Christian Roots of White Supremacy

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/01/883115867/white-supremacist-ideas-have-historical-roots-in-u-s-christianity

White Supremacist Ideas Have Historical Roots In U.S. Christianity

Less than three weeks after the 1961 attack on the Freedom Riders, the savage attack in May 1961 on a busload of Black and white Freedom Riders who had traveled defiantly together to Montgomery in a challenge to segregation, Montgomery's most prominent pastor, Henry Lyon Jr., gave a fiery speech before the local white Citizens' Council, denouncing the civil rights protesters and the cause for which they were beaten — from a "Christian" perspective.

"Ladies and gentlemen, for 15 years I have had the privilege of being pastor of a white Baptist church in this city," Lyon said. "If we stand 100 years from now, it will still be a white church. I am a believer in a separation of the races, and I am none the less a Christian." The crowd applauded.

Lyon saw himself as a devout Bible believer, and he was far from an extremist in the Southern Baptist world. A former president of the Alabama Baptist Convention, his Montgomery church had more than 3,000 members.

Slavery and the Bible

At an earlier point in American history, some Christian theologians went so far as to argue that the enslavement of human beings was justifiable from a biblical point of view. James Henley Thornwell, a Harvard-educated scholar who committed huge sections of the Bible to memory, regularly defended slavery and promoted white supremacy from his pulpit at the First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, S.C., where he was the senior pastor in the years leading up to the Civil War.

"As long as that [African] race, in its comparative degradation, co-exists side by side with the white," Thornwell declared in a famous 1861 sermon, "bondage is its normal condition." Thornwell was a slave owner, and in his public pronouncements he told fellow Christians they need not feel guilty about enslaving other human beings.

"The relation of master and slave stands on the same foot with the other relations of life," Thornwell insisted. "In itself, it is not inconsistent with the will of God. It is not sinful."

Among the New Testament verses Thornwell could cite was the Apostle Paul's letter to the Ephesians where he writes, "Slaves, obey your human masters, with fear and trembling and sincerity of heart."

@vivify said
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/01/883115867/white-supremacist-ideas-have-historical-roots-in-u-s-christianity

White Supremacist Ideas Have Historical Roots In U.S. Christianity

Less than three weeks after the 1961 attack on the Freedom Riders, the savage attack in May 1961 on a busload of Black and white Freedom Riders who had traveled defiantly together to Mo ...[text shortened]... writes, "Slaves, obey your human masters, with fear and trembling and sincerity of heart."

@rajk999 said
I have no thoughts on that. It’s not something I’m interested in discussing or even thinking about.

@vivify said
You've just perfectly summed up White Christianity.

@vivify said

Slavery and the Bible

@divegeester said
Slavery in the Bible wasn’t instigated by white people.

@vivify said
That's not what the article says or even implies. It makes the point that white Christians used slavery in the Bible to justify it.

Please quit trying to distract from the topic of white Christian racism.

@vivify said
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/01/883115867/white-supremacist-ideas-have-historical-roots-in-u-s-christianity

White Supremacist Ideas Have Historical Roots In U.S. Christianity

Less than three weeks after the 1961 attack on the Freedom Riders, the savage attack in May 1961 on a busload of Black and white Freedom Riders who had traveled defiantly together to Mo ...[text shortened]... writes, "Slaves, obey your human masters, with fear and trembling and sincerity of heart."

@pb1022 said
Where are Scriptures about slavery in the New Testament?

That’s not a rhetorical question. I honestly don’t know.

@pb1022 said
Where are Scriptures about slavery in the New Testament?

That’s not a rhetorical question. I honestly don’t know.

@pb1022 said
Did you see this quote from the article?

"You think about the South being Christian, but this wasn't Christianity,"

@vivify said
That's not what the article says or even implies. It makes the point that white Christians used slavery in the Bible to justify it.

Please quit trying to distract from the topic of white Christian racism.

@vivify said
That's not what the article says or even implies. It makes the point that white Christians used slavery in the Bible to justify it.

Please quit trying to distract from the topic of white Christian racism.

@pb1022 said
"You think about the South being Christian, but this wasn't Christianity,"

@vivify said
You've just perfectly summed up White Christianity.