestant family. As an adult, he was troubled by racism in America a wondered if we could ever overcome it. As he researched the problem historically, he discovered that, for the most part and with some exceptions, the Christian church had often led, supported or tolerated racism in the church as well as society.
This discovery was highly significant to Wood since he also discovered the pervasive influence of the Christian religion upon American culture:
". . . . what really surprised me was how far Christianity's influence had reached beyond the sanctuary. Biblical maxims, the Puritan work ethic, Pauline moral preachments, Old Testament conceptions of the Elect, . . . . the Ten Commandments . . . . permeate every fiber of secular life. The exalted American commitments to individualism, free enterprise, and the diffusion of democratic principles are I, came to believe, nothing more than secular extensions of the Christian precepts of a personal relationship with Christ, man's dominion over the earth, and the bringing of the Good News to all peoples."
In the next paragraph, Wood adds this contradictory thought:
"The central this of this book is that Christianity, in the five centuries since its message was first carried to the peoples of the New World --- and, in particular, to the natives and the transplanted Africans of English North America and the United States --- has been fundamentally racist in its ideology, organization, and practice."
Since Christianity was so pervasive, it had the potential to destroy racism had the full gospel of the kingdom of God as justice and shalom for all ethnic groups been preached and practice. But, in general, Christianity accommodated itself to racism.
Dwight Perry, author of Breaking Down Barriers: A Black Evangelical Explains the Black Church [1998], in discussing the accommodation of the White evangelical church to racism and bigotry, explains the problem this way: white evangelicals had a "right theology, but wrong sociology." I think that he means that evangelicals had a good theology of personal sin and personal salvation based on the cross and resurrection, but at the same time, tolerated and practiced ethnocentrism and oppression. I would restate the problem as evangelicals had an "incomplete theology and a terrible sociology as a consequence of this partial theology." Yes, a good theology of personal sin-personal salvation and related doctrines, but since they did not understand the kingdom of God as "justice for all" [Billy Graham's phrase], since they did not incarnate the kingdom of God as justice and shalom and oppose ethnocentrism and oppression, evangelicals, themselves, often became agents of social evil or ethnocentric and oppressive.
Try reading all the Messianic passages from Isaiah in sequence form NIV.
The war with Mexico was an easy sell to the American public in the sense that it was easy to characterize Mexicans as an inferior race. Racism/ethnocentrism seemed to fit hand-in-glove with Manifest Destiny. Lacking a good theology to counteract ethnocentrism and oppression, the majority of American Christians either tolerated or supported the war.
Even in the year 2000, American Christians are still using a twisted theology to justify or excuse ethnocentrism and oppression. We still lack a theology to expose and oppose it. Christianity Today has a one page "Good Question" column. My good friend, Ronald Potter, an Afro American scholar, was asked to answer this question: "Was Slavery God's Will? Some Christian writers have said slavery in America was divinely sanctioned because it helped bring Africans to Christ. Is it true?"
Potter began his reply with this true story:
"At the 1996 Promise Keepers pastors conference in Atalanta, a Native American brother stood up and chronicled the many gross sins committed by white Americans against Native Americans over the centuries. He reminded the audience of the violation of hundreds of treaties, the slaughter of millions of buffalo, and the near genocide of numerous tribes. His conclusion, however, disturbed me. In spite of the horror, he told the gathered pastors, most of whom were white, if the white man had not come to the Americas, we would not know Jesus. The crowd of 40,000 shouted "Amen!" in stirring unison. I returned home in a quandary."
In a letter to the editor, I replied:
"Was Slavery God's will? . . . . because it helped Africans to Christ?" [CT, May 22, 2000]. For this question even to be asked and the implied answer approved by thousands of pastors at a meeting promoting ethnic reconciliation, indicates the low level of Christianity in America today. The question is an insult to God and a disgrace to the church. The real question should have been --- why were Christians so often involved in the oppression of Native Americans, Afro Americans and other ethnic groups? Why did the Puritans turn arrogantly ethnocentric and start oppressing
Native Americans --- at times killing whole villages, slaughtering men, women and children, even paying money for the scalps of Indians? Why did Jonathan Edwards, the great early American theologian, own slaves? Why did the Bible Belt engage in cruel slavery and later brutal segregation? In the kingdom of God, Christians are called to love their neighbors, to do justice.
Reread Mt 28: 18-20 and Acts 1:8; these verses say nothing about oppression being a part of evangelism."
Both sides in the Civil War believed that their cause was just, that God was on their side. The founding fathers left some issues such as slavery unresolved. Later President Jefferson introduced a bill to prevent slavery in new states; it lost by one vote. The great national sin almost destroyed these United States. A fearful price was paid to keep the Union intact.
In the Spanish-American War high-sounding motives such as free Cubans from Spanish imperialism quickly degenerated into "a war of American conquest." Manifest Destiny, American ethnocentrism and imperialism soon combined to fuel the war. Many evangelicals joined the fusing of the gospel with racism and nationalism. President McKinley, a "devout, church-going man" mixed humanitarian motives with raw imperialism and the war became a "righteous crusade."
The Filipinos did not accept this occupation as "God's will", so they fought bitterly to keep their freedom. US troops brutally suppressed the Filipinos; oppression, again, had become a part of Manifest Destiny. Oppression and "God's will." Oppression and "God's will." This reminds me of Jeremiah's many warnings about deceitful distortions of God's truth [Jer. 8:10-12]:
"From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit. They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. Peace, peace [shalom, shalom]. they say, when there is no peace. Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all."
There can be no shalom in the midst of oppression and idolatry.
World Wars I and II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War are also discussed by an expert in each war. Each of these wars had serious flaws from a Christian perspective even though most Christians supported them. For example, in World War II, we copied Hitler's bombing of civilians as a legitimate war tactic, a clear violation of just war theory.
In a concluding chapter, Wells asserts the American ideology including Manifest Destiny, corrupted Christian theology. Our theology of society and justice was weak so theology could not correct American theology. The American church desperately needs a theology of society based on justice and shalom and against ethnocentrism and oppression so that it can challenge rationalizations and deceptions promoted in the name of God.
Americans, American Christians, do you really want your sons and daughters to be sacrificed in unjust wars? Don't believe everything you hear even from fellow Christians. Over the years, Christians have been tragically gullible. Why have so many Christians supported unjust wars fully convinced that they were doing God's will?
I believe that our founding fathers and the Puritans bear a heavy responsibility for setting America on a course of bleeding Christianity with American ethnocentrism/nationalism. Does the good they did atone for the bad they did? G. E. Thomas documents "the rest of the story" --- largely untold and unknown in Christian circles --- better than anyone I know ["Puritans, Indians, and the Concept of Race," New England Quarterly, March, 1975]. He quotes but disagrees with Alden Vaughan that orthodox history believes "that the New England Puritans followed a remarkable human, constructive and just policy in their dealing with the Indians." Thomas' conclusion, however, is that
"the record of Puritan attitudes, goals and behavior in every major area of interaction with Indians reveals a continued harshness, brutality, and ethnocentric bias, which . . . . had fatal consequences for the Indians as a race."
In addition to fighting wars with Indians, and, at times, slaughtering whole villages, the Puritans began offering money for the scalps of Indians on a sliding scale with the most money being paid for the scale;ps of young men and adult males. Puritans saw the hand of God in the widespread deaths of Native Americans from disease. Forrest Wood declares:
"The belief that God had cursed the Indian population in order to prepare New England for his children was preached from every pulpit and quickly became an enduring part of Puritan folklore . . . a part of a divine plan to establish the Kingdom of Christ in the New World. With this type of twisted theology, it would be easy to move to believing that slavery was also God's will."
Puritans had an English background and the English and done much the same to the Irish.
Ronald Takaki documents the savage treatment of the Irish in A Different Mirro: A History of Multicultural America[1993], pp. 26-28 and 140-141.
"While the English were generally brutal in their warfare practices at that time, they seemed to have been particularly cruel toward the Irish. The colonizers burned the villages and crops of the inhabitants and relocated them on reservations. They slaughtered families, "men, woman and child,". . . .
The death toll was massive but this was good because it meant vacant land for English resettlement. The British took Irish heads as trophies. The British called the Irish savages, but it seems the savage British is more appropriate. "The first English colonizers in the New World found that the Indians reminded them of the Irish." So it is not surprising to find the English settlers soon treating the Indians as savagely as they did the Irish using some of the same methods. The Puritans brought British ethnocentrism and oppression with them. Their brand of Christianity did not purity them of these evil social values; instead it seemed to legitimate them.
Another feeder of British and American ethnocentrism was the mythology of the superiority of Anglo-Saxons. Reginald Horsman has examined in exhaustive detail the origin and development of "racial Anglo-Saxonism" in Race and Manifest Destiny, [1981. In essence, Horsman argues that the American brand of racism was developed as a rationalization/justification for Manifest Destiny --- the belief that it was God's will for the so-called super Judeo-Chrisitan heritage to spread from coast to coast and also impact the world. Manifest Destiny was supported by a religion-politico-economic-cultural and even linguistic sense of superiority which justified an ethnocentric oppression of any ethnic group that got in the way. It legitimated cruel slavery, the near genocide of Native Americans, and oppressive imperialistic expansion against Mexico.
The idea of a distinct Anglo-Saxon race has no basis in fact; it is an ideological myth. But this myth took hold as if it were fact. The people of England were a mix of original Celtic tribes, Germanic tribes, Viking settlements and Norman conquest. There are no pure Teutonic or Aryan roots. But the founding fathers, especially Thomas Jefferson, were enamored with this superior Anglo-Saxon myth. Horsman states:
"this view of Anglo-Saxon England was in its way as unreal as those writings which pictured Arthur's England as a Camelot of brave knights, but it persisted in English and American thinking long after Jefferson's death."
The myth of being from a race of superior qualities [Anglo-Saxon] was blended with the myth of being a chosen people. False history and false biology mixed with faulty theology combined to create a zealous, militant, arrogant ethnocentrism/nationalism which led to oppression carried out in the name of God.
Forrest Wood, author of The Arrogance of Faith: Christianity and Race from the Colonial Era to the Twentieth Century [1990], was born and raised in a conservative Protestant family. As an adult, he was troubled by racism in America a wondered if we could ever overcome it. As he researched the problem historically, he discovered that, for the most part and with some exceptions, the Christian church had often led, supported or tolerated racism in the church as well as society.
This discovery was highly significant to Wood since he also discovered the pervasive influence of the Christian religion upon American culture:
". . . . what really surprised me was how far Christianity's influence had reached beyond the sanctuary. Biblical maxims, the Puritan work ethic, Pauline moral preachments, Old Testament conceptions of the Elect, . . . . the Ten Commandments . . . . permeate every fiber of secular life. The exalted American commitments to individualism, free enterprise, and the diffusion of democratic principles are I, came to believe, nothing more than secular extensions of the Christian precepts of a personal relationship with Christ, man's dominion over the earth, and the bringing of the Good News to all peoples."
In the next paragraph, Wood adds this contradictory thought:
"The central this of this book is that Christianity, in the five centuries since its message was first carried to the peoples of the New World --- and, in particular, to the natives and the transplanted Africans of English North America and the United States --- has been fundamentally racist in its ideology, organization, and practice."
Since Christianity was so pervasive, it had the potential to destroy racism had the full gospel of the kingdom of God as justice and shalom for all ethnic groups been preached and practice. But, in general, Christianity accommodated itself to racism.
Dwight Perry, author of Breaking Down Barriers: A Black Evangelical Explains the Black Church [1998], in discussing the accommodation of the White evangelical church to racism and bigotry, explains the problem this way: white evangelicals had a "right theology, but wrong sociology." I think that he means that evangelicals had a good theology of personal sin and personal salvation based on the cross and resurrection, but at the same time, tolerated and practiced ethnocentrism and oppression. I would restate the problem as evangelicals had an "incomplete theology and a terrible sociology as a consequence of this partial theology." Yes, a good theology of personal sin-personal salvation and related doctrines, but since they did not understand the kingdom of God as "justice for all" [Billy Graham's phrase], since they did not incarnate the kingdom of God as justice and shalom and oppose ethnocentrism and oppression, evangelicals, themselves, often became agents of social evil or ethnocentric and oppressive.
Try reading all the Messianic passages from Isaiah in sequence form NIV.
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