Charred Casualties of Idolatry: Lynching and the Church

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.

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

if we have been

set free

by Christ

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

it's

it's

it's

it's

in this

it's

it's

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

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

so what my

dissertation focuses

on is

specifically

black protestant

responses

to lynching

how do you

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

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