There was also a time in which this was the hidden unity between the divisions of race and class. While the color of one's skin and the size of the wallet had great impact upon so much of life, family was the same essential and constant force behind all people. For good or for ill, family was the glue that bound nearly everything together. Certainly this was true for Black America at a time when discrimination constrained so much of their lives and limited so many of their opportunities. But that once vaunted institution which spanned time and economic status and race has suffered greatly in the last several generations. It is no longer the given behind the person or the community or society as a whole. The Church is suffering greatly because of the loss of family (though, in some cases, it may have been an accomplice in its demise).
Churches were about right and wrong, morality and evil, sin and redemption. Their concern was the soul and the salvation of the soul was the key to amending sinful lives. This was true in nearly all the churches and was especially true of the Black churches in America. When the churches began to be concerned for other things and when those issues and causes began to displace redemption from the center of the life of the churches and the lives of the people in them, things happened. No matter the race, society became a profound influence upon the agenda of churches and upon their teaching. What people thought became at least as important as what God thought and in many churches became the most important thing.
Liberation in the white churches of America was the casting aside of constraints -- throwing off the chains of a strict sexual morality and a work ethic in favor of individual happiness and a culture of entertainment. Liberation in the Black churches of America became the freedom of their members and from political oppression and racism -- something that turned Jesus into someone different from the God of the cross and empty tomb. The belief that freedom in the Gospel meant freedom from social and economic inequality, rather than sin, became mankind’s greatest need and the sole organizing principle for many churches. It did not take long to hitch additional kinds of oppression to this cause (especially in the white churches) until the adoption of a liberated view of sexual desire and gender identity became the natural heir to the Civil Rights Movement. The hidden cost in this is the loss of family in both white America and Black America.
It is the devil's bargain, as some have coined it. In exchange for silence on the Biblical issues of the centrality of male and female, marriage, children, and family, the political causes were pursued and economic and political equality became the necessary paths to individual happiness. Some thought that in order for churches to remain relevant, they had no choice but to go along with the flow. Religion and politics blurred their boundaries until today religion and political stance are parallel markers of what people think and how they live. But where is the Gospel in all of this? That is the subject for another column but suffice it to say that the churches which have adopted this definition of the Gospel have not fared well in the pews, suffering almost as much as the families they helped to sideline and the common values of good and evil that once bridged every community across America.
2 comments:
Why is "Black" capitalized and "white" is not? The words are used in the same way. Should Christians be following DEI wokeist propaganda that dictate such racist culturalism?
My father once told me that during the years of the Great Depression in America, from the 1929 Stock Market crash and into the 1930’s, family life was seriously disrupted across the country. He and my mother were born in 1919 and 1917 respectively, and both had difficult upbringings. My father lost both parents by the time he was three, and lived with relatives. He had no male role model in the home, but was educated by Christian Brothers at a Catholic school in his Bronx neighborhood. Meanwhile, my mother’s family life in Queens, NY, was not fairing much better, as her father was an abusive alcoholic and a gambler who created misery in the household. My father also mentioned that massive unemployment forced many fathers, brothers, and husbands to take to the road looking for any kind of available employment. This added to the suffering of families. Some semblance of family life returned to many Americans, but only after this resilient, tough, and suffering generation beset by poverty and hardship went through the fires of World War Two, when the economy improved. Later in our recent history, the family was attacked further by academics and activists of our land who advocated for unrestricted abortions, divorce, assaulting the role of manhood, fatherhood, motherhood, and the very identity of the father and mother. The deconstruction of the family is an ongoing cultural consequence. They tell us few people today want to get married or have children. They have been told it interferes with their individual happiness. I could never understand this trend. But I know it is wrong, and it goes against the Lord’s word on marriage and the importance of family. The biggest tragedy in all of this is that individual freedom to pursue success and “empty things” replaced the idea of marriage and family. Empty things! The Bible says, “And do not turn aside, for then you would pursue empty things which cannot profit or deliver, for they are nothing.” 1Samuel 12:20. Soli Deo Gloria
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