“Reconstructing the Gospel” (2018) by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is subtitled “Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion”. All Christian churches in the US, both North and South, Black and White, past and present, have been shaped by slavery to one degree or other.
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove grew up in North Carolina as a White Evangelical Protestant and graduated from Duke Divinity School. His life was changed when he met Rev. William Barber, a Black pastor who is trying to pick up where Martin Luther King Jr left off.
I was hoping Wilson-Hartgrove would help me understand that thing where some of the most openly religious White people are also the most racist. He kind of did, but the book is more anecdotal autobiography than analytical history or sociology.
Slaveholder religion: Slavery was such a huge moral fact in the US that it affected all churches. White churches in the South were the most affected, of course, but no one got away clean. And even though the slaves were freed and the laws changed during Reconstruction, most churches went right on unreconstructed, same as they ever were:
- divided by race,
- making a big deal about sin in terms of sex, and
- not speaking out against the injustices of society.
These features come not from Holy Scripture but from a time when churches bowed to the interests of slaveholders.
Divided by race: This feature alone, if nothing else, means White Christians will receive a different message than Black Christians – from the Bible verses quoted to songs sung to issues considered burning. White Evangelicals make a big deal of abortion and same-sex marriage but not, say, poverty or racial inequality. That is no accident.
Most churches in the US were fine with slavery. Presbyterians did not split over the issue till 1838, the Methodist Episcopalians not till 1844, and the Baptists not till 1845. And even then, most churches in the South remained on the side of slavery.
Power structure: Christians churches are seen as providing a moral foundation for their believers – and yet by and large, at least in the US, they side with the powers that be, making them a conservative force. Religion becomes, at its best, limited to the personal.
Hearts: For Whites it has led to the Shrivelled Heart Syndrome, which on this blog has been called “lack of empathy” and “hearts of stone”. That makes it hard for Whites to listen to Black people and take them seriously. On top of that, Whites think they know better than Blacks, which makes it harder still.
With all this in mind, Wilson-Hartgrove:
- Listens to Black people and takes what they say seriously, despite his upbringing.
- Attends a Black church. Black churches on average are less affected by slaveholder religion.
- Sings their songs, and not just at church, to learn and practise their message. He especially likes “I Will Trust in the Lord” (hymnal page pictured below).
- Protests, putting his body on the line against injustice, racial and otherwise. He took part in Moral Mondays.
– Abagond, 2018.
See also:
- books
- Black ministers who have called out injustice:
- Moral Mondays
- White Evangelical Protestants
- Southern Strategy
- Reconstruction
- The hearts of White people, part 2, part 3
- More on Fake White Christianity:
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I like that cartoon depicting the “pro-life” activists. Although I would not get an abortion myself, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people hypocritically claim to be “pro-life” but:
~ Don’t support sex education in public schools, which would better inform young people about how to avoid unplanned pregnancies
~ Are against free birth control, which would prevent many abortions
~ Are against free childcare and preschool for all, which would allow more single parents to work and provide for their children
~ Are against paying taxes to support sufficient welfare for struggling families
~ Are against raising the minimum wage and creating a single-payer healthcare system, so that fewer families would have to go on welfare in the first place
~ Are against gay people adopting the children who come from unplanned pregnancies
~ Support wars that kill thousands of already living, breathing children and the adults who are raising them
~ Support the death penalty, even though many criminal convictions have been proven wrong by DNA evidence after the fact
~ Don’t care about police shootings, even when the victim was unarmed and nonviolent
~ Don’t care about potential immigrants and refugees dying from violence, starvation, and disease in their home countries or in migrant camps
~ Don’t care about all the women throughout history who have died from unsafe illegal abortions
~ Are mostly men and older women who love to tell a young woman what to do with a fetus that’s a part of her body
~ Are often powerful White people concerned about the low White birthrate and the difficulty they face in maintaining their hegemony
I appreciate the fact that the term “anti-choice” seems to be getting more popular. Too many people who claim to be “pro-life” have proven time and time again that their concept of valuable life is very narrow, limited to a nine-month window. What they really love is CONTROL.
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Interesting…and I just came across the Ausar Auset Society which claims to want to bring Africans world wide back to an original African belief system. African Cosmology is what I seek to explore.
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“But African cosmology also leaves space for an engagement of the African-American religious experience; the faiths and traditions of those whose ancestors were involuntarily brought to other nations in the holds of slave ships…” https://religionnews.com/2018/02/19/african-cosmologies-spiritual-reflections-on-the-black-panther-movie/
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If you go to black church, be prepared to sing, “I’m Gonna Trust In The Lord” even though the hymnal says “Will” not “Gonna”. 😁😂
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Add James H. Cone’s The Cross And The Lynching Tree to this article about the hypocrisy of whites who profess to be Christians and still promote cruelty and oppression on enslaved black people.
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Does anybody have a favorite hymn with inspirational lyrics? I think mine might be “Forward Through the Ages”:
Forward through the ages, in unbroken line,
Move the faithful spirits at the call divine:
Gifts in differing measure, hearts of one accord,
Manifold the service, one the sure reward.
Wider grows the vision, realm of love and light;
For it we must labor, till our faith is sight.
Prophets have proclaimed it, martyrs testified,
Poets sung its glory, heroes for it died.
Not alone we conquer, not alone we fall;
In each loss or triumph lose or triumph all.
Bound by God’s far purpose in one living whole,
Move we on together to the shining goal.
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@ Paige
Being “pro-life” isn’t just about control, although that’s a lovely extra for these folks.
IMHO, It’s really about preventing “white genocide” and saving the white race.
These “anti-choice” people are really frightened about the effects that abortion and contraceptives are having with white birth rates. Factor in rising non-white birth rates and increased immigration of non-whites into the U.S. and you have a perfect storm of white panic over being bred out of existence. Nixing abortion and putting contraceptives back into the shame closet is all about getting white couples back on the task of being fruitful and multiplying, no matter what it does to them socioeconomically. Having a larger, whiter population is all that matters to these people, although they’ll never express it in such terms.
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@Mack:
That’s it in a nutshell! Everything else is just extraneous, although whites beg to differ.
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The Bible and the Old Testament has always been more African/Middle-Eastern. I have no idea how the Klan and other white nationalists can even come to associate Christianity much less any Abrahamic religion with their cause. It doesn’t make sense.
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