Review: God and Race in American Politics

November 23, 2015November 22, 2015 / rtrube54 / 2 Comments

God and Race in American Politics, Mark A. Noll. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008.

Summary: This text explores the interwoven story of religion, race, and politics in American history, with a concluding theological reflection.

Mark Noll makes the observation in this book, derived from his Stafford Little Lectures at Princeton University in 2006, that we have one of the most enlightened political systems in human history and yet we have failed signally in the matter of race. From our beginnings we accepted the slave trade that treated forcibly seized Africans as cargo that were simply one more asset to serve American interests. After the Civil War and the failure of Reconstruction, we settled for systemic injustices in the form of Jim Crow laws that a number would argue continue in some form down to the present.

What Noll does in this “short history” is look at the interplay of religious influences, shifting party affiliations and voting patterns and the continuing saga of race in America. As a careful scholar, he documents his narrative with numerous tables on denominational populations and party voting patterns by various states and populations.

He begins by looking at how the Bible was used to argue both for and against slavery. Interestingly, those who were pro-slavery held back from arguing for White slavery, revealing the racial animus behind this issue. In this racial divide he traces the origins and rise of African-American churches who would be a critical factor in years to come in civil rights advocacy. He concludes this chapter (2) with these prophetic words by W.E.B. DuBois:

“This nation will never stand justified before God until these things are changed….Especially are we surprised and astonished at the recent attitude of the church of Christ–on the increase of a desire to bow to racial prejudice, to narrow the bounds of human brotherhood, and to segregate black men in some outer sanctuary” (cited on p. 59).

The book traces the the failed efforts of Reconstruction (“Redemption” in the South) and the alignments of southern Whites (comprised of large Baptist and Methodist populations) with the Democratic Party while Blacks who could vote as well as northern Protestants aligned with “the party of Lincoln.” He recounts the rise of Jim Crow and the failure of the courts and political processes along with the lack of engagement (and some complicity) of white Evangelicals with these injustices.

Meanwhile, an African-American church was rising in organizational strength and the training of its pastors. Noll traces the antecedent influences on King and other civil rights leaders and how central the religious voice was to this movement.

A significant turning point came in 1964 with the passage of sweeping civil rights legislation under Democrat Lyndon Johnson. A major political realignment began, where the once Democratic white south became Republican, and the Democratic Party became one of northern liberals, mainline Protestants (a declining group) and ethnic minorities while Evangelicals and some Catholics identified with the small government, morally conservative policies of the Republicans.

One fascinating sidelight Noll observes is the emergence of southern Evangelicals on the national stage in this period. Having come out from an apparent identification with racism as a result of civil rights legislation, denominations like the Southern Baptists and figures like Jerry Falwell (and Bill Clinton) gain national platforms.

Noll concludes the book with a theological reflection. He notes the mixed history of Christian complicity with racial injustice and advocacy for civil rights and “the beloved community.” While not justifying the evils, he argues that in Christian theology’s understanding of both human evil and the redemptive arc of the gospel, there are the resources to help us neither be surprised by evil nor the acts of so many who selflessly pursue justice. It is a theology of realistic hope rather than starry-eyed optimism or pessimistic despair.

This is a book for anyone engaged in issues of racial reconciliation or who are trying to understand the complex interplay of religion and American politics around these issues. As in so many things, understanding where we’ve come from is critical to understanding where we are and discerning the road before us. This book can help.

Review: Birmingham Revolution: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Epic Challenge to the Church

November 10, 2014November 11, 2014 / rtrube54 / 8 Comments

Birmingham Revolution: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Epic Challenge to the Church by Edward Gilbreath
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Solitary confinement in prison can be a shattering psychological experience, one often used to break the spirit of those imprisoned. For Martin Luther King, Jr., solitary confinement served not only to further forge the character of this civil rights leader, but resulted in one of the signature documents of the civil rights movement, indeed, one of the most important human rights documents of the Twentieth century. The document of which I’m speaking is “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Edward Gilbreath’s new book gives us an account of King’s life centered around the Birmingham Civil Rights demonstrations and this letter that became a kind of manifesto for this movement. Rather than give us another full-blown biography, Gilbreath briefly sketches King’s early life and the tension between coming from an elite Atlanta family of preachers with a distinquished education, and the call to civil rights leadership that began in Montgomery and suffered a setback in Albany, Georgia. King found himself caught in a nexus of caution, gifting, and necessity when Fred Shuttlesworth invited him to Birmingham.

Gilbreath paints the contrast between the cautious but eloquent King and the firebrand activist Pastor Shuttlesworth. Shuttlesworth grasped that King’s visionary leadership was necessary to turn passion into disciplined action. What it also led to were confrontations with police chief Bull Conner who threw King, and eventually hundreds of child-demonstrators into prison. Those confrontations, complete with fire hoses and dogs caught the nation’s attention and began to turn the nation’s support to King.

Meanwhile, a group of eight moderate white clergymen, known to actually have sympathies with the civil rights movement, published an open letter in the Birmingham paper taking issue with the marches led by outsider King, counselling patience, moderation, and local solutions. A prison guard, perhaps to further depress King, gave him a copy of the paper while he was in solitary.

Gilbreath explores the phenomenon of latent black anger at continued injustices as a backdrop to King’s response of scribbling the “letter” in the margins of the newspaper. In it, King makes the argument, later expanded into his book Why We Can’t Wait that makes the case for civil disobedience to unjust laws and that “justice delayed is justice denied.”

The rest of the book considers King’s life after Birmingham and the response of evangelicals then and now to King. Gilbreath does not attempt to cover over the flaws in either King’s theology or life but also explores the blindness of both the eight moderate pastors in Birmingham as well as many in the white evangelical community to the biblical themes that shaped King’s vision in the “Letter” and in his preaching.

The book helped me understand not only the circumstances behind King’s “Letter” but also raised questions for me about our continued racial divides in the United States and my own temptation to identify with the moderate white pastors rather than hear the anger and pain that comes from injustices and the biblical themes that challenge me to see why justice can’t wait.

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MLK Day Reflection: The Jangling Discords of our Nation

January 20, 2014August 27, 2025 / rtrube54 / Leave a comment

“With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”

I’ve just come from a Martin Luther King celebration that including a reading of his “I have a dream” speech, commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of this speech. The sentence above caught my attention and I thought I might share some of my thoughts about this.

Certainly in the fifty years since we have come a long way from setting dogs and fire hoses upon those marching for basic human rights. We thankfully do not have the riots in our cities that I grew up with in the 1960s. From the President of the United States to top positions in many fields, persons of color have advanced and accomplished amazing things.

Yet we are a long way from the “symphony of brotherhood” Dr. King dreamed of. One need only look at the political and media discourse going on in our country that is filled much more with “jangling discord” than beauty. The gap between rich and poor in our country has widened and 46 million of our citizens live below the poverty line. We learned today that my home state of Ohio ranks 48th in the country in infant mortality, which is often a function of into which zip code a child is born. If this is a symphony, it is one of dissonance, harsh and ugly rather than beautiful.

I do not play in a symphony orchestra, but I sing in a choral group and it strikes me that there are some things we learn that might help us create more beautiful music as a nation.

1. One very simple thing is that we all have to be singing off the same piece of music. For us as a nation, it is a realization that all are created equal and “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights”. We have been at our best as a nation when we’ve recognized that these values truly apply to all and enshrined them not only in our laws but in our treatment of others.

2. A basic rule of choral singing is that if you can’t hear others over your own voice, you are singing too loud. Similarly, if the only voices we are truly hearing in our national debates are our own, we are speaking too loudly and need to listen to others.

3. Most of the time, the note you are singing should harmonize with others. Even when a written note is dissonant, it usually is so to create a tension that the audience is waiting to hear resolved. This suggests to me that most of the time, we should be asking how our own perspectives blend with others to create a harmonious society. And sometimes, when we must be dissonant, it is in the hope of a resolving harmony–never for the sake of discord.

4. Sometimes, harmony comes as efforts are made to balance different sections. Is it “fair” that one section may not be able to sing as loud as they can while another section might especially have to sing louder to be heard? Similarly, we cannot live harmoniously as a nation if all we do is compete for our own interests.

Ah, if only becoming the “beloved community” were as simple a thing as singing in a choral group! Perhaps the best evidence of our flawed human nature is the disparity between our high ideals and the realities of our society. Perhaps the most difficult part is where to find the power to return love for hate and forgiveness for injustice. At the staff conference for our organization, we heard the account of Ben Campbell, the African-American captain of the track team at UNC-Wilmington, threatened by a truck full of whites. Instead of pressing for their prosecution, he wrote a letter defending them and saying at most, they should be made to sit down to dinner with Ben and get to know him. Asked why he protected them, he said, “it is because I love them, and you protect the ones you love… Being loved by Jesus makes you love like Jesus.”

That is the faith of Dr King who likewise returned love for violence and hatred. I think that alone can turn “jangling discords” to “beautiful symphonies.”