Keeping the faith: Recent mass shootings beg question: Can you be Christian and racist?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

During a series of interviews four years ago with the late Rev. C.T. Vivian for a book on his life that I am doing, we talked about the strange relationship that some white people have with Christianity.

While professing to love “the Lord Jesus,” these people openly and unabashedly support white supremacist beliefs, and, as we talked about it, I could see Vivian’s eyes change. There was a fire that began to push through his gaze as he spoke, and finally the beloved civil rights activist said, ”You cannot be a Christian and be racist!”

The words were coming from a deep place in a man who had spent his life fighting against those white people – many of whom called themselves Christian – who not only believed that their views on white supremacy were correct, but were a part of the ethos of God, and therefore, of Jesus.

The late Bob Jones, who founded the conservative Bob Jones University in South Carolina, said in a 1960 radio address entitled, “Is Segregation Scriptural?” that “God is the author of segregation!” and that the practice was a part of God’s “established order.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/keeping-the-faith-recent-mass-shootings-beg-question-can-you-be-christian-and-racist/ar-AAXSxxm

I'd say no you can't be but a lot of assholes still try.

[3catwoman3]

1. No, you cannot.

Mutually exclusive states, IMO.

[msongs]

2. the whole purpose of the xtian thing is to be awful and get forgiven nt

[doc03]

3. Can you be Christian and not racist should be the question nt

[PJMcK]

4. Christianity? No thanks.

Horrible atrocities have been committed in the Christian god's name. The Roman Catholic Church has been corrupt for millennia. Modern Evangelical Christians are among the most terrible people I've ever met. Bob Jones spoke the truth from that point of view.

My life has improved and is far more peaceful without that mythology swirling around me.

[Skittles]

5. no you cannot

but that doesn't stop a HUGE chunk of "christians"

[Karadeniz]

6. Absolutely no and churches need to be honest about it and offer help to members who want to

change.

[spike jones]

7. Mass murder happens so often it must be god's will. n/t

[lees1975]

8. It is impossible to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and be racist.

Next to the love of and worship of God, the primary means of a Christian testifying to the genuine nature of their faith is the way that they treat other people. Jesus said it himself when pointing out what he considered to be the two greatest commandments, Love the Lord your God, and Love others as you love yourself. The illustration that Jesus himself used to define "others" or "neighbor" as one of the gospel writers uses the term, is a parable that places the demonstration of truth into the character of a Samaritan, who was a member of a despised ethnic minority group.

The most definitive words on racism come from the Apostle John, in his church epistle, where he says, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, 'I love God' and hate their brothers or sisters are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also." I John 4:18-21 NRSV translation

So no, you cannot be Christian and racist.