Among Black and White Christians
A White Man’s View
By Carl O. Cooper
Regardless of whether you are black or white, how long has it been since you sat down with one of your Christian friends of the opposite race and discussed your feelings of politics and race relations? The answer to that is, NEVER! RIGHT? No wonder this is such a great mystery. There is almost no communication between Christian people of the “feelings” and “world views” between the races. Why do we think the way we do? And why do we act the way we do? We go to church together and we worship God together but there is hardly any communication of each other’s real feelings about Race relations or our political views. Did you know that according to 2020 political estimates only 6% of black voters admit that they will vote for a Republican president? That leaves 94% who will either vote democratic or else refuse to say. And at the same time about 60% of all white voters say they will support the Republican Party. Why does such a great mysterious divide exist among Christian people?
It has always been a mystery to me as to why black and white Christians can read the same Bible and listen to the same sermons week after week and then have different and contradicting opinions as to how they should vote in political elections. And what’s more, they do not talk about their differences and they do not communicate as to why they have different motives and world views.
Recently it has come to my attention through more study and information, that I may have found what seems to me to be a reasonable explanation as to why this condition exists.
Until recently I thought, like most white people do, that the black vote was motivated by an unrealistic memory of the history of slavery in our country. And although that was a dark and evil part of the history of our country, no black people alive today have ever been slaves. In fact, not even any of the parents of any black people alive today have ever been slaves. For over 150 years there have been no slaves in our country. I also think I would be safe in saying that no one today, black or white, would ever want another slave to exist in our country at all. I can say this as a white Christian who is 78 years old and have never met a white man who would want slavery introduced into our country ever again. In my world, which I feel would be a typical white Christian’s environment; all the white people I know would only want all people to be equal under the constitution of the US government.
White Christians in the world I live in would tell you that all people should be equal and they should be treated alike and there should not be any special privileges for any special groups or races. Americans as well as Christian Americans should be united as one people with no special groups or privileges for anyone. America should be a world where every person should have an equal opportunity to excel to the limits of their ability with no person or group standing in opposition to their success as long as it is morally obtained. Of course, all people will not excel to the same level because all people are not created equal by God. Some are exceptionally intelligent and some are mentally challenged. Some are exceptionally strong and fit and some have physical disabilities. No one objects to a responsibility for people to help the poor and the disabled but most of the people I know would object to a socialist view of penalizing those who excel and confiscating what they have accumulated to take care of those who for whatever reason have not been able to excel in the same environment where everyone exists.
Now these views are coming from me as a white Christian.
But what I have discovered is that black Christians may not have a world view that corresponds to a white Christian’s view at all.
I don’t think that a black Christian is thinking about the history of slavery when he steps into a voting booth. I think his thoughts are on a much more recent history than that.
When a white Christian enters a voting booth, his thoughts are concentrated on the moral issues of the day. Can we elect leaders and judges that will reverse the moral decay of our society? What can we do to eliminate abortion and same sex marriage? What about the rise in divorce and couples living together without marriage? What about the changes in laws making it a crime to teach against homosexuality and false science in our school systems?
What about the indoctrination and perversion of the minds of our children in the public school system? How about the rise in credibility of the religion of Islam within our government?
These are just a few of the issues white Christians are concerned about. Race does not enter into the mind of white Christians when they vote.
On the other hand race relations are very much on the mind of black Christians when they vote. Many black Christians remember the way blacks were treated in the 1950’s and the 1960’s. In fact, I remember those days myself. I remember the “white” and “colored” water fountains in public places. And I remember when black people could not enter a restaurant and eat with the white people setting at the lunch counters and tables. I watched black people being served their food in paper bags by handing it out the back door. Even in some churches many black Christians were forced to have their own meeting places and churches or being placed in the back of the room away from the white people who were there. This was a dark time in our history and I lived through it myself. I will say this, I did not think it was right then but like most of the people in my world around me there was nothing I felt like I could do about it and so I just accepted it as a normal part of life. There was nothing anyone could do about it as just an average citizen. This behavior was too much imbedded into the culture of the day and the times. It took a revolution of the black people to change this behavior and culture of our country.
These memories are driving the votes of black people everywhere and that also includes black Christians. Yes, black Christians care about the moral issues facing Christians today, but there is a memory of a dark and degrading recent past on the minds of voting black people everywhere. Black Christians fear a return to those recent days of disrespect and this need for proper treatment from white people overshadows their need to correct the moral issues of the day. The black vote is biased on the recent treatment to them that has been disrespectful and degrading.
But that’s not all. There is another thing driving the black vote. I am not sure that black Christians fully understand this part themselves. I will give the benefit of the doubt and say they do not. But many black people in our society today carry a grudge against the white race because of what our fathers did to them. In fact many of the people are still alive that were disrespected and many people who disrespected them are also still alive. I would have to include myself in that last category as well. Although I did not approve, I did little to change anything that was going on either. I will say this in my defense, I worked as a laborer on a farm for a black man as a teenager and he fed me and other white teens at his table as his employees. I did many things such as this during this time. But acts like that did little to change the culture of America in those days.
There is a great majority of black people who do carry a grudge against white people for what white people did to them. I wonder how I would feel if it were reversed?
This anger and grudge against white people is driving the racist environment we are in today. This anger is driving black people to punish white America by voting our country into a fear of a capitalist’s government and rushing into a socialist / Marxist form of mild communism. This anger is causing black Americans to hate American history and to intentionally vote to rid our history of anything that they feel offends the views of the Black race. This anger overrides any attempt by Christians to vote with any consequence to correct the moral conditions that are spiraling out of control in our land.
I have what I believe is a Christian solution to this problem.
Here is a Bible example of “racism” among Christians in the early church.
Galatians 2:11-13 (NKJV)
Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; for before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.
I would ask black Christians; does this sound familiar? For hundreds of years the Jews shunned the Gentiles and would not have contact socially with them. They would not intermarry with Gentiles and they even refused to eat at the same table with them.
And then one day God told the Christian people that all men were equal in Christ and there was no difference in the Jew and the Gentile. But even good men were slow to endorse this new freedom for Christian people. Here in Galatians 2 we find the Apostle Peter being “racist” against Gentile Christians. And it was not just Peter alone. It was all those Christian Jews who came to Antioch from James. They refused to eat at the same table with any Gentiles. The Apostle Paul saw that this racism was wrong and he said, “Peter was to be blamed”.
Now this very same thing has happened to black Christians in America. Many good white Christian men have treated black Christians wrong. And like Peter they are to be blamed. But like Peter, they were caught up in the long standing culture of the day and it took time for many white Christians to learn that “racism” was ungodly and wrong.
Now let me ask you this; how should we feel about the Apostle Peter? And how should he be written up in the history books? Should we think hard and bad thoughts about him and write him in history books as an evil and racist “white man” because of what he did? Nothing in the Bible tells us that Peter repented for his “racism”. I think we can conclude that he learned better and did repent. And he went on to be a great man and he gave his life for the Gospel. Peter is to be honored and not condemned.
There have been many white men who have made racist comments about black Christians. Some have gone on to become very respected Gospel preachers. During the course of their lives they understood their actions were racist and wrong and they have repented of what they did. Now, how should we remember them? Like Peter, they made a grave mistake. And like the Gentile Christians of Peter’s day, our duty is to forgive and to forget what they did in the past.
Now this is how black and white Christians should treat each other. I don’t really think I need to explain this mindset but it doesn’t seem to be accepted in the general black population in the US. However the great majority of black America (just like white America) is not made up of Christians. I can only hope and pray that black Christians are not influenced to hold a grudge against white Christians who treated them like Peter did the Gentiles.
Carl O. Cooper
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