There Aren’t Any “Fine” White Supremacists

Yes, I know this page is supposed to be about music. But as a fundamental Christian who actually reads his Bible, and who stood for racial equality in the 1960s, I believe that keeping silent about the revival of ideologies that murdered and enslaved millions of people would be a grievous sin. This is what I published on my personal FB page yesterday. You may share or unfriend as your convictions dictate.

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The Mormon hierarchy just published a broad condemnation of racists who consider themselves Mormon:

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It has been called to our attention that there are some among the various pro-white and white supremacy communities who assert that the Church is neutral toward or in support of their views. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the New Testament, Jesus said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:37-39). . . .

White supremacist attitudes are morally wrong and sinful, and we condemn them. Church members who promote or pursue a “white culture” or white supremacy agenda are not in harmony with the teachings of the Church.

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I was wondering where the statements from my fellow Fundamental Christians were. Then I discovered that back in June, after a bit of hemming-and-hawing around the Southern Baptist Convention did more-or-less the same thing:

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WHEREAS, Scripture teaches “From one man [God] has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live” (Acts 17:26); and WHEREAS, The Psalmist proclaimed, “ The earth and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants, belong to the LORD” (Psalm 24:1); and WHEREAS, The Apostle Peter said, “God doesn’t show favoritism, but in every nation the person who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him” (Acts 10:34–35); and WHEREAS, Our justification before God is based on faith in Christ Jesus alone and not in our ethnicity (Galatians 3:27–28); and WHEREAS, Scripture proclaims that Jesus is purchasing by His blood believers“ from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9); and WHEREAS, Throughout eternity we will gather with a “multitude from every
nation, tribe, people, and language” in worship of our risen Savior (Revelation 7:9); and WHEREAS, The Baptist Faith and Message conveys that all Christians are obligated to make the will of Christ supreme in their own lives and in human society, opposing all forms of racism, selfishness, and vice, and bringing government and society as a whole under the sway of the principles of righteousness, truth, and brotherly love; and WHEREAS, We know from our Southern Baptist history the effects of the horrific sins of racism and hatred; and WHEREAS, In 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention repudiated “historic acts of evil, such as slavery,” committed “to eradicate racism in all its forms from Southern Baptist life and ministry,” and “genuinely repent[ed] of racism of which we have been guilty, whether consciously or unconsciously”; and WHEREAS, In recent years the Convention has nominated and elected individuals from a variety of ethnicities, including electing our first African-American president in 2012; and WHEREAS, In recent resolutions the Southern Baptist Convention called on “all Christian men and women to pray and labor for the day when our Lord will set all things right and racial prejudice and injustice will be no more” (2014); expressed continued grief “over the presence of racism and the recent escalation of racial tension in our nation” (2015); and urged fellow Christians to discontinue using the Confederate battle flag, acknowledging that it is “used by some and perceived by many as a symbol of
hatred, bigotry, and racism, offending millions of people” (2016); and WHEREAS, More than 20 percent (nearly eleven thousand) of our cooperating Southern Baptist congregations identify as predominately non-Anglo and for the last three years more than 50 percent of Southern Baptist new church plants have been predominately non-Anglo; and WHEREAS, B&H Academic recently published Removing the Stain of Racism from the Southern Baptist Convention, highlighting our continuing need to root out vestiges of racism from our own hearts as Southern Baptists; and WHEREAS, Racism and white supremacy are, sadly, not extinct but present all over the world in various white supremacist movements, sometimes known as “white nationalism” or “alt-right”; now, therefore, be it RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention, meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, June 13–14, 2017, decry every form of racism, including alt-right white supremacy, as antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ; and be it further
RESOLVED, That we denounce and repudiate white supremacy and every form of racial and ethnic hatred as of the devil; and be it further RESOLVED, That we acknowledge that we still must make progress in rooting out any remaining forms of intentional or unintentional racism in our midst; and be it further RESOLVED, That we earnestly pray, both for those who advocate racist ideologies and those who are thereby deceived, that they may see their error through the light of the Gospel, repent of these hatreds, and come to know the peace and love of Christ through redeemed fellowship in the Kingdom of God, which is established from every nation, tribe, people, and language.

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Yet, I still know people who consider themselves Christian who believe that people who take public stands against hate, bigotry, and violence are “just as bad” as those who promote such things. There are not “Fine people” on the side of white supremacy. There are not “two sides” to this. There is no moral justification for defending these haters or for trying to “see their side.”

By resurrecting ideologies that murdered and enslaved millions of people, and which millions of Americans died to defeat, these haters have declared war on everything America stands for, much less on everything that Jesus preached and the Bible teaches.

Maybe you don’t feel threatened because you’re not black or Hispanic or Middle Eastern or Jewish. But you should feel threatened as an American. Millions of Americans died to defeat these ideologies. Who are you to act like it’s “no big deal”?

And if you consider yourself a Christian, you should feel grieved and spurred to action when so many of the haters and their defenders are dragging the name of Jesus through the mud by claiming to be Christians like you.

The last time I posted something like this (months ago, pre-Charlottesville), some of my “Christian” Facebook friends unfriended me because they thought that taking a stand for justice that many unbelievers and non-Fundamental Christians have already taken was somehow betraying my Fundamentalism.

But I would rather stand with the Jesus of the Bible than with those who would resurrect Hitler, or even those who would make excuses for such.

God bless and guide you as you try to live for him in these troubled times.

Paul

About Paul

Paul Race has been writing and playing all kinds of music since the 1960s, though he tends to favor acoustic and traditional songs. He has created resources like CreekDontRise.com, ClassicTrainSongs.com, and SchoolOfTheRock.com to help other musicians get a good start on their own journeys.

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