FAITH OF OUR FATHERS: A RACIST LEGACY

A friend forwarded me an article today that appeared in The Atlantic at the end of last month. White Christian America Needs a Moral Awakening by Robert P. Jones encourages Christians to confront "their faith’s legacy of racism." Unfortunately, this article will not be well-received by many of the folks it was intended to address. The notion that their forefathers' spiritual views were tainted with racism - a racism which influenced the faith that was passed on to their descendants - is anathema to many of them.

Nevertheless, Jones is on a firm historical footing when he talks about the overt support for (or ambivalence toward) black slavery and notions of white supremacy which existed within most Christian denominations of the 18th and 19th Centuries. Moreover, this racist underpinning was not confined to Protestant denominations - European Catholics were convinced that it was their mission to convert the ignorant black and brown heathens of the world and save them from roasting in hell. In short, the notion that white Europeans were specially favored by God was widespread and extended to all areas of human endeavor (be they cultural, political, economic or religious).

Of course, this is not the history that has been taught or emphasized in most American classrooms. And Jones points out that this fairytale version of history has not been confined to the narrative we tell ourselves about our nation as a whole - that it has also extended to the story which these denominations tell about themselves! He writes: "Underneath the glossy, self-congratulatory histories that white Christian churches have written about themselves—which typically depict white Christians as exemplars of democratic principles and pillars of the community—is a thinly veiled, deeply troubling past. White Christian churches have not just been complacent or complicit in failing to address racism; rather, as the dominant cultural power in the U.S., they have been responsible for constructing and sustaining a project to protect white supremacy. Through the entire American story, white Christianity has served as the central source of moral legitimacy for a society explicitly built to value the lives of white people over Black people. And this legacy remains present and measurable in the cultural DNA of contemporary white Christianity, not only among evangelicals in the South but also among mainline Protestants in the Midwest and Catholics in the Northeast."

Jones goes on to underscore the fact that these racist proclivities continue to exercise a powerful influence on white Christians of today. Is there any hope of changing this dynamic? He writes: "Today, 400 years after the first enslaved African landed on our shores, and more than 150 years after the abolition of slavery in America, a combination of social forces and demographic changes has brought the country to a crossroads. We white Christians must find the courage to face the fact that the version of Christianity that our ancestors built, “the faith of our fathers” as the hymn celebrates it, was a cultural force that, by design, protected and propagated white supremacy. We have inherited this tradition with scant critique, and we have a moral and religious obligation to face the burden of that history and its demand on our present. Inaction is a tacit blessing on white supremacy’s continued presence as a Christian habit and virtue. Doing nothing will ensure that, even despite our best conscious intentions, we will continue to be blind to the racial injustice all around us."

Many of our forefathers worshipped together regularly and thought of themselves as Christians. They didn't see any irony in doing so while simultaneously taking land away from Native Americans and enslaving their black brethren. Like them, white Americans of today often fail to see the incongruity in proclaiming their faith in Jesus Christ and accepting and supporting the system that their forefathers created. The entire thesis of Jones' article is that white Christians must eventually confront this incongruity for the sake of their own souls.

He wrote: "If we are finally going to live into the fullness of the promise of liberty and justice for all Americans, we will have to recover from our white-supremacy-induced amnesia. Confronting historical atrocities is indeed difficult, and at times overwhelming. But if we want to root out an insidious white supremacy from our institutions, our religion, and our psyches, we will have to move beyond forgetfulness and silence. Importantly, as white Americans find the courage to embark on this journey of transformation, we will discover that the beneficiaries are not only our country and our fellow nonwhite and non-Christian Americans, but also ourselves."