Black Pastor Will Freak Out Libs, Tells the Non-PC Truth About "Racial Reconciliation"
Liberal social justice is centered on one premise: You should feel guilty and ashamed for things that you didn’t do.
If you earn $60,000 a year, you’re supposed to feel bad because others are only making $20,000, or so the left implies.
Of course, it isn’t your fault that they’re stuck in a dead-end job, and your salary wasn’t taken from the other person’s pocket… but liberals want you to pay in order to make amends for the “inequality,” and they’ll conveniently take a check, cash, or credit card to make things right, thank you very much.
It’s the same “game of guilt” for racial justice: If you’re white, you must feel guilty for the sins of slavery and the struggle for civil rights.
Never mind the fact that everybody from the Civil War era has long since turned to dust and your family might not have even come to America until a few decades ago — your skin color makes you culpable, and an entire system of political power depends on your remorse.
That pervasive culture of Marxist identity politics and social justice is found not just on the left, but within modern churches as well. A trend of guilt-based “reconciliation” services has recently spread through many churches with mixed congregations, and one outspoken pastor has had enough.
Reverend Sam Murrell is a priest and teacher at Little Rock Christian Academy in Arkansas. As a black pastor, he’s had a different vantage point on the “racial reconciliation” trend than the majority of Americans, and now he’s speaking out about why it’s the wrong path for the country.
“Years ago, I participated in my first ‘racial reconciliation’ worship service,” Rev. Murrell wrote in the Kuyperian Commentary, a theological journal.
“It was a well-integrated gathering of black and white folk. The service, while very moving, left me feeling very awkward as white strangers approached me to confess their racism toward me and ‘my kind,'” Murrell explained.
“(T)he issue was that the confessions came from people who had never done any wrong towards me in particular,” he continued.
“Over the years, I have come to a greater sense of clarity regarding my uneasiness with such event. Here, in no particular order, are the few reasons that I no longer take part in ‘racial reconciliation’ services.”
Reverend Murrell broke down his problems with racial reconciliation from a Christian perspective, but his viewpoint is also extremely insightful in a conservative political context.
“Too often, the premise of the worship service is that Whites are guilty because they are White,” he wrote.
“This is evident in the fact that the white people present at such events are expected, even pressured, to confess the sin of racism even if they cannot recall any specific instances of racist action that they have perpetrated.”
Commenting on a trend that is occurring in both Christianity and mainstream politics, the reverend took issue with black individuals being elevated as some sort of avatars of atonement, ceremonial victims of century-old sins that no living American witnessed.
“The black person stands as representative of the innocent victim of so-called racism and thus serves a priestly role for the white confessor who is guilty because of a lack of melanin in the epidermis. The white person’s pigmentation carries with it a privilege, and that is enough to require repentance.”
Whether in the church or national politics, there’s a growing social justice view that minority status equals nobility and artificial victimhood earns points — but Murrell is having none of it.
“Many blacks have been sold the lie that their identity as an oppressed minority renders them exempt from being found guilty of tribalism,” he declared. “No ethnic group has the market cornered on any particular sin.”
The reverend explained that this race-as-victimhood paradigm was being used to silence people who have done nothing wrong, and — ironically — make people less equal.
“(T)he word ‘privilege’ is employed by the offended group as a weapon against the other. Once someone is labeled as ‘privileged’ he is supposed to realize his rightful place in the ‘race’ conversation is as the silent observer whose liberty to speak has been revoked.”
“The accused and the accuser are no longer equals,” the reverend pointed out.
Instead of perpetuating a cycle of race-based guilt and assuagement, Reverend Murrell proposed a novel idea: Treat people as individuals.
“The call of the Church is to love one another,” he reminded readers. “This means that I must deal with you personally when you sin against me personally.”
“I cannot hold you accountable for sins committed by past generations, nor can I regard you as a pariah because I perceive that God has blessed you differently than He has me,” he explained.
It’s a remarkably conservative worldview, and one that reflects the famous dream of Martin Luther King Jr: Stop seeing everything through the lens of skin color, and start interacting with our brothers based on their individual actions and character.
Simply calling on people to stop playing reconciliation games and to end the obsession with race shouldn’t be that controversial, but speaking the truth has become rare.
In an era where America seems to be lost in a wasteland of social justice, Reverend Sam Murrell’s voice is a welcome oasis of clarity and reason.
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