By Shonda Allen
Economic, educational, and social institutions are not thought to be the traditional primary drivers of moral civility in the south.
The wheelhouse that, arguably, should be driving moral/human civility is religious institutions – The CHURCH. But it is not. In fact, it has been the opposite.
Ingrained in the DNA of the southern Christian Church is the CASTE system of inequality. It is the primary “ funding institution” – if you will – that has and continues to perpetuate the balance of order. What is the balance of order?
Morally, it is that God has somehow approved in some way a “Divine Order” of “chosen people” at any given time to rule over another.
Read, the Bible Told them So, How Southern Evangelicals Fought to Preserve White Supremacy” by J. Russell Hawkins and “How White Southern Christians Fought to Preserve Segregation” by Kenneth E. Frantz
Socially, it is the concept of “reconciliation” (pitstops usually once a month, where a diverse group of Christian leaders agree on the IDEAL of unity). These reconciliation actions fail to REPLACE or REVERSE destructive actions currently in place. [Why? Because the price (the martyr of blacks and whites who got in the way) for breaking this order was public dissemination of consequences. See Isabella Wilkerson’s “The Evil of Silence” in CASTE, pages 89-96].
Economically, it’s using desegregation /integration to SUBSTITUTE for the argument of equal funding.
Today, many of our Christian leaders are equivalent to a police officer, equipped with badge and gun, standing by watching a crime take place and failing to act. Moral fortitude is toothless without accountability and consequences.
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.” — Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King
For evidence of today’s evangelical soul tie to anti-Christian beliefs, read Anthea Butler, White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America
“Why do people who identify as evangelicals vote over and over again for political figures who in speech indeed do not evince the Christian qualities that evangelicalism espouses?
My answer is that evangelicalism is not a simply religious group at all. Rather, it is a nationalistic political movement whose purpose is to support the hegemony of white Christian men over and against the flourishing of others.
To put it more broadly, evangelicalism is an Americanized Christianity born in the context of white Christian slaveholders. It sanctified and justified segregation, violence, and racial proscription. Slavery and racism permeate evangelicalism, and as much as evangelicals like to protest that they are color-blind, their theologies, cultures, and beliefs are anything but.”
To put it more bluntly, Kevin Jones and Rosa Lee Harden look more deeply into the relationship between slaveholders and Christianity in “Breaking the devil’s bargain.” https://symbioticfund.wordpress.com/2021/10/15/breaking-the-devils-bargain/
This shows us a history of why it is difficult for moral leaders to stand up to today’s new Jim Crow.
At worst – political, social, and economic annihilation.
At best. – relegation to an “undesirable” caste.
What does it mean for us today?
How does economic advancement for the under-served occur? A prominent, successful black Mississippi business leader recently advised:
- Provide general information publicly,
- Narrow specific economic plans to trusted individuals who have a proven track record of getting resources into the hands of those not normally served.
- Accomplish tasks QUIETLY.
- Rinse (evaluate/refine) and repeat.