As We Have Opportunity

Photo by Timothy Meinberg on Unsplash

By David Atkinson

“Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” - Galatians 6:10

State-Sanctioned “Christian” Slavery

Like his birth family, Edwards maintained the large household in part through the labor of enslaved people. In 1731, Edwards visited Newport, Rhode Island, where he purchased Venus, a “Negro girl” estimated to be 14 years old. 1

The prominent American pastor Jonathan Edwards owned slaves. He perpetuated “theological” compromise with the institution of slavery which opted for obtaining earthly wealth at the expense of his neighbors’ freedom. This wreaked havoc on his neighbors and delegitimized Christianity in the eyes of many, and yet a prominent theological seminary still names a center after him 2. Sadly, this reinforces part of Edwards’ legacy in this: by his life and teaching, he legitimized the belief that repentance and faith in Christ had little to do with displaying the justice required by the kingdom of God when Christians had the power to bring it about in society.

Edwards’ Legacy Today

Christian historian Jemar Tisby elaborates on Edwards and his contemporary George Whitefield’s views on politics in his book, The Color of Compromise:

Both preached the message of salvation to all. Yet their concern for African slaves did not extend to advocating for physical emancipation. Like these two preachers, many other Christians did not see anything in the Bible that forbade slavery. 3

When Christians like Edwards read biblical passages on slavery (i.e. Ephesians 6:5, Colossians 3:22) without reconciling them with “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12) or Jesus’ corrections of Pharisees’ interpretations of the Old Testament, they end up justifying injustice. People are harmed by this, and that in the name of Christ! These incomplete interpretations then lend themselves to a dangerous result, especially in the realm of power and politics. President Woodrow Wilson, a professed Christian, 4 endorsed a movie (Birth of a Nation) which the Ku Klux Klan used for recruitment, depicting blatant racist views. “President Wilson reportedly said of the film, ‘It is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.’” 5 Politics have always been at the center of the tense relationship between Black and White Christians precisely because White Christians have long held more political power in America. Christians need to figure out how to use power well. Our numbers are decreasing, and the world is watching (but so is Christ!).

The Black Church & Political Engagement

While Christians in the New Testament practiced Christianity under a pagan Empire, Christians in early America had to practice Christianity under unjust leadership which generally professed to be Christian. Faced with this sort of dilemma, the Black church decided to remain Christian, but separate from fellowship with most white churches. One example of this is the prominent Black Pastor Richard Allen. He founded the first independent Black American denomination in 1794: the African Methodist & Episcopal Church. 6

Later, in 1850, the Fugitive Slave Bill was passed, allowing escaped slaves to be captured and sold back into slavery. This bill passed into law just ten years before America’s first civil war began. 7 This is also when some Christians began uniting to fight against the injustice. Some Christians published an open letter to the clergy of Massachusetts wherein fugitive slaves made a plea for Massachusetts clergy to denounce the Fugitive Slave Bill from their pulpits. The plea cited Matthew 7:12 and Hebrews 13:3 as well as recalling the warnings from biblical prophets against those who refuse to hide the outcast. You can read this plea today at the first floor of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. 8

When one group can do good with political power, it has the responsibility to do so. When worldly wealth is chosen over love of neighbor, it’s obvious whether the decision is godly or not.

The Religious Right

It’s tempting to accept the political disenfranchisement of minorities as a thing of the past. It has, however, mutated like a virus to adapt to the racial progress we’ve made as a nation. Christian historian Jemar Tisby speaks of a crucial ideological foundation that religious conservatives had accepted in the 1980s in The Color of Compromise:

Before his untimely death from a brain tumor in 1991, Atwater had laid bare the racially coded appeals used by some Republicans to recruit voters: “You start out in 1954 by  saying, ‘N****r, n****r, n****r.’ By 1968 you can’t say n****r—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff , and you’re getting so abstract.” He said all of this in an interview recorded in 1981. “Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites,” he continued. 9

The goal of this, as Tisby states, is that “people can hold positions on social and political issues that disproportionately and adversely harm racial and ethnic minorities, but they can still proclaim their own racial ‘innocence’.” 10

Coupled with the narrative that liberals are taking over society and law, Christians implementing racist policy can truly believe they are besieged by unfriendly liberals while they are using their power to make minorities’ lives harder. This is certainly a recipe for confusion and not for unity, love or justice. Through adhering to Atwater’s approach, Americans supported policies which resulted in America boasting “5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of its incarcerated persons.” 11 A disproportionately high number of Hispanic and especially Black people makes up that 25 percent (a proportion that is getting slightly more equal). 12 But due to the legacy of Lee Atwater, there is a short-circuit when racism is employed to understand and solve this.

As We Have Opportunity

Going forward, we Christians need to ask ourselves the following questions: Are we in power? Are we marginalized? Somewhere in between?

Next, we need to focus on doing good as we have the opportunity to do so. This will require fellowship with Christians of opposing views as possible. Slaves and masters weren’t always able to do this for obvious reasons. And this deep wound is exacerbated when Christians today decide to cover up unjust acts committed by professing Christians. Regardless of how you view the last U.S. Presidential election, there has been a shift in race relations since it occurred. According to Michael Emerson, the author of Divided by Faith, a seminal work on race relations within the evangelical church, “the election itself was the single most harmful event to the whole movement of reconciliation in at least the past 30 years,” he said, “It’s about to completely break apart.” 13 While the election may not in itself have originated the problems we see today, it certainly ripped open the curtains on how American traditions from Edwards to President Wilson are still bearing down on the American church today, continuing this confusing and convoluted message that injustice may be ignored in the name of Christ.

In order to truly be reputable and do good in politics, we will need to undo the wrongs committed in the name of Christ. Believe it or not, Jonathan Edwards’ son Jonathan Edwards Jr. became an outspoken abolitionist. While his impact paled in comparison to his father’s, it serves as an example to us: we can choose to follow God no matter the influences we find ourselves surrounded by.

Sources

1 https://slavery.princeton.edu/stories/jonathan-edwards#2266
2 https://divinity.tiu.edu/media-resources/centers/
3 https://www.amazon.com/Color-Compromise-American-Churchs-Complicity/dp/0310597269/, pg 63
4 https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1964/july-3/woodrow-wilson-christian-in-government.html
5 https://www.history.com/news/kkk-birth-of-a-nation-film
6 https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p97.html
7 https://www.britannica.com/event/Fugitive-Slave-Acts
8 https://www.gilderlehrman.org/collection/glc05345
9 https://www.amazon.com/Color-Compromise-American-Churchs-Complicity/dp/0310597269/, pgs 184-185
10 https://www.amazon.com/Color-Compromise-American-Churchs-Complicity/dp/0310597269/, pg 185
11 https://www.amazon.com/Color-Compromise-American-Churchs-Complicity/dp/0310597269/, pg 190
12 https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/30/shrinking-gap-between-number-of-blacks-and-whites-in-prison/
13 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/09/us/blacks-evangelical-churches.html

David Atkinson works in design and construction management in Virginia. He is taking classes at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary towards his Master of Divinity degree.