There are two aspects to this important issue that must be addressed and that cannot be overlooked. They overlap and intersect. The first is America and why America must fully address what transpired in Charlottesville, Virginia unequivocally and denounce White racial supremacy. The reason is very clear. The United States from its very inception was founded on the premise of white supremacy. Before America became a nation, its founders owned slaves and wrote into the Constitution of the United States a 3/5th clause that explained why they were not giving citizenship to the slaves they owned. The document in its Declaration of Independence states, “That all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” It was obvious that they did not consider the slaves they owned to be “men” fully equal to themselves, hence the reason they were not entitled to the rights they were writing for themselves in the Constitution. Instead they created a 3/5th clause in the constitution to explain the status and position of the African American slaves they owned, why they were not entitled to the freedoms they possessed and how they would be calculated in their census and electoral processes.
The American Judicial system further established this notion of white supremacy with two landmark decisions. The first is Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857. In the Dred Scott case, the Supreme Court ruled that Scott had no standing in the court to sue for an equal position with a White Citizen. The court ruled that a “Black man had no rights that a White was bound to respect.” In other words, because Dred Scott’s ancestors were slaves, he was not considered equal to a white man and no right to even bring a lawsuit against a white man. It was like a horse or a dog trying to sue a human for equal protection under the law.
The Second is Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. The Plessy case, which was ruled on by the Supreme Court after slavery, established the separate but equal principle in America and solidified Jim Crow in the South, which continued the legal system of White Supremacy after slavery.
The Third and most destructive act was when President Woodrow Wilson screened the movie “Birth of a Nation,” by D W Griffith at the White House in 1915. It was the first screening of any movie in the White House and after watching the film Wilson was quoted as saying, “Like Writing History with Lightning. My only regret is that it is all so terribly true.” This tacit approval by the President of the United States gave credence to the false message portrayed in the movie. Birth of A Nation was one of the most racist movies ever produced in American History. It depicted Blacks as barbaric, sex-crazed freedmen that terrorized and disenfranchised cowering whites during reconstruction. It showed Black men overtaking South Carolina’s judicial system and legislature, swigging whiskey, eating fried chicken on the floor of the State House and attempting to rape white women. Amidst this backdrop, the Ku Klux Klan was depicted as heroes saving the south from these craze barbaric Black men, riding in their white hoods and terrorizing the African American community. This movie gave carte blanche and legitimacy to the Klan, the Aryan nation and public lynching of African Americans across the nation for decades without the benefit of equal protection under the law.
I could go into the legislative history of the country and how in order to pass New Deal legislation, African Americans’ were systematically excluded from its benefits on the premise of preserving the “Southern Way of Life.” If you are interested you can gather this information from a book by Ira Katz Nelson titled, “When Affirmative Action Was White.” In the book Nelson details the compromises President Roosevelt made with Southern Dixiecrats in order to pass his New Deal legislation and garner their votes.
All of these are just a few, but I believe the most obvious reasons that America, the President of the United States and White America must unequivocally denounce all forms of White Supremacy, the KKK, Neo-Nazism and racial hatred. America’s 350+ year history of systemic white supremacy demands it.
But as Christians there is an even greater reason. The notion that any race, culture or human is greater than another is an offense to God and contradicts creation. God is the one who created humanity. Genesis 1:27 NIV says “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Then verse 31 says, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” In God’s creation there is no room for any distinction, rank, notion or position of one human above another. Such ideas are antithetical to the original plan of God. All humans are created in the image of God. There is no such thing as one race, culture or nationality being superior to another and any such notion is an affront to the belief in creation. All of those who fight against evolution and Darwinism should be the greatest opponents to any notions or ideas of racial inequality because of their basic incongruence with creation.
There is a second reason that notions or ideas of racial superiority are so dangerous from a Christian perspective. Psalms 8:5 say humans were created a little lower than the angels, and crowned with glory and honor. A more accurate translation reads, NASB “Yet You have made him a little lower than God, and You crown him with glory and majesty. In other words only God is a greater than humans in the created order. Therefore, when another human claims a position above another human, they are assuming for themselves the position of God, for only God is above humans in the creation order. It is blasphemy for a human to assume a position above another human and believe him or herself superior to another race of humans. No human has the right or authority to assume a position above another human other than God. This is the reason we are warned strongly against assuming the place of God in Revelation 13.
We are all God’s children, created in His image equal to one another. Any notion of human supremacy or superiority is a deception of the devil and must be vigorously opposed and denounced by all Christians as a reprehensible evil that contradicts the creation order and an affront to God. The Apostle Paul said it best in his apology on Mars Hill in Acts 17:24-26 NASB 24—“The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; 25—nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; 26—and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation.”
At a time in earth’s history when humanity seems to be more divided and segmented along every conceivable line there is no more important time for Christians to speak unequivocally with one voice forcefully and morally against any notion of racial, national or cultural superiority. We as humans have nothing to boast in or to be proud of. Our only boast and pride should come from and be in Jesus Christ and Christ alone. It should not be in any race, nationality, culture, color, creed or any human invention or creation. As Christians the gospel message is our only hope is in Jesus Christ and Christ alone.
May we as Christians come together and with one moral voice and choose divine love, unity and equality and reject all forms of racial superiority and hatred.
timothypnixon 