We're going to go ahead and start. Good morning. So it's a real joy to have Malcolm Foley with us this morning and his wife, Desiree Foley.
So Malcolm and Desiree were members here at Trinity for a few years, 2012 to 2015. Right, Malcolm? Did I get those dates right?
Yes, sir.
So Malcolm was here doing a Master's of Divinity at Yale Divinity School. During that time, he was also a pastoral intern here at Trinity and just a good friend.
And so he's currently doing his Ph.D. in American History at Baylor University.
And what he's going to be teaching on this morning is going to be sharing some of what he's been working on and researching and studying and writing about at Baylor.
So I'm going to get out of the way and let Malcolm take over. So Malcolm, thanks for being here, brother.
We're glad to have you here. Let me open us in a word of prayer and we'll start.
Father, thank you for the opportunity that we get to be your people, to gather around your word, to gather in your spirit, to gather around our Savior Christ.
God, would you bless this time, this morning, as we look at a dark moment in our history and as we look to you, Lord Jesus, in the gospel for how we might live faithfully in response.
We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen.
Good morning, brothers and sisters.
So it's an honor to be before you this morning, but it's also sobering because our material this morning is grim.
What you're going to hear is some of the worst that humanity has to offer.
And one historian has noted that anyone who does lynching research must have a strong emotional constitution because such work erodes one's faith in humanity.
Well, I want to start off this class by affirming wholeheartedly that my faith does not lie in humanity.
Because if it did, I would have given up a long time ago.
No, my hope remains in a God who reached down to save a sinful humanity.
A God who, while we were yet sinners, sent his son to die for us.
But it's that same God, however, who has continued to guide and care for his people in the midst of brutal evils.
And particularly the African American church is an excellent example of that.
I'm also firmly of the opinion that evil is not defeated when we look away from it.
As Christ's death and resurrection were the most successful full frontal assault on sin that this world has ever known,
so also we as those united to that same Christ and as partakers of that same Holy Spirit must look evil in the face, determine its root, and pluck it out.
So we're going to stare evil in the face this morning.
And take a look at some of the ways that some pastors responded to that evil.
So first of all, what is a lynching?
In short, it's come to mean extra-legal killing of an individual at the hands of a mob.
But what we're talking about in American history after the late 1880s is what the Equal Justice Initiative rightly calls racial terror lynchings.
To understand that, I want us to turn to a particular one.
And so we're going to begin on the evening of June 21st, 1903, in Wilmington, Delaware, in the sanctuary of the Olivet Presbyterian Church.
A black man, George White, has just been accused of raping and murdering a white woman named Helen Bishop.
And he has been arrested, currently sitting in jail, being held without bail.
Pastor Robert Elwood, for this night's sermon, chose 1 Corinthians 5, 13 for his text, which reads,
Therefore put away from among ourselves that wicked person, referring to the guy who's having sex with his stepmom.
Here's a bit of that sermon.
Oh, honorable judges, call the court, have a speedy trial, establish a precedent, and the girls of this state, the wives of our home, and the mothers of our fireside, and our beloved sisters, will not be sorry.
And neither will you.
And honorable judges, if you do not hear and heed these appeals, and that prisoner should be taken out and lynched,
then let me say to you, with a full realization of the responsibility of my words,
even as Nathan said to King David of old, after his soldiers had killed Uriah, thou art the man,
so I would say to you, the responsibility for lynching would be yours for delaying the execution of the law.
If the judges insist that the trial of the murderer of Miss Bishop be delayed until September,
then should he be lynched?
I say, yes.
Miss Bishop's father was also a pastor, and he responded with an open letter to the town,
asking that they not, quote, try to atone for one crime, no matter how hellish, by committing another,
imploring the town to let the law take its course.
But the matter was out of his hands.
The night of June 23rd, two days later, a crowd of several hundred approached the jail, demanding admittance.
The guards fought them off with water hoses, but they would not be deterred.
As they beat upon the iron doors, the chief of police yelled,
the first man that comes into this corridor will be killed.
The leader of the mob responded with a sledgehammer in hand,
then you had better kill me for the first one.
They breached the jail and approached the cell,
and as they approached the cell, yells were heard from the crowd, saying,
don't hurt him, hang him.
Don't hit him, burn him at the stake.
Take him to the place where he murdered Miss Bishop,
for we have driven a stake there and will burn him.
They took him out of the jail and brought him to a secluded spot.
There he was bound in ropes from his shoulders to his feet,
was affixed to the stake under which there was a pile of straw,
and the torch was applied to the straw.
Newspapers tell us this,
the flames leaped up and licked the man's bare hands.
He was held erect by one of the lynchers until his clothing was burning
when he was pushed into the bed of the fire.
He rolled about and his contortions were terrible, but he made no sound.
Suddenly the ropes on his legs parted,
and he sprang from the fire and started to run,
and a man hit him with a piece of fence rail and knocked him down
as willing hands threw him again into the flames.
He rolled out a few times,
and each time they pushed him back in,
shouting and cheering.
There are two things that one must understand about this story.
First, it's not anomalous in its broad strokes.
Between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and 1950,
more than 4,000 black men, women, and children were killed by white mobs.
When people think about lynching,
they generally think about the rope and hanging.
But the story of lynching is a story of castration,
mutilation, and perhaps most disturbingly, burning people alive.
Perhaps even more disturbingly than that,
as illustrated by this story that I've just told,
there were white pastors who advocated for such things,
suggesting that torturing and burning a human being alive
was an act of divinely sanctioned justice.
I jest with my colleagues that
if my research focused on white pastors during this period,
I would actually be depressed.
After all, the material is dark enough.
To compound a profoundly unjust distortion of the gospel,
on top of that,
is to witness some of the worst of humanity.
But thankfully,
those were not the only voices in this conversation.
Many have fallen into the trap of believing that lynching actually worked,
that it actually cowed particularly black churches into silence,
because of fear.
But that is not true.
Black pastors did indeed speak out,
and that's actually the focus of my research.
So I'm going to lay out a few examples of these responses,
and then we'll think through
kind of what that means for the church today.
So the first of these responses
comes as a response to that lynching that I just narrated.
It comes from an AME pastor who got national recognition
because of the sermon that he preached
soon after this lynching.
Here are the words of Reverend Montrose W. Thornton.
With a court, law, and officers of law
in the white man's hands,
the despised Negro can expect no mercy,
justice, or protection.
The Negro is unsafe anywhere in this country.
He is the open prey at all times
of barbarians who know no restraint
and will not be restrained.
There is but one part left for the persecuted Negro
when charged with a crime and when innocent.
Be a law unto yourself.
You are taught by this lesson of outrage
to save yourself from torture
at the hands of the blood-seeking public.
Save your race from insult and shame.
Be your own sheriff, court, and jury.
And here's the kicker.
Die in your tracks,
perhaps drinking the blood of your pursuers.
Yes, you heard that correctly.
Die in your tracks,
perhaps drinking the blood of your pursuers.
If a lynch mob is after you and you're innocent,
you won't survive.
So, what Pastor Thornton tells his congregation is,
take as many with you as you can.
And don't be surprised by that.
Because when one lives in a culture
where one's life is constantly in danger,
when someone could be killed
merely for being accused of a crime
or for being related to or near someone
who's been accused of a crime,
one way to affirm your dignity as a human being,
and this is one of the things
that pastors were kind of figuring out how to do,
one of the ways to affirm your dignity
as a human being
is to advocate for armed self-defense.
This is one of the options.
And if anyone would appear to be entirely justified
in pitching self-defense as an option,
it must be a community that's faced
with the prospect of unjust death on all sides.
Like David Walker, the abolitionist in the early 19th century,
and Malcolm X after him,
Thornton encouraged black communities
not to accept the predominance of domestic terrorism
in American society.
But self-defense was not the only option provided
in African-American theological and political thought.
In 1899, a lynching took place
that in many ways changed the future
of African-American intellectual history.
Sam Hose accused of raping a white woman
when what really happened
was that he killed his employer in self-defense
after his employer came at him with a gun
because he asked for back pay that he was owed
and because he asked for time off
to help his ailing mother.
Those requests were essentially an insult to his employer,
for him to say that his employer owed him something.
It's an insult, punishable by death.
So he was caught by a mob.
They cut off his ears and fingers,
castrated him, chained him to a tree,
doused him in kerosene, and burned him alive.
And as the fire began to die, trains from...
This happens around noon in Georgia.
As the fires began to die, trains come in from Atlanta
and more than 2,000 more people come in
to look through the ashes for charred bones and body parts,
taking pieces of the chain that bound him,
taking pieces of the tree to which he was chained,
all to take souvenirs.
And an afternoon soon after that, within two days,
W.E.B. Du Bois was on his way to see Joel Chandler Harris,
a prominent author,
and to see an editor of the prominent newspaper
at the Atlanta Constitution
because he heard that this lynching was about to happen.
Before he got to that office,
he learned that Hoes had already been, quote,
barbecued
and that his knuckles were for sale
in a grocer's window a few blocks ahead.
Later, thinking back on this moment, he wrote,
I did not meet Joel Chandler Harris
nor the editor of the Constitution,
but walked home in a distracted state of mind
realizing that one could not be a calm, cool,
and detached scientist
while Negroes were being lynched,
murdered, and starved.
W.E.B. Du Bois, the activist,
perhaps the most prominent black intellectual
of the early 20th century,
was essentially born on that day.
And he would go on to be instrumental
in the founding of the NAACP,
which would eventually mount
significant anti-lynching campaigns.
But that day shocked more than just W.E.B. Du Bois.
It also shocked a pastor
who also ended up being
one of the co-founders of the NAACP,
whose name was Francis Grimke.
Grimke was the nephew of Angelina and Sarah Grimke,
the well-known northern abolitionists
and early advocates for women's rights.
A few weeks after Hoes' lynching,
Grimke preached three sermons on lynching
to the 15th Street Presbyterian Church
in Washington, D.C.,
with the mob killing of Stephen
as his text for Max.
In summary, Francis Grimke's three sermons
focus on lynching's causes
and its remedies.
Because these sermons are a revelation
of lynching's true nature
and an affirmation of black humanity.
Like Ida B. Wells,
the single most important human being
in the history of anti-lynching activism,
Grimke recognized that the narrative
that was offered by southern apologists
was a false one.
So lynching as a phenomenon,
if you look before the 1860s,
well, really before the 1880s,
it affected white and black populations
in almost comparable numbers.
But in the late 1880s,
the number of white people being lynched
drops and the number of black people
being lynched skyrockets.
Why might that be the case?
Well, it's a culmination of a trend
that begins immediately
after the end of Reconstruction.
A trend called redemption.
When white southerners take back
political power over the South.
And so when southern whites were asked
why black men were lynched across the South,
the answer that they gave was consistent.
And the answer was this.
Well, it's because black men rape white women.
Listen, after Sam Hose was burned alive in 1899,
a note was left on a tree near his corpse
that said,
we must protect our southern women.
Grimke, however, and others
were not convinced.
Looking at the statistics
and also not buying the narrative
because it's a ridiculous claim to make,
Grimke, like Wells before him,
found that people were lynched
because they broke the codes of Jim Crow.
Yes, some were accused of rape.
Some were accused of rape
because they were in a consensual relationship
with a white woman.
But when they were found out,
they were accused of rape.
Some were accused of rape
because they bumped the shoulder
of a white woman.
Some were accused
because they looked at a white woman.
Some were accused of rape
as an afterthought
to whip up a crowd
with no evidence at all.
As a response,
Grimke was clear in his sermon saying,
it is all accepted as true.
And insofar as it is accepted,
the North as well as the church
is guilty of condemning
the Negro upon charges
which have never been substantiated
according to the method
of civilized society.
The alleged Negro rapist
is entitled to a fair trial.
And until he has had that trial,
to kill him is a flagrant injustice,
a monstrous wrong.
Never ought we to accept
the verdict of a mob
against any man,
white or black.
The reasons for lynching
were instead clear to Grimke.
He affirmed that lynching's
primary purpose
was not justice.
It was order.
And order in the minds
of white communities
was keeping black communities
in their place.
And so what did Grimke think
was the remedy
to this way of thinking?
Grimke's answer,
which was one among many,
including self-defense and others,
but what he said
was education,
social, political,
moral, and religious.
So what Grimke called for
was an educational campaign
that was both destructive
and constructive,
destroying the edifice
of white supremacy
and constructing a framework
that allowed full civic participation
for African Americans.
This educational campaign
would have to systematically
dismantle the assumptions
that black people
were voiceless chattel,
only valued for their worth
to the economic system.
In his words,
the southern white man
needs to be educated
into a recognition
of the fact
of the Negro's manhood
or humanity,
into the habit
of thinking of the Negro
as a human being
and not as some
lower form of existence
that puts him beyond
the ordinary civilities
of life.
As people had been educated
to think that
black people were inferior,
so they had to be educated
in African American humanity,
apparently.
But who was to do this work?
Grimke began with the explicit belief
that anti-lynching work
had to begin in the church.
In fact, in Grimke's mind,
one ought to expect
to look to ministers
of the gospel
because they're supposed
to be God's representatives
fighting for justice
and common humanity.
If anyone ought to be
on the front lines
and if anyone had the resources
to actually justify
their presence
on the front lines,
it had to be ministers
of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Grimke laid out ample
scriptural evidence
for racial equality
in the sense that
conceptions of race
as set forth
by southern whites
to affirm their own superiority
in the southern and northern.
They're rooted in falsehood.
Rightly, Grimke pointed
to such verses
as Acts 17, 26
and Genesis 1, 26 and 27,
noting that all human beings
are descended from Adam
and thus created
in the image of God.
As a result,
he says this,
there isn't a hint
or suggestion
or anything that could
in any way be twisted
into even so much
as the semblance
of an argument
in support of the belief
that some races
were created superior
to others
in the sense
in which that term
is used by the southern whites
in dealing with the race question.
For Grimke,
that, along with the fact
that everyone is held
to the same standard
in the Ten Commandments
and the fact that the gospel
is preached
to all indiscriminately,
solves the problem
of ontological inferiority,
that is, inferiority
in terms of being.
And Grimke was optimistic
about the possible success
of his project,
saying,
let the ministers
and elders
and deacons
and members,
those who have come out
from the world
and have taken upon themselves
the name of Jesus,
first get right themselves
on this subject.
Let them accord
to the Negro
his rights as a citizen.
Let them treat him
as he ought to be treated
as a man and brother,
as is required
by God's most holy law,
which they profess
to believe and to follow,
and it will not be difficult
to get those
on the outside
to fall in line.
The church is in a position
to wield
a tremendous influence
in this matter
if it will only arouse itself
to a sense
of its responsibilities
and will have the courage
to do what it knows
to be right.
Now, this was an honorable goal
and an honorable sentiment,
but it was not enough.
While it combats
the racialization of lynching,
that is,
or what I narrated before
of the shift
to black people
being lynched
in large numbers,
it didn't deal
with the moral narrative
behind it.
Because someone can believe
that African Americans
are human
and still think
that they're morally degraded
and that they particularly
need to be kept in line.
So, you're not essentially
actively a member
of the lynch mob,
but racist ideology
is still present.
And so one way
to do this,
one way to combat this
was to draw on another
core Christian claim
that sin
is a universally
corrupting phenomenon.
While human beings,
by means of our creation
and thus our participation
in God
insofar as we exist,
we have dignity
as a result of that.
But our sin places us
in a place
of concurrent guilt.
And so in such a situation,
justice,
insofar as we're able
to enact it,
appears proximate
in most cases.
Because we inevitably
have cases
of corrupt human beings
attempting to form
institutions and laws
to judge other
corrupt human beings.
But in the case
of lynching,
the seeming guiltlessness
of the lynchers
revealed that such a conception
was foreign.
For them,
only the black person
was guilty
and only the black person
could be guilty.
As white male protectors
of southern female virtue,
what did they have
to be ashamed of?
It took the testimony
of African American
activists,
pastors,
and poets
to continue to affirm
the humanity
of black people
as well as to remind
white folks
of their own depravity.
And it was precisely
the second move
that Ida B. Wells
and other pastors
later would attempt
to put to the forefront
as they described
the brutality of lynching
and exposed the nation
to the circulating
postcards
and photographs
of charred victims.
What you see in this map
behind you,
and this is only a portion
of the map,
these are all of the
recorded lynchings
from 1835 to 1964.
They're color-coded racially.
If we were to zoom
into southern Texas,
we would see
just a number of Mexicans
being lynched.
But this is just the look
of the deep south.
This extends northern.
But every single one
of these dots
is a skull.
Because every single
one of these dots
is an African-American
man, woman, or child
killed by mob violence.
And there are thousands
of these.
This is from
monroeworktoday.org.
But these are just
the recorded ones
in newspapers.
Countless others
went unreported.
But this is just a
visual representation
of how widespread
this phenomenon
was.
And so I want
to take a quick
look at the work
of Ida B. Wells.
Because Desiree messes
with me about
Ida B. Wells
because she's basically
the hero of my research
and I talk about her
all the time.
And it's generally
not a good practice
to gush about other women
in the front of your wife.
But I assure her
that she's no longer
living so she's not a threat.
But the reason
I talk about her
is that her courage
and resilience
in the face
of a lynching culture
is astonishing.
Wells was a journalist
and at the time
of what I call
her awakening
in 1890
she was editor
and part owner
of the Memphis
Free Speech newspaper.
A significant achievement
in itself.
But when she heard
that three men
one of whom
was her friend
had been lynched
in Memphis
she was surprised.
After all
she like many others
was under the impression
that lynching
only happened for rape.
But she knew these guys.
She knew that
they couldn't have
been accused of rape.
As she investigated
this case
she found that
they had been lynched
because their grocery store
was in competition
with the white one
across the street.
And when they defended
themselves against
an attack
they shot at
and inadvertently
wounded police officers.
And when she
wrote about this
the response
was
not positive.
People burned down
the paper
that she submitted to
and threatened
to lynch her
so she ran to the north
where she lived
for the rest of her life.
But she still
constantly visited
the south
to investigate
these lynchings.
In the case
of the one
in Memphis
this was
a lynching
that took place
because
these three men
posed an economic threat.
And as she
and through her
national and
international
anti-lynching campaigns
she popularized
the truth about lynching
convincing both
Frederick Douglass
and W.B. Du Bois
of this fact.
That lynching
was a tool
of racial terror
meant to keep
black people
in their place
of economic
and racial inferiority.
She brought attention
to the fact
that what made
the narrative
of the black beast
rapist
so compelling
was that people
believed these stories
about all white women
all white men
all black men
and all black women.
all white women
were paragons
of virtue
who would never
dare to enter
into a relationship
with a black man.
All white men
were defenders
of virtue
justified
in using lethal force
to defend
white women.
All black women
were salacious
Jezebels
and black men
were inhuman demons
ready to prey
upon unsuspecting girls.
The complexity
of humanity
was smoothed
and ignored
in the face
of the need
to maintain
white supremacy.
And Wells'
insight
was amazing
and her courage
to speak
not only here
but abroad
as a black woman
in the beginning
of the 20th century
is mind-bogglingly heroic.
But
there's a sense
in which even
this move
backfired
because it wasn't
paired with a cohesive
theological
or ethical narrative.
So lynching
didn't
end.
It merely
went underground
for a while
because public
brutal execution
of allegedly
criminal African-Americans
no longer
had widespread
public approval.
And so lynching
starts to fade
in the background
in the 30s and 40s
though you still
have high profile
lynchings that continue
in the decades to come
including the lynching
of Emmett Till
which ended up
sparking
the civil rights movement
even though
recently
the woman
who accused
Emmett Till
of whistling
at her
and calling
her baby
within the last year
she said that she
lied about that.
So after lynching
fades
in the 30s and 40s
violence moves
into the urban centers
where African-Americans
who had fled lynching
in the south
gathered.
So one of the reasons
for the great migration
for 6 million African-Americans
moving out of the south
into the north
was not just
economic opportunity
in the north
but also fleeing lynching.
And so they flee
to these urban centers
and then you start
seeing cases
of people's houses
being bombed
and stuff
in these cities
because the violence
has just moved
the anti-black violence
has just moved
with them.
And so violence
moved into the prison system
in what some call
legal lynchings
from capital punishment.
Violence moved
into the system
of mass incarceration
and attendant police brutality
the effects of which
we live in today
when this country
has 5% of the world's population
and 25% of its prisoners.
In a fashion
that is truly demonic
racial violence
has proven to be
exceptionally resilient
addressed perhaps
in one form
but always ready
to reemerge
in another.
As Jamar Tisby
has said
in his recent book
racism
doesn't go away
it adapts.
Now I can't give you
all the answers
because I have to
leave you in a little suspense
for the book
that's going to come out
in a few years
but such a project
must be informed
by historical understanding
of past attempts
to battle lynching
and racial violence
in general.
We have to continue
to ask the question
why did Ida B. Wells
utter this chilling
declaration
that American Christians
are too busy
saving the souls
of white Christians
from burning in hellfire
to save the lives
of black ones
from present burning
in fires kindled
by white Christians.
We must ask
are we truly
working against
all suffering
especially
eternal suffering?
Are we saying
to our brothers
and sisters
go and be well fed
instead of actually
literally feeding them
when they need food?
So what does this mean
for the church
today?
We have to remember
that the world
that we live in today
the communities
that we live in
work in
buy or rent houses in
have been profoundly
shaped by American history.
segregation
and its cohabitant
racial violence
are not southern
phenomena.
In many cases
the segregation
in the north
was more entrenched
and more difficult
to extricate
than that of the south.
This can be seen
in the ministries
of Malcolm X
and Martin Luther King
often contrasted
with one another
because of their methods
but it's important
to remember
that Malcolm
almost exclusively
addressed particular issues
that the north faced
where Jim Crow
was not explicit
but rather was
subtly enforced
and when Martin Luther King
attempted to use
the same methods
that he used
in the south
in Chicago
in 1966
he found that
the issues
were actually
much more complex.
Economic exploitation
of black communities
took on a different face.
No longer was it
these legal forms
of segregation
but it looked at
it looked like
racial housing covenants
it looked like
corrupt landlords
racist hiring practices
and the like.
And as a matter of fact
when he demonstrated
in Chicago
in August 1966
marching through
an all white neighborhood
bottles and bricks
were thrown
at the demonstrators
and King himself
was struck by a rock
and afterwards
he said
I have seen
many demonstrations
in the south
but I have never
seen anything
so hostile
and so hateful
as I've seen
here today.
All this is to say
this
if we're serious
about
if we're serious
about seeking
racial justice
as an individual
and as a church
it's important
to know the history
of your local area.
Are there profound
racial disparities
in housing poverty
and school performance
for example?
Press into them
because chances are
you won't like
what you see
but this is the first step
to seeking to be
an agent of the gospel
and that's not
and that's not me
kind of making some
addition to the gospel.
Christ has given us
two commandments
and he's given us
his spirit
in order that we might
be obedient
to those commandments.
Love the Lord your God
with all your heart
soul strength and mind
and love your neighbor
as yourself.
And then in John 15
Jesus then extends
that second commandment
and says that
and says
and when he's talking
about loving our brothers
and sisters in Christ
when he says
to love one another
as I have loved you.
It's impossible
to love someone
if you do not know them.
If you do not laugh
with them.
If you do not mourn
with them.
If you watch
the Netflix series
When They See Us
you'll see
a horrific story
about the Central Park
Jogger case
in 1989
where five teenage
black and Latino boys
between 14 and 16
are arrested
and convicted
for rape
and sent to prison.
You will see
the interrogations
where their confessions
are forced.
You will see
the actual rapist
meet one of the boys
in jail
13 years later
and him actually
confessing to the crime
showing that
in this case
the actual rapist
in this case
ended up having
more mercy
on these boys
than the system
that claimed
to protect them
and society.
Do you wish
to train
your mourning muscles?
Know that this
is a reality
faced by many
especially black
and brown men
in this country.
Unfortunately
being convicted
of a crime
doesn't always mean
that one is guilty
and there is an
uncomfortable amount
of data
about the innocent
suffering.
And so practically
what does that mean?
Well one thing is
take jury duty
seriously.
Meet your neighbors
learn their pains
pray for them
in your workplace
don't let injustice
run rampant.
If you're afraid
for your job
remember
the Lord is on your side
in Christ's
sermon on the plain
he speaks beatitudes
similar to Matthew 5
but not exactly the same.
And Luke he encourages us
blessed are you
when people hate you
and when they exclude you
and revile you
and spurn your name as evil
on account of the son of man.
Rejoice in that day
and leap for joy
for behold
your reward is great in heaven
for so their fathers
did to the prophets.
I submit to you
that fighting
for the good of your neighbor
fighting for the benefit
of your neighbor
fighting for the life
of your neighbor
is an action
that God has promised
to vindicate.
And so how does
the gospel of Jesus Christ
teach us to respond
to the persistent evils
of racism
injustice
and violence?
I want to
take the tack
that Paul normally does
in his letters
in moving from
the indicative
to the imperative.
If
if we have been
set free
by Christ
if we have been
set free
by Christ
that enables us
to love
and forgive
our neighbor
in ways that
no one else
is able to do.
And so
this then
has to guide
I think
our interpretation
of Romans 13
which is often
used
as a
text
to support
political quietism
that everyone
be subject
to the ruling
authorities
and things like that.
We have to recognize
that if we live
in a federal
republic
as we do
we actually
make up
part of that
governing authority
body
which means
that our
responsibility
then
is to use
that power
well.
And so then
this is a call
to think through
what just
political action
looks like.
And this is
something that we
constantly need
guidance for
because it
requires an
understanding
of history
it requires
an understanding
of these
local issues
but that's
not
but it's
not an option
because we
have this
power
and it
will either
lie unused
in the sense
of burying
a talent
or
it can be
used for the
actual benefit
of our
brothers and
sisters and
neighbors.
But the
second thing
and I'm
very glad
that John
Owen's
mortification
of sin
is on
the bookshelf
because it's
one of my
favorite books
on sanctification
but one of
the things
that he
emphasizes in
that book
is the need
to put
sin to
death
but the
only way
that we
actually
engage
in this
activity
daily
is to
recognize
that sin
is killing
us
and one
of the
phrases
from that
book is
be about
killing sin
or sin
will be
about
killing
you.
Racist
ideology
functions
in a
very
it's
in this
it's
it functions
the way
that sin
does
because
what
what racist
ideology
is a
mixture
of pride
and greed
in this
kind of
toxic
soup
and so
if this
is something
that we're
seeking to
fight
like I said
as individuals
and as a
church
it has to
be something
that needs
it has to
be something
that we
recognize
needs to
be put
to death
not played
around with
not treated
as though
not
not not
not treated
as though
it's a light
issue
because people
people have
died and people
continue to die
as a result of
the belief that
certain groups of
people are
inferior to
others whether
morally
intellectually
physically
spiritually or
any other
or or or or
or any other
category like
that
and so
while while
fewer fires
may be
kindled in
today's
America
the same
work is
done
whenever
full human
dignity
is denied
to anyone
and so
memory of
these events
and the
current
application
of that
knowledge
personally
in teaching
and preaching
and loving
our communities
has to be
informed especially
by the range
of African
American thought
on these
topics
because if
not
we may be
doomed to
repeat in
insidious
ways the
evils of
our past
are there
any questions
I want to
leave some
time
because this
this is not
how many
of you
how many
of you
haven't
have
encountered
lynching
history
before
lynching
history
yeah
so just
reading
about it
hearing
about it
since the
60s
yeah
it's
it's a
so like
the scholarship
on it
has been
is like
the last
40 years
a fair amount
has happened
but there's
but no one
has done
so what
so what my
dissertation focuses
on is
specifically
black protestant
responses
to lynching
how do you
encourage your
congregation
in the midst
of a
society that
seems to be
poised for
their death
at all points
and so what
the dissertation
is doing is
it maps the
range ranging
from pray about
it and it'll
go away
to self
defense and
there are a
bunch of
spots in
between
but the main
purpose of that
is to remind
people that
this practice
doesn't
doesn't continue
because no one
is saying
anything about
it
it continues
because no
one is listening
to the people
who are actually
saying things
about it
any and all
questions
how old was
Wells when
in 89
how old
was she
in her
late
20s
yes she
was born
in 61
I believe
so about
to turn
30
her most
famous
her most
famous
editorials
come out
in
well in
92 is
when
Southern
Horrors
comes out
she has
two
kind of
most famous
editorials
Southern
Horrors
Lynchelon
in all
its phases
and
a red
record
I
eagerly
recommend
those texts
for an
introduction
to this
history
she's
brilliant
she's
as a
child
but
soon
after
her
parents
are
free
because
she was
born
during
the
Civil
War
yes
didn't
a lot
of
Christians
use
that
I don't
know
the exact
scripture
but I
know
it's
the
Genesis
like
Noah
the
son
of
Sham
he was
black
or dark
so
the
curse
of
Ham
was
common
not
just
in
white
churches
but also
in
black
churches
African
American
Christians
would
refer to
themselves
as
sons
of
Ham
but
they
would
do
so
this
is
its
own
conversation
of
how
first
of
how
the
curse
of
Ham
gets
to be
interpreted
as a
curse
on
Ham
when
the
text
is
a
curse
on
Canaan
the
curse
of
Ham
is
used
as a
narrative
to
justify
African
slavery
that's
essentially
what it's
used
as
there's
nothing
in the
text
to
suggest
that
but
it's
used
that
way
actually
even
beginning
in the
16th
century
my
professor
who was
my
advisor
for a
little
while
when I
was
doing
work
on
Calvin
and
the
Puritans
he
wrote
a
book
on
the
curse
of
Ham
as
a
developing
doctrine
of
justification
of
American
slavery
but
it's
an
unfounded
scriptural
interpretation
that's
essentially
used
to
justify
an
already
continuing
practice
some
people
use
scriptures
to
Christians
use
it
to
persecute
Jews
and
there's
no
scriptures
that
tell
us
that
we're
to
persecute
Jews
yeah
I mean
one
point
so this
is
a point
that I'll
add
because it's
a little bit
of time
this is
a very
important
point
and probably
one of the
most important
things
that I've
learned
about
the way
that racism
functions
in American
society
so we
tend
to
think
that
things
move
from
ignorance
and hate
to racist
ideas
to racist
practices
it's one
of the
reasons
why none
of us
like to
be called
racist
because it's
paired with
this ignorance
and hate
and so we
think
oh no
I'm not
racist
I'm not
ignorant
and hateful
yes we
are
but
when you
look at
particularly
American
history
but this
bleeds into
other countries
as well
the order
historically
actually tends
to go
from
policies
that
disproportionately
disadvantage
particular
populations
to ideas
that then
justify
those practices
which then
become calcified
into
ignorance
and hate
for example
American slavery
when the
Portuguese
arrive in
Africa
they don't
initially
the initial
thought is
not
these people
are inferior
let's
enslave
them
the initial
thought is
hey
this could
make us
a whole
lot of
money
let's try
this
and then
they think
hold on
I need
to justify
this to
the Pope
somehow
so
let's say
that this
is
we're doing
this to
Christianize
the heathen
yeah
let's do
that
that'll
work
so this
continues
for a while
but then
you have to
think of
other reasons
because it
starts to
become clear
that actually
the goal
is not
Christianizing
the heathen
actually the
goal is just
for you to
make money
and so
then you have
to think of
other things
you have to
think of
things like
oh
they're built
for slavery
they're inferior
to us
we need to
civilize them
so we
ought to
enslave them
they ought to
be enslaved
these kinds of
ideas start to
proliferate
and these ideas
start to build
a life of their
own apart from
the fact that
these were built
to justify a
particular practice
and so
then
these thoughts
of white
people being
inferior
and things
like that
that just
starts to
calcify
and people
just think
oh this is
just common
sense
these are
things that
we just
know to
be true
and you
can trace
this with
a number
of
particularly
racist
policies
in our
history
but that
changes the
way that
we address
it
if we
recognize
that
these
things
begin
fundamentally
in
self-interest
because that's
where all
these things
have begun
greed
and self-interest
and things
like that
then we can
start asking
the question
okay
this isn't
just an
education
it's not
an education
problem
it's just
that we're
evil
and so we
have to deal
with it
in that
we have to
deal with it
in those
terms
and so when
we see
disparities
and we blame
entire groups
of people
for those
things
we have to
think carefully
about what
we're saying
when we say
those kinds
of things
because the
fact of the
matter is
if we're
to be
ambassadors
of the
gospel
our goal
is to
figure out
how to
wisely
love our
neighbors
and blaming
entire groups
of people
for things
that are
not
their fault
is unhelpful
yeah
thanks so
much
upstairs
we've been
going through
nehemiah
yeah
and uh
when nehemiah
heard the news
of this
terrible
situation
it seemed
like it was
a pattern
where he
heard
rather than
simply acting
yep
though he was
an actor
yep
he stopped
and he mourned
mourns
yeah
then he
confessed
he not only
confessed
personally
but also
corporately
for his
people
yep
then he
prayed
and really
reflected
in any
act
does that
seem like
a helpful
pattern
absolutely
does
john
absolutely
does
john
absolutely
does
john
this is
not the
kind of
this is
not the
kind of
work that
you can
engage in
without
initially
because it's
the mourning
and praying
and confessing
gets you
gets you in
the proper
posture to be
able to
engage in
this kind
of in
this kind
of work
this is
not a
this is
not a
rush in
and save
situation
this is
a
we have
to be
working
alongside
our
brothers and
sisters and
neighbors
learning alongside
them to
figure out
okay
this is how
deep these
wounds are
how can I
come alongside
you in
these
in these
wounds
that requires
sitting with
people
it requires
mourning
it requires
prayer
it requires
confession
from all
of us
this is not
something that
if you were
born and
if you were
born and
grew up or
have spent
any significant
period of
time in
this country
you've been
shaped in
some way by
this
shaped in
some way by
this by
this culture
and so
that that
those those
kinds of
practices are
are necessary
preparatory
they're necessary
preparatory actions
before even
thinking about
you know
before even
thinking about
moving forward
those are
those are I
think important
initial steps
I don't want to
take up too
much more time
I'll be
available though
but I want
to but I
want to make
sure that we
have time for
worship I
want to pray
for us let
me let me
pray for us
real quick
heavenly father
we thank you
for this
opportunity
Lord to
gather in
your name
Lord to
worship you
gather with
our brothers
and sisters
and lift up
your and lift
up your name
Lord even
as we hear
of even
as we hear
of seemingly
insurmountable
evils Lord
not only in
history Lord
but in our
world today
Lord I
pray that we
would constantly
be reminded
that we
serve an
actually
insurmountable
God
Lord that
you
that you
have shown
that you
have shown
your love
for us
in Christ
that you've
shown
Lord
your
forgiveness
for us
in Christ
that you've
shown
Lord
the fact
that you
wish for us
to be
conformed
to the
image of
your son
in the
gift of
your Holy
Spirit
and so
Lord I
pray that
as we
continue to
seek to
live the
Christian life
Lord that
we would
that we
would do
so humbly
Lord that
if we
as we
look at
these
seemingly
insurmountable
issues of
particularly
racial justice
but this
extends to
other realms
Lord that
we would
not be
discouraged
Lord that
we would
not fall
into despair
but Lord
that we
would continue
to lean
in to
lean into
you
Lord the
resources
that you've
given us
in your
word
Lord in
prayer
in your
spirit
and in
the community
of faith
Lord we
thank you
for the
many ways
that you
continue to
bless us
by your
grace and
your mercy
and Lord we
pray these
things in the
name of your
son and by
the power of
your spirit
amen