Why King’s Dream Overcame “Christian” White Supremacy
— Monday, January 18th, 2010 —
One of my earliest memories is of a substitute Sunday school teacher chastening me for putting a coin in my mouth. “That’s filthy,” she said. “Why, you don’t know if a colored man might have held that.” It might just be my imagination playing tricks on me, but it seems as though she immediately followed this up with, “Alright children, let’s sing ‘Jesus Loves the Little Children, All the Children of the World.’”
Now, this lady probably didn’t consciously think of herself as a white supremacist. She almost certainly didn’t think of herself as subversive of the gospel itself. She never thought about the hypocrisy of holding the two contradictory worldviews together in her mind. She probably didn’t see how her dehumanizing of African-Americans was a twisted form of Darwinism rather than biblical Christianity.
She wasn’t alone.
On the question of civil rights in the American Christian context, there is little question that, with few exceptions, the “progressives” were right, often heroically right, and the “conservatives” were wrong, often satanically wrong. In the narrative of the dismantling of Jim Crow, conservatives were often the villains and progressives were most often on the side of the angels, indeed on the side of Jesus.
The question is not whether the progressives won the argument or whether they should have won the argument; the question is why they were persuasive, ultimately, on this point (and almost no other) to their more conservative brothers and sisters. The turnaround is striking, perhaps nowhere more clearly than in my denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), where a generation ago most conservative leaders were segregationists.
Some, of course, will claim cynically that conservative evangelical leaders, like some national politicians, don’t play with racial demagogy anymore because such appeals don’t “work” anymore in 21st century America. Nobody wants to be seen as a racist. Well, okay, but, even if one accepts that argument, why is it true that a segregationist would be barred (and rightly so) from speaking at the SBC Pastors’ Conference of 2010 and wouldn’t be at the SBC Pastors’ Conference of 1950? Isn’t it because the people wouldn’t tolerate it? Well, why the change? It must be more than just changing American culture since conservative evangelicals have been in the throes of a much-hyped “culture war” on all sorts of issues since the 1960s?
Why is civil rights no longer a “culture war” issue? Why were the voices of the civil rights pioneers persuasive, not only to mainstream America but to conservative Christians as well? Some might argue it is because the culture has changed. But the culture has changed just as much (if not more so) on the question of gender and sexual issues, after three waves of feminism and a sexual revolution, but not so for traditionalist Catholics and confessional Protestants.
The reason SBC progressives, and the larger civil rights movement, were persuasive was because of the mode of their argument. The progressives, as scholar David Chappell shows in his book Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow, appealed to biblical orthodoxy and missionary zeal, in their arguments, not simply to the arc of historical progress.
This is true at the macro level-think of the King James Version of the Bible woven so intricately into the themes of Martin Luther King’s speeches and sermons. It is also true at the micro level. SBC civil rights advocates–from Foy Valentine to T.B. Maston to Henlee Barnette–argued from decidedly conservative biblical concepts.
The civil rights movement struggled on multiple fronts. In the political sphere, leaders such as King pointed out how the American system was inconsistent with Jeffersonian principles of the “self-evident” truth that “all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Politically, Americans had to choose: be American (as defined in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence) or be white supremacist; you can’t be both. King and his compatriots were right.
But the civil rights movement was, at core, also an ecclesial movement. King was, after all, “Rev. King” and many of those marching with him, singing before him, listening to him, were Christian clergy and laity. To the churches, especially the churches of the South, the civil rights pioneers sent a similar message to the one they sent to the governmental powers. You have to choose: be a Christian (as defined by the Scripture and the small “c” catholic apostolic tradition) or be a white supremacist; you can’t be both. They were right here too.
How can white supremacy be true, they would argue, if humanity is made from “one blood” in the creation of Adam? How can one segregate evangelistic crusades if the cross of Christ atones for all people, both white and black? If God personally regenerates repentant sinners, both white and black, how can we see people in terms of “race” rather than in terms of the person? If we send missionaries across the seas to evangelize Africa, how is it not hypocrisy not to admit African-Americans into church membership?
The biblical power of the argument is true, regardless of whether all the civil rights pioneers, in the SBC and out of it, believed in biblical orthodoxy.
Many did. See the faithful heroine Fannie Lou Hamer of Sunflower County, Misssissippi, for example. If Baptists had a means of canonization, I’d support it for her. I still claim the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party as my partisan home, and say I expand the “freedom” to the unborn as well as the born, even though it doesn’t exist anymore.).
But regardless of personal faith, the civil rights heroes indicted conservative hypocrites, prophetically, with the conservatives’ own convictional claims. And, as Jesus promised, “My sheep hear my voice and they follow me.”
The arguments for racial reconciliation were persuasive, ultimately, to orthodox Christians because they appealed to a higher authority than the cultural captivity of white supremacy. These arguments appealed to the authority of Scripture and the historic Christian tradition.
This authority couldn’t easily be muted by a claim to a “different interpretation” because racial equality was built on premises conservatives already heartily endorsed: the universal love of God, the unity of the race in Adam, the Great Commission and the church as the household of God.
With this the case, the legitimacy of segregation crumbled just as the legitimacy of slavery had in the century before, and for precisely the same reasons. Segregation, like slavery, was shown to be what all human consciences already knew it to be: not just a political injustice or a social inequity (although certainly that) but also a sin against God and neighbor and a repudiation of the gospel. Regenerate hearts ultimately melted before such arguments because in them they heard the voice of their Christ, a voice they’d heard in the Scriptures themselves.
Conservative Christians, and especially Southern Baptists, must be careful to remember the ways in which our cultural anthropology perverted our soteriology and ecclesiology. It is to our shame that we ignored our own doctrines to advance something as clearly demonic as racial pride. And it is a shame that sometimes it took theological liberals to remind us of what we claimed to believe in an inerrant Bible, what we claimed to be doing in a Great Commission.
17 Responses to “Why King’s Dream Overcame “Christian” White Supremacy”
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Needed to be said. Needed to be heard. Thank you.
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Thank you for this article and the truth expressed in it!
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Thank you Dr Moore for the reminder of that truth! Forgive us Lord when we have had any inkling of Racial Pride in our hearts!
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I do want to say something. I was trying not to say it, because I know that some people will accuse me of being a racist, when I’m not. God knows my heart.
But, even though I celebrate that racism has been killed in conservative Christianity, and I rejoice in all the good things that MLK did for our country in racial issues; I cannot get beyond his theology. He was a minister, and he claimded to be a minister of the Gospel. Yet, I heard him say…on TV…during an interview, that men earned thier own salvation by living for a good cause, or even dying for a good cause…like Jesus did. He preached a works salvation, and he was into liberation theology.
So, I find it very hard to celebrate the man. I do celebrate the good he did for our country.
BTW, I also have a friend, Ed Campbell, who was a Minister in Philadelphia, MS when something very historic took place. In fact, his neighbor was one of the men, who murdered the civil rights workers back in that day. Ed lived thru that, and desegregation. In fact, he helped the school to transition to “mixing the races.” He had a Deacon threaten to do him bodily harm. The Deacon, and a few more, threatened to have him fired. Ed had death threats made on him for the stand he took. He is a friend and a hero of mine. He’s a man of grit and faith. He’s as conservative as they come, as well. There’s not a liberal bone in his body. May God give us all the grit and faith of Ed Campbell.
David
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@volfan007, maybe it is assumed to be common knowledge, but would you mind finding the source upon which your statements - flawed or false gospel that is “heretically flawed,” works salvation, etc. - are based?
And what exactly does it mean for your hero who is worthy of your celebration not only in accomplishment but as a man to have “not a liberal bone in his body”?
Ross Clark - what were his profound flaws and profoundly flawed theology? Are you implying that because Jesus’ true disciples kept quiet during the civil rights movement at the beckoning of the self-righteous religious leaders that Dr. King was a stone - as opposed to a human being, muchless disciple - that cried out? What exactly did come to your mind in that comment?
In light of your accusations of heresy, which part of the definition of “fundamentalism” would you two not see yourself as?
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fundamentalist
If I understand correctly, Dr. King had a flawed theology of earning salvation; therefore, while his “message” regarding civil rights may not simply be disregarded, and indeed his accomplishments may even be celebrated, he is not worthy of celebration as a person, nor is he credible as a minister of the gospel.
And does anyone else find the similarity of David Chappell cited in the post and the racial commentary of Dave Chapelle funny?
And another irony? As many fundamentalists continue to point out, MLK was a profoundly flawed man with in some areas profoundly flawed theology (although not on this issue). Something about ’stones crying out’ comes to mind.
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Further muddying the waters is that the “progressives” only a generation before the 1950s (and some into that decade as well) were staunch racists who supported eugenics and limited immigration from nations whose traits were not deemed white enough. See David Southern’s “The Progressive Era and Race” and Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism.” Blacks voted as Republicans against the racist policies of Woodrow Wilson’s progressive Democrats and only began voting Democrat with the coming of FDR. Even then, the “black vote” was not solidified in the Democratic Party until LBJ in the 1960s.
I don’t vote party lines and am in fact fed up with the two-party system in America. On this issue, I do warn my Democratic friends who vote that way mainly for racial equality issues to be careful: radical progressives still support eugenics and population control of “undesirables” which have historically referred to poor people and minorities. See Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s interview with NY Times Magazine’s Emily Bazelon.
In short, Dr. King leaves a mixed legacy, and if all one does to honor him is vote Democrat and support ACORN or SEIU, I’d say that person has missed the point of a great man’s legacy.
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Ross,
Are you calling me a fundamentalist? Or, are you just making a general statement about some fundamentalist out there somewhere?
Secondly, there’s a huge difference in flawed theology and preaching a false Gospel. Wouldnt you agree?
Thirdly, and I emphasize, I do celebrate the accomplishments of MLK, and I agree with what Dr. Moore wrote in this post.
David
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Further to earlier; the SBC has got the point. You don’t need to worry about that. But I am concerned that the (baptistic) Fundamentalist movement(s) have *not* got the point, which explains why there seem to be very few African-Americans amongst them.
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Ross,
Are you calling me a fundamentalist? Or, are you making some general comment about some fundamentalist out there somewhere?
Secondly, his flawed theology was preaching a false gospel; ie a works salvation and liberation theology. Dont you think that’s something that needs to be pointed out, whenever some people idolize MLK, and could be influenced by his teaching?
Thirdly, I do agree with Dr. Moore’s post, and I celebrate all the accomplishments of MLK and others of that era in the area of race relations. I’m glad that our country is a better country today, because of what they did back then.
David
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Thank you for speaking so boldly on an issue that still haunts many in this culture. Even in the 90s & I’d venture to say even today some of my relatives still face racial tensions and issues with more regularity than I care to admit. As an African-American young woman, I am thankful that SBTS has such a practical & articulate theologian who can express truth in a way that calls people to repentance. It brings joy to my heart to know that you are influencing future ministers of the Gospel. Thank you for encouraging them to turn from duplicitous thinking & instead to herald the true Gospel of grace until our Lord returns.
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@Regina Gibson, What a kind word. I thank God for you and the great ministry he has given to you! Blessings in Christ. RDM
To Volfan - No, my comments weren’t aimed at you, they were aimed at a view which seems to be held by many fundamentalists ‘in general’ - that MLK’s flawed theology and even false gospel, as you put it, means that the message he preached w.r.t civil rights can be discredited out of hand. Hence my posting at [8].
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Ross,
Thank you for answering, and for not putting me in that category of those who would discredit the civil rights work he did. I dont discredit his civil rights work, but his theology was seriously flawed; heretically flawed. But, I still rejoice in the civil rights work that MLK did.
David
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