RACISM ALIVE AND WELL IN AMERICA

Do you believe racism is alive and well in America? It would be strange indeed if that were not the case. There are probably individuals in every community who do not want to associate with people from different racial backgrounds. If they are white, they try to avoid blacks. If they are blacks, they may not like to be with whites. I remember an incident that occurred in 1981. I was doing a series of lectures in Malaysia. Two of us were walking down a street in Kuala Lumpur when some young men from India said where we could hear it: "We hate white people." Some of the groups that want to maintain complete separation, such as, the Ku Klux Klan or the Aryan Nation, want nothing to do with blacks or Hispanics or Arabs or any other group that differs from them. While these groups prosper in some parts of our nation, they do not represent the majority of Americans. In spite of such unchristian and un-American attitudes on the part of some Americans, America is not a racial culture. As a nation, we still have a long way to go, but we have made enormous progress since I was a little boy. Our study today will focus on the topic, "Racism Is Alive and Well in America."

Would I be out of order if I were to suggest that former President Jimmy Carter would do us a favor if he kept his bigoted mouth shut? He has made some outlandish and foolish observations about our foreign policy and about other matters. He has demonstrated that he is anti-Semitic or at least anti-Israel. His latest inexcusable statement about Americans who oppose the policies of Barak Obama tops the list of stupid statements. He affirmed that those who have spoken out against President Obama's policies have done so because he is black. Jimmy Carter is pathetic. He needs to return to growing peanuts. He was a washout as governor in Georgia. I know because I was living in Georgia while he was governor. He was even worse as president.

For many years, Dr. Bill Cosby has been my favorite comedian. I have enjoyed watching some of his programs on television. I was not the least surprised at what Jimmy Carter said. He has made a habit of speaking when he should have been listening. But I was surprised and disappointed when Bill Cosby agreed with Jimmy Carter. Are there Americans who do not like for a black to be president? You know there are. Were there blacks who did not like George W. Bush because he was white? And what conservatives have said about Barak Obama pales into insignificance compared to what Harry Reid and other radical leftists have said about George W. Bush. Harry Reid called President Bush a liar and refused to apologize for it.

I always hesitate to discuss my personal background, but I believe it is important on this topic. My parents were not racists. My father often hired blacks to work on his building projects. When he was working near our home, he invited his workers, including his black employees, to eat in our home. That simply was not done in Middle Tennessee in the 1940s and 1950s. As a family, we attended gospel meetings in the black community. My first contact with blacks in school was when I was a junior at Andrews University, a Seventh-day Adventist seminary, in Berrien Springs, Michigan. One of my friends at Andrews was a young black Seventh-day Adventist preacher. He and I sometimes talked about various issues. We even made a trip to Chicago together.

My Molly and I moved to Valdosta, Georgia, in 1952. The school where I taught had never had any black students. The church where I preached had no black members. I preached at Valdosta against racism. One of the dear old elders was uncomfortable with my preaching on that topic. But we were such dear friends, he did not formally object to my sermons. Today that school has a number of black students and the church has black members. In recent years I have returned to South Georgia for gospel meetings. South Georgia has made enormous strides in dealing with racial issues. The whole state of Georgia has been a model for other states.

When Molly and I moved to Dalton, Georgia, there was a meeting of doctors, lawyers, preachers and others. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the integration of the public schools. I made a brief speech at that meeting. I told them that Molly and I would not remain in Dalton if there were any problems with integration. During the time Molly and I lived in Dalton, the schools integrated with no serious objections from anyone. One Dalton policeman grew up in Syracuse, NY. He told me on one occasion that Dalton, Georgia, was the best town anywhere for black people.

When I taught at Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tennessee, I had dozens of black students in my Bible classes. One of my black students recently drove from his home near Nashville to visit with me. My friend, Quille Brooker, another black student, who lives in Orangeburg, SC, calls me on a regular basis. While I was at Freed-Hardeman I had the privilege of counseling with him and his bride-to-be. The church where I work in Fayetteville, Tennessee, has black members. We have also had a black preacher to preach in a gospel meeting. I would not work with a congregation that did not welcome black people. I have preached in meetings in black churches in South Carolina, in Atlanta and in Louisiana.

I tell you this to prove that objections to President Obama's policies have nothing to do with race, at least, on the part of millions of Americans. I opposed much that George H. W. Bush did and what his son did and did not do. It is irresponsible for Jimmy Carter, for Bill Cosby and for anyone else to call people racists if they do not like what Barak Obama does or does not do. As Americans we have the right and the responsibility of speaking out when our president or our governor or our mayor goes in a direction we cannot endorse. We would be cowards if we did not state our opposition to policies with which we disagree. And anyone who interprets what I have said to be partisan political is way out in left field.

President Obama does not believe that objections to his health-care plan are race-based. The Tennessean (Saturday, September 19, 2009) published an article with the title, "Obama: Health-care vitriol not race-based." The article came from the Associated Press. But the author of the article had to throw in a little bias. Why does he use the word "vitriol" of objections to the president's health-care plan? Obama told CNN: "Are there people out there who don't like me because of race? I'm sure there are.... That's not the over-riding issue here." According to the article, Jimmy Carter said the vitriol was racially motivated. President Obama said no. "Obama said most people across the country are just trying to follow the debate and figure out how proposed changes would help them" (p. 7-A). I appreciate the president's setting Jimmy Carter and Bill Crosby straight on their bigoted observations about race.

The Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution do not allow for discrimination on the basis of race or of ethnicity or of national origin. We must teach our children the message of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution. These two documents have provided more freedom for more people than any other political documents in the history of the world. Please listen to the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The Constitution begins with these stimulating words: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States." Do you see any room in either of these documents for discrimination on the basis of race?

We must now turn to the Bible to learn what it says about illegitimate discrimination. Both the Old Testament and the New condemn prejudice and bias toward people who are different from us. Moses warned the judges among the Israelites: "You shall not respect persons in judgment: but you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God's; and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it to me and I will hear it" (Dt. 1: 17). Would it be a perversion of the sacred text to paraphrase this verse: "You shall not respect persons in judgment: but you shall hear blacks as well as whites?"

While the Bible does not use the word "racism," there is no doubt it strongly opposes it. The book of Romans emphatically teaches that the gospel is for all-Jew and Gentile alike. The expression, "Jew and Gentile," means every person in the world. Paul informed the Romans: "I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians; both to the wise and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one who believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith" (Rom. 1: 14-17).

If you are a serious Bible student, you know that Paul's words express the Lord's desire that all men be saved. But many people in the first century were almost certainly offended by his teaching. How could a man from a Jewish background include Greeks in the gospel plan of salvation? After all, the Jews knew that they were closer to God than any Gentile could possibly be. The Apostle Paul added: "Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile: But glory, honor, and peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile: For there is no respect of persons with God" (Rom. 2: 9-11). In their tremendously useful book, The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), Cleon Rogers, Jr. and Cleon Rogers, III make the following comments on the expression, "respect of persons": It has to do with "the accepting of the appearance of a person." It is "a Hebraic term for partiality. The oriental custom of greeting was to bow one's face to the ground. If the one greeted accepted the person, he was allowed to lift his head again" (p. 319).

Paul argues: "Now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all of them who believe: for there is no difference" (Rom. 3:21-22). The word translated "difference" means distinction, as most modern versions translate the Greek. The Apostle Paul asked the Romans: "Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: seeing it is one God, who shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith" (Rom. 3:29-30). Is it permissible to paraphrase those verses as follows: "Is he the God of white people only? Is he not also the God of blacks, Hispanics, Arabs, the poor and the disenfranchised? Yes, he is the God of all these also."

Dr. Merrill C. Tenney, a professor at Wheaton College for many years, calls Galatians "The Charter of Christian Liberty" (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950). In Galatians, Paul makes it plain that every one is freed from the Mosaic covenant with their obedience to the gospel of Christ. He then argues: "For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." When we become members of the body of Christ, "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Gal. 3:25-29).

During the time when our Lord walked on this earth, there was a great division between Jews and Samaritans. Jesus Christ did not adopt the Jewish attitude toward Samaritans. John 4 records a meeting between a Samaritan woman and Christ. They met at Jacob's well in Sychar, Samaria. Jesus startled the Samaritan woman when he asked her for a drink. "Then says the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that you being a Jew, ask drink of me, who am a woman of Samaria?" The Apostle John comments: "For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans" (John 4:7, 9). Jesus did not discriminate against the woman even though she was a Samaritan and immoral. She had had five husbands and was living with a man who was not her husband (John 4:18). Should not the followers of Christ imitate his wonderful example of loving and honoring all people?

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The Apostle Peter was a true blue Jewish patriot. He had doubts that Gentiles should be included in the church of the living God. God prepared the apostle for the privilege and responsibility of preaching the very first sermon to the Gentiles. In the eyes of many Jews, Gentiles were not on the same level morally, spiritually or otherwise. Peter apparently shared those views. God sent a vision to convince Peter that all men - Jew and Gentile - were included in the gospel. Peter explained to Cornelius - the very first Gentile convert: "You know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man who is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean" (Acts 10:28).

The apostles and other members of the church heard what had occurred at the house of Cornelius. They were upset that Peter had gone among the Gentiles and even eaten with them. Peter told them what had happened to convince him to preach to the Gentiles. He then explained to the apostles and brethren from Judea: "Forasmuch then as God gave them (the Gentiles) the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God? When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then has God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life" (Acts 11: 1-2, 17-18). It took a miracle to convince Peter to preach to the Gentiles. If we accept the Bible as the word of God, we know we cannot discriminate on the basis of race.

Racism and other illegitimate forms of discrimination are not only inappropriate and un-American; they are sinful. James argues that partiality toward others means that we become "judges with evil thoughts" (Jas. 2:4). He also affirms: We "commit sin and are convinced of the law as transgressors" (Jas. 2:9). The word "transgressor" means one who steps across. W. E. Vine says the word means "one who stands beside, then, one who oversteps the prescribed limit" (p. 1162).

I know this and so do you: God demands that we love and respect all people, including those with whom we disagree. Let us return briefly to the book of Galatians. I have already read to you where Paul told the Galatians: "For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:26-28). Paul further said to the Galatians: "As we therefore have opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of the faith" (Gal. 6:10).

Some liberal theologians have criticized Paul for using the expression, "especially unto them who are of the household of the faith." But there is not a reasonable person on earth who does not understand Paul's reason for thus speaking. When Molly and our sons were at home, my first responsibility was to take care of them. Oddly enough, only Molly could write a check on our bank account. Was I being biased or bigoted? Our first obligation outside of our immediate families is the family of God - the church of the living God. How anyone could object to that arrangement defies reason.

In his beautiful letter to the Philippians, the Apostle Paul admonished his brethren in Christ: "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God" (Phil. 2:3-6). The mind of Jesus prohibits his followers from illegitimate discrimination. Jesus said to his immediate disciples: "The Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mt. 20:28).

Winford Claiborne

The International Gospel Hour

P.O. Box 118

Fayetteville, TN 37334