Reading: Ethnicity and American History (David Feddes)

By David Feddes

The church of Jesus Christ is God’s appointed agent to call for repentance, to proclaim forgiveness of wrongs, and to promote reconciliation across ethnic and national boundaries. To carry out this calling, Christians must clearly identify past wrongs that need repentance and forgiveness, and must squarely face the ongoing impact of ethnic identity. This is necessary not just in South Africa after apartheid or in Germany after Nazism but in the United States. However, many American Christians join their fellow Americans in avoiding unpleasant facts from the past and ignoring ethnic divisions and injustices in the present.

Many American evangelicals are individualists, with “a tendency to be ahistorical, to not grasp fully how history has an influence on the present” (Emerson and Smith 2000, 81). When they do think about history, many think that the key figures in American history were mostly godly men with godly goals (Smith 2002, 32-36). Racist atrocities, if acknowledged at all, are minor glitches in an overall story of splendid progress and benefit to the world by Christian Americans of European ancestry. In many evangelical churches and schools, the (white) American way and the Christian way are almost synonymous. The church baptizes “a history written by the winners.”

A different approach is necessary “in order to avoid the ethnocentrism and nationalism for too long associated with evangelical views of American history” (Keillor 1996, 12). As Miroslav Volf notes in another context, “The initial suspicion against the perspective of the powerful is necessary. Not because the powerless are innocent, but because the powerful have the means to impose their own perspective” (Volf 1996, 219).

A key aim in teaching history is to convey who “we” are and how we arrived at our present situation. Many schools teach American history so that the young will understand themselves as heirs of bold adventurers, wise founding fathers, and saintly soldiers fighting for freedom. As politicians like to say, “America is great because America is good.” Christian schools, far from countering this approach, tend to surpass public schools in cultivating patriotism and national pride, insisting on the faith and virtue of “our Christian forbears.” America’s past is something to glory in, to draw inspiration from—a legacy to continue. The grimmer side of the legacy is minimized.

Such heroic portrayal of American history conceals the truth that explorers, founders, and fighters sinned grievously, often at the expense of other ethnic groups. This article describes some of these sins: mistreatment of Native Americans, enslavement of Africans, and selfish nationalism in foreign policy. After facing the sins, we can seek a healthy Christian response.

Mistreating Native Americans

Some Christian textbooks emphasize that Columbus spoke of being on a divine mission and wrote, “[The Holy Spirit] with marvelous rays of light consoled me through the holy and sacred Scriptures” and gave “the sweetest consolation.” The textbooks neglect to say that Columbus also wrote, “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold” (Forbes 1993, 23). Columbus gave a captive Native American woman to one of his subordinates. When she resisted his rape attempt, the man beat her severely until she submitted (Forbes 1993, 24). Columbus saw opportunity in the demand for sex slaves and noted, “There are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand” (Loewen 1996, 65).

Indigenous people age 14 and older had to bring gold dust or 25 pounds of cotton to their conquerors every three months. “Whenever an Indian delivered his tribute,” explained Columbus’s son Ferdinand, “he was to receive a brass or copper token which he must wear about his neck as proof that he had made his payment.” Any found without a token had his hands cut off. When Columbus first met natives of the Americas, he wrote that they were “friendly and well dispositioned,” with “quick intelligence,” “good memories,” “very good customs,” and “handsome bodies and very fine faces.” But his attitude changed along with his treatment of them. After enslaving, mutilating, and killing many, Columbus spoke of them as “cruel” and “stupid” and criticized their customs. “It is always useful to think badly about people one has exploited or plans to exploit” (Loewen 1996, 62-68).

Many early explorers and conquerors tried to serve both God and Mammon—and Mammon usually held sway. They talked of mission and used religious rhetoric “to achieve aggrandizement, personal wealth and power as ends in themselves” (Keillor 1996, 21). Some may have been sincere but flawed Christians, but others cynically used religion as a veneer to cover greed and cruelty. In either case, the result was largely the same: brutality and greed under the sign of the cross. Cortes, the Spanish conqueror of Mexico, saw a “win-win” situation: his religion, his country, his king, and his own coffers could all benefit in the same act of conquest. As Cortes put it, “Let us go forth, serving God, honoring our nation, giving growth to our king, and let us become rich ourselves” (in Keillor 1996, 28).

Cortes is hardly the last person to blend God, country, and capital accumulation. When history is taught in a way that exalts the explorers’ bravery or their Christianity while ignoring their atrocities, it panders to Americans who uncritically embrace nationalism and capitalism. They remain blind to their own mixed motives and to the troubles of nations and ethnicities who are exploited or disadvantaged.

Professional historians know many unpleasant truths about European settlement in the Americas, but such truths are often concealed or minimized by schools and churches. In The Conquest of America, Todorov uses the term “genocide” to describe the decimation of millions among Native American ethnic groups (Todorov 1984 5,133). Genocide is probably too strong a word, since it usually refers to deliberate extermination of entire peoples. Millions of deaths were due to the unintentional spread of diseases to which indigenous peoples had no immunities—a terrible outcome, but not a premeditated one.

Still, even if Europeans did not set out with genocidal intent, many saw these deadly epidemics not as tragedies to be mourned but as opportunities to be celebrated. In the early 1600s, King James of England thanked “Almighty God for his great goodness and bounty towards us” for “this wonderful plague among the savages,” (Loewen 1996, 86) which enabled British colonists to settle in areas where “savages” had lived and farmed. Moreover, though epidemics spread unintentionally at first, some later military leaders deliberately used biological warfare with genocidal intent. In 1763 British commander Jeffrey Amherst and officers under his command approved of sending smallpox-infected blankets and handkerchiefs to natives. Amherst wrote of “measures to be taken as would bring about the Total Extirpation of those Indian Nations” and “put a most Effectual Stop to their very Being” (Shenkman 1988, 113).

Sometimes native ethnic groups are blamed for their failure to adapt to the realities of new powers. But even those who did adapt were not exempt from mistreatment. The Cherokee people were forced out of their home territory and driven along the Trail of Tears to a new place assigned for them, with vast numbers dying along the way. “Removal occurred despite the fact that the Cherokees had largely adopted Euro-American ways: family farming, Christianity, republican government, a written alphabet” (Keillor 1996, 116).

American children (including those in Christian schools) hear little about such things, but they hear much about “the first Thanksgiving.” They hear about the Plymouth Pilgrims who came to America seeking religious freedom, and how they held a feast to thank God and generously invited a supporting cast of Indians to join them. The central characters are the European settlers, not the natives. The story omits the fact that harvest celebrations were already a custom among those “Indians,” that the settlers could not have survived without their help, and that even if a cordial feast did occur, it was not representative of the overall picture. Most Europeans coming to America were seeking financial opportunity, not religious freedom. The pleasant relationship between Europeans and Natives commemorated on Thanksgiving may provide a good feeling for contemporary Euro-Americans, but it hardly typifies the bigger picture. More typical might be another “feast” that occurred around the same time. The British negotiated a treaty with natives near the Potomac River and proposed a toast “symbolizing eternal friendship.” The chief, his family, advisors, and two hundred others drank the toast—and dropped dead of poison (Loewen 1996, 90). As white Americans celebrate Columbus Day or think fondly of “the first Thanksgiving,” most prefer that memories of atrocities remain buried with the victims.

Enslavement of Africans

Another blot on American history is the enslavement of Africans. The slave trade was not the sole responsibility of European colonists associated with Christianity. “Slavery and trading in slaves were well developed in West Africa… Consequently Europeans did not generally have to capture their own slaves; African rulers and slave merchants were happy to do it for them” (Fredrickson 2002, 30). Muslims and followers of traditional African religions were just as likely as Christians to buy and sell humans. But Christians bear special responsibility for endorsing slavery, for their Lord taught, “You have only one Master, and you are all brothers” (Matthew 23:8). Moreover, though the European Christians did not invent slavery, they “exploited an existing slave trade and made it incomparably worse” (Keillor 1996, 47) by the vastly expanded market for slaves and by the dreadful conditions in which African slaves were shipped and made to labor.

Many European Christians sensed something was wrong with enslaving a fellow human, especially a fellow Christian. In 1618 the Dutch Reformed Synod of Dort banned the sale of Christian slaves and said they “ought to enjoy equal right of liberty with other Christians.” But rather than liberating slaves, this edict more commonly had the effect of dampening evangelism in slave colonies so that slaves would not convert and become candidates for liberty (Fredrickson 2002, 42-43). If slaves could be deprived of Christianity or be denied their humanity altogether, then merchants and plantation owners could continue to make money without a crisis of faith or conscience. When the humanity of Africans was too obvious to deny, some resorted to “the curse of Ham” to assign them inferior status and justify their enslavement. When the Christianity of African converts was too obvious to deny, churches backed away from the position that a Christian could not hold a fellow Christian in slavery. In all this, it is misleading to view Christianity as “the religion of the ‘master class.’ Many masters did not practice it, whereas many slaves embraced it” (Keillor 1996, 58).

The founding fathers of American independence were champions of freedom—the freedom of white gentlemen like themselves. More than half the signers of the Declaration of Independence owned slaves. Not all can be excused merely as “children of their age” who did not know better. Many viewed slavery as an evil, but still continued to own slaves or to compromise with slaveholding interests.

Schoolbooks repeat Patrick Henry’s bold words, “Give me liberty or give me death.” But few explore Henry’s own approach to slavery. Professing devout Christianity, Patrick Henry called slavery “as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible and destructive of liberty.” Nevertheless, he kept buying slaves and never freed them. Aware of this disturbing paradox, he wrote, “Would anyone believe that I am a Master of Slaves of my own purchase! I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living without them.” Likewise, Thomas Jefferson spoke against slavery and wrote, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.” Jefferson would try almost anything to solve the slave problem—except free his own slaves, of which he owned more than 200 (Loewen 146-148).

Many American Christians speak of the Constitution in reverential tones, regarding it as a Christian document guided by divine wisdom working through saintly founders. However, the actual Constitution did not speak of Jesus or God; it did enshrine racial exploitation and provide for slavery to continue in the newly formed nation. Some objected, but to no avail. Elbridge Gerry, a delegate at the Constitutional Convention (and later Vice President of the United States) wrote his wife, “I am exceedingly distressed at the proceedings of the Convention—being almost sure they will lay the foundation of a Civil War.” That turned out to be the case, but one would never guess it from common, rosy portrayals of the Constitution and the founders who formulated it.

Many histories depict slavery as an exclusively Southern evil. But the first colony to legalize slavery was not Virginia but Massachusetts. In 1720 about one of every four residents of New York City was a slave. Over time, slavery became more important to the Southern economy than to the Northern. Eventually some Northerners came to oppose the expansion of slavery on moral grounds. Others, however, opposed expansion simply because it would bring blacks into territories that they wanted to keep entirely white. As Keillor points out, “A drive to free slaves became a drive to keep Western lands free of blacks. David Wilmot argued, ‘The negro race already occupy enough of this fair continent; let us keep what remains for ourselves and our children’” (Keillor 1996, 140).

Historians sympathetic to the South point out Northern hypocrisy and assert that the South fought for states’ rights, not slavery. Many Northerners may indeed have been hypocritical, but that hardly exonerates the South. Lest anyone doubt that enslaving blacks was the heart of the Southern cause, Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens declared, “Our new government’s foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition” (in Glatthaar 2001, 7).

Many poor European immigrants might have tended to sympathize more with oppressed slaves than with rich gentlemen, but “the allegiance of economically oppressed laborers was won through racial privilege” (Jacobson 1998, 18). Greater status and opportunity for poor “whites” from various nations did not give them clout on a level with the wealthy elite of English origin, but it did sharply distinguish them from black slaves and lessened the likelihood of poor whites joining forces with black slaves.

Even among white opponents of slavery, few considered blacks equal to whites or wanted the “races” to mingle and hold the same privileges. Abraham Lincoln himself declared, “Let it not be said I am contending for the establishment of political and social equality between the whites and blacks” (Lincoln 2002, 32). Lincoln insisted,

Lincoln was more eager to preserve the Union than to free slaves. His famous Emancipation Proclamation declared freedom only for slaves in enemy territory, not for slaves in border states under Lincoln’s authority (Shenkman 37). While histories need not vilify Lincoln or deny his many outstanding qualities, an honest account of his racial stance is necessary. Here again, what professional historians know, mass education largely ignores.

Throughout the period of enslavement and segregation, “liberal” clergy were often more willing than evangelicals to fight racial and social evils. Churches that claimed firm allegiance to Scripture tended to conform to their culture and to shape their biblical interpretations to support racial division. Fragmented into competing denominations, “no one American church had the authority to stand against public opinion... No denomination would ruin its chances in the religious competition by doing so” (Keillor 1996, 131). Slavery ended eventually, as did official segregation, but even as laws and attitudes were changing, “whites and blacks were in many ways growing farther apart. They had gone from separate pews to separate churches” (Emerson and Smith 2000, 48). American Christians, called to be agents of reconciliation, must understand past evils and present dynamics of ethnic separation.

Selfish Nationalism

A third aspect of history for Americans to consider—in addition to treatment of Native Americans and African Americans—is United States actions toward other nations. Americans, particularly white Americans, tend to assume that “our” troops are less likely to commit atrocities than fighters from other nations and that “our” leaders are more idealistic, less imperialistic, and less likely than leaders of other nations to use raw power in pursuit of selfish national interests. Histories that portray the United States as “the right side” in every disagreement or war, the idealistic champion of freedom around the world, tend to overlook significant facts and to foster a smugly ignorant and ethnocentric American identity.

One need not denigrate all that the United States has done, but neither ought one to declare the American nation as “the last best hope of mankind” (Lincoln), “a city on a hill” (Reagan), or “the light of the world, as Christ called us to be” (Bush, Sr.). Christ—not America—is the hope of humanity; his church is the city on a hill; his faithful followers in all nations are the light of the world reflecting their Lord (1 Tim 1:1; Matt 5:14; John 8:12). The church without ethnic or national boundaries is “a chosen people, a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9). But Americans leaders and citizens often echo an earlier “extreme wing of European nationalism [with] a widely held Christian assumption that there can be only one fully elect nation, one’s own, the true successor to ancient Israel” (Hastings 198). When histories exalt the United States above all nations and present its foreign policy as nearly infallible, these histories support this false sense of America as the “one fully elect nation.”

A grim catalog of America’s interference in other nations to serve its own commercial and national interests would be too long to recount here. Political assassination, military force, and financial bullying have been among the tools of American power. This does not make the United States worse than other great powers of history. Power politics in a fallen world frequently follows De Gaulle’s maxim: “Nations have no friends, only interests.” The United States is no exception. American Christians must avoid sanctimonious, self-congratulatory myths that America is unique in the purity of its policies and objectives.

Even at the height of American idealism in the mid-1900s, when the so-called “Greatest Generation” stood against Nazi and Communist tyranny and helped to rebuild defeated nations, the American government focused on its own interests and on the interests of predominantly white Europe. A top-secret policy blueprint (later declassified) proposed “a union of Western European nations [to] undertake jointly the economic development and exploitation of the colonial and dependent areas of the African Continent” (Planning Study 23 1948, 511). In outlining future objectives for dealing with Asia, the policy plan declared,

With unintended irony, the document (authored primarily by George Kennan) went on to say, “For a truly stable world order can proceed, within our lifetime, only from the older, mellower and more advanced nations of the world—nations from which the concept of order, as opposed to power, has value and meaning” (528). The “mellower and more advanced nations” were those of the white West—nations that, at the time of writing, had just convulsed the world with the two bloodiest wars in history. The policy planners consciously intended henceforth “to deal in straight power concepts,” yet fancied America as leader of the nations that value “order” and not just “power.” If someone concocted an anti-American parody, it could hardly be more damning than this official recommendation to exploit other nations, perpetuate wealth disparity, ignore human rights, and favor the white West, all the while assuming Western whiteness as the benchmark of wisdom and good order.

Redemptive Remembering

Facing unpleasant facts of history is not a matter of being politically correct but of becoming historically correct and spiritually wise. There is more to United States history than wresting a continent away from Native Americans, enslaving Africans, and pursuing an exploitative, ethnocentric foreign policy. But there is not less. A balanced history will accent achievements of Euro-Americans, not just their evils. A balanced history will also depict the accomplishments and failings of Native Americans, African Americans, and other ethnic groups, not just portray them as passive victims of the evil white man. Still, even if a balanced history must include more than a recitation of ethnically-related sins, such sins did occur. Americans must reflect on what those sins have made of us and consider what to make of such sins from this point forward.

Some might argue against recalling past evils: “What’s done is done. Leave the past in the past.” However, if the past could safely be ignored as irrelevant to the present, then it would be best to jettison history altogether, the good along with the bad. If past faults no longer matter, then past glories likewise no longer matter. On the other hand, if history does matter for the present, then history must be truthful, “warts and all.” If Americans boast that bold explorers, founding fathers, and brave soldiers have shaped American identity, they also must confess that greedy invaders, racist slaveholders, and exploitative politicians have shaped American identity. Ethnocentric xenophobia is not just a past problem that progress has left behind. Rather, “xenophobia has become the most widespread mass ideology in the world… xenophobia, readily shading into racism” (Hobsbawm 170).

Remembering the past has its dangers, of course. Santyana’s saying, “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it,” must be weighed against the fact that those who remember the past too obsessively are also doomed to repeat it. “A constant reference to past wrongs may be a sign of continued antagonism” (Hayner 2001, 162). Reciting past atrocities can fuel ongoing animosity, deepen existing divisions, and justify spiraling violence (Volf 2002a). Even in contexts where such passions eventually cool, a diseased remembering can produce chronic guilt among some ethnic groups, and can prompt chronic excuse-making among members of other groups who claim perpetual victim status and thus evade personal responsibility for unproductive or antisocial conduct.

Another, quite different danger of remembering historic evils is that it may produce self-righteousness even in the very act of confessing. In saying that “we” confess and repent of “our” nation’s past sins, we may really mean “they”—those racist blockheads of an earlier era whose errors we no longer believe, whose crimes we no longer commit. “Our” repentance is thus not personal or genuine, but simply another occasion for denigrating others and for self-congratulation on our advanced level of enlightenment (Lewis 1970, 190).

Remembering surely carries dangers, but the dangers must be dealt with not by forgetting but by “redemptive remembering (Volf 2002b). “There are some facts that are fundamental enough that broad acceptance of their truth is necessary before real reconciliation can take place” (Hayner 2001, 163). Attempting to conceal or ignore such facts only makes the problem fester. On the flipside, parading tragic facts without seeking reconciliation only stirs more trouble. However, facing facts in the light of the cross is a form of redemptive remembering that leads to reconciliation.

Believers in Jesus find that “where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (Romans 5:20). Ugly history can be an occasion for beauties of redeeming grace, as shown in Israel’s bondage and exodus, and in Jesus’ passion and resurrection. Without denying the sinfulness of sin, we can acknowledge God’s marvelous way of bringing good out of evil. From the evils of slavery God raised up a mighty people for himself among African Americans who trusted in Jesus. Out of the crimes of imperialism (and attendant faults of missionaries), God drew millions to Christ from many nations and ethnic groups. His Word, translated into their languages and transposed into their cultures, brought new liberty to them, and new variety and vitality to the worldwide church (Sanneh 1989).

The crucified and risen Christ reveals that we live in “a world in which pardon is all-powerful” (Jones 1995, 104). God’s forgiveness flowing to us and through us “provides the possibility of new life, of escaping the dance of death produced by sin and evil.” Forgiveness not only addresses a past action but “also points forward, to a refusal to be trapped in cycles of violence and thus also to be trapped by the conviction that we are all ultimately condemned to death and destruction” (Jones 1995, 88). The cross enables a kind of remembering that produces repentance rather than arrogance, gratitude rather than bitterness, reconciliation rather than revenge, hope rather than despair.

At the cross we discover our solidarity as fellow sinners and as fellow humans loved by God. As Volf says:

This sense of “shared humanity” and “common sinfulness”—whatever our ethnic differences may be, whatever evils have been perpetrated in the past—enables peoples to reconcile.

Those from historically oppressed ethnic groups need not remain trapped in perpetual victimhood. Those from historically powerful and oppressive ethnic groups need not remain stuck in guilt and wrongdoing. Rather than live in guilt for how some of our ancestors may have wronged others, we can live a new life by God’s grace. Rather than live in bitterness as perpetual victims of what some of our ancestors may have suffered at the hands of others, we can live a new life by God’s grace. Rather than blaming our problems on those who came before us, we can live by God’s power and be responsible for our own attitudes and actions (Ezekiel 18). Living by grace does not mean forgetting history or ignoring past evils. It means facing the truth and trusting God’s mercy and goodness in Jesus Christ to reconcile us with him and to bridge the gap that separates peoples.

Volf suggests four guidelines for healthy remembering: “1. Remember truthfully. 2. Remember in a way that heals your identity. 3. Remember so as to learn from the past. 4. Remember in a redeeming way” (Volf 2002b, 71). Sometimes, when people study the history of their own ethnic group or nation, they do not want to accept blame for evils committed by their predecessors, but they do want to bask in the aura of their predecessors’ achievements. But the main value in studying history is not to take credit or blame for the past but to take responsibility for the present. A healthy knowledge of history enables us better to understand our own ethnic and national identity, to build on the positive insights of people who went before us, and to learn from their evils and errors so that we can seek to avoid perpetuating such wrongs.

We need not accept blame (or credit) for past deeds of others in our ethnic group or nation, but we must honestly face historical facts in light of the cross and then address present problems that linger as an ongoing legacy of past evils. Nations or ethnic groups that deny atrocities of the past or downplay problems in the present are doing more to preserve ethnic pride and barriers than to advance unity. Likewise, the church itself can be more eager to congratulate itself on the positive impact of Christianity than to build bridges with people who are keenly aware of evils committed under the sign of the cross. While heeding Lewis’s warning against misguided forms of collective repentance, we must also join Lewis in lamenting crimes against those “differing from us in features and pigmentation” (Lewis 1958, 90), “massacres, broken treaties, theft, kidnappings, enslavement, deportation, floggings, lynchings, beatings-up, rape, insult, mockery, and odious hypocrisy” (Lewis 1967, 158-159). “Large areas of ‘the World’ will not hear us till we have publicly disowned much of our past. Why should they? We have shouted the name of Christ and enacted the service of Moloch” (Lewis 1960, 49).

In addressing the ongoing legacy of ethnic exploitation and division, we must act at both the individual and the corporate level. “One of the tragic legacies of Western civilization is the idea of White racial superiority. Consciously and subconsciously, both by individuals and by social structures, both in obvious and subtle forms, this thinking continues in the West, not only in the secular world but in the Church as well” (Hays 202).

As individuals we must search our hearts and seek God’s help in rooting out sinful biases against people of other ethnic groups. We must also recognize that “Christians of other races are not just equal to us; they are joined to us” (Hays 2003, 204). Therefore, we must actively seek to build relationships with fellow believers outside our own ethnic group. If “keeping ethnic identity under control depends primarily on individual good will” (Haarmaan 1999, 74), Christian individuals should be at the forefront of repudiating personal racism and forming interethnic personal relationships.

But “individual good will” is not enough.” Improved individual attitudes and actions are necessary but not sufficient to address the ongoing effects of historic wrongs and divisions. Attention to collective and structural dynamics is also necessary. Many churches remain ethnically homogeneous even if most individual members harbor no ill will toward other ethnicities. Americans, being individualistic, tend to attribute any problem entirely to individual faults and to offer a solution that is entirely individualistic. Hays, for example, charges, “The continued maintenance of racially divided churches in the United States points only to the fact that a large number of Christians in that country are probably identifying themselves more with their racial background, with all its cultural baggage, than they do with Christ and the gospel” (Hays 205). While the accusation may be true of some churchgoers, it is untrue of many others. Moreover, even if all individual believers in America would become non-racist and open to friendship with people from other ethnic groups, congregations might still remain largely separated from each other along ethnic lines unless structural factors were intentionally faced.

Research by Emerson and Smith finds that most American evangelicals deny superiority to any particular race and affirm equality and unity as the ideal. Evangelical leaders encourage individuals to form interethnic relationships. The researchers consider these attitudes and actions to be “honest and well-intentioned” but naïve about the degree to which reality is socially constructed. Even as racial bias decreases at the individual level, evangelical churches remain as segregated as ever, and American neighborhoods remain highly segregated. “Despite devoting considerable time and energy to solving the problem of racial division, white evangelicalism likely does more to perpetuate the racialized society than to reduce it” (Emerson and Smith 2000, 89-90, 170).

Evangelical individualism tends to overlook the significance of historical developments and social structures. While trying to change individual hearts, evangelicals fail “to challenge social systems of injustice and inequality, to confess social sin.” When historical forces and structural aspects are involved, any solution must involve more than improvement of individual thinking and conduct. “If a building is on the verge of collapse due to an inadequate design, improving the quality of the bricks without improving the design is not a solution” (Emerson and Smith 2000, 67, 130).

Evangelicals determined to win individual souls often relegate social justice and structural reform to insignificance. Eagerness to grow churches by attracting religious “consumers” tends to create congregations that cater to specific groups, much as specialty shops in a modern mall each target a specific niche market. “In the process of competing, of developing niches and assuring internal strength, congregations come to be made up of highly similar people… The processes that generate church growth, internal strength, and vitality in a religious marketplace also internally homogenize and externally divide people” (Emerson and Smith 2000, 142). When evangelicals market their faith to homogenous units, they perpetuate and sharpen division along the ethnic lines etched by American history.

Evangelical individualists lack “cultural tools” to accurately assess or effectively address ongoing racial divisions. Contemporary white evangelicals did not create the racist practices and structures of the past, but they have inherited a racialized society and racially divided churches. “Largely isolated in their own racial group, they fail to see their advantages” (Emerson and Smith 2000, 160). Assuming that anybody in America can succeed through hard work and clean living, they are blind to systemic obstacles and to self-confirming social stigmas (Loury 2002, chapter 3) that hamper people of other ethnicities. Historic events and social institutions divided white Christians from others; it will take more than good individual intentions to bridge ethnic divisions created by such forces.

 “Even if there were no overt racial discrimination against blacks, powerful social forces would still be at work to perpetuate into future generations the consequences of the universally acknowledged history of racism in America” (Loury 2004, 83). Along with emphasizing individual responsibility and reconciliation, efforts must be made to understand and undo negative effects of history and of governmental and economic structures.

Transcending a negative history is a challenge not only for a racialized society but for a racialized church. Due to factors of history and ethnicity, “Christianity in the United States became a principal divider of people by race” (DeYoung 61). Attaining ethnic diversity and unity requires not only individual resolve but congregational and denominational reform. For example, “African American congregations must broaden their focus and welcome Hispanics and Asian Americans living in their neighborhoods. White suburban congregations need to stop running away from communities of color and diversify their pastoral staffs and their congregational identities in order to welcome the many persons of color who live in the suburbs” (De Young 185).

Redemptive remembering faces history candidly without glossing over the faults of the dominant ethnic group. Redemptive remembering takes the past seriously without becoming enslaved to the past (thanks to the liberating power of the crucified and risen Lord). Redemptive remembering prompts personal reflection and determination to show solidarity with individuals of other ethnic backgrounds. Redemptive remembering seeks to identify and transcend social and structural problems that grow out of the past. Above all, redemptive remembering for Christians means remembering that our history and identity in Christ Jesus is more basic than any other aspect of our history and identity.

REFERENCE LIST

 

Barth, Fredrik. 1998. Ethnic groups and boundaries. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.

Bourhis, Richard Y. and David F. Marshall. 1999. The United States and Canada. In Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity. Edited by Joshua A. Fishman. New York: Oxford University Press. 244-264. 

Cruz, Consuelo. 2000. Identity and persuasion: how nations remember their pasts and make their futures. World Politics. 52:3. 275-312

De Vos, George A. 1995. Ethnic pluralism: conflict and accommodation. In Ethnic identity: creation, conflict, and accommodation. Third edition. Edited by Lola Romanucci-Ross and George A. De Vos. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. 349-379.

De Vos, George A. and Lola Romanucci-Ross. 1995. Ethnic identity: a psycho-cultural perspective. In Ethnic identity: creation, conflict, and accommodation. Third edition. Edited by Lola Romanucci-Ross and George A. De Vos. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. 15-47. 

DeYoung, Curtis P. 2003. United by faith: the multiracial congregation as an answer to the problem of race. New York: Oxford University Press.

Emerson, Michael O. and Christian Smith. 2000. Divided by faith: evangelical religion and the problem of race in America. New York: Oxford University Press. 

Forbes, Jack D. 1993. Africans and Native Americans: the language of race and the evolution of Red-Black peoples. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Fredrickson, George M. 2002. Racism: a short history. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 

Glatthaar, Joseph T. 2001. The American Civil War: The War in the West 1862-1865. Oxford: Osprey, 2001.

Haarmann, Harald. 1999. History. In Handbook of language and ethnic identity. Edited by Joshua A. Fishman. New York: Oxford University Press. 60-76. 

Hannaford, Ivan. 1996. Race: the history of an idea in the West. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Hastings, Adrian. 1997. The construction of nationhood: ethnicity, religion and nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Hays, J. Daniel. 2003. From every people and nation: a biblical theology of race. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press.

Hayner, Priscilla B. 2001. Unspeakable truths: facing the challenge of truth commissions. New York: Routledge. 

Hobsbawm, E. J. 1990. Nations and nationalism since 1780: programme, myth, reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jacobson, Matthew F. 1998. Whiteness of a different color: European immigrants and the alchemy of race. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 

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