Racial Justice: A Black Perspective (1964)

Second of five panel talks on the topic
by Ruth Lewis

Warren Webster: Racial Justice a white perspective
Ruth Lewis: Racial Justice a black perspective
Clyde Taylor: Togetherness
Ruben Lores: Social Justice
Vernon Grounds: Religious Climate

The Christian who says, "Our ministry is to preach the gospel and not be involved in social issues," thereby gives tacit if not overt approval to the Negro's oppression. And make no mistake about it, segregation is oppressive - it's destructive of human dignity both for the oppressed and the oppressor.

Seeking to establish a vital witness for Jesus Christ among Negro students is not an easy task; it is complicated by various factors. I shall mention only two barriers which affect this ministry, both involving the racial situation and both from the religious viewpoint.

First, in Negro church life in general, social justice has often been preached to the exclusion of other basic matters. To many students, integration seemed to be their religion. Sin was prejudice and discrimination. Of course that was the standard of teaching for the white man, and not for themselves. Hence they would ignore pockets of prejudice and unlove existing in their own lives. There was and is little scriptural exposition or sound Bible teaching in Negro churches such as we heard this morning from Rev. Stott. So the Negro is susceptible to cultic and crackpot teaching. There is little real evangelism in Negro churches to bring people into vital relationship with the Lord. This lack of evangelical background makes it difficult to establish and maintain a witness for Christ on the Negro college campus.

Then the Negro revolution caught fire and the long smouldering desire to be free burst into flame and would not be denied. Most educated Negroes are committed to the goals of the civil rights revolution, if not always to the means that are used. Any message of life and freedom in Jesus Christ has to take cognizance of this natural and I believe proper, desire to be treated as persons of dignity and worth and value to God.

A real help in this type of witness has taken place on the integrated Inter-Varsity campuses (where these were possible in the South), where Negro students were able to interact with white students on an equal basis and had the feeling of being genuinely loved.

A second barrier to an effective witness has been the way white Christians have clung to the status quo. Mr. Webster has already gone into this, but I would like to mention how this has affected work with Negro students in the South. The Christian who says, "Our ministry is to preach the gospel and not be involved in social issues," thereby gives tacit if not overt approval to the Negro's oppression. And make no mistake about it, segregation is oppressive - it's destructive of human dignity both for the oppressed and the oppressor. You would have to read Lillian Smith's Killers of the Dream to get a flavor of how this affects the lives of people who are segregated or who segregate.

There were also Christians who said, "Righteousness can't be legislated; a man's heart must be changed." Granted. But I believe that the civil rights law freed whites to do what they would have liked, but lacked the courage to do - people who were not necessarily hostile to Negroes, merely conformists. This has been borne out in my experience at the University of Alabama, where administration, faculty, and most students are courteous and friendly. It is now safe for them to be so, though many of them have gone beyond the call of civil courtesy. In fact, one, recent action by a particular group there would put some evangelicals to shame.

But the prejudice and discrimination among supposedly Christian people have given white Christians the smell of hypocrisy to many Negroes, and have made them skeptical of the white man's religion. One vivid illustration comes to mind: the incongruity of an African student who was given full financial support to study here in the U.S. by a church in the South, who had been converted by that church's missionary in Nigeria, but who was barred from visiting that church for several months after his arrival. That experience left scars that have yet to be healed.

Witness also the shamefulness of Negroes being thrown into jail for attempting to enter a white sanctuary - the terminology is incongruous - to worship, some perhaps to really hear the gospel for the first time; they were turned away. The leader of one evangelical school admitted that their work among Negroes would remain ineffectual until their doors were open to Negro students. This was recently done.

The Church then, instead of being the instrument of change, has often been the object of change - made to conform to the patterns of segregation and society; thermometers registering the societal temperature rather than regulating thermostats. I believe Dr. Billy Graham's recent statement is apropos here. He said, "We as evangelicals are going to have to give an accounting to God of our stand in the racial crisis. We should have been leading the way to racial justice, but we failed. Let's confess it, and let's admit it, and let's do something about it."*

* Dr. Billy Graham speaking to the Convention of the National Association of Evangelicals, Spring 1964, quoted by Robert E. Nicholas, "This Long Hot Season," The Presbyterian Guardian, July-August, 1964, p. 95

Though the Church has lagged behind miserably, she still has a second chance. There's a gigantic job left to be done. Unparalleled changes have taken place in the last decade, and even in the last year, brought about by Supreme Court decisions, civil rights resolutions, civil rights laws, and the efforts of concerned people. Segregation really is largely dead, and in Dr. Emile King's descriptive phrase, it remains to be seen how costly the funeral is going to be.

The Church - you as Christian students - can help. It's not enough for us to curse the darkness if we're not willing to light a candle. Missions needs educated Negroes for the increasing doors of influence that are opening. Yet the present witness among Negro students is very small, and few Negroes attend Christian colleges where they can get the biblical background that they often fail to get in their own churches.

I believe a major responsibility rests with Inter-Varsity. Inter-Varsity students have been noted for their willingness to accept people with whom they disagree on minor points. You can help by approaching Negroes, not as Negroes or as people who propose an idea with which you disagree, but as people with a need to be loved and understood. A Negro with love to Jesus Christ, an IV student in a northern university as she is now engaged with her husband in a fine missionary endeavor in the south. ... This love and the ability to. identify with other people different from ourselves must come from the Lord Jesus.

In my own experience, I don't regard it a facetious thing to say that I have helped to integrate the University of Alabama. But I have an increasing awareness that by the grace of God, I must win my classmates for Jesus Christ. The gospel of Jesus Christ is revolutionary, and it is past time for us to be actively involved in the issues in our society where Christ's gospel can effect a change.

Racial Justice: A Black Perspective (1964)

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December 27-31, 2009