The issue we are discussing today is one that a lot of people in this church are not comfortable discussing, but it’s really important that we have a real conversation about it—racism. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, racism is a huge issue in America and what happens in a lot of churches, particularly predominately white churches like ours, is that we don’t want to really engage with the issue of race because it either makes us feel guilty or we’re not entirely sure how we can make a positive impact.

My goal today is not to make you feel guilty, but to inform you of the history of the role the church has played in the creation of racist ideologies (long before you were here) and how coming to terms with that history is critical for our survival as a church into the future. To begin this conversation, we need to discuss how the United States came to be, because that plays a big role in where we are today. The United States was founded primarily by English and Europeans colonists beginning in early 1600s.

At that time, slavery was a common practice in both England and Europe, so when they made the trek across the Atlantic, they often brought their slaves with them. As more and more Europeans settled on the North American continent, they spread out along the East Coast over next two centuries. What became clear is that the southern regions were fantastic for farming, but to take advantage of the landscape, they required a great deal of labor. The slave trade out of Africa was tapped as a means of filling that labor pool.

By the time the Constitution of the United States was being written in 1787, there were movements by Christian abolitionists in England and Europe to outlaw slavery. This movement had made its way across the Atlantic and played a big role in the Constitutional Convention. There were a lot of arguments over whether slavery should be outlawed. Indeed, it was southern states who argued that it would hurt them too much economically. Those opposed to slavery conceded with the hope that, within a few decades, an amendment would be added to the constitution abolishing slavery.

Indeed, this might have happened had it not been for a singular invention that would change the course of history in America—Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin. Cotton grows really well in the South, but as abundantly as it grows, once cotton is harvested, it’s very hard to separate the cotton seeds from the cotton. This meant preparing the cotton for production was highly cost prohibitive. The Cotton Gin eliminated this problem completely.

It was an ingenious design that transformed the cotton industry. Now that cotton could be easily prepared for production, everybody wanted cotton, not just in the United States, but around the world. The United States quickly became the number one exporter of cotton, but this transformation required labor and lots of it. Prior to the Cotton Gin, the African slave trade was on the brink of collapse, but after the Cotton Gin, slavery was revitalized in ways that people never could have imagined.

As the South became a financially wealthy from proceeds of cotton, the church benefited from that wealth. Slave owners in the South were members of churches. My great, great grandfather who owned a plantation and slaves, went to the Presbyterian church in town and contributed large sums of money to that church. Slavery and Christianity don’t generally mix well together because there’s this idea in Christianity that every human is of equal value. For instance, Paul says in his letter to the Galatians: There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. (Ga. 3:28)

In order for one human to enslave another, you cannot see the slave as being equal to yourself. You have to believe that the person you are enslaving is intrinsically less human than you are. Otherwise, you cannot justify your actions. You can’t say that you believe all human beings deserve equal dignity, while at the same time claiming the right to restrict another human being’s freedom because he or she is your property. These are conflicting values.

In order to justify slavery, Christian pastors would pull scriptures out of context that undercut this idea. One of the most inventive is from the story of Cain and Abel, which we read this morning. After Cain kills his brother Abel, God places a curse on Cain, where he is driven from the land. Cain is worried that he might be killed by the people who meet him. The scripture tells us: And the Lord put a mark on Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him. (Gn. 4:15)

Pastors during this time would make the claim that when God formed Adam from the clay of the earth and Eve from his rib, their skin was white. Furthermore, they would claim that the mark of Cain was black skin, which means anyone with black skin was a descendant of Cain, and therefore, cursed by God. They were able to make this leap because the text never specifies exactly what the mark of Cain actually looks like.

The notion that people with dark skin are the descendants of Cain allowed Christians to make the argument that Africans have been rejected by God because of Cain’s curse. Thus, the descendants of Cain are subhuman and are allowed to be subjugated. They come to this conclusion because this is how God deals with any people group who do not measure up to God’s standards. For instance, when the Israelites enter the promised land: “When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy…and when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy…” (Dt. 7:1-2)

And if you’re sitting there thinking to yourself, well that was 1800s. That has nothing to do with what’s happening today. Make no mistake about it, the theology that black and brown bodies are less human than those who are white has been a big part of why the ideas of racism have been perpetuated in the United States. Once slavery was abolished following the Civil War, the white church maintained this racist theology well into the Jim Crow era. The same logic within the Cain and Abel story that was used to justify slavery can also be applied as a means of justifying segregation. It’s really no different.

And to prove to you that the mentality of racism within the church was still very much present after the Civil War, let’s fast forward to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. Today, most white people look back on the Civil Rights Movement and say that was a good thing. Indeed, today whenever we invoke the name of Martin Luther King Jr., everyone looks back as though he was universally loved. Martin Luther King Jr., in his day and time, was despised.

In fact, he was considered one of the most dangerous men in America and was at the top of the FBI’s most wanted list. The FBI sent King a letter encouraging him to kill himself saying he would never succeed. White people in the South and the North were afraid of Martin Luther King Jr. You all probably know that when he came march in Chicago, white people threw bricks at him and almost killed him. King famously said, “I have never seen, even in Mississippi and Alabama, mobs as hateful as I’ve seen here in Chicago.” Some of you were alive and living here when that happened. Think back. Was this church or any white church all in and behind King and his movement. Sure, there were some people here or there, but on the whole, most white people stayed quiet.

In fact, when Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his letter from a Birmingham jail, he famously said: “First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice…who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom…” Just in case you’re wondering, he’s talking about us.

King was not loved by the white church. Indeed, at the time of his assassination, King’s approval rating was at 25% nationally. Yet today, the white community looks back at him like he was some saint who everyone loved. You would never guess that King was accused of being a communist. Now to be clear, Martin Luther King Jr. was no fan of capitalism and preached against it, but, at the time, communism was one of the greatest existential threats to America’s way of life and labelling King a communist was a means of discrediting his movement.

Funny enough, Black Lives Matter, the new incarnation of the Civil Rights Movement, has been accused of the exact same thing. And you hear white people say, “King would never be a part of Black Lives Matter. He would be so disappointed in the BLM movement!” Would he? I don’t know. I think he would say it sounds pretty familiar. The entire BLM movement has been branded as communistic or Marxist, with much of the white population, including white churches, saying they think BLM is evil. Well, that’s what was said about Civil Rights Movement 60 years ago.

If you know about history, it feels like the movie Groundhog Day where Bill Murray keeps living the same day over and over again. A lot of what we see happening in our world today is a repetition of what happened 60 years ago. And here’s our come to Jesus moment for today. If you wonder why we are dying as a church, one of biggest reasons is because we have no moral legitimacy. We contributed to this problem of racism and we refuse to accept our responsibility for what has happened. We are like Pontius Pilate who signed Jesus’ death warrant, but then washes his hands of any responsibility.

And here’s the real issue. If you look around in this room, the demographics of our church look nothing like what young people experience growing up today. When many of you were growing up, it was common not to have interracial relationships of any kind. Young people, today, have friends from all across the socio-economic and racial spectrum. Most of my friend group growing up was not white. So when I hear people say, “Where are all the young people?” What you have to realize is that, for many young people, coming into a church that is predominately white is actually uncomfortable for them.

I can’t tell you the number of conversations I’ve had with young people in their 20s and 30s who say, “I would love to come here, but it feels like I’m stepping back into the 1960s,” because it feels like a segregated church. And underneath all of that, whether they can articulate it or not, is a sense that our Christianity is contributing to the problem of racism in America rather than the solving it.

Therefore, if we want to be a church that makes it into the future, friends we’ve got to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. What does that mean? It means our church needs to be at the forefront of the fight for racial equality. It means we have to give more than just lip service to the idea that we believe in the notion of equality. We have to create that inside and outside of these walls.

We read this morning from when Jesus entered into the Temple and overturned the tables of the money changers and the sellers of the sacrifices. He did this because he was fighting for his people. He did this because he was tired of the Romans hurting and discriminating against his people. He did this because he wanted his followers to understand, you can’t just sit back and wait for justice to happen all by itself. You have to be the change you want to see in the world.   

So either we are going to accept that one of the roles of Christians is to bring justice to our society or we are going to set that responsibility aside and slowly fade away. When you stand for something, yes, it’s hard, because it makes people uncomfortable and some people will walk away. But when you stand for nothing, then very quickly, you also mean nothing and lose your legitimacy.

Jesus fought for his people and it cost him his life. He asks the same of us. I’ve heard so many people say, “If I was alive during the 1960s, I would have been right there in the midst of the marches and the protests for racial justice.” Well, guess what, you’re alive today and racism is still a major problem in our society. Therefore, you are either going to take on the mantle of racial justice and make it a priority, or you are going to ignore what I’m saying here today and go about your life as you always have.

I hope it’s the former, because if it’s the latter, then this church won’t survive and our legacy of racism will be upon our tombstone. Step up. Do the right, even if it’s hard. I don’t want you to feel guilty. I want you to take action and, if you do, I’ll be right here, walking alongside you. Amen.