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VOL IV  NO. 10  OCTOBER 2003

REV. ROBERT KELLEY

 


The White Man´s Religion - Part III

 

Rev. Robert Kelley is the founder and president of Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. and pastored the St. Mark Baptist Church of Portland, Oregon at the time this was published.

 

(Editor’s note: This is the conclusion of an article examining and rebuking the wrongly motivated bitterness many especially young black males have toward Christianity.)

 

In the wake of the “Great Awakenings” which began in the 18th century, the Lord poured forth of His Spirit in ever increasing potency in the 19th century causing dramatic conversions and spiritual revivals among believers in both Europe and America.  In this nation, while spiritual fervor rose for the eradication of slavery in the North, God also had slaves and their masters singing, dancing and shouting together in what were known as Camp Meeting Revivals in the South.

 

Southern Black folklore is filled with instances where God’s power fell supernaturally on many a earnestly seeking illiterate slave (and later, freedman) enabling them to read only the Bible, while men called to preach proclaimed words from the Bible they had never before laid eyes on! Of course, in His providence, since the general rule of American slavery was to keep slaves ignorant by not allowing them to read and write, God saw to it that some were taught to do so from the Bible by benevolent masters and the sympathetic family members of those that were wicked.

 

Aside from conversions and grand displays of His power, the Lord worked out other aspects of His good purposes involved in the miracle of Christianity among our slave forefathers.  In having to wait on the Lord for deliverance, many learned and exhibited what no overseer’s whip could ever genuinely produce: faithfulness, humility, character, godliness and perseverance.  These qualities bound up with hope are very evident in so many of the songs that make up the testimony of our Christian slave forefathers, even the many spirituals and work songs they left us.

 

Such outcomes are the stated hope of God expressed through the tears of the prophet Jeremiah as he lamented the enslavement of his people the Jews in 586 BC (Lamentations 3:21-42).  Truly, he would have us know the Lord does not forget about men under the yoke forever or from His heart afflict them to no good end.  The Lord is not on the side of any oppressor either.  In fact, neither the oppressor or the oppressed owe their circumstances to the will, power (or lack thereof) of men.  But the Most High God decrees His will and works His plans on the earth.

 

Therefore, even though He allows the grief of men, none should complain because it will always be less than what our sins deserve.  The right response is to search out and see our wicked ways, turn (or turn back) to the Lord bitterly confessing we deserve worse in our guilt and with our arms outstretched, appeal for His mercy which for 21 centuries He has richly supplied in the Person and work of His Son, Jesus Christ!  No doubt all of our bona fide Christian slave forefathers did this and so we, their progeny, are here to this day.

 

Indeed, for the next major move of the Lord in the 19th century was the setting of His captives free! This He accomplished through another wonder for the ages.  Who has ever heard of a nation dividing itself to fight over an enslaved people many on both sides felt were inferior?  Yet, this very thing happened in America as in the face of Southern obstinacy, the Civil War was fought leading to the freeing of our slave forefathers and according again to President Bush, (at least temporarily), the entire nation from moral hypocrisy:

 

By  a  plan known only to Providence, the stolen
sons  and daughters of Africa helped to awaken 
the  conscience  of  America.  The  very  people 
traded  into  slavery  helped  set  America  free.

In the 20th century the Lord honored the faithfulness of our Christian slave forefathers in many ways, but not the least of which were the Azusa Street Revival and the Civil Rights Movement.  In the former case, the Lord answered the earnest prayer of a son of former slaves, Elder William J. Seymour and extended to him the gift of speaking in unknown languages on April 9, 1906 in Los Angeles, California.  This launched the modern day Pentecostal Church Movement.5  In the latter case, the Lord used Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist preacher, to call our nation to live up to its moral and spiritual foundation and grant equal rights and treatment to blacks.

 

Finally, there is yet one last wonder for the ages; one final good purpose and work of the Lord in the experience of Christian African Americans who are born “from above” in relationship with Him and not of the will of men in religion.  What Satan meant for evil in our enslavement and continuing struggles, God will use for good to save many lives in the tribulation bearing down on the Church as He did with Joseph (Genesis 45:4-8, 50:15-21).  The sons of former slave owners will seek and find comfort in the sons of former slaves who are strong men of God in the image of Christ! 

 


4  2003 Goree Island, Senegal Speech, Breakpoint
5  Robert R. Owens, Speak To The Rock, (Lanham: University Press Of America, 1998), p.56-61.


 

©2003 Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc