Extreme Protests 2: Racism as "Corporate Evil"

Thanks to those who responded through Facebook to my article, "Extreme Protests: A Monumental Opportunity."  What follows is my response, intended particularly for my friends, Stu Zaharek and Necia Fanton Bishop from whom I have learned.  I also thank my friend and former colleague, Mark Gathany for his comment and important reference to a message by Pastor Tim Keller, referenced below.

Perhaps like those who have responded, I am asking myself what kind of response a review of human history ought to evoke in me as a sinner saved by the grace and challenged to live as a Christ-follower. As such, let me add a few thoughts that reflect what I am learning from this discussion. 

There is much about world history and American history that we can be thankful for (even be “proud of”) and from which we can all learn.  But, there is much in our history that reveals the acts of sinful individuals expressed in every generation through systemic corruption and evil.  I tried to address this in my original article when I wrote:

Dismantling of a monument to Gen. Robert E. Lee 

Some of the protesters have the false hope of producing atonement, a “perfect oneness and unity,” that only God can provide.  Perhaps they believe that if they can only get all human pride, hate, and bigotry out on the public square, including all names, symbols, and monuments they associate with them, they can somehow make atonement.  Yet even well meaning efforts to rectify a history of human sin and depravity are an affront to a Holy God.  When people refuse to repent and bow before the Cross of Christ, everything else in human history becomes an unbearable weight.  What can wash away my sin?  Nothing but the blood of Jesus. 

What I was not able to see clearly in this context seems more clear to me after hearing the message of Pastor Tim Keller, which Mark Gathany added to our discussion.  It is entitled, “Racism and Corporate Evil: A White Guy’s Perspective.”

By applying Tim Keller’s message to American history we can see that although the Founders made a noble effort to launch “the American experiment” based heavily on Judeo-Christian theism, they did not include in the U.S. Constitution the abolition of slavery. They chose not to eradicate this “corporate evil” that had fastened its hold on American morality and culture.  Yet, there was considerable anguish of soul among prominent men and women on both sides of the slavery issue, and also a sense of helplessness when they considered the immensity of the tangled web that the institution of slavery had woven, nationally and internationally.  Tim Stafford, Senior Writer for Christianity Today Magazine, has written,  “Slavery was important to the economy, both North and South.   Americans North and South also profoundly feared freeing millions of slaves. Most Americans were frankly racist; they believed Africans to be not only inferior but also dangerous if not strictly controlled.”

Most people in both the North and South wore cotton near their hearts and were therefore directly or indirectly complicit in support of slavery—what Pastor Tim Keller considers an example of “corporate evil.”  But not all Americans felt the sweat of the Negro slave against their skin when they "put on cotton."  It took the Second Great Awakening of the early 1800’s to sharpen the national conscience in regard to the evil of racism and human slavery. In spite of spiritual awakening, many people of faith in the North and South feared that Abolition was so controversial that it would tear their churches apart.  Therefore, I believe God especially prepared men in both the North and South; and among both Whites and Blacks—e.g. Lincoln and Douglass; Stowe and Tubman--who would stand in the gap in their time to lead both churches and our nation toward repentance and confession of sin, and to call for repentance and willingness to address "corporate sin."

It has been helpful for me to revisit the sin of racism and what should be done with historic monuments. Necia presented a graph of monument-building from 1870 to 1980 which has been attributed to the rise and fall of efforts to intimidate Black Americans.  Even though we know that correlation does not prove cause-and-effect, it is likely that at least some of the construction was done with intimidation in mind. However, I believe some monument construction was an expression of a nation trying find solace and reconciliation through the memory of some people and places in an otherwise painful history.  Whatever the motives of monument building, if we acknowledge the significant role of systemic or corporate sin in the history of slavery, we may also realize that truly addressing racial reconciliation requires a much deeper national effort than either erecting or destroying monuments.

Newton's life: Example of Repentance and Forgiveness

As a nation, and as individuals, we have a choice.  We can either continue our pattern of bantering back and forth, or we can recognize that racism is an expression of individual and corporate sin from which we must repent.  The prayer of Daniel (Daniel 9), referenced by Tim Keller, conveys the sincere, repentant heart of the Prophet Daniel who identified himself with the “corporate evil” embedded within the nation Israel.  Today, I believe God would have us begin anew by asking Him to give us the contrite, repentant spirit of Daniel—praying for God’s Spirit to shine the light of His Word on our individual lives and give us willingness to confess our sins; then, to recommit to love and obey God; and, love our neighbor, spouse, family, church, community, and those in authority over us.  As James wrote (5: 17),

Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. 

Greater and more lasting progress than erecting or destroying monuments must begin in quiet communion with the God of HIS-story, and the God of our eternal future.  I believe this claim is consistent with what Abraham Lincoln came to realize; namely, that racism and its expression through the corporate evil of a slave-based economy must be owned and payed for by both the North and the South. If this is true, then our only hope as a nation is to own up to and confess to the fact that we are all part of the systemic, corporate evil of racism, and other evils such as malice, envy, and greed; all of which can only be abolished by the blood of Christ's cross.

The following are Lincoln's words, spoken toward the end of his second inaugural address only a few days before his own death by an assassin's bullet:

Both [North and South] read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.  If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Extremist Protests: A Monumental Opportunity

Most people who have been following national news for the past two decades agree that America has become deeply divided morally and politically.  Last week’s violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia sparked yet another angry reaction, this time between white nationalists and those who oppose the notion of white supremacy.  This disturbing series of events poses both a challenge and an opportunity for Christians.

Making history, yet ignorant of its lessons.

The challenge of the Church is to respond in truth and in love because true Christ-followers live in daily awareness of the grace and forgiveness of God.  If the Church is to be “salt and light” (Matthew 5: 13) in this troubled world, Christ-followers must remember both human history and His-story (God’s inspired account of creation, human corruption, and redemption recorded in inspired Scripture).

Ignorance of Human History

Both far-right white supremacists and the far-left opposition (the “Antifa” or “anti-fascists”) are acting as if they are ignorant of the history of America and of Christianity.  Racial discrimination and slavery have been a blot on American history and have involved not only Black Americans but Native Americans, Orientals, Hispanics, et cetera.  American history is stained with blood spilled over enslavement, particularly of African people and their descendants, culminating in the Civil War.  The war opened the way to emancipation followed by another century of slow progress toward federal legislation of civil rights for ethnic minorities in America.

Abraham Lincoln, 186

But street protesters on the extreme right and left seem to recognize neither the costly loss of human life in the Civil War nor the role of Christianity in the healing of America that began under the leadership of men and women on both sides at the end of the conflict.  All Americans ought to re-read Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address including the following excerpt (emphasis mine), 

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Memorials are intended to remind us of our history so we can learn from both our triumphs and mistakes. Destruction of memorials to men like Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee ignores how much both men contributed to the unifying of the United States of America?  Although General Lee led the military campaign of the confederate Army of Northern Virginia, he was a devout Christian and was instrumental in agreeing to a rightful surrender at Appomattox, Virginia.  R. David Cox, in The Religious Life of Robert E. Lee (Eerdmans, 2017) writes, according to Marvin Olasky in WORLD, that Lee’s “strong belief in God’s sovereignty… influenced his strong opposition to confederate Gen. Edward Alexander when this subordinate suggested the army “’scatter like rabbits & partridges in the woods’ and begin guerilla warfare.”  Lee challenged Alexander with these words

Robert E. Lee

God has given the victory to the Yankees…As Christian men, Gen. Alexander, you & I have no right to think for one moment of our personal feelings or affairs.  We must consider only the effect which our actions will have upon the country at large...

The extremists of the Antifa who have destroyed monuments to General Lee seemingly wish to erase the memory this man of great integrity.  Lee wrote that slavery is “a moral and political evil” and said he would gladly give up his slaves to avoid civil war. 

Protesting extremists may also be ignorant of 20^th century history.  Prior to the middle of that century, many allied nations fought in World War II to deliver the world from Nazism and Fascism.  They may also be unaware that racism and the philosophy of white supremacy are rooted in a false belief in naturalistic evolution which suggests that humans, particularly whites, occupy the top rung of an “evolutionary ladder” as a result of random changes through mutations and natural selection.  For more discussion of the connection between Darwinian evolution and Nazi Germany’s eugenics experiments aimed at exterminating Jews in favor the Aryan race, please consult a previous article, “World History Without HIS Story.” 

Today, “scientific racism,” the notion that science affirms the existence of racial superiority, is denied by most scientists even though the theory that all of life originated by evolution is still viewed as “settled science.”  Yet, if all humans originated simply by random material processes and not by divinely ordered creation, then our moral standards are baseless and civil law is seen as arbitrary.  The outcome of this logic is evident in the crumbling institutions of marriage and family, the growing disrespect for law and order, and the acceptance of abortion which is partly justified by those who support human eugenics in the tradition of Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.

Finally, white supremacists seem to be ignorant or have forgotten the great progress of the civil rights movement and the preaching of Martin L. King who said,

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Ignorance of His-story, “God’s Story”

Those who are ignorant of human history are in even greater danger if they are ignorant of “God’s story” of the creation and redemption of mankind.  According to the Bible, God loves all of His creation.  His love extends especially to humans of all ethnic backgrounds because he made man and woman in His image with unique rational and emotional capacities to share relationships with one another and with Him.

The Bible has been called “God’s love letter” to mankind.  Beginning in Genesis following the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, God promised a Savior Who would one day come and “bruise the head of Satan” the tempter (Genesis 3: 15).  Although the Bible teaches that all have all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3: 23), and that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6: 23a), the good news (“the Gospel”) is that the free gift of God is eternal life (by faith) in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6: 23b).  

Amazingly, God did not simply send His “love gift.”  God came as that gift as prophesied centuries earlier (see Isaiah 9: 1-7) through His own incarnation when a Jewish girl named Mary conceived and gave birth to Jesus Christ.  Christ, the Savior of mankind, had been promised centuries earlier when God spoke to Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, saying (emphasis mine), I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse.  And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed (Genesis 12: 3).

God had chosen to reveal His salvation through the Jewish nation, Israel.  To avoid their being drawn away by heathen gods, God warned His “chosen people” not to intermarry with “foreigners.” But, it was never God’s intention to limit his forgiveness of sin to the Jews alone.  The Old Testament records many instances in which God’s mercy was extended to “foreigners.”  Indeed, the human lineage of Jesus beginning from Abraham, includes several ethnic groups.  Two examples are Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute (Joshua 6) and mother of Boaz who married Ruth, a Moabite woman, who became the great-grandmother of King David (Ruth 4:13-22). 

How fitting that the blood of Jesus shed from His cross which takes away the sin of the world (John 1: 29; Colossians 1: 20) should have a multi-ethnic lineage.  Yet, as God promised to Abraham, salvation would come through the Jews.  Jesus’ earthly ministry as well as His instructions to His disciples during their training focused on His countrymen and the Samaritans who were half-Jews (John 4: 4).

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, His instruction to His disciples was to wait in Jerusalem for the fulfillment of His promise that the Holy Spirit would come.  He said (emphasis mine), but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth (Acts 1: 8).  The Apostle Peter’s Spirit-empowered sermon on the Day of Pentecost was supernaturally translated into the languages of over a dozen different ethnic groups representing Asia, Mesopotamia, and Africa (Acts 2: 9-11).  Within weeks, one of the original deacons, Philip, was commanded to go to the desert where he met an Ethiopian on his way back to Africa.  The Ethiopian’s conversion likely allowed him to be among the first to spread the Gospel of Christ into Africa. 

Within a relatively few years after Christ’s resurrection, the Gospel had spread across much of Asia, northern Africa, and Europe.  The accounts of the New Testament provide clear evidence that Jesus Christ is Savior of the world, and not just whites or other specific ethnic groups.  The closing book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation (5:9), points to a future scene in heaven in which multitudes of the redeemed are worshiping Jesus Christ, singing (emphasis mine),

Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals;
for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood
men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

God’s aim is that members of every tribe and tongue and people and nation be redeemed from sin through faith in Christ.  The redeemed in Christ are united as one into His body, the Church, by faith in His shed blood.  Therefore, the philosophy of human supremacy based on blood lines or ethnicity is in direct opposition to God’s plan to unite people from every tribe into One (atonement) by faith in Christ’s blood.  To claim ethnic superiority in the Name of Christ, is false, idolatrous, and even blasphemous.

Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention has written an article published in the Washington Post entitled, “White supremacy angers Jesus, but does it anger his church?”  He writes,

White supremacy does not merely attack our society (though it does) and the ideals of our nation (though it does); white supremacy attacks the image of Jesus Christ himself. White supremacy exalts the creature over the Creator, and the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against it. Later Moore concludes,

The church should call white supremacy what it is: terrorism, but more than terrorism. White supremacy is Satanism. Even worse, white supremacy is a devil-worship that often pretends that it is speaking for God.  White supremacy angers Jesus of Nazareth. The question is: Does it anger his church?

How Will Christians Respond?

Although I agree with the case Moore makes for “the wrath of God” against acts of hate, evil, and lawlessness, I question his notion of an “angry Jesus.” I disagree that God’s redeemed people should beangry at white supremacists and the Antifa, or angry at any sinner for that matter.  Granted, the white supremacists and their opponents have seemingly forgotten their history and His-story (God’s story) of man’s creation, corruption, and regeneration.  But, while Christ-followers ought to be deeply concerned, the deep divisions in America and the destructions of institutions and monuments should be no surprise.  For decades, we witnessed efforts to remove spiritual monuments like The Ten Commandments and Christian crosses from public display. Regardless of whether the freedom to display these monuments continues, Christ-followers have no reason to be overcome with evil, but rather, to overcome evil with good (Romans 12: 21).   Yes, Truth and Good will triumph over Error and Evil.

Here we should pause--you and I.  Chew it over and over—“meditate” on what I have just written.  If you are a Christ-follower, meditate on the amazing Truth that you and I are God’s children by faith (John 1: 12).  And, even our faith to believe is a gift of God (Ephesians 2: 8).  By faith, I look through my “mind’s eye” upon the Cross, that monument to the utter depravity of humankind of every tribe and nation.   The Cross of Christ is a monument to the horror of what humans did to the perfect Lamb of God.  Centuries before Christ was slain on that Roman cross, the Prophet Isaiah described sinful mankind (me included) and how “God’s Lamb” would respond to the weight of all human sin (mine included) heaped upon Him on that dark day outside Jerusalem (Isaiah 53: 6-7):

All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. 

He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep
that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth.

I will admit to responding at times with resentment and anger.  But, when I remember the Cross and the Empty Tomb as two much greater monuments of God’s love, forgiveness, and hope, I can begin to view the hate-filled mob in a different light. 

Granted, some rioters overcome with hate and evil.  But I see others who have joined in the mob with well meaning intentions.  Some of the protesters have the false hope of producing atonement, a “perfect oneness and unity,” that only God can provide.  Perhaps they believe that if they can only get all human pride, hate, and bigotry out on the public square, including all names, symbols, and monuments they associate with them, they can somehow make atonement.  Yet even well meaning efforts to rectify a history of human sin and depravity are an affront to a Holy God.  When people refuse to repent and bow before the Cross of Christ, everything else in human history becomes an unbearable weight.  What can wash away my sin?  Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

In the light of the Cross and Empty Tomb, this dark hour can be a time of great opportunity for the Body of Christ.  As the Apostle Peter teaches, repentance and obedience must begin with the household of God (1 Peter 4: 17).  Christians must heed the challenge of Christ’s half-brother, James, who challenges lukewarm and carnal Christians to humbly pursue heavenly wisdom, not earthly, demonic wisdom (James 3: 14-16; 4: 6-10):

But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic.  For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing…

But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, "GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE." Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.  Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

How will we respond as God’s blood-bought children, to the divisions in America, most recently evident in Charlottesville and elsewhere?  When I remember how Christians around the world are courageously responding to hatred and evil, I am ashamed of how I sometimes tend to react.  Then, I remember the verse from 2 Chronicles 7:14 that Christ-followers have been increasingly turning to in recent years.   May these words of be our unfailing guide:

and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

God’s Sweet Provision in Our Old Age

I have been thinking much about the passage of time now that my life has entered its 70^th year.  It seems only yesterday that, as a much younger man, I had read Psalm 71: 17-19 and did not appreciate its depth of meaning.  Now, as I am growing old and gray, I find great comfort and assurance when I offer prayers of reverence and praise to God through the inspiration of His Holy Spirit Who stirs my soul with the message of these verses:

O God, You have taught me from my youth,
And I still declare Your wondrous deeds.
And even when I am old and gray,
O God, do not forsake me,
Until I declare Your strength to this generation,
Your power to all who are to come.
For Your righteousness, O God, reaches to the heavens,
You who have done great things;
O God, who is like You?

I am especially blessed when I see evidence of God at work fulfilling His promises before my very eyes in the lives of my elders.  What a privilege to spend time with people who still declare God’s strength, His righteousness, and the fact that He has done great things.  Recently, my elderly friend and brother in Christ, George McFadden, who is nearing the end of his life in a battle with leukemia, said with a twinkle in his eyes while referring to His faithful God, “I am so thankful that I have a good ‘Undertaker’.”

Surely you too have been blessed to spend time with men and women who are in their 80’s and 90’s.  What an encouragement we can receive from our elders who have retained their gracious, thoughtful, and witty habits.  They demonstrate that they can still be overcomers in spite of having lost their youthful energy, some of their privacy and formality, most or all of their hair, and perhaps even most of their ability to recognize loved ones when they visit.  Nevertheless, they seem to radiate a confidence and peace that echoes with the psalmist (v. 7), I have become a marvel to many, for You [God] are my strong refuge. 

Happy 91st Birthday, Grandma Moser, from
 Abby (center rear), Della Rose (L) and  Kiara (R).

While writing the above introduction, I thought of my mother-by-marriage, Marietta Moser. Marietta  has been "Mom” to seven daughters and seven son-in-laws.  Following her strokes, in 2011, she now lives in the Golden Age Retreat, in Carrollton, Ohio.  Today is her 91^st birthday and we were privileged to visit her along with our two granddaughters, Kiara (15) and Della Rose (9), daughters of our daughter, Melinda, and son-in-law, Steve Salyers. 

Both girls show evidence that they have a growing faith in the God Who has done great things. During our recent visit, the girls joined their “Grandma Abby” and I to sing “Happy Birthday” to their Great-Grandma, Marietta Moser.  Marietta’s smile of appreciation as she looked up at them spoke volumes to all of us.  But when Marietta recited with me Psalm 23, the “Good Shepherd Psalm,” I think we all realized the truth of God’s promise that even when I am old and gray, O God, [You will] not forsake me—[No, not] until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to all who are to come.

Marietta Moser (2011) and Seven Daughters

While we visited with Marietta, we also witnessed God’s grace and provision to her through the staff members of Golden Age Retreat, ladies who shower their love and care upon her.  Our thanks and appreciation is due to these dear people who labor hard to make Golden Age a safe and pleasant “retreat” for its residents.

 After playing a game of Dominoes with her and enjoying more of Marietta’s lovely smile and witty humor, we thanked God for speaking so clearly to us that we need not fear growing old and facing the uncertainties of our future, because

By You, I have been sustained from my birth;
You are He who took me from my mother's womb;
My praise is continually of You.
[You will] not cast me off in the time of old age;
[Nor] forsake me when my strength fails.  – Psalm 71: 6, 9