{"id":29729,"date":"2022-12-01T18:24:28","date_gmt":"2022-12-02T02:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=29729"},"modified":"2022-12-01T18:24:28","modified_gmt":"2022-12-02T02:24:28","slug":"racism-the-secret-sin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/racism-the-secret-sin\/","title":{"rendered":"Racism, the Secret Sin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shame<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shelby Steele’s book, Shame, was a thought-provoking read this week. The story of the author’s personal journey during America’s tumultuous fight for Civil Rights in the 1960s and following was captivating. While I certainly agree with his father, who was the son of a man born into slavery, that we shouldn’t “underestimate America … (due to the) amount of change seen in [his] own lifetime,” [1]\u00a0<\/strong>I would have to argue that racism does still sadly exist in the United States. It is definitely not to the extent that it was one hundred years ago, or even in the 1960s, however, it is present.<\/p>\n

Racism Trumps Friendships<\/strong><\/p>\n

In thinking of racism, and Native Americans, I would like to share something that happened here in Mississippi about fifteen years ago. I had not been home from the mission field in Kenya very long. I was the missionary at a new church plant, and was already working with the Choctaw Indians. Our church plant was growing, and we had just built a new building. I was inviting Choctaws to church on Sundays and Wednesdays, and serving as the Youth Minister at the time. What started out as just one person responding eventually became twenty people. The previously all white congregation became uncomfortable as their ratio was being challenged. Instead of being thrilled with the outreach and the lives being touched for the Lord, they were jealous, and grew hateful and bitter. I didn’t understand what was going on at the time. One Sunday night when I was sick and the Choctaw weren’t there, a few of them called a business meeting. I was voted out of the church for causing discord by bringing too many Choctaws and overfilling the church van. That night, the pastor and worship team resigned, along with three of the four deacons. It was terrible. Together, we started a new church where everyone is welcome, regardless of race, or wealth, or anything else. It is a place where everyone is welcome to come meet Jesus.<\/p>\n

Hypocrisy<\/strong><\/p>\n

It took me years to fully understand all that happened at my former church. I had never experienced such hatred and racial prejudice first hand, least of all by people who called themselves Christians. In her study on racism and the American Indian, Bethany Berger concludes that white Americans continue to follow the same old pattern of tribal oppression, only it has been reshaped for our modern ideology.\u00a0[2] <\/strong>People from that church attempted to justify their behavior by publicly defaming my character and spreading lies about me, and even about our new church. It was hypocrisy. As Shelby Steele describes hypocrisy in Shame, “all his self-justifications come to seem outrageous affronts to reason”. [3]<\/strong> \u00a0The rumors eventually died down, and our new church has grown abundantly. God continues to bless us. He is faithful.<\/p>\n

Making Amends<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mark Royce has written a ground-breaking book entitled Native American Plights: The Struggle Against Inequality and Racism. In it he recommends a series of ways\u00a0 to dismantle discrimination against indigenous peoples in a variety of peaceful ways. [<\/strong>4]<\/strong> Our new church is a model of unity and Christian community. We think it is a little taste of heaven here on earth. (Revelation 5:9) We have concentrated on evangelism and discipleship, and tried to ignore the attacks that weakened as time went on. That was the best approach. In his book, Shame, Steele talks about Real Good as being moral responsibility, both personal and collective. [5]<\/strong> In this situation, it was knowing how to respond to the ongoing attacks of another church that were both false and demeaning. Over the years since the incident that Sunday night at my former church when I was voted out, several members there have made amends with me and with the Choctaw, seeking forgiveness and right relationships. That has been a sweet outcome.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the apostle Paul put it so eloquently in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”\u00a0[<\/strong>6]<\/strong> The ground is level at the foot of the cross. We must all remember this, and not think more highly of ourselves than we ought.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0<\/strong>Steele, Shelby. 2015. Shame: How America\u2019s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country<\/i>. New York: Basic Books, p.123.<\/p>\n

[2]\u00a0<\/strong>Berger, Bethany, Race to Property: Racial Distortions of Property Law, 1634 to Today (April 12, 2022). Arizona Law Review, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.2139\/ssrn.4082286<\/a><\/p>\n

[3] <\/strong>Steele, Shelby. 2015. Shame: How America\u2019s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country<\/i>. New York: Basic Books, p.47.<\/p>\n

[4] <\/strong>Royce, Mark. 2022. Native American Plights: The Struggle Against Inequality and Racism<\/i>. Independent, p.100.<\/p>\n

[5] <\/strong>Steele, Shelby. 2015. Shame: How America\u2019s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country<\/i>. New York: Basic Books, p.127.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/strong> Crossway Bibles, ed. 2007. ESV: Study Bible: English Standard Version<\/i>. ESV text ed. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles, p.1980.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shame Shelby Steele’s book, Shame, was a thought-provoking read this week. The story of the author’s personal journey during America’s tumultuous fight for Civil Rights in the 1960s and following was captivating. While I certainly agree with his father, who was the son of a man born into slavery, that we shouldn’t “underestimate America … […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[2476,2432,1678,643,2003],"class_list":["post-29729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography-drama-history","tag-hypocrisy","tag-native-americans","tag-racism","tag-shame","tag-shelby-steele","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29734,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29729\/revisions\/29734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}