RACISM'S CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS ROOTS - Part 1

Mar 7:9 And he said unto them, Full well do ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your tradition 13… making void the word of God by your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things ye do.

By the time I was born in 1966 legislated segregation and discrimination of the races had been outlawed in our society. That’s not to say that there still weren’t discriminatory factors in the system set up to hold me back. Though institutionalized discrimination and racism is real, I do not believe this is what’s holding African-Americans from God’s full purpose and destiny for their lives. We must get to the root of racism and discrimination to really get free from the chains that still bind us today. Journey with me as I unpack what I believe has many African-Americans still in chains in the 21st century even though legal race-based slavery and segregation was done away with in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Once the vehicle and primary carrier of racism in America - the American constitution and governmental  institution - began its’ process of revamping in the 19th and 20th centuries, what would be left of that old system that carried racism, could no longer hold me back. What was holding me back was no longer the institution of racism. However, what initiated and birthed the institution of racism – religion - still had a hold on me. Racism in modern civilization did not start with Slavery or Jim Crow laws, so it could not be totally done away with through government legislation. We must go to the root of racism - Humanistic Religion - in order to eradicate the stains and vestiges of racism in all of its forms and expressions.

What is Racism

Racism is the institutionalization of social injustice based on outward appearances like skin color, other physical characteristics, or cultural and religious differences. It is the belief that differing inherent traits in human racial groups justify discrimination, and domination of so-called inferior racial groups. "Racism" and "racial discrimination" are often used to describe discrimination on an ethnic or cultural basis, independent of their somatic (i.e. "racial") differences. The term racism did not appear in the English language until the 1930s. It was first defined by the OED as "the theory that distinctive human characteristics and abilities are determined by race", which gives 1936 as the first recorded use. Additionally, the OED records racism as a synonym of racialism: "belief in the superiority of a particular race".

Racial discrimination refers to the separation of people through a process of social division into categories not necessarily related to races for purposes of differential treatment. Racial segregation policies may formalize it, but it is also often exerted without being legalized.

Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a bathroom, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home. This type of segregation is generally outlawed in today’s society, but may exist through social norms, even when there is no strong individual preference for it.

Racisms Religious Roots

 Humanistic religion is the origin of all racism (Gen. 11:4). There is actually only one race, the human race, meant to be one in the earth as worship unto God. Though the Human race will eventually be one again in worship to God through Jesus Christ, the racial divide is actually a divide that began as a result of a religious perversion of this oneness at the tower of Babel, as Nimrod attempted to build a humanistic one world Babylonian religion. (Gen 11:1-8)

1  And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. 

2  And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. 3  And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. 

4  And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. 

5  And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. 

6  And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 

7  Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. 8  So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth. 

At this time God scattered the nations to prevent this perverted humanistic Babylonian religious order. The plain where they choose to build this tower is the land of Shinar, which is in Babylon. But God confounded their languages to scatter them abroad upon the face of the earth.  As the nations were scattered and various cultures evolved, the nations were divided into various racial and religious demographics and designations, and various false religions evolved out of the original seed-bed of this humanistic one-world religious expression, initiated at the tower Babel.

When God wanted to introduce into the earth his plan to bring his Son into the world to bring the nations back to Him, as well as back to one another, he called a man by the name of Abraham. He called this man out of his cultural, humanistic, polytheistic religious surroundings, to a land that he would inherit to become a great nation, bringing together all the nations of the world back to the one true God, and back to one another through this man’s seed.

He was promised that through His seed all the nations of the world would be blessed, because he believed in the one true God, and because he came out by faith, of his humanistic, false religious surroundings in the region where he was from, in the Ur of the Chaldees. Therefore, through his seed – Jesus Christ, all the nations of the world would be blessed and would become one again (Genesis 12:1-3). The nations were originally supposed to be one under God, but man attempted to make them one outside of God, at the tower Babel.

Racial Discrimination at the birthing of Christianity

Once Christ came through Abraham’s seed, Christianity was birthed with the mandate of going into the entire world and reconciling the nations back to God and one another through the good news of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, at the inception of the Christian Church, instead of the uniting of the human race within the body Christ, a further racial divide occurred as the Gentile community of believers outgrew the Jewish community of believers and began separating from them and persecuting them as early as the 3rd century. This racism rooted in religion had profound implications for the church. Therefore, racism in modern civilization had its roots in the formation of Christendom. When I speak of modern civilization, I refer to A.D. - After the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This racism in modern civilization that began within the context of the formation of Christianity is one of the greatest blights on the church of Jesus Christ. Racism began with the spirit of religion, and it was this same spirit of religion, along with the spirit of culturalism that actually was holding me captive in the 20th century within my African American expression of Christianity.

Religions’ Culturalistic Roots

Where do religions and religious beliefs originate from? How do we develop what we believe and express about God and man? All religions have their roots in culturalism. However a people in each region “do-life,” out of the experiences of their lives, determines how, or if they will see and seek the true and the living God as the center of their lives. Often when God calls a man, he has to take him out of his culture, as he did Abraham, to reveal to him his God. Why is this? Usually it’s because where he is has told him other things within his culture, and in how he was raised, is the center of his life. I believe Jesus Christ is the center of all life, because Jesus was God’s answer to man’s depravity (sin issue). He was the only man born of a virgin, without Adam’s sinful blood in his veins (Luke 1:26-38). This was so that his sinless blood would be able to be shed for the sinful blood of all humanity born into this world through the womb of a woman.

The Center of All Life – Jesus Christ

Of all the world’s religions, Christianity is the only religion whose followers worship a God who humbled himself and became a man, Jesus Christ, to show how much he loved us, and to save us from sins grip on humanity. In the Bible, in the first and third books of the New Testament, Matthew and Luke, it tells the story of how God came into the world born from a virgin womb, how he lived, how he died for sins he never committed, but for the ones humanity committed against Him, How he was buried, but how He rose again on the third day with power over sin, and death.

In His grave today there is an empty tomb testifying of His resurrection. If you visit the grave of Muhammad, he can be found in his tomb. If you visit the tomb of Buddha, he can be found in his tomb. However, if you visit the tomb of Jesus Christ, you will not find him there. Though history records that he lived and walked the earth, his bones have never been located because Matthew 28:5 says He is not here; he has risen from the dead, as he said. Yes, Jesus is the center of all Life. However, we have made other things the center of life. Whether it is the trees, the sun, animals, or even man himself - his talents, abilities, skin color, or socio-economic standing - his culture attempts to define his religion, his definition of God and what or who the center of all life is.

So just like the Biblical personality Abraham, being taken from the Ur of the Chaldeans and his father’s house in Genesis 11, God, many times, has to take us out of our cultural and religious expressions to define and reveal the religion and expression of the true and living God. This is why Israel had to be brought out of Egypt before they could return to Jehovah, to serve the true and living God during the Exodus. This is also why a remnant of Africans in the middle age slave trade had to be taken out of Africa to the western world where Jesus was the center of all life. Muslim marauders had spread Islam all over Africa around the 7th century. There was a fight for Africa, for who would be the center of all life. Much of Africa was being swept up into Islam and other dark religions, being made to believe that Allah was the center of all life. We will talk more about this in later chapters. However, all religions have their roots in Culturalism – how we do life in a particular region.

What is Culturalism

Culturalism comes from the root word Culture. In the twentieth century, "culture" emerged as a concept central to anthropology, encompassing all human phenomena that are not purely results of human genetics. Specifically, the term "culture" in American anthropology had two meanings: (1) the evolved human capacity to classify and represent experiences with symbols, and to act imaginatively and creatively; and (2) the distinct ways that people living in different parts of the world classified and represented their experiences, and acted creatively. Following World War II, the term became important, albeit with different meanings, in other disciplines such as cultural studies, organizational psychology and management studies. For the context of this book, the meaning of the word culture is the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group. Culturalism: The process of binding individuals in a particular community or people group to an established set of behaviors, beliefs or experiences. It is the idea that individuals are determined by their culture. These cultures form closed, organic wholes, and the individual is unable to leave their own culture but can only realize themselves within it. The definition and characteristic of the word Culturalism is best expressed in the root for the word “Culture” which is the word “Cult.”

The Operation of the Cult that Produces Racism

The culture (a set of experiences producing certain beliefs) often produces the expression of man’s religion. The culture of westernized Christianity is different from the cultural setting of the expression of Christianity in the East (China, Japan, etc). The culture of Christianity in the 21st century is different from the culture during the birthing of Christianity in the 1st century. Whatever the culture of a people is, will in many cases produce the religious expression of the faith of that people. The Religious expression of Islam in the west is different from the religious expression of Islam in the middle and Far East because the culture is different. The culture of the religious expression that birthed Christianity was a Jewish culture shrouded in the feasts of the Lord, the keeping of the Sabbath, and the preparation for the overthrow of Roman domination and persecution by their coming Messiah. This is called the Culture of the Kingdom.

Many westernized Christians don’t understand fully the scriptures and the teachings of the Kingdom of God, because we were not raised in a Jewish-Kingdom Culture. We were raised in an American-democratic culture. The culture of the religious expression of Christianity today is an American culture shrouded in the principles of freedom, liberty, life and the pursuit of Happiness. The Culture of the African-American expression of Christianity is an American culture, albeit shrouded in different experiences of slavery, oppression, and discrimination. This makes the expression of African-American Christianity quite different from the expression of American Christianity. In any case culturalism and the spirit of religion is the basis of how we center our lives on what we believe about God, people and our surroundings.

I believe that these two spirits, the spirit of culturalism and the spirit of religion are the predominant spirits that hold Africans, African-Americans and the Diaspora world-wide, as well as all other races in the west in a segregated expression of Christianity, in a different type of slavery in our generation. The spirit of African, African-American culturalism and religion holds its attendants to either the spirit of Indigenous ancestral religions, or the spirit of Islam, or in African-American Christian denominationalism, as was the case with me and my Christian upbringing. The spirit of westernized American culturalism and religion holds its’ attendants to an Americanized gospel of resistance to suffering and affliction, which is in exact opposition to the gospel message given in the 1st century by Jesus and his Apostles.

These forms of religious expression all involve cultic like activities that focuses a great amount of energy on attempting to keep their attendants from going outside these religious groups or communities for any type of religious or racial interaction or fellowship. They usually forbid their attendants from going to any other church, community or race except the one they are from or the one they are over. Usually no one is right but them.

Or no one has the truth but them; no one is more anointed than them, no one is going to heaven but them, or no race is better than them, etc, etc. If you leave these churches, synagogues, mosques, communities, or races, at the least you are written off by the church, your family, friends or that particular people group, and in many extreme cases within certain people groups, races or radical religions, like the religion of Islam, your life could be in jeopardy. It is within this context and environment that racism towards other people groups were bred and flourished.

Culturalism and Religiosity - A Different Form of Relational Slavery of the Mind

Racism is usually an outgrowth of these two spirits, causing a different type of slavery. Racism is usually birthed out of a religious culture that breeds fear, intimidation, discrimination, prejudice and superiority of one people group, race or religion over another. Even in Christianity it is birthed out of a spirit in the church that misinterprets and misrepresents scripture to support its intimidating, controlling, racist mindsets to keep people in their closed societies. The same spirit that Church leaders operate under to keep their congregants from going to another church, or listening to another pastor, is the spirit behind racism – Because I’m who I am, I know best, I’m the most anointed, I’m the only one with the truth, etc, etc. Either way, these two spirits of religion and/or culturalism produces a different type of slavery of the mind and heart, which is a relational slavery.

It is a slavery to a mindset of either, a false sense of superiority and domination, or a false sense of inferiority and low self esteem that is produced by fear, intimidation, and control of one people group over another. This spirit fosters bitterness, hatred, and un-forgiveness towards others that keeps people from relating with one another in love, faith and hope. In extreme religious settings the spirit of religion and culturalism keeps you completely and totally from thinking for yourself. You are not allowed to do anything unless that leader says it’s okay or gives his permission.

The 21st Century Plantation: The Religious Church

Within the operation of a religious spirit the attendants are not encouraged to take the initiative to do anything unless they are told to do so, or it is sanctioned by the leader. It’s a hyper form of religious control that is bred through a misuse and abuse of the biblical doctrine of submission to authority. Though this doctrine is a legitimate doctrine in scripture, religious, controlling spirits within Christianity as well as the other major religions, misuse this doctrine to control and manipulate its people, and make the leader the know-all, be-all, do–no-wrong, everything that everyone’s world within that religious group is to revolve around. It is a form of religious slavery of the minds of the people along the same lines of the plantation “Massa” and his slaves of the middle ages. This was how the Masters controlled their slaves during the era of slavery in the middle ages.

Many plantation owners used the very scriptures of Jesus Christ to control and manipulate the slaves to keep them in voluntary bondage to their system of exploitation and domination. This type of religious spirit behind racism produces a psychological slavery that puts limitations on a person or people groups minds, holding them in shackles of inferiority to the ruling masses or persons against their will through manipulation, control, fear and intimidation. It keeps them in prescribed calculated boundaries that ultimately keep them from discovering and becoming who they were created to be, while never allowing them to leave a codependency on that leader or people group.

The Stronghold of a Religious Spirit

These two spiritual strongholds – The Spirit of Culturalism and a Religious spirit have kept many Africans, African Americans, and the Diaspora from God’s full expression of who they are and from what God has called them to do. The spirit of religion also deals with a prescribed way of worshipping God that is legislated, regulated and passed down from those above, or from previous experiences or from previous generations. This spirit can become a major hindrance or obstacle, keeping people from a true, authentic encounter with God. It can even become a stronghold, keeping a person or people group in unidentifiable chains, right outside of a true relational experience with the true and living God.

The Breaking of Cultural and Religious Strongholds

It is dangerous when we allow these religious and cultural expressions to bind us in a culture that locks us outside of what God wants to do in the earth in bringing the races together. We can only come into the fruition of God’s plan for our lives when we immerse ourselves in the diversity from the coming together with other races. In African-American Church presentations there’s a strong emphasis on our emotional expression of the gospel. We have less emphasis on the Word of God and more emphasis on experiencing God in our emotions.

A desire to experience God in our emotions, or feel God, is not wrong, it’s who we are. However, when we fail to appreciate God’s Word in our gospel presentation, we’ve allowed a cultural expression to bind us in African-American religious culturalism. When we fail to get any revelation from the sermons in our services and go home not knowing what the preacher preached about, we are trapped in religious culturalism. If we feel like we just “had church” or “had a good service,” but are not changed or pricked in our hearts, we’ve allowed a religious expression to bind us in African- American religious culturalism.

When we’ve been in church for five or ten years, yet still don’t know the difference between the four gospels and the Pentateuch (5 books of Moses), we are bound in religious culturalism. As we position ourselves for a transition into God’s house of prayer for all nations at the end of the age, we must realize that God doesn’t have a Black church or a White church, a Hispanic church, or an Asian Church, neither does God have a Jewish or Gentile Church. God only has one Church. It’s the Church of God which is called the House of Prayer for all nations (ethnicities). To read more...

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