RSN: White Supremacist Ideas Have Historical Roots in US Christianity

02 July 20

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White Supremacist Ideas Have Historical Roots in US Christianity

Tom Gjelten, NPR

Gjelten writes: "'Why didn't white Christians show up?' he recalled wondering. To his dismay, Cross learned that many of the people in the white mob were regular churchgoers."

hen a young Southern Baptist pastor named Alan Cross arrived in Montgomery, Ala., in January 2000, he knew it was where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. had his first church and where Rosa Parks helped launched the famous bus boycott, but he didn't know some other details of the city's role in civil rights history.

The more he learned, the more troubled he became by one event in particular: the savage attack in May 1961 on a busload of Black and white Freedom Riders who had traveled defiantly together to Montgomery in a challenge to segregation. Over the next 15 years, Cross, who is white, would regularly take people to the old Greyhound depot in Montgomery to highlight what happened that spring day.

"They pull in right here, on the side," Cross said, standing in front of the depot. "And it was quiet when they got here. But then once they start getting off the bus, around 500 people come out – men, women and children. Men were holding the Freedom Riders back, and the women were hitting them with their purses and holding their children up to claw their faces." Some of the men carried lead pipes and baseball bats. Two of the Freedom Riders, the civil rights activist John Lewis and a white ally, James Zwerg, were beaten unconscious.

Though he had grown up in Mississippi and was familiar with the history of racial conflict in the South, Cross was horrified by the story of the 1961 attack on the Freedom Riders. Montgomery was known as a city of churches. Fresh out of seminary, Cross had come there to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

"Why didn't white Christians show up?" he recalled wondering.

To his dismay, Cross learned that many of the people in the white mob were regular churchgoers. In the years that followed, he made it part of his ministry to educate his fellow Christians about the attack and prompt them to reflect on its meaning.

"You think about the South being Christian, but this wasn't Christianity," Cross said. "So what happened here in the white church? How did we get to that point?" It's a question he explored in his 2014 book, When Heaven and Earth Collide: Racism, Southern Evangelicals, and the Better Way of Jesus.

The answer to the question lies partly in U.S. history, beginning in the days of slavery and Jim Crow segregation, but not ending there. Elements of racist ideology have long been present in white Christianity in the United States.

Racism from the pulpit

Less than three weeks after the 1961 attack on the Freedom Riders, Montgomery's most prominent pastor, Henry Lyon Jr., gave a fiery speech before the local white Citizens' Council, denouncing the civil rights protesters and the cause for which they were beaten — from a "Christian" perspective.

"Ladies and gentlemen, for 15 years I have had the privilege of being pastor of a white Baptist church in this city," Lyon said. "If we stand 100 years from now, it will still be a white church. I am a believer in a separation of the races, and I am none the less a Christian." The crowd applauded.

"If you want to get in a fight with the one that started separation of the races, then you come face to face with your God," he declared. "The difference in color, the difference in our body, our minds, our life, our mission upon the face of this earth, is God given."

Lyon saw himself as a devout Bible believer, and he was far from an extremist in the Southern Baptist world. A former president of the Alabama Baptist Convention, his Montgomery church had more than 3,000 members.

How respected people of God could openly promote racist views was a question that would trouble many Southerners in the years that followed. Among them was a young woman growing up in East Texas in the 1970s, Carolyn Renée Dupont. The girl's grandmother took her regularly to church, made her listen to sermons on the radio and gave her a quarter for every Bible verse she memorized. But the grandmother believed just as deeply in the superiority of the white race.

"I asked her about that once," Dupont recalled, "and she said, 'I just don't believe Blacks should be treated the same as whites.' " Dupont, now a historian at Eastern Kentucky University, said the experience with her grandmother spurred her to focus her research on the racial views of Southern white evangelicals. "I wanted to understand what seemed like a central riddle about the South," she said. "The part of the country that was the most fervent about religious faith was also the one that practiced white supremacy most enthusiastically." It was the same question that bothered Cross as a young pastor in Montgomery.

Slavery and the Bible

At an earlier point in American history, some Christian theologians went so far as to argue that the enslavement of human beings was justifiable from a biblical point of view. James Henley Thornwell, a Harvard-educated scholar who committed huge sections of the Bible to memory, regularly defended slavery and promoted white supremacy from his pulpit at the First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, S.C., where he was the senior pastor in the years leading up to the Civil War.

"As long as that [African] race, in its comparative degradation, co-exists side by side with the white," Thornwell declared in a famous 1861 sermon, "bondage is its normal condition." Thornwell was a slave owner, and in his public pronouncements he told fellow Christians they need not feel guilty about enslaving other human beings.

"The relation of master and slave stands on the same foot with the other relations of life," Thornwell insisted. "In itself, it is not inconsistent with the will of God. It is not sinful." The Christian Scriptures, Thornwell said, "not only fail to condemn; they as distinctly sanction slavery as any other social condition of man."

Among the New Testament verses Thornwell could cite was the Apostle Paul's letter to the Ephesians where he writes, "Slaves, obey your human masters, with fear and trembling and sincerity of heart." (Biblical scholars now discount the relevance of the passage to a consideration of chattel slavery.)

Thornwell's reassurance was immensely important to all those who had a stake in the existing economic and political system in the South. In justifying slavery, he was speaking not just as a theologian but as a Southern patriot. In the First Presbyterian cemetery, Thornwell's name appears prominently on a monument to church members who served the Confederate cause in the Civil War.

"Slavery, in the minds of many, was necessary for the South to thrive," said Bobby Donaldson, director of the Center for Civil Rights History and Research at the University of South Carolina. "So Thornwell used his pulpit to defend the South against charges by the North, by abolitionists. ... He provided the intellectual defenses that many slaveholders needed."

Thornwell's First Presbyterian congregation included slave owners and businessmen and other members of the political and economic elite in Columbia, and as their pastor he represented their interests. A belief in white supremacy was a foundational part of Southern culture, which is one reason some otherwise devout Christians have failed to challenge it.

The Southern way 

Lyon's opening prayer before the white Citizens' Council meeting in Montgomery included words starkly reminiscent of the Civil War era. "We stand on the sacred soil of Alabama in the cradle of the Confederacy of our beloved Southland," he said. "Help us to realize with all of the fervency of our heart and mind that every inch of ground we stand on tonight is sacred and honorable."

A fear that their regional culture was at risk lay behind much of the opposition to the civil rights movement among Southern Christians. Cross, the Montgomery pastor who was dismayed by what he learned of the attack on the Freedom Riders, ultimately decided that the best explanation for the involvement of Christians was that they were acting on the basis of their perceived self-interest.

"People try to protect their way of life," he said. "You know, 'What's best for me and my family?' You even begin to use God as a means to an end. It makes a lot of sense to people, and they're, like, 'Well, that's what everybody does.' "

A "don't-rock-the-boat" philosophy can have a powerful appeal among people who are unnerved by the prospect of social change, and church leaders may feel powerless to counter it.

In 1965, Lyon's more moderate son, Henry Lyon III, was called to lead an all-white Baptist church in Selma, Ala. He arrived in the city two months after the "Bloody Sunday" confrontation on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, when more than 2,000 civil rights marchers were savagely attacked by Alabama state troopers and local law officers. The younger Lyon, who died in 2018, never adopted his father's bigoted rhetoric, and his wife, Sara Jane Lyon, said he was willing to open his church to African Americans. During the 21 years Lyon was the church's pastor, however, his congregation never accepted Black members, apparently because he did not feel free to press the issue.

"Selma wasn't ready for it," Sara Jane Lyon told NPR in an interview. "He knew it would accomplish nothing if he upset everybody and pushed, you know, to integrate the church."

Churches operate within a cultural context. By challenging local customs and perspectives, pastors may alienate the white economic and political players who serve as their deacons, elders, Sunday School teachers and financial supporters.

In his sermons, Sara Jane Lyon recalled, her husband would tell his congregation, "I have not come here to change your heart. There's no way I can do that. ... Only the Lord can change your heart." Asked whether her husband ever discussed racial justice as a pastor, she said, "That was not his style of preaching. He didn't get up and talk about local issues. He preached the Word of God."

The church and the status quo

After leaving Selma, the Lyons relocated to Montgomery and joined the First Baptist Church there. With about 5,000 members, the church has a central place in civic life. The congregation is almost entirely white, but it's not because of a deliberate policy. The pastor, Jay Wolf, said he welcomes everyone.

"When I came to know the Lord, I became colorblind," Wolf said. When some visitors asked Wolf how many African Americans attended his church, he said he had "no idea."

"I don't know how many white members we have," Wolf told NPR. "Like, does it make any difference? I just know that we have people, crafted in the image of God. I am completely resistant to this idea of breaking things down on a demographic basis. We are the body of Christ, and we need Jesus, and that's all I need to know."

On the other side of Montgomery, where African Americans are concentrated, Pastor Terrence Jones also preaches about needing Jesus, though with a message attuned to a multiracial congregation. The son of a Black Southern Baptist preacher, Jones said he thinks the Christian church is partly to blame for America "dropping the ball," in his words, on race issues.

"The message of Jesus is a unifying message," Jones said. "According to Ephesians 2, he tears down 'every dividing wall of hostility' through his death on the cross. I think we've done a poor job of showing the world that, because we've been so segregated."

Jones argues that Christians need to focus on racism far more seriously.

"When people get shot, when our president says something racially charged, people get pushed into their corners, and they don't wrestle with what does this mean for me as a minority, what does this mean for me as a white person, but also, what does this mean for me as a follower of Jesus?"

At the time of the civil rights movement, King argued that church leaders needed to take a broad view of their mission and accept responsibility for addressing social inequity. In his 1963 Letter From a Birmingham Jail, written in longhand from his jail cell, King lamented the failure of "white churchmen" to stand up for racial justice when it meant challenging the local power structure.

"So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound," King wrote. "So often it is an arch-defender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent — and often even vocal — sanction of things as they are."

A theology of inaction

Some white Christian leaders have even provided moral and theological reasoning for their reluctance to challenge the existing system. Evangelicals in particular generally prioritize an individual's own salvation experience over social concerns. The primary mission of the church in this view is to win souls for Christ. Working for racial justice, in contrast, may be seen as a "political" issue.

"In that configuration, immorality only lives in the individual person," said Dupont, the religion historian who grew up in Texas. "There's no conception of systemic injustice and systemic sin."

Civil rights activists who cited the Bible in support of their cause were often dismissed as "a bunch of theological liberals," Dupont said. "And then it becomes an argument about who really believes the Bible. If Christianity is really about individual salvation, and the mission of the church is to win the lost, then [it is said that] these people who are telling us we need to get involved in the civil rights movement are just trying to lead us astray."

The rejection of a "social gospel" remains popular among those conservative evangelicals today who see advocating for Black Lives Matter or immigrant rights as political activities. It is an argument with roots extending back to the theology of Thornwell and like-minded religion scholars of the 19th century.

"What, then, is the Church?" Thornwell asked in his 1851 Report on Slavery. "It is not, as we fear too many regard it, a moral institute of universal good whose business it is to wage war upon every form of human ill, whether social, civil, political or moral."

Such pronouncements have made Thornwell popular among "orthodox" Christian theologians who rebel against liberal interpretations of the church's mission in the modern world. Once his pronouncements on slavery and race are disregarded, Thornwell's theological views still resonate.

One of the buildings on the grounds of his former church in South Carolina is Thornwell Hall. Until it closed due to concerns over the coronavirus, the building was used for children's education. The First Presbyterian ministerial staff has not been overly concerned that by honoring Thornwell, it may be offending potential African American members.

"As far as I know, it has not kept people from our doors," said Gabe Fluhrer, an associate pastor at the church.

Fluhrer has studied Thornwell's writings, many of which are highly sophisticated, and he is dismayed that the theologian's views on slavery and race have made it more difficult for people to appreciate his broader biblical insight.

"If it were an impediment [to someone]," Fluhrer said, "I would love to speak to that person and say, 'Look, we need to condemn what is wrong with him, and we need to celebrate what is good.' He got a lot right on the Scriptures and everything wrong when it comes to race."

Getting everything wrong with regard to race, however, can be an unforgivable failing for people whose life experience is shaped by racism.

For many years, African American worshippers were relegated to the First Presbyterian balcony. Church authorities later permitted them to have a church a few blocks away where they could worship separately under the supervision of the First Presbyterian elders. It became known as Ladson Presbyterian Church, after one of the church's early pastors.

The church has only a few dozen active members these days, but the congregation is close, and the Sunday services are intimate and joyful gatherings. There is no longer any connection to the original church.

"I don't know anyone who goes to First Presbyterian," said Rosena Lucas, 88, a longtime Ladson member. "I've never had any interest [in attending]." 

Nor has Hemphill Pride, an elder in the Ladson congregation. "I see that church as a stranger, really," he said. For Pride and other Ladson members, the Thornwell connection still taints the parent church.

"It's an affront to me," Pride said. "[To have] buildings named after people who interpreted the Bible in that manner is disrespectful to all Black people."

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Political analysts see the chances of Democrats winning enough seats to seize control of the Senate in the Nov. 3 U.S. election rising, with President Donald Trump’s sliding poll numbers endangering a growing number of Republican incumbents. 

McConnell, a tenacious political survivor, has endured election challenges in the past and is still expected to defeat McGrath, who on Tuesday emerged as her party’s nominee to challenge him. 

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Republicans hold 53 of the Senate’s 100 seats. With Democrats controlling the House of Representatives, Republican control of the Senate has been crucial in buttressing Trump’s presidency including keeping him in power after a February impeachment trial. 

Twenty-three Republican incumbents are seeking re-election this year, compared to 12 Democratic incumbents. Senators serve six-term terms. 

One vulnerable Republican is Thom Tillis, a North Carolina freshman who polls show trailing Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham in a Senate race that Republican officials expect to shatter national spending records. 

“This is going to be one of those bloodbath elections and money is going to play a big role. If resources are being unexpectedly diverted to other races, that could be a problem for Tillis,” a North Carolina Republican operative said, speaking on condition of anonymity. 

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McGrath has become a magnet for contributions from Democratic donors and activists who desperately want to oust McConnell, according to analysts and party officials. Her campaign raised more than $41 million as of June 3 - the latest available figure - compared to $27 million for McConnell. 

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“No candidate has spent so much to achieve so little,” McConnell campaign press secretary Katharine Cooksey said of McGrath. 

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"I think we may look back on this as the turning point, the moment the industry finally started to say that real assets with real dollar figures associated with them are likely to be 'stranded'"—or left undeveloped—"in a decarbonizing world," said Andrew Logan, senior director of oil and gas at Ceres, a sustainable business advocacy group that has represented major investors in their engagement with oil companies. "This is a huge turnaround from the industry's previous stance, which had been that no existing assets were likely to be stranded, that there may be risks in the future, but not in the here and now. That acknowledgment, that the risk is real and it's here in the present, is a really big deal."

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BP said in mid-June that it expects governments will accelerate a transition to low-carbon energy in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, and that the two forces together had compelled the company to revise its long-term outlook for oil and gas demand. As a result, BP said, it would need to cut the value of its assets by between $13 billion and $17.5 billion, and that it may never develop some of its prospective projects.

Shell had already lowered its long-term outlook at the end of last year. This week, it released a more pessimistic projection for oil demand over the next few years too. The company also said the cuts to its refining asset values would "support the decarbonization of its energy product mix." The biggest hit to Shell's books came in its investments in liquefied natural gas, which the company hopes can still play a growing role in global energy needs. Those assets are now worth up to $9 billion less than Shell had hoped, the company said.

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The firm said the pandemic would "expedite peak oil demand," and that some stores of oil in North American shale, Canadian tar sands and Russian and Norwegian Arctic fields are now likely to go undeveloped, given how expensive they are to extract.

The write-downs—also called impairments—announced by Shell and BP are accounting measures that indicate a particular asset or investment is not worth as much as executives had once thought. For oil companies, a write-down is generally triggered by lower oil prices and a belief that demand will not be as high as the company had previously assumed.

The research and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie said the price crash of recent months has wiped away $1.6 trillion in its valuation of oil and gas producers, and that the impairments are sending an important signal.

"It's about fundamental change hitting the entire oil and gas sector. Within this write down, Shell is giving us a message about stranded assets, just like BP did a few weeks ago," said Luke Parker, vice president of corporate analysis, in a research note. "Just a few years ago, few within the oil and gas industry would even countenance ideas of climate risk, peak demand, stranded assets, liquidation business models and so on. Today, companies are building strategies around these ideas."

The announcements from the European companies are deepening the gulf between them and their American peers, none of which has yet announced an impairment of the same scale tied to the pandemic. That may be due in part to different accounting rules in the United States, but Exxon and other U.S.-based companies also generally have indicated they believe global oil demand is likely to continue to grow for many years, a position that's drawing scrutiny from a number of large investors such as pension funds. In May, Exxon announced $2.9 billion in write-downs that the company attributed to lower oil prices.

"I think thoughtful companies like BP and Shell see they're in a race against time and that peak demand for oil and gas is coming. The question is just exactly when does it happen," said Logan. "There's a growing sense among some companies and certainly investors that assets they thought were safe are going to end up devalued because Covid came when it did at this point, where demand is approaching a peak."

Some analysts have said the companies may be using the pandemic and energy transition as an excuse to shift blame away from bad investment decisions in recent years. Shell, for example, spent $53 billion to acquire the natural gas company BG Group in 2016, and many analysts have questioned the move. Some said BP had been overly optimistic about long-term demand long before the pandemic hit.

Pavel Molchanov, an analyst with Raymond James, said the write-downs are no different than those that have come in previous oil busts, and are driven largely by the coronavirus pandemic rather than any looming energy transition. "This is just part of the reality of oil and gas accounting," he said.

But he added that the pandemic is likely to have a lasting effect on the industry and on oil production. "Companies have been forced to respond to the worst demand shock in modern history by cutting capital spending to the lowest level in possibly 20 years," he said. "That will result, by definition, in less oil supply for many years to come."

Andrew Grant, head of oil, gas and mining at the Carbon Tracker Initiative, a financial think tank, said the write-downs are likely a combination of corporate spin and real change.

"Perhaps it's partly talking a good game, or making lemonade when life hands you lemons: Faced with a low oil price, they're at least trying to get some good PR out of it,"  said Grant, a leading researcher on the risk to investors from the energy transition. "But I think it also reflects the direction of travel." 

Grant said we're likely seeing the beginning of a process he has warned about for years, when companies need to reconcile with a future of less fossil fuel demand by admitting they're not worth as much as they once were. And, he added, they still have a long way to go.

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