This is the sermon that Bob Jones University doesn’t want you to see, that’s not available in any library anywhere, and yet that was the official and widely-publicized “position paper” on race for Bob Jones University from 1960 until at least 1986. They sent it out in pamphlet form to their constituency to defend their racism and sold it in their campus bookstore.
It fills in the gaps in Bob Jones III’s nonsensical defense of BJU’s racism on Larry King in 2000. It proves the inadequacy of the new administration’s “statement of regret” in 2008 (Newest iteration: “Statement About Race“). And it should put to rest several myths about Bob Jones Sr. and BJU in general. This one was most recently rehearsed: after 1938, Bob Jones stayed out of politics since he advised Billy Graham to do the same. If “younger evangelicals” really need to be informed about fundamentalism in the early twentieth-century, let’s give them the whole truth. And this is a big part of it. This is Bob Jones Sr.’s politics/religion in 1960. This is standard fare in Klandamentalism.
You can see the original printed format here. I am reproducing the entire text here so that google will pick it up for anyone researching. Do remember, however, to properly cite any references to this transcription. The story of my discovering and documenting this text is available in this peer-reviewed academic journal, Carolina Communication Annual. This archival document has been used without proper citation even nationally on Samantha Bee’s Full Frontal.
UPDATE: Bob Jones Sr. preached this sermon on Easter Sunday morning. Yes, you read that right. THIS is his Easter message. By placement alone, one might think that this is his gospel, but I’m just not quite ready to swallow that one yet. He was reacting to Billy Graham’s recent trip to Africa where he held integrated meetings and spoke out against apartheid. On that Good Friday, Billy Graham released a statement urging Southern clergy toward racial reconciliation. And so the next day, on our Holiest of Days, Bob Jones Sr. spews this:
Is Segregation Scriptural?
by Dr. Bob Jones, Sr.
Founder
Bob Jones University
Greenville, South CarolinaIs Segregation Scriptural?
Address given over
Radio Station WMUU,
Bob Jones University,
Greenville, South Carolina,Easter Sunday
April 17, 1960(This address was mechanically recorded and has not been edited.)
My friends, I am going to bring you today one of the most important and most remotely messages I have ever brought. I hope you will sit close to the radio. Do not let anything disturb you. I want you to hear this message through.
Now, we folks at Bob Jones University believe that whatever the Bible says is so, and we believe it says certain fundamental things that all Bible-believing Christians accept; but when the Bible speaks clearly about any subject, that settles it. Men do not always agree, because some people are dumb–some people are spiritually dumb; but when the Bible is clear, there is not any reason why everybody should not accept it.
The Bible makes some things plain. It makes it plain how to be saved. We are saved by grace through faith in the atoning blood of Christ. The Bible makes it plain that man is naturally a sinner and that he has to become supernaturally a Christian–born again.
All orthodox, Bible-believing Christians agree on one thing; and that is, that whatever the Bible says is so. When they had old religious debates, they used to get together and say, ‘Well, we will discuss this subject.’ One man would say, ‘The Bible says this,’ and another man would say, ‘You are mistaken. It says this.’ They argued about what the Bible said. They agreed that whatever it said was so, but they argued about what it said.
In recent years there has been a subtle, Satanic effort to undermined people’s faith in the Bible; and the devil has led the race along until men have put their own opinion above the Word of God. You will find that practically all the troubles we are having today have come out of the fact that men in many instances have ceased to believe in an authoritative Bible.
For instance, we are living in the midst of race turmoil all over the world today. Look at what they are facing in Africa, and look at what we are facing in this country. It is all contrary to Scripture–it is all contrary to the Word of God. I am going to show you that the Bible is perfectly clear on races–just as clear as it can be.
People come along and say, “Well, God is the Father of everybody.” No, He is not. God is the Father of born-again people. The Bible says this as clearly as it can be put in language. We are children of God by faith in Jesus Christ
There is no trouble between a born-again white man and a born-again colored man or a born-again Chinese or a born-again Japanese. Born-again, Bible-believing Christians do not have trouble. They may not understand some things; but when we give them the Word of God for it, they see it and understand it.
You know, we have gotten away from the Bible. Modern education came along and put the opinion of man above the Word of God, and man has come along and tried to give us an explanation. All you have to do is live up to the Word of God, and you will have no trouble about knowing how to meet life’s problems.
What does God teach about the races of the world? If you will go to the seventeenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, you will find where Paul preached a special sermon on Mars Hill. Remember now, Athens was the center of culture. There are still fragments of the Athenian culture today in the museums over there; and you can walk around among the crumbled ruins. Paul was there. Paul was chosen of God (he was a Jew) to be the great apostle to the Gentiles. I think the greatest man who ever lived was Paul–I mean I think he was greater than Moses and greater than any other man who lived. Of course, I am not talking about the Lord Jesus Christ Who was God-Man. But to my mind, no other mere human ever reached the height of greatness that Paul reached. He was honored as God never honored any other man. He suffered as few men have ever had to suffer. He was misunderstood; but, oh, what a man he was.
Paul tells us in his sermon on Mars Hill, “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heave and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands.” Now, the statue of the Grecian goddess, Athena, was in the Parthenon; and Paul said that God did dwell in buildings made with hands. “Neither is worshiped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things.”
Now, notice–this is an important verse–the twenty-sixth verse of the seventeenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth” (in some of the best original manuscripts, the word “blood” is not there, but it is not important anyhow, because the thoughts are the same). “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth. . . .” But do not stop there, “. . . and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.” Now, what does that say? That says that God Almighty fixed the bounds of their habitation. That is as clear as anything that was ever said.
If you have a legal document and there is a paragraph that is clear and you come across an obscure passage, you interpret the obscure passage in the light of the clear passage. Any lawyer will tell you that. If he has a case in court, he will say, “Now, gentlemen of the jury, here is what this paragraph says. This one paragraph is not quite clear, but this other paragraph is clear; and we will interpret this in the light of the clear passage.”
God Almighty did not make of the human race one race in the sense that He did not fix the bounds of their habitation. That is perfectly clear. It is no accident that most Chinese are in China. There has been an overflow in the world, but most Chinese live in China. There are millions and millions of them there, and there are no greater people in the world. I have never known lovelier and more wonderful people than the Chinese.
We were over in Formosa a few years ago and conferred an honorary degree on Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and I never met a greater man. I never met a man of more intelligence or a more wonderful Christian; and Madame Chiang Kai-shek is a wonderful woman. There they are. Now, what happened? They married each other. She was a Christian Chinese woman educated in America. When she finished her education, she went back to her home in China. How God has used Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek–not only as Christian witnesses but also in other ways. I was never with a man who pulled me to him with stronger ties than Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek when I was over there and conferred an honorary degree on him. All right, he is a Chinese. He married a Chinese woman. That is the way God meant it to be.
Paul said that God ” . . . hath made of one blood all nations of men . . . .” But He also fixed the bounds of their habitation. When nations break out of their boundaries and begin to do things contrary to the purpose of God and the directive will of God, they have trouble. The world is in turmoil today because men and nations go contrary to the clear teaching of the Word of God. Let’s understand that. The Chinese people are wonderful people. THey have internal troubles, of course, because Communism has gone into China and disturbed a great deal of the population. But the Chinese people are wonderful people. The Japanese people are ingenious–they are wonderful people. The Koreans are wonderful people. The Africans are wonderful people. In many ways, there are no people in the world finer than the colored people who were brought over here in slavery in days gone by.
You talk about a superior race and an inferior race and all that kind of situation. Wait a minute. No race is inferior in the will of God. Get that clear. If a race is in the will of God, it is not inferior. It is a superior race. You cannot be superior to another race if your race is in the will of God and the other race is in the will of God. But the purposes of these races were established by Almighty God; and when man attempts to run contrary to the directive will of God for this world, there is always trouble. Now, that is the trouble.
What happened? Well, away back yonder our forefathers went over to Africa and brought the colored people back and sold them into slavery. That was wrong. But God overruled. When they came over here, many of them did not know the Bible and did not know about Jesus Christ; but they got converted. Some of the greatest preachers the world has ever known were colored preachers who were converted in slavery days. John Jasper was one of them. One of the greatest preachers who ever stood before an American audience was John Jasper. And Same Jones, years ago down in Georgia, told us about an old, colored preacher down there. He said, “There is no man who ever stood on two legs who could preach like him.”
God Almighty allowed these colored people to be turned here into the South and overruled what happened, and then He turned the colored people in the South into wonderful Christian people. For many years we have lived together. Occasionally there will be a flare-up. But the white people have helped the colored people build their churches, and we have gotten along together harmoniously and peacefully; and everything has come along fine. Sometimes we have a little trouble, but then we adjust everything sensibly and get back to the established order. But the good white folks have always stood by their good colored friends, and the good colored folks have always stood by their good white friends. No two races ever lived as close together as the white people and the colored people here in the South and got along so well.
Now, what is the matter? There is an effort today to disturb the established order. Wait a minute. Listen, I am talking straight to you. White folks and colored folks, you listen to me. You cannot run over God’s plan and God’s established order without having trouble. God never meant to have one race. It was not His purpose at all. God has a purpose for each race. God Almighty may have overruled and permitted the slaves to come over to America so that the colored people could be the great missionaries to the Africans. They could have been. The white people in America would have helped pay their way over there. But the hundred and hundred they could have gone back to Africa and got the Africans converted after the slavery days were over.
All right, now what is happening? Down in Africa there is trouble and turmoil. There is racial disturbance all over the world, and it is not of God. The Bible is clear on this. When people come along and say, “Well, God is the Father of everybody,” they are wrong. He is not the Father of everybody. That is not in the Bible. That is a Satanic lie. Let me repeat, the Bible says as clearly as language can put it that people are children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. We are children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. That is what the Bible says. Let’s take the Word of God and quit slandering the Word of God. We are children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. A born-again white man and a born-again colored man can settle any differences they have. God is their Father. They are children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. A born-again white man and a born-again colored man can settle any differences they have. God is their Father. They are children of God by faith in Jesus Christ.
Individually, Christian people in the South–white and black–through the years have been able to work together and to understand each other. But now a world of outside agitation has been started, and people are coming in the name of piety, but it is a false piety, and are endeavoring to disturb God’s established order; and we are having turmoil all over America. This disturbing movement is not of God. It is not in line with the Bible. It is Satanic. Now, listen and understand this. Do not let people lead you astray.
“Well,” you say, “The colored folks have not been treated right.” I agree with you. Neither have the poor white people been treated right. When I was a boy in Southeast Alabama, we lived in what was called the white section of the State. there were not many colored people there. The slaves were in the western part and in the midsection of the State. Down in Southeast Alabama there were some slaves but not many; but they had the reconstruction days–hard days–and the time came along when people were having a hard time. Some white folks were not treated right. They paid 20 per cent interest on money. They were oppressed by people who had money. The colored people down in my country were treated just as well as the white people by businessmen. Any man who would mistreat a colored man would mistreat a white man. If he is mean enough to mistreat one man, he is mean enough to mistreat another.
You can go to any city in the country and find the poor people living in a certain section there. I do not say that things are right. But things are not going to be made right by trying to overthrow God’s established order. That is not the way to make things right. You cannot make them right that way. The colored people in the South today are better off than they are anywhere else in the world. The situation is not a perfect situation for the white folks or the colored folks or for anybody else; but we have never had a perfect situation in this world since Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden.
I want you folks to listen–you white and you colored folks. Do not let these Satanic propagandists fool you. This agitation is not of God. It is of the devil. Do not let people slander God Almighty. God made it plain. God meant for Christian people to treat each other right. If you are a Christian white person or a Christian colored person, you will treat each other right. We Christians are children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. We are one in Christ; but let us remember that the God Who made of one blood all nations also fixed the boundaries of their habitations.
Yes, Paul said, “God . . . hath made of one blood all nations of men . . . . ” All men, to whatever race they may belong, have immortal souls; but all men have mortal bodies, and God fixed the boundaries of the races of the world. Let me repeat that it is no accident that most of the Chinese live in China. It is not an accident that most Japanese live in Japan; and the Africans should have been left in Africa, and the Gospel should have been take to them as God commanded His people to do.
Wherever we have the races mixed up in large numbers, we have trouble. They have trouble in New York. They have trouble in San Francisco. They have had trouble all over California. Back in the old days when I was a young fellow, Captain Richmond Pearson Hobson went up and down this country and lectured on the “yellow peril” and told us we were owing to have trouble with Japan. He said there would be a war with Japan someday. People said, “Oh, well, he is crazy.” Other leaders went over this country and lectured on the “yellow peril” and the dangers we were facing. Remember, we did have a war with Japan.
The best friends we have in many ways are in the Orient. There are millions of Chinese over there. Dr. Grace Haight, who used to be on our faculty and who was a missionary to China, told us that the Chinese were the best people in the world. Let me tell you something. When it comes to quality of races, all these races have quality. They have good qualities and bad qualities.
If we would just listen to the Word of God and not try to overthrow God’s established order, we would not have any trouble. God never meant for America to be a melting pot to rub out the line between the nations. That was not God’s purpose for this nation. When someone goes to overthrowing His established order and goes around preaching pious sermons about it, that makes me sick–for a man to stand up and preach pious sermons in this country and talk about rubbing out the line between the races–I say it makes me sick. I have had the sweetest fellowship with colored Christians, with yellow Christians, with red Christians, with all sorts of Christians–the sweetest fellowship anybody has ever had, we have had. Christians have always had it. We have never had any trouble about that.
The trouble today is a Satanic agitation striking back at God’s established order. That is what is making trouble for us. Of course, it is easy to look back over the years and see the situation from another standpoint; but when the folks up North went to Africa and brought the slaves over to this country and sold them to the Southern people, the Southern people should have been Christian enough to have said, “We will not have any slaves. We are not going ahead.” But, you know, they went ahead.
Only a small percentage of the Southern people held slaves. Only a small percentage of them were slave owners. A great many people in the South in the old days did not believe in slavery–they stood against slavery. But they went ahead, and the commercial element was dominant; and people bought slaves and sold them. This slavery was not right. It should not have been. What we should have done was to have sent missionaries to Africa. Yes, that is what we should have done. That would have been in line with Scripture.
God put the Africans over there. They are fine people. They are intelligent people. Do not think they are inferior in every way. It is not so. But we should have sent missionaries over there, and Africa should have been a great nation of colored Christians. If we had done what God had told us to do and sent the Gospel to them and made a Christian nation out of them instead of bringing them over here and selling them into slavery, Africa could have been a great nation of colored Christians. What we did was wrong. It was not right. It cannot be justified. We should not try to justify it. But people went along. Some good people fell for it and went ahead with it; and God overruled it.
I will venture there is not a population in the world where there is a larger percentage of professing Christians than among the colored people in the South. We Christian white people all have good friends among the colored people. The colored Christian people are sensing the dangers we are facing now. There is already an uprising among good, Christian colored people in the South. They are trying to fight back the subtle, Satanic disturbance we have in this country.
There has never been a time, especially int he last ten years, when the white people in the South were so eager to help the colored people build their schools and see that they get what they ought to have. All this agitation going on is not headed up by real, Bible-believing, Christian people.
These religious liberals are the worst infidels in many ways in the country; and some of them are filling pulpits down South. They do not believe the Bible any longer; so it does not do any good to quote it to them. They have gone over to modernism, and they are leading the white people astray at the same time; and they are leading colored Christians astray. But every good, substantial, Bible-believing, intelligent, orthodox Christian can read the Word of God and know that what is happening in the South now is not of God.
God gave every race something. He gave the Africans something. He gave the Chinese something that he did not give the Japanese. He gave races certain things. He chose the Jews. They are the most wonderful people who ever lived in the world. God chose them; and God segregated them, not because they were inferior but because He had a purpose for that race.
God Almighty had a purpose for the Jewish race; and for that purpose to be carried out, He had to separated them from among the nations of the earth. God chose Israel; and through the loins of Israel, He brought us the Messiah. He gave us the Bible through Israel. The Jews have outlived all the nations. They have been scattered over the face of the earth, and they have kept their racial identity through the years. You will find the Jew in London, the Jew in New York, the Jew in San Francisco, the Jew in Tokyo, the Jew in Hong Kong. I congratulate them. I am a friend of the Jew. I believe that the Covenant that God made with Abraham holds good until this day, “I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee. . . .”
The Jews are back in Palestine with a Government today. God scattered them, but He brought them back to their homeland. I am for them, and I am for their homeland and for their Government. I do not agree with them about Jesus. I know Jesus Christ was the Son of God; and I know that when Jesus Christ comes back again, He will be the King of the Jews and will be accepted and a nation will be born in a day. and Jerusalem will be the capital of the world. That is all in the Bible. It is clear as day.
Yes, God chose the Jews. If you are against segregation and against racial separation, then you are against God Almighty because He made racial separation in order to preserve the race through whom He could send the Messiah and through whom He could send the Bible. God is the author of segregation. God is the author of Jewish separation and Gentile separation and Japanese separation. God made of one blood all nations, but He also drew the boundary lines between races.
Of course, in America we do not have a serious problem with the Orient. If we had as many Chinese and Japanese as we have colored people in the South, we would run into the same problem; but we have no Oriental problem here in the South.
Some of the most wonderful people in the world are Chinese and some are Japanese; and some of the most wonderful people who ever breathed the breath of life are colored people. Every one of you white folks who are listening to me now have colored friends. I have, and I would fight for them; and you would, too. It has always been that way. Individually, we are friends. Racially, we are not at enmity; but we are separate races. We have lived here in the South through these years.
After the Civil War the colored people wanted to build their schools and churches, and white friends made financial contribution to the building of these schools and churches. Back in those days it was not easy when the white folks were paying most of the taxes–don’t you colored friends forget that when you are inclined to turn away from your white friends. You colored people might also remember that your ancestry in the South who were slaves breathed an atmosphere of culture back in those pre-Civil War days. Think of what your ancestors received in such an atmosphere. Think of the religion that they learned and how they found God in slavery days. Think of those old white preachers who preached to your colored ancestors when they were slaves.
Now listen, the time has come when we ought to sit down and go to thinking some things through in this country. And you colored people listening to me and you white people listening to me ought to keep your heads cool and your minds clear and your hearts warm and keep up these friendly relations we have had through the years. Do not let this outside, Communistic, Hellish influence disturb the friendly relation we have had in the South. The situation in the South had been better in recent years than it had ever been; and all of this agitation is going to set this country back in the South for twenty-five to fifty years. We are headed that way. We ought to rise up and begin to face this thing like we ought to face it as neighbors and fiends. Every one of you colored people know your white friends. All you white people know your colored friends. We have some of the them, and we would not let anybody mistreat them if we could help it; and they would not let anybody mistreat us. It has always been that way in the South.
But racially we have separation in the Bible. Let’s get that clear. Any race has a right to come to America. We do not mean that when we came over here we wiped out the line between races. We did not do that. We should have let the Africans stay in Africa instead of bringing them here for slaves, but did you colored people ever stop to think where you might have been if that had not happened? Now, you colored people listen to me. If you had not been brought over here and if your grandparents in slavery days had not heard that great preaching you might not even be a Christian. You might be over there in the jungles of Africa today, unsaved. But you are here in America where you have your own schools and your own churches and your own liberties and your own rights, with certain restrictions that God Almighty put about you–restrictions that are in line with the Word of God. The Jews have lived a separated race. they have been separated from the other races of the world. They have been miraculously preserved. Now they have a homeland. They are back there today, and what a wonderful thing is happening.
The time has come when we good folks down here in the South–the good colored people and the good white people–need to use our heads. We should not let this outside agitation disturb us down here. Now, listen just a minute. You colored people are entitled to good schools. You ought to have them. I would like for you to remember something. Just remember that the South went through reconstruction and had a hard time. It was not easy. Then remember something else, too. When your ancestors were slaves in the homes of these Southern people, they got a breath of culture that they could not have gotten even in the schoolrooms of America. They heard the old-time preachers. I have said many times that the greatest preachers who have lived since the Apostolic days were the preachers of the South–the preachers who preached to the colored people. And back there the slaves had the Gospel. They heard it and were converted. They were saved.
Many of these slave owners were godly, spiritual people. I remember hearing about when John Jasper was converted at a corn husking and began to shout. His master said, “John, what is the matter?” He said, “I have just been converted–been saved.” “Well,” he said, “I am a Christian, too. We are brothers.” They shook hands. He said, “Now, John, you take a day off and go around and tell all the colored folks how you found the Lord. Take a day off and tell them.”
Back in the old days when I began to preach, over sixty years ago, nearly every church I went to had a few old colored people who never did leave. They said, “We want to stay here. We got converted here and want to stay here.” They were encouraged, and the white people helped build their churches. They stood by them through the years.
Now, you intelligent-thinking colored people know that you are with your friends. Do not lose your friends. You friends are not somewhere else. They are right down here in this country. Remember that now.
I have no axe to grind. I would like to tell you something. We had planned to build a school, just like Bob Jones University, here in the South for colored people. We wanted to build it. But we have run into this agitation now that makes it difficult, and the years are piling up. I do not suppose I will ever be able to build it. We wanted to build a great school where colored people could come and get all the culture that we offer here at Bob Jones University. We would not have face the problems that are face where there is integration. We wanted to build a place where Christian colored people could get their education in an atmosphere where their talents in music and speech and art and all could be preserved and handed down. We wanted to build that kind of a school. We had that in mind until all this agitation started. Now we have a mess on our hands, and it is spreading out over this country.
You white folks listen to me. Just remember the good, old, colored friends you had in the days gone by. I remember mine. I remember that old, colored woman who was with my wife’s grandmother when she died. She used to be a nurse in the home way back in slavery days. I remember how my wife’s grandmother said the happiest day she ever saw was when the slaves were freed. She owned hundreds of them, and she said, “I was so happy. I was afraid some of them would be lost, and I felt that God might hold me accountable.” That spirit represented the Old South.
You say slavery was not right. Well, I say it was not right. I say the colored people should have been left over in Africa, and we should have sent missionaries over there and got them converted. That is what we should have done. But we could not have converted them as fast that way; and God makes the wrath of men to praise Him. They were brought over here, and look what they have. They have their churches. They have a freedom here they do not have anywhere else in the world. They have an understanding here. Let’s not wipe out the line of understanding.
Now, I am appealing to you colored people and to you white people. Let’s use our heads. Let’s be intelligent. Let’s not try to kick the Bible off the center table. Keep your Bible where it belongs. When they tell you that God Almighty is not the author of the boundaries of nations, you tell them that is wrong. You tell them it is perfectly clear in the Bible that God made of one blood all nations but that He also fixed the bounds of their habitation. There is nothing unscriptural about that.
Listen just a minute. We are trying to bring a few people from other lands here to Bob Jones University so we can educate them and help them. We have two Chinese gentlemen teaching here in this school. They are Christian men. They are intelligent men, and they understand what we are doing. They know where we are going. We honor and respect them.
There is no problem here. But it could be a problem. It could be a problem in California. It could be a problem anywhere. Whenever you get a situation that rubs out the line that God has drawn between races, whenever that happens, you are going to have trouble. That is what is happening today in this country. All this agitation is a Communistic agitation to overthrow the established order of God in this world. The Communistic influence is at work all about us. Certain people are disturbing this situation. They talk about the fact that we are going to have one world. We will never really have one world until this world heads up in God. We are not going to have one world by man’s rubbing out the line that God has established. He is marking the lines, and you cannot rub them out and get away with it.
The established order cannot be overthrown without having trouble. That is what wrecked Paradise. God set up the order of Paradise. He told Adam and Eve how to live and what food to eat and what not to eat. He drew the lines around that Garden; and when Adam and Eve crossed over the lines of God, thorns grew on roses. The first baby that was born was a murderer and killed his own brother. So it has gone down through the ages. It is man’s rebellion (due to the fall) against a Holy God to overthrow the established order of God in this world.
Now I can sit down with any Christian Japanese, and Christian Chinese, and Christian African, etc., anywhere in the world and as a Christian have fellowships. That is a different relationship. A Christian relationship does not mean a marriage relationship. You can be a Christian and have fellowship with people that you would not marry and that God does not want you to marry and that if you should marry you would be marrying outside the will of God. Why can’t you see that? Why can’t good, solid, substantial people who do not have any prejudices and do not have any hatred and do not have any bitterness see this? Let’s approach this thing in a Christian way. Let’s make the battle a Christian battle. Do not let people run over you by coming along and talking about the Universal Fatherhood of God and the Universal Brotherhood of man. There is no Universal Fatherhood of God and Universal Brotherhood of man. There is not a word about that in the Bible.
We have three classes in the Bible. We have the Jew (a segregated race), the Gentile (and this includes everybody else), and the Church of God (meaning the Body of Christ, as it is used here). In the Church of God there are no Jews, no Gentiles, no white folks, no black folks. We are one in Christ. There is no trouble between a colored Christian and a white Christian. They operate as individuals and deal with each other as Christians who have their citizenship in Heaven. Up in Heaven there will be no boundaries. We will be one forever with Christ. But we are not one down here, as far as race is concerned and as far as nations are concerned. God said so, and Paul made it clear when he preached at Athens in the midst of Athenian culture. He said that God “. . . hath made of one blood all nations of men. . . .” But God has also done something else. He has fixed the bounds of their habitations.
A lot of this agitation comes from evangelists of a certain type who have never gone into this situation but who are going up and down rubbing out the line between those who believe the Bible is the Word of God an those who believe the Bible just contains or may contain the Word of God. They do not get all of this “hot-air” stuff out of the Bible. It is not in the Bible. It is nothing in the world, but “hot-air” glamour with a sentimental, soap-bubble, anemic kind of religion that is not in the Word of God.
I have been in this business all these years. I know something about it. I know what the Word of God teaches. I know what the great evangelists believed. I know how they stood through the years. We are facing serious dangers today–more serious than we can ever imagine. May God help us to see it and understand it and to be true to Him.
When you run into conflict with God’s established order racially, you have trouble. You do not produce harmony. You produce destruction and trouble, and this nation is in the greatest danger it has ever been in in its history. We are facing dangers from abroad and dangers at home, and the reason is that we have got away from the Bible of our forefathers. The best Christians who ever put foot on this earth since the Apostolic days were the men and women in America back in the old days. Some of them owned slaves, and some of them did not; and some of them were slaves, and some of them were not. Back in those days they believed the Bible, and God called this nation into existence to be a witness to the world and to be true to the Word of God. Do not let these religious liberals blowing their bubbles of nothing over your head get you upset and disturbed. Let’s get back to the Word of God and be sensible.
You white folks and you black folks listening to me this morning, if you are Christians, we are one in Christ. If you are yellow or red or whoever you are, if you are Christians, we are one in Christ. We can get along together as Christians, and we had better stand together as Christians.
You preachers, listen to me. I know what is going on. We are facing dangers in America. Enemies are being made now that are dividing this country as it has never been divided in its history. We are facing the greatest dangers we have ever faced, and the religious liberals are riding in now on the crest of a wave of what seems to be popular.
If you are a Christian, you are not going to mistreat anybody. You will not mistreat a colored man or a white man or anybody else. Individually, we are one in Christ; but God has also fixed the boundaries of nations, and these lines cannot be rubbed out without having trouble. The darkest day the world has ever known will be when we have one world like they are talking about now. The line will be rubbed out, and the Antichrist will take over and sit down on the throne and rule the world for a little while; and there will be judgement and the cataclysmic curses found in the book of Revelation. We are going to face all this. May God help us to see it and to be true and faithful to Him.
Our heavenly Father, bless our country. We thank Thee for our ancestors. We thank Thee for the good, Christian people–white and black. We thank Thee for the ties that have bound these Christian white people and Christian colored people together through the years, and we thank Thee that white people who had a little more money helped them build their churches and stood by them and when they got sick, they helped them. No nation has ever prospered or been blessed like the colored people in the South. Help these colored Christian not to get swept away by all the propaganda that is being put out now. Help us to see this thing and to understand God’s established order and to be one in Christ and to understand that God has fixed the boundaries of the nations so we would not have trouble and misunderstanding. Keep us by Thy power and use us for Thy glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
This post was originally published on May 12, 2011
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129 thoughts on ““Is Segregation Scriptural?” by Bob Jones Sr, 1960”
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What a shame and disgrace.
I’ve read most of the comments and they seem to support that this is shocking.
Yet I’m sure you all consider yourselves good Christian people.
Obviously from looking at our world today it should be clear that we have forsaken the truths of God Word on this matter as well as the deceptive jew who is behind all of this ungodly race mixing as at The Tower of Babel.
Didn’t Christ call the jews the Sons of Satan. The Synogue of Satan !
Multiculturalism is an Obamanation ( ha ha )unto the Lord.
Repent.
Amen!You hit it right on!Thank God!Someone else who knows the TRUE TRUTH!
This was a good sermon.Too bad churches are so corrupt today,and by pastors and christians who don’t know this truth and are far away from our old paths!!
At the Tower of Babel God confused the languages. So anyone who has mixed heritage such as the English and Scottish or Scot Irish contravenes the tenet laid out at the Tower of Babel….the separation of languages. Hence, the very formation of white America including the existence of Laurie Roy, Roger Wiggins and Bob Jones is an abomination to God!
Except that is not what he taught at all is it?
There is a black race, there is an oriental race, a white race and so forth – These having their bloodlines, of irish, english, german, spanish, etc.
Speaking as a 23yr old preparing for the ministry, I would not necessarily bring back segregation if I could, however, it is sure that from many verses in the Bible our current, cultural understanding of race is not akin to God’s, that the changes we have undertaken since the 60s, were not founded on the word of God and not strengthened in the will of God – And have drawn such a disharmony in our nation as never before, multiculturalism, miscegenation, integration, public schooling, female headship – These are not of God, and are detrimental to the faith and practice of the Holy writ.
In all things may we place what God believes above our own thoughts and imaginations – If God allowed for slavery and did not disbar such a practice then we ought to understand why and accept why, whether we understood or not. – God’s truth is above man’s wisdom – Obediance to Him is an higher calling.
Likewise for segregation, marriage and so forth – What doth the scriptures teach?
Almost always our current teachings regarding race throughout the country, whether in fundamental circles or compromised circles is itself compromised and a make-work deal for practical purposes – If interracial marriage is of God then prove it from the Bible, use the bible to counter what is claimed above and what we intrinsically know – We all must however overcome our natural approach and 20th & 21st century man’s reasoning.
This is so tragic. Jones uses ONE verse to support his view that races are not meant to intermix. A more valid interpretation of the text focuses on God’s sovereignty in exercising ultimate authority over kings, kingdoms, nations, etc. Nowhere does this verse offer a prescriptive decree that racial or nationalistic separation is endorsed, mandated, or encouraged by God.
The case of the Jews was one particular instance in history when God chose a nation for Himself to bring about the birth of the Messiah. However, in the Old Testament, notice that prohibitions against intermarrying with other people groups were designed to preserve spiritual integrity, not any sort of racial purity. Continually, God prohibits intermarriage with idolatrous nations around Israel. Yes, what does God allow? He makes provision for people from other nations (other races) to join Israel, submit themselves to God’s commands, and become an equal member of society. Here are a couple of prominent examples of interracial marriage in the Bible:
*Joseph married an Egyptian woman.
*Moses married a Midianite (Cushite in Numbers 12) woman. When Aaron and Miriam opposed him because of it, God took Moses’ side.
*Ruth was a Moabite woman, and yet she is portrayed as godly and even included in Hebrews 11. Of course, she is married by Boaz, a Jew.
Not once does God prohibit or condemn an interracial marriage based on the race itself. The only distinction God cares about in marriage is that husband and wife ought to be equally yoked spiritually. So the Old Testament principle of believing Jews not marrying idolatrous outsiders applies today–Biblically a Christian should seek a Christian spouse rather than an unbeliever. It’s not about race.
And yet God makes no mention of the rightness of either Joseph, or Moses’ wives – Ruth is in large part to prove to racist jews that the gentiles are not altogether corrupt, and can call upon the same God who is over all.
Miscegenation is a new teaching – And was not (or hardly) practiced prior to, say, the 80s perhaps, as we approach the setting up of the Anti-Christ this would make perfect sense – And the creation of an mongrealized people.
Furthermore who were the original proponents of miscegenation and de-segregation?
Religious liberals – Whited Sepulchres, devilish deceivers and wolves among God’s elect flock.
Why were God’s choicest servants of yore not the loudest exponents of this new doctrine?
So then to support these doctrines I must belie the doctrines to which God’s people previously held to, and mold myself toward the doctrines the devil’s crowd publish.
And therefore I am conformed toward the apostates, and seperated from the fundamental brethren.
He used one verse. Hmmmmm? I’ll say this, it’s a modern phenomena of interracial relationships. It’s been done before as it’s referenced of jews going a whoring after strange flesh. Strange in old english means different as a different country which most races were divided.
Then there’s the do not commit adultery. Where adultery means to remove somethings purity. Like honey where instead of being honey made from the nectar of flowers it can be from sugar water, so it’d be called adulterated honey. Which as in Leviticus it reads not to wear wool and linen but one or the other, don’t plow with an ox and an ass but one or the other. Then don’t plant a field with mingled seed. Which.would be called hybridization today.
Then there’s the reference of doesn’t even nature teach you. It’s also a response made by Job to one who was trying to act intelligent.
Look at nature. Squirrels, rabbits, deer, fish, fowl don’t crossbreed. But few know anything about nature today. Which if they did, they might be scared for their future.
Which there’s the meanness and hatefulness of skme which is truly ungodly, which is detestable.
Go to a park, one sees mallard ducks with the same mallard ducks. Grey squirrels with grey squirrels, fox squirrels with fox squirrels. Or watch nature videos. White tail deer go with white tails. Other species among yhemselves.
All peaceful and harmonious.
Only animals I can think of is animals that have been interbred long ago, or adulterated.
I will say this, many times interracial couples are much friendlier and personable and doesn’t seem to be the meanness except wanting to call what’s normal and natural racist. Nature is pretty big and worldwide. And. it practices purity.
Also I’ve studied interracial dynamics and there were subconscious drives that motivated interracial relationships. Which I’m not going to elaborate on unless asked to.
Yet as said, interracial couples do seem nicer without all the hangups and such. It’s simply I question interracial phenomena today. One reason is reference to a nation full of adulteries. As well as the giving and taking in marriage which marriage& divorce is very high relative to times past as known. Or as in Daniel, I think chapter 12, knowledge would be increased and people will be coming to & from; which in the twentieth century knowledge advanced faster than all previous centuries combined. With it came the production of automobiles, powered ships and planes. Where people are always coming and going all over the place as well as internationally. 2 Tim 3; love shall wax (spread) cold, the loss of natural affection. Where most maternal instinct is for mothers to love their offspring, even in nature. Come here when baby alligators hatch and it’d be the prime example. But the abortion rate here as well as abroad is rerrible. Where the loss of natural affectikn is manifesting itself. I wouldn’t say entirely as many mothers that have aborted babies suffer, which is a terrible thing.
Where I used to know the Bible verbatim, so a lot of references may not be mentioned.
The first commandment is to love God with all thy heart, mind and strength (soul). Which.long ago I found contradictions in the Bible, but I always tried to justify myself. As the verse seems to correlate, let every man be proved a liar that God be proved righteous; it seemed to apply as when I started to look for truth and to justify God rather than myself, A lot of the Bible simply had to be understood for what it was saying which words may not be exact, but convey a general truth. Contradictions ended. Where I simply faced the fact I was born with some desires that are qualified as sinful.
Likewise there’s plenty of do’s and don’ts. But something so often ignored is to love each other. As those brought to the truth of God, many sins are forgiven. Or when one is restored to the faith, many sins are forgiven. Then the verse, Love covers a multitude of sins. In contrast to demonizing and damning everything. Where we’re supposed to pray for those who do wrong. We’re supposed to exemplify Godliness, not as in power and control though we may, but of his spirit referenced in Galatians chapter 5.
However there are yhose who flat out hate God as well as those who love God. Which as St. Paul exemplifies, he doesn’t and didn’t forgive all. As there’s a big difference between intentional and deliberate acts compared to the stupid things we’ll do by our simple nature which is contrary to good.
Now I’m writing this with authority as I’ve already died and came back to put this for others to read. Not for vain dislutation, but for consideration.
Where I can elaborate on.the original drive of intereacial relationships if asked. Which go back in time and still today and the principles still apply. Which the motives can be seen as growing from meanness that was present. Where prophecy will happen that’s why it’s prophecy. Just like the LGBT issues. There’s those in those circles that have love and its’ many componets, but there’s the deviant sexual practice.
Still God will be the judge. Or Christ rather.Where I’ve had meanness and hatefulness doled out on me by any number of those socialky and culturally accepted, so how can I judge when others had a heart for me? When I was beaten down like a dog, those with ideals seemed to not really have feeli.g for me, but others did.
Where God has feelings and he knows the feelings and thoughts of a person.
As there’s many who desire God but live a sinful life and don’t understand why. Which look at King David and Bethsheba, Rahab, etc. Who is there that can heal a persons’ deficits of their mind and restore them? Christ, the apostles? But I haven’t seen this demonstrated by anyone today. Although I do suspect others must have said many sincere prayers for me. Sincere and where they had heart for me. Then others who covered my back. Shows others do have love.
But consider things and think how you choose.
No, Christ NEVER called Jews the sons of satan. Jesus was a good Jew and his goal was to increase Jewish faith. Many say he was a rabbi. What a stupid comment you wrote, Roger!
One of the reasons the Jews were upset with Jesus was because he said anyone who confesses their sin will have everlasting life. To the Jews, this meant they were no longer the chosen people hence, one of the reasons they hated Jesus and called him a heretic. To them, this is was sacrilegious for a gentile to be converted to Judaism.
What’s wrong with this message?It’s truth and it is awesome!You were probably brainwashed by a public school,college,or even modern church.I feel sorry for you that you think this is a shame and disgrace.There wasn’t anything racist or hate in this message.By the way,if your white,do you think you could go to Africa and take over their country?Africa for blacks,America for whites,etc.Learn to think.
The Scripture says in the latter days, Satan shall use the four dynasties of EDUCATION, POLITICS, ECONOMICS, RELIGION to control and destroy.
Multiculturalism, intermarriage, diversity is the tool of the UNGODLY communist. Diversity = division. Turmoil is the work of Satan.
I agree in what I’ve read…each ethnicity has their homeland. The U.S. is a white Judeo/Christian nation, and Satan wants to destroy it.
I say no other people than a white being given citizenship. Other nations can visit, but not have citizenship.
We have an enemy within this nation, government and institutions.
The US is not a White Judeo/Christian nation. We only got here around 1492. There were other cultures and other “Races” already living here for thousands of years. If the US belongs to anyone, it belongs to the Native Americans, and the Latin Americans. It’s absolutley stunning to watch so many people ignorant to how our country was founded. Our “Christian” founders of our nation murdered countless Native Americans, lynched blacks faced with trumped up crimes, and despised immigrants. (Isn’t that kind of hypocritical?) To claim that nations belong to a certain area is absolute rubbish with no foundation in the Bible other than one misinterpreted verse.
(Galatians 3:28) “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
God separated the people of Babel because they were trying to challenge him, not because they were all together. They were also failing to spread out throughout the world which is his original mandate. He might have separated them based on appearance, (because we are so focused on the outside appearance) You are a great example of this. God does not discriminate based appearance, he looks at the heart. God only sees the heart, and it is foolish and evil to separate people based on ideas God has not established.
(Mark 3:25) “If a house is divided within itself, it cannot stand.”
The only separation that is evident within the New Testament for believers is in relation to the Body of Christ. Even this separation is based on SPIRITUAL GIFTS and makes no reference to appearance or gender. Don’t you see? God doesn’t care if you are white or black, Indian or Asian, Jew or Gentile, Male or Female, because he sent his one and only son to die for ALL of us, based on our SPIRITUAL NEED for forgiviness of sins. Everything God does is through the lens of the heart and of spirituallity, God would not be God if he shared the same evil prejudices you do.
You are a sick person and I feel sorry for you.
My comment is for lerojist.
You are a sick person and I feel sorry for you.
Whites should go back to Europe and leave America for the Indians
Agreed, this is appalling that people would believe this religious bullcrap.
So many, many things in this are appalling, but the idea that slavery was an effective evangelistic tool boggles my mind.
I’m shocked. I never knew any of the “why” for the ban on interracial marriage. I can hardly believe what I just read. Thank you for posting. So many of your posts are helping me sort out and see the difference between simple truth vs. rules and judgement. It’s not easy coming out of a lifetime in the IFB.
BTW, I sat by LaGrant in our first two years of music classes at BJU-a lifetime ago. What a voice!
I’m floored. Just…wow.
From his closing prayer, “No nation has ever prospered or been blessed like the colored people in the South.” Say what!?!?!?!?
Oh Camille,
How tragic that an American Christian leader, could say such contradictory things, about precious black people, made in God’s image, or any non white people for that matter, made in God’s image, and suggest that God ‘Himself’ could possibly be a racist!!!!! And that ‘the Bible says so!’Please spare me from this religious dribble! My God, and your God, and the God of your wonderful Blog friends, and The God of ALL christians EVERYWHERE, HE IS LOVE. How could any of us imagine wanting to ‘follow’ a racist God??? To my mind, such a thought is INCOMPREHENSIBLE!!! And BJ Sr. suggesting the antisocial clap-trap, that God’s precious humanity is one of a spiritual class system??? As if, Christians were a superior spiritual class to non-christians??? One can find find ‘more’ integrity’ in some good secular organizations which really help people, than in some churches whose leaders lie, and cheat, and steal people’s dreams, hopes and reputations, and who malign people’s good character, to then drive them out and away from people they love, like social outcasts and scapegoats! BJ SR. just could never see, past the end of his ‘pompous religious nose’, that People made in God’s image, were loved by God no matter what they did or didn’t do, Saved or not. He could not see past this dreadful false belief, that unbelievers are automatically ‘wicked.’ I have unsaved neighbours, who are a lot nicer and kinder than some of the kinds of christians in the church, and church organizations, that loyal christians like you, I, and many others, have been hurt by. There would not be so many fine books written on the subject of ‘spiritual abuse’ as there are now, if the need for such helpful literature, were not so great! Thank you so much for posting this racist outrage of BJ SR. I hope it emabarasses the ‘religiosity and hypocracy’ right out of those BJU leader-stuffed partridges. I hope this ‘sermon’ goes ‘viral.’ And that none of us who call ourselves ‘christian’ would ever make one excuse for such an insult to what our black neighbours have suffered at the hands of self-righteous hypocritical Southern christians types like BJ Sr.! Barbara Quinn.
Nay, but rather, how tragic it is that you condemn all of your Christian forefathers, who thought the CORRECT way, and instead embrace neo-Marxist, that is promoted by Christ-haters across the world. Shame on you for forsaking the truth of God’s word in exchange for so-called “Christian” Marxism of the 21st century.
Swiss Kinist — what is actually TRAGIC is that YOU are an ignorant and bigoted racist.
You fancy yourself a Christian? NOTHING could be farther from the truth laddie !!
YOU are the one who needs to repent before your God for your sins of racism and hatred. The hypocrisy is staggering.
Your willful ignorance and prejudice is absolutely stunning, especially in 2015.
SHAME on YOU, as YOU are the one who spreads hatred and evil in the world, but of course you are far too brainwashed AND arrogant to ever see reality when you look in the mirror.
You are a moral weakling, mouthing words, full of sound and fury, signifying NOTHING. Hmmm. Maybe you should check out 1st Corinthians 13 … again. The part about “if I lack love …”
The problem is these white bigots have changed the Bible to suit their needs. At the Tower of Babel God confused the languages. Now, if you look at the formation of white America, they violated this tenet. If you strictly interpret the tenets of the Tower of Babel, the very existence of white Americans is an abomination to God.
Umm?!? Don’t think “Swiss Kinist” ever even mentioned the subject of “race”. So how can he be a racist?
Yes, of course, I am hateful and sinful because I want to preserve the racial diversity that God created…
Anything you say about me, you say also about your Christian forefathers of all generations past. True Christianity did not begin in the 1960s; that is when everything started going downhill. That is no coincidence.
Swiss Kinist: should the current revised dating/marriage policies of BJU be revised? Should the official “apology” a few years ago be revisited? Is the current BJU position part of the “everything going downhill” that you describe? Either BJU is wrong or you are. Which one is it?
Barbara,
I enjoyed reading your comment. You are more honest than many others.
Many are so misled by bigoted religious teachers and leaders.
I was an ardent evangelist, preaching and praying 24/7. But it all gone out of me now. I was rejected and excluded by racist Christians. Abused and tortured mentally. I began to read around this. I found, through many years of research and continued personally experience of exclusion and hate, that Christianity was a control system created by “the white man” to oppress, capture, rule, colonise, enslave, capture land, and manipulate the mind of so many innocent peoples of the world, particularly indigenous and Africans. The Roman Constantine said “by this, you shall conquer” in reference to the cross they made for political and racial domination of the world.
We look around the world and we search history pages, all we see is the death and abuse of people by religion. Also so called “scientific racism” played a part since 19th c. But the whole problem in humanity was the problem of racism (racism comes from Christianity of the West, Curse of Ham theory) and the colour-line (as WEB Du Bois put it). Two hundred and fifty years of slavery of black by Western Christians, and four hundred years of subjugation is all thanks to Western Christianity’s ideologies. Writing the cruelties has no end.
I think the world is better off without religions be it Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism etc, and just be kind and compassionate to one another. eliminate racism and supremacysm, and help develope one another all across the world as sisters and brother. Regina Schwartz, in her book “The Curse of Cain”, put it rightly, “close the book”.
Take care,
T
Written out of rebellion and apostasy, may the Lord bring great shame and repentance to your heart for such a vile infidelistic statement such as that.
I will follow God no matter how you may paint Him, if I turn from Him, to whom shall I go?
Like as Peter said to Christ.
There is One God and one salvation, if His way is not to my liking then I had better conform myself, and seek His wisdom, for it is greater than mine, what you speak of is humanism and vile heretical infidelity. – Let God be true, and everyone a liar.
May His truth and way be made manifest throughout the land, world without end, and may all the curses of His book be upon any who compromises, Amen.
I like this part the best: “But the good white flakes have always stood by their good colored friends….” 🙂
Oops. Gotta fix that one. 😉
Lol!! Yeah that was funny ,
.
I read that sermon in the late 1970’s as a grad student at BJU (grad. 1980). I did not agree with it then, but I could understand where Dr. Jones was coming from having grown up in the deep south in the 60’s. He was right about God having a purpose for national boundaries, but failed to understand that the distinction has ALWAYS been between believers and unbelievers (proselytizing was always encouraged [see Jonah]) but religious apostasy is what brought down ancient Israel. All the sons of Israel married Hamites, not going back to the Aramaens like Isaac and Jacob did. As a result, no “Jew” is a pure Semite. Dr. Jones was a child of the times, and the school held on to those beliefs with its own near-fatal blind spot for another quarter century.
The primary proponents of segregation today are those of African descent, not the historical bigots of European descent. A measured attempt at rejecting assimilation into the American “melting pot” (be it good or bad) has produced “hyphenated” Americans and the resulting strife.
Sounds like something Woodrow Wilson would say. . . .
Still not buying it.
sooooo… why didn’t us white people stay in europe where God intended?
Spot on… but Jonsie’s (or whatever mambers of the BJU cult call themselves) aren’t intellectually skeptical enough to question reality and the cult’s ‘truth-telling’ leaders will of course self-righteously claim that gawwwwwd led our bigotted eurotrash founders to the new world to become a beacon of light[-skinned bigotry] for the world.
Yea. It was God’s plan for us eurotrash to evangelize the native americans, and either kill or corral anyone that wanted to buck those who knew what was good for them.
This talking out both sides of his mouth…..I couldn’t even finish reading it.
Acts 17:26 (New International Version 1984)
26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
Here is an honest question: what did Paul mean when he said that he (God) “determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.”? Could it mean that God intended people of each race were designed to be separate, that is, to live in different, hence separate places? If not, what does this mean?
Jerry, I immediately see two interpretations, neither of which involve segregation.
First, there’s the somewhat Deist approach, that God at one time set their location, and then took His hands off to let things progress as they will.
Second, there is the interpretation that God did in fact establish their times and boundaries, and has designated that those boundaries will change over time. So He’s active in bringing different nations together, as they are today.
I don’t see how either of them implies that the races are to remain segregated. As Jon said above, if segregation is indeed implied in this verse, then we have a lot of work to do to undo all of the boundary crossing that has been done and return everyone to their God-appointed boundaries.
BTW, how are the accommodations there at the Han Gil Hotel Town?
Jerry,
To follow that line of reasoning would mandate that Whites leave the American continent, that we cease usage of the internet (and other boundary jumpers), and stop world language studies (post-Tower of Babel condition)
Consider the impact of shallow, non-contextual exegesis: “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent” (17:30). Does this mean that God is letting everyone prior to Christ go to heaven. Does this verse teach a form of Universalism B.C.? He’s overlooking their sins, right?
Acts 17:26 is addressed to a philosophical audience. A common trope of the day is that different peoples, living in the different “climes” of the world, possess different beliefs, temperments,and other stereotypes. They also worshiped different gods, and had different rituals. These were boundaries that they recognized, and Paul says, “Yeah, but God is above all that.”
What you are asking/asserting and what Paul is asserting are two wholly different ways of thought.
When it comes to becoming aware of the thought-world of that day, I heartily recommend this book (from which I’ve tried to highlight some pertinent sections) here.
If you are indeed honestly asking, you will also indeed honestly search.
Regards,
Jon
Jon, I juggled your book link there to fix the formatting. . . .
I Think BJ Sr. suffered from xeonophpbia, fear of foreigners,ie ‘different’ people. But he also suffered from an ‘irational fear’, of being contaminated by people he didn’t like, just could not accept as’neighbour,’as well as an irrational fear of ‘impure doctrine’. The way he treated Billy Graham still shocks me a ‘rocks my soul’ in a not good way! BJ Sr. lived in a fundamentalist’s culture of ‘old boys club’ mentality. His first calling was as an evangelist, ‘if’ he was a genuine evangelist at all. I really don’t know. I sometimes wonder, if BJ Sr’ got away from his first calling, and into an area where God never called him to be? He did make the decision to start a school, in reaction to doctrines and theology of fellow protestants that he didn’t agree with. And as a school founder and president, did the man really know how ‘to lead by example?’And when he ‘read’ the KJV, which happens to be a favorite version of mine, what ‘spiritual glasses’ did he have on? One wonders how the man could have ‘gleaned’ such curiosities of flighty imagination’ from the same BIBLE I so love to read, that ‘I’ have ‘never’ seen in the scriptures, not one time, not after enjoying this version for thirty one years! How does a christian ‘get’ such wierd things from God’s Word? To make GOD’S word suggest, that God created a social/cultural class system, one in which some people were less worthy of kindness, fairness, justice and respect than others? Not the God I love and serve! I try not to think of it, it hurts so much to. But the dreadful movie footage of Southern police, truncheoning blacks and whites, in the South,during the race struggles, when they went on peaceful protest marches to make a peaceful statement to the country! I can’t bear to watch that footage. BJ SR. must have been watching Loony Tune cartoons when ‘that’ news was on tv! The south has a lot to aplogise for, especially the South of Whitey’s churches. The blacks have had to fight for every right and priviledge the rest of grew up with as the norm. And it was the government that rewarded their fight for justice. NOT any of the Churches. This is a really good theme thread. I hope more people continue to dialogue and discuss this theme. I know that dragging around any axe to grind about this issue, is not a good idea. we do need to forgive the past etc., but we also need to think an talk about it a lot more, and not sweep it under the carpet because it’s too unpleasant. Racism ,discrimination and injustice will probably never go away, but we can choose to ‘not’ be a part of the problem, by choosing ‘not’ to stick our heads in the sand about it. We can choose to be a part of the solution, and speak out appropriately about it, and lead by genuine christian example. Barbara Quinn
This is disturbing! I find it interesting that he kept claiming that the Bible teaches this, but he only used 1 obscure verse at the beginning of his sermon. It looks as if Dr. Bob has his own biased thoughts about this and searched for a verse to back himself up. How sad!
Hi,mrscee123,
I agree. God’s word is so filled with wonderful verses of life giving wisdom, love, and positives for us to focus on. Why would a person only want to ‘scripture quarry’ an obscure text, that none of the rest us would ever have any strange need to bother getting ‘fixated’ on? To use the Bible to justify hurting people, ‘that’s’ what’s so contradictory to the Gospel message and to Jesus! I grew up Anglican, and Sunday School was one of the happiest times of the week for me. And I never heard people telling me such oddities as, God has set boundaries to keep people separated fom each other because of creed, race or color! But then, I was so blessed. I grew up in such a beautful place, where, believe it or not, there was absolutely NO SECTARIANISM and NO RACISM. I was so blessed to have been spared from the mental-spiritual ‘violation’ of having to live in a negative kind of a social/cultural ‘anti-people’ environment, one where I might have ben falsely taught to hate my neighbour, and be irrationally susipcious of people in general. Only two churches on the island! One Catholic and one Anglican. And we all respected each other and minded our own business. Nowadays, there seems to be so much trouble being caused by people, who call themselves christians, who, seem to want to ‘mind everybody else’s business’, while completely ignoring the ‘baggage’ in their own lives, that they’re too lazy and irresponsible to let God help them deal with, so they can clean up their hypocritical act, by co operating with God’s cleaning-renovation process,start getting real, stop bothering everybody else, and let God Himself, teach and show them, how to be a real human being and a real christian. I really get so upset about how people broad brush their typical lame excuses about racism, that I cannot keep silent about it.I can hardly ‘not cry’ about it. Racism is such a violation of both Jesus new commandment and the Golden Rule. Racism is such a violation of the very beuatiful character and loving nature of God, and of His Divine Love, that it rocks my soul. Thanks mrscee123 for your comments. They were right on the money.Barbara Quinn.
I want to add this short comment. BJ SR. seems to have based his most erroneous, ‘socio-cultural- theology on, guess what!! You got it! HIS OPINIONS! now i wonder where ‘those’ came from? Alabama maybe! Need I say more??? And God said HIS ways, HIS words, HIS thoughts are so far, far above ‘our’s’, in Isaiah Chapter 55. Guess the man never read those words! “Be careful how you think. Your life is shaped by your thoughts.” “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” proverbs, Good News Version. p.s A fundy bright spark on his KJV only web page, calls the Good News Version, ‘good news babble’. I ‘really enjoyed’ expressing my different opinion on the the matter! Isn’t blogging fun! When we don’t have to ‘duck’ when people would like to toss a tomatoe at us!
What could possibly be more important than the Love of God for people Jesus died for? How could BJ SR. possibly believe that God ever ‘wanted’ him to protect WHITEY from the blacks? I think the man’s ‘angry rage ‘ was coming from his ‘fear’,believe it or not, the ‘fear of man’, the fear of something that he was afraid might be changing, fear of something that he ‘might’ not be able to ‘control’ by having his ‘my way or the highway’ with everyone else! BJ Sr. could ‘control’ his strange doctrine on the campus, drive everybody nuts with his stupid puritanical rules, and drive sheep away who disagreed with him. “Lots of sheep escaped” , by the way. We read their stories not control the entire country. But he could not control everybody, certainly not the American government! Anyway, What the heck does ranting about ‘race’ have to do with the Gospe and the rest of us who read this great web site, that its not about race at all. It’s about GRACE and the Love of God for PEOPLE! Glory to God! Thank you God for the freedom you have given to us. Empower us to as many others as we can with your Grace. Amen. Barbara.
Thanks for publishing this. I will teach it to my children, and they will teach it to their children, and to their children, and one day, we will (by sheer numbers of godly seed) restore the “Israel of God” from the death merchants- the alienists, the miscegenationists, the sodomites and the Deicides and Hagarenes.
You who scoff and mock God, are accursed.
The primary flaw of this post and subsequent comments is a complete lack of historical context. It is opened with a fake sign that does not exist, and yet many of these readers actually think that sign is a real photograph. Likewise, we have the text of a radio message (which we assume is more authentic than the fake sign photo) that was delivered in South Carolina in 1960 by a man whose parents were actually alive during the reconstruction period. This eighty-year old guy is speaking before Viet Nam war, before JFK assassination; before the LA and Detroit riots; before MLK assisination; before failed “bussing” experimentation,etc. Sad and stunning are the words, but the non-contextual comments from a post-modern 2011 mindset seem almost as ignorant as the text of the radio message.
There are four paragraphs of context, Tim. And there’s an academic paper in another post that gives much context.
“Actually alive during Reconstruction”? You’re asking for a tome, not blog post. So by that standard, yes, this will always fall short.
But thank you for creating some buzz for my eventual tome.
And yeah, the picture is a joke. Sometimes humor is more true than fiction. Like Dwight Shrute, you don’t see that.
It is obvious that most of you did not read the entire sermon. You people that equate a man’s belief in segregation with racial prejudice are brain dead. Bob Jones Sr. obviously loved black people, was against their mistreatment, and did not believe in racial superiority. A denial of any segregation is what has led us to “gays in the military” and “women and men in dormitories”. Let’s put everyone together without distinctions. Anyone that believes otherwise is a prejudicial hate monger. I guess God should not segregate people between heaven and hell next. This is the end of the thoughts by the liberal minded theologian. There has always and will always be distinctions in the world and between humanity. Without it brings chaos. God made 3 races because he wanted to. That is not hate speech or prejudice. It is a fact of historical creation. Tell God he made a mistake. BJSr. is just trying to explain God’s take on why he did that. If you disagree, then you explain it. WHY did God SEGREGATE men geographically, linguistically, and racially? Did He make a mistake? Do we need to fix His error? I know. I’m a bigot because I dare to express a disagreement with your opinion. You have listened only to people of your mindset so long that someone who gives a different opinion must be a white supremacist. Now make sure you think about me in the love of Jesus!
What a charmer! And we should listen to anything you say (as if we could with our dead brains) why?
This site has been dormant for a while. Patrick asks a good question: Why did God SEGREGATE men geographically, linguistically and racially? Did he make a mistake? The focus has been on geographically and racially and people like Patrick and other white Americans have conveniently forgotten linguistic issues. At the Tower of Babel the issue was confusion of languages. Race was never an issue. It is an American invention. Why? Because the early white American settlers who spoke separate languages such as German, French and English violated God’s law by inter-marrying and continued to violate God’s law in the following centuries. There is no relationship for instance between Hungarian and Italian languages, and yet these groups inter-married in America. No, based on strict interpretation of the Tower of Babel Doctrine, the existence of white America, which is essentially a mixture of several language groups was a mistake. Therefore, the existence of Bob Jones himself is a mistake and the existence of white Americans is an abomination to God and the violation of all that was laid out in the Tower of Babel….and perhaps the existence of Patrick too! Secondly, God confined groups to their national boundaries. Pray tell me why “whites” came to America in direct violation of this rule? Why did whites go to South Africa in violation of this defined geographical boundaries? Why does it only apply to the Chinese or whoever that Bob Jones thinks fit. By this argument, the presence of “white” people in America is a direct violation of the limits of geographical boundaries set by God.
Yup. Exactly.
What you are failing to realize is that God does not divide us based on race. He divides us or places boundaries(nations) between us based solely on cultures that clearly believed in other gods besides God Himself.
You claim gawwwwwwd kept races separate. The Japanese ‘race’ came earlier races. They are not the ‘pure’ race that Jones claims. Either he was either deliberately misleading (which, you may be aware, the ten commandments refer to as lying) or he was claiming to be a self-appointed authority on a topic he knows nothing about… which means he was a fraud. The question Jone’s minions should ask themselves, if they are honest, is this: should I trust a liar or a fraud to reveal the truth. This man was a bigot who taught a twisted, vile, racist dogma. He told racist southerners what they wanted to hear… reinforced the vile racist views they wanted to believe and he did it for the love of influence.
I could not resist saying this: “Had stupidity become a virtue in ‘Alabama’ cultural-politics- ‘all slicked up – fundamentalist-style- religion!!!!?’ ” People were ‘dying’ of loneliness, heart break, without Christ in their lives, 50 years ago, when all this twisted version of humanity could talk about, was white supremacy and black inferiority! His bitter rhetoric poisoned the air waves with his sick-minded ‘Alabama white religious supremacy!’ People are ‘still’ dying of loneliness etc., now, even right around the corner from this ‘bastion’ of ignorance. Yet the religious descendants of fundamentalist ‘blind guides’, are still hanging onto this old bone,like mad dogs. They ‘still’ haven’t got the message! That, the Gospel is not only Good News, but that it was ‘given’ to all of humanity, as a free Gift of God’s Grace, and that God didn’t send a ‘different version’ to WHITEY!
Bob Jones Sr. was a great man of God, and this message just reveals more of his wisdom. The present generation disdains the truths that past generation knew while they loose their heritage, godliness, and sanity. Our society has sold the importance of God for the importance of race, emphasized human relations instead of a relationship with God, and chosen political correctness over plain truth. Keep reading and listening to Sr. (I know its hard for most of you), and just maybe you will find a voice above the chaos and debauchery of the 21st century.
What is also incredible (aside from the speaker’s pretext which warps or perverts the single scripture reference to be taken WAY out of context) is the chaotic, disjointed, repetitive nature of this sermon. There is little or no organization, let alone reason or logic at work in terms of analyzing scripture and making application to modern (or then historical) scenarios. I can appreciate reading/hearing the “stream of consciousness” of some authors/speakers. But, good grief, to read this narrative was akin to being exposed to attention-deficit disorder, multiple personality disorder, mental hyperactivity and bi-polar tendencies in a single speech!
finally…the ‘university’ I’ve been looking for. Now I can get that degree in advanced bigotry… thank yeewwww jeeeeezus
Wow. Reading this was tough, but I stuck with it. Now I know where Jr. and B3 got their ability to expound, heavy on opinion, light on scripture. Apparently not much changed from the ’60s to the ’80s (when I was there).
I read Bob Jones’s sermon through and through, and I find nothing wrong with it. He was right that if we do not follow God’s law that racial strife will multiply. I graduated from high school only a couple years ago and have seen race riots between rednecks and “gangstas” over such trivial things and have had two of my friends killed by Blacks over relationship issues.
Racial mixing is not healthy. Look at the Dominican Republic where Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. produced an entire documentary on the racial prejudices between light-skinned mixed people and dark-skinned mixed people. Racial mixing was even used to destroy people, as done in Brazil by robbing Blacks of their racial identity with White Spaniards raping them to produce confused, mixed offspring.
The foes pushing for miscegenation who cloak their beliefs under such innocuous terms as “tolerance,” “diversity,” and “multiculturalism” are just as Jesus said they were in John 8:44: “of the devil.” They do not believe in God’s word, and they push for the false racial equality of man. . . the belief made popular by Franz Boas in the early 1900s that simply because the brains of different races are very similar that all the races are exactly the same. If they were the same, then ethnic tension in mixed neighborhoods would not exist.
I’m a southern girl in her 20s, and I’m thankful to say that I have two beautiful White babies, and I will teach them God’s Word.
I’m not sure if you realize this but you sound incredibly racist. Look at what you said and imagine saying that to an interracial couple with children. Do you think they would appreciate that? Also i noticed you didn’t bring up your the hair color of your children which leads me to believe you you aren’t doing your godly duty to propagate the arayan race.
I honestly don’t care what “interracial couples” think. I get offended everyday by the anti-white animosity propagated by the mass media and academia, so if me loving my race offends some race traitors, it’s their problem.
On hair color, the White race has the most diversity out of all the races in phenotypical traits. Brunettes, blondes, and redheads. . . they are all White if they are of European descent.
I love my people and desire first and foremost the right to opt out of the failed social experiment that is multiculturalism. This country was founded upon the principles of liberty and freedom, not racial suicide.
“Race traitors”?
None of us “race traitors” cares if you felt like having babies with a white guy.
What we DO object to is your implication that we are immoral for our choice. We object when people who believe as you try to pass laws forbidding us from marrying. We object when you view our children as something less than human.
You’re in your early 20’s, with limited education and virtually no experience in the world.you’re an arrogant young racist who puts her personal biases above rationality (several other Christians on this thread had no trouble recognizing the serious flaws in BJ’s sermon) and above any respect for humanity.
With all the money and effort spent to enforce the theory of the integration of the races I suspect that we are all living in an interracial utopia by now. It is doubtful that racial or ethnic strife can survive in the current environment.
Katlyn Rutledge sums up the real meaning of racial tolerance. God made the races of mankind physically and psychologically different. Look at the NBA and the NFL. Which race dominates in track and field events? Which races win the Nobel prizes for science? Black Americans made enormous strides between 1860 and 1960,the time of Dr. Jones sermon. The Montgomery bus boycott proves that Southern Blacks and Whites can peacefully resolve our differences without the intervention of the Federal government.
“Father forgive them for they know not what they do” … oh wait, in the case of the Reverend Dr. Bob Jones, Sr, he knew exactly what he was doing. I would not have thought I could be staggered by a sermon like this. And I really have no idea how I’ve never seen the actual text before now. I wish I had, because it is a powerful example of the rationalization used to justify racism.
I am a 1985 graduate of The University of Alabama. And today I am employed at UA in a financial management position. But I also am the lead advisory member of the initiative to embrace and celebrate diversity. When the 50th anniversary of George Wallace’s shameful “stand in the schoolhouse door” was approaching, our leadership decided that rather than dread it and just try to get past it awkwardly, we needed to turn it into an occassion to condemn the act, the late governor who did it, and the attitudes which led to it, AND to celebrate and honor the courage of the first black students to enroll at UA. We created and constructed the Hood-Malone Plaza and Artherine Lucy Clock Tower on the site of the schoolhouse stand and celebrated their courage and all our black students on the 50th Anniversary of that day.
While that symbolism was important, we realized the commitment had to be real and genuine and never-ending. It is our goal to never lose the focus, not for a day. We acknowledge the grotesque evil of prejudice and the way black people were treated at our University and in the south and in our country. We can’t control the feelings or words of any individual, but we encourage students, alumni, faculty to never alibi, never say that’s just how it was. Call it the evil that it was, and DEMONSTRATE that today we take pride in being diverse, in being a different kind of institution – not perfect but way on the high end of being proactive and progressive on this issue.
I provided this background because it boggles my mind the number of people in the south who still think a lot like what is in that vile sermon of BJ Sr, who cannot accept how UnChristian it was and is, and who literally get angry that we have abandoned “traditional” values and sold out to a “liberal” way of thinking. When engaged in debates about these varying beliefs, I have never come cross more powerful ammunition of the EVIL that underlies view then this sermon I just read. Then again, its also great when a fine young damsel of the south spews the filth and pure trash ignorance included in the posts of Katlyn Rutledge. Many thanks to her for proving our point in such a crystal clear way.
There are so many characteristics of this sermon that are so wrong and so egregious and so inconsistent, that my vocabulary fails me. But in this comment I want to address one that stands out to me – the bait and switch.
The overwhelming theme is the use of one verse that is obscure and open to interpretation to conclude that it is clear that separation of the races is God-ordained. God has fixed the bounds of habitation, and we are not to rub out the lines, or there will be trouble. Ya know, it would be one thing if BJ Sr really believed that interpretation, and his sermon advocated just that and was consistent with reality and the rest of his words. I would not agree with that, but could at least try to accept that he believed this interpretation.
But that was not, was never, his real motivation, or the focus of the masses of whites and members of white churches in the south who called themselves Christian. This philosophy of believers being equal but God requiring separation was never the basis for a single white person I ever met or observed. It was simple, whites believed they were superior, so superior that could demean black people in every possible way. They were beneath them. Blacks were not welcome to worship in our churches, were not welcome to be our neighbors, their children were not welcome to go to school with ours, the were not hired, white people were not kind to them. They treated them like they were less than human, and this is a grotesque evil and sin. Period. This disdain in their hearts was the reason, NOT a belief that the Bible called for separation.
Sorry my posts have been long but I can’t sleep tonight and there is so very much pure unadulterated disgrace to sink your teeth into. This one will be short because several others have already made this point. But as I was reading, I kept thinking Excuse Me Dr. Jones but umm, aren’t you a highly educated historian and theologian and founder of a University? As such, I am pretty sure you are familiar with the fact that the good ole US of A was inhabited by native Americans (or red Indians to you). I guess the overt violation of that boundary of habitation was granted an exception by the Lord our God.
Or . . . maybe the learned Dr. Jones just left out any mention of that, knowing full well that those listening who would be inspired by this sermon were intellectually challenged and would never think of it.
Many of the lines in this historic message could literally be the basis of an entire episode of Saturday Night Live. It would be cartoon like and comedic if you didn’t know that in real life it was so evil and caused such damage – in the name of God.
Over and over he says things that offend the sensibilities. Just how very stupid did he think people were? His patronizing declarations are so demeaning and superior that it makes me nauseated. I can’t even imagine the anger a black person would feel reading them. Bob Jones Sr (as he states many times) lived in the South. So he was fully aware of the real treatment of blacks. Given that, there is one inescapable conclusion. Dr. Bob Jones Sr was a LIAR on a level of the most corrupt liars in the history of our planet. He talks down to those he is lying to and lies over and over and with extraordinary skill and ease. Here are some nuggets that simply make you stop, and read the sentence again:
“For many years we have lived together. No two races have ever lived so close as whites and coloreds in the south and got along so well together”
“The colored people in the South are better off than anywhere else in the world”
“God is the author of segregation”
“After the Civil War, white people made the financial contribution to build the schools and churches for coloreds. That was hard too because the white people also had to pay all the taxes. You colored people remember that when you are inclined to turn away from your white friends”
“All we white Christians have colored friends and we would not let anyone mistreat them . . . That’s always how it has been in the South.”
“We should have left the colored people in Africa instead of bringing them here as slaves. But have you colored people ever stopped to think what would it would be like for you if that had not happened. You might be in the jungles of Africa, unsaved. But you are here with your own schools and your own churches and your own liberties and rights – with the limitations set by God Almighty”
“We planned to build a school just like Bob Jones University, right here in the South for colored people. We wanted to build a school were colored people with their talent in music and speech and art and all. We wanted to build it, but we ran into trouble with all this agitation.” [This man had NO SHAME. All black people who would have wanted to attend Bob Jones University for coloreds, please raise your hand]
And finally, Dr. Bob Jones Sr spoke the following words in his closing prayer:
“No nation has ever prospered or been blessed like the colored people in the South”. No commentary necessary.
What a great testament to Christian love. As the Yankee poet, Robert Frost, wrote, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
I am appalled by the sermon, as well as some of the racist comments here. How can you base a ban on interracial marriage on one verse in the Bible that says God set the boundaries that countries have? And ignore all the verses about Christians being one in Christ.
BTW: If the original author of this still looks at this: you have some typos and misspellings. The funniest is “flakes” for “folks.” You should correct these, so grammar nazis don’s get upset.
Did any of you actually read that?, he wasn’t bashing blacks nor was he glorifying slavery, being in this culture where you can’t even spell your name without offending someone makes me wanna puke, call me what you want but the man is right, blacks have never had it better,,let’s see you go back to Africa and do better,, it sounds to me like you all are the sissy , pansy, pathetic, little liberal morons who either use racism for a crutch and are way too easily offended, or you are pushing the whole agenda for those daffodils, I fear none of you and don’t care what you think or like, I know the truth about american history, black history, and slavery and its not taught in schools and isn’t even close to what you think it is, our forefathers brought no one over here they were sold to us by French, Irish, and Jamaican pirates and was illegal and punishable by death on the high seas, the first registered black slave was owned by a black man, and so on and so on, do your own research because as wrong as slavery was what’s being done now is twice as bad, I refuse to pay for a crime I never committed, and I’m tired of people trying to force me to plus I don’t hate any black but I do despise a liberal pansy, good day.
I have not taken the time to read all the comments, but I do have some thoughts on Dr. Bob’s sermon. It is clear that:
1. He did not think any race was superior to another.
2. He loved black people, just as he loved whites.
3. He hated slavery and thought that it was wrong.
4. He was thankful that many blacks brought over to America heard the
Gospel and became his brothers in Christ.
5. He had dear friends from many races and did not consider his race as
superior over any other.
I think that his only fault was believing that Scripture taught that the races should remain separated, or segregated. His belief was not founded on any type of prejudice, but merely a misinterpretation of Scripture. Remember, too, that this was a very common belief during his lifetime. It does not make it right, but it was an ubiquitous sentiment, especially in the South.
To their credit, the administration of BJU has chosen to take a different stand, also based on what they believe the Bible teaches. If you visit the campus today, you will note that it is integrated and that young people of different races are allowed to date. Dr. Stephen Jones, former President of Bob Jones University, gave a heart-felt apology for some of the former actions of the University. Apparently, those who continue to castigate BJ on this subject believe that the “iniquities of the fathers will be visited on their sons to the third and fourth generations.” Perhaps we should consider flogging the current administrators in the town square; this may be the only way to satisfy the blood-lust of some of the school’s critics.
Yes, I am familiar with Stephen Jones’ “Statement on Race.” It didn’t really qualify as an apology. I wrote a rhetorical analysis of the statement here:
https://www.academia.edu/2389121/Standing_Within_and_Without_Apologia
Best to you.
Camille
I don’t see why people are appalled at this sermon. This is from 1960, a time period, very different from today. We might look back and say the things in the past were wrong, but we can’t overlook the fact that America was becoming divided over the issue of segregation.
Jones Sr. holds a view that is perfectly in lie with a majority of white and black people of the day. It wasn’t until injustices were caught on camera that the nation started to turn toward the view of integrating life. The injustices that started the move away from segregation where the “poll tax” -> requirements of voting, having the same rights ( abuse,beatings,lynching, etc.), and access to the same quality of items as the white people.
I believe that if there was stipulations ever put on voting (reading lvl), and access to the same quality (educational materials, housing, public water and bathrooms, positions on buses (if the left side was for whites and the right side for everyone, there might never have been a Rose Parks being remembered in history classes), etc.
What Jones is saying is that each respected people group (in this sermon the group is based off of color, but it should be noted he talks about ethnicities when dealing with all other countries in the world) has their place in the world. Upon further examination, the idea about there being turmoil in a country is based off the prevalent fear of the American in that day, which was communism.
Jones is not necessarily seeing desegregation as an issue, but during this time Communism is spreading in the world and he fears it. He sees trying to integrate everyone together as a step towards communism. Respectfully, for this time period Jones is standing, in a way, in the right.
I think the problem is not with this sermon, but keeping the same policy based off the same reasons as the problem. There was a feeling that communism was over after the Berlin wall came down and the satellite countries moved toward democracy.
Here the reason why Bob Jones sermon should not be appalling.
In middle or high school almost all classes you had an assigned seat. No matter what, you had to sit in that seat and nowhere else (unless the teacher had no seating chart and a substitute came in or you worked in groups or had frequent movement (interaction for debate or peer editing). So in school you had required seating.
You decide you will go to college/university. At college, you discover you can sit anywhere you want for the class, so you do. You love the idea that you are not required to sit a particular seat, the idea you get to choose which seat to sit in. The thing is, once you sit in that seat – you only sit in that seat and never change seats. You might for the first few classes sit in a different seat (which probably became your unofficial permanent seat) because you didn’t remember where you sat before or someone took your seat.
How does this relate to the issue? Look at the easiest things to consider. Neighborhoods are predominantly a majority of white kids or black kids. IN that neighborhood the kids go to the local school which then would be made up of mostly if not all of just one ‘color’. We as Americans tend to segregate ourselves regardless if we believe against it or not. Females tend only to hangout with other females. Males tend to hang out with other males. What those groups consist of depends on how someone interacted as a kid with people. IF you live in a house with only elderly people and see elderly people the majority of the time, there is a great chance you will tend to stay around elderly people for work, social interactions, etc.
There is a reason why there are stereotypes and that is because the majority of acted like that and still does. The environment you place someone in shapes how they do life. Athletes have a way of doing life different from Gamers. They could be both, but most likely the would be living as if it was 2 separate lives – having 2 separate friend groups-.
We tend to not integrate regardless of color. We like normality. Since we like normality, we don’t stray far from it. Everyone does have a certain place in the world. Every war was either fought based on prejudice of a people group or for pure power (be instances where even the own group is not spared from the ruler – like the Russian purges of 1930s).
Political correctness in this day and age overmine the word of God. Doesn’t matter what the Bible says anymore, social media decides what is right and what is wrong. So in other words popular opinion rules. Very dangerous because popular opinion changes constantly. Even people who abide by the Bible nowadays simply change the interpretation to fit the ideals of the time. This will not end well for many people.
Well said David, I agree. God affords us an opportunity to obtain the truth if we are sincere. There will always be a, “John the Baptist”, in each society. People who will never agree with the ideals of the time; the voice in the wilderness.” Thank God..
I disagree with those who remind us that this was the “1960s”, implying it was such a different time and place, etc. etc. Hey, I was born in 1943 into a lily-white Midwestern small rural town, and I figured it all out in elementary school with limited radio and TV. This racism is not rocket science. I heard how the good folks in town talked about racial issues, even “church people”, and it was laughable because so many of them were 1st and 2nd generation Americans from Europe. And so why didn’t they just stay in Europe and keep within their boundaries. Surely it would have been much better for everyone, and scriptural besides, right? Just SMH.
LOL… you’re right Marla! A sign of you believing you truth is authentic, you follow it.. LOL. But thank God it’s a little better now, we can see our wrong. But it seem like it took so long.
Holy crap on a pogo stick.
I came across this during the course of my research for an ethics paper.
Then I read the comments.
You’re joking, right? You have got to be kidding. Those of you who agree with this….are Christian? “Racial mixing is not healthy?” “Diversity is a tool of the ungodly?” “Africa for blacks, America for whites?” I just…..there is so much wrong here I can’t even begin to write the novel that I would have to compose to answer just these three comments alone.
My mother has been begging me to go to church with her for years. I should thank you heartily. After what I’ve read here tonight, it would take Satan himself showing up in my bedroom at 3 am wearing my granny’s knitted socks to put me within 100 feet of such hatred. Thank the Powers That Be that I’ve been “brainwashed” by life, that I never put such blind faith in a book that was written by MAN thousands of years ago (because of course any kind of progression must be illegal in the eyes of God…I’m sure he didn’t give humanity the ability to think). I will take my love of cultures other than my own, my love for my extremely racially mixed family (in my family, being white is kind of relative…I’m a dying breed here ^_^) and my love of (dare one say it?) diversity and you can keep Christianity. I don’t want it.
There was one small light. Some of the comments here also had hope. Thanks for that. It was enough to keep me from going to bed feeling sick.
Hi Lily, I enjoyed your comment, you made me chuckle. I too, am so thankful that people had positive things to say.
One item of note, please do not ever judge the Bible based on this horrible man’s view of Scripture. I don’t judge all of America by the KKK, so judging some guy’s horrible interpretation of scripture and assuming the Bible is like that is kind of the same. The gospel is about reconciliation, redemption and grace. Not hatred. Please know this. I would be remiss from commenting and not sharing my thoughts with you. (I wish you could hear the compassion in my tone..hard to tell over the internet). 🙂
(I’m speaking as someone who is months away from moving out of my natural habitat as it were, (lol) and moving to spend my life learning a new culture and language to love a new country’s people).
this could be used as an apology for terrorism’s interpretation of the Koran.
Sadly, I read this sermon tonight. Yes, I’m commenting on a sermon 56 years after it was preached. Unfortunately, I see comments from 2015 and 2016 that share the same views. I could honestly comment all day and night about this, but I just wanted to share one insight here. By his own definition, he is blurring the lines. Unless he’s a native american, he is sinning by living here in the States, and so is everyone else who is writing such awful comments on this thread. If God truly drew the lines of inhabitants, then any person living in the States who are not native americans are out of God’s will. Why didn’t anyone point that out, other than 2 commenters? I wish he would’ve addressed that in his sermon. This sermon breaks my heart. I wish I could’ve heard it live or at least a recording to hear the tone of his voice.
your shallow way of thinking baffles me, take an IQ test, i swear it will hit below fifty
Diversity is related to secular affairs. Christianity is supposed to treat every sinner as deserving of hellfire but saved by the Grace of God if they profess their faith in Christ. Multiculturalism produces many problems in the world such as conflict, disunity, lowered standards, crime, immorality, etc etc. (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_multiculturalism). However, that falls into the realm of temporal affairs, not of Christendom. If a secular government wants to segregate, there is nothing unbiblical about it. If a person hates another person for their skin color, that is a sin. If a person believes that races are better off separate, that is fine as long as they realize that they are equally deserving of love and grace. The whole idea of one “human race” is a relatively new one and is discarded by real science (if you believe in evolution, then the races had 2 million some years to reproduce in isolation). If you do not believe in evolution and believe that God put/lead and separated each race to their spot on Earth, then racial separation isn’t wrong because God did it.
So in closing, Christians are called to love one another and multicultural policies are out of the scope of Christianity’s teachings. If one person believes that affirmative action is wrong, or that blacks are more prone to crime (as research show), or even that they have lower IQ’s (as science shows) there is nothing wrong with that unless they hate the person. Even Paul, when referring to the Cretans, says “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons. This testimony is true”. He did not say that they weren’t deserving of Grace, but recognized a common problem among the population.
Deuteronomy 32:8 –
When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.
This was the reason for setting the bounds of the people: to allocate space according to the numbers of people.
As I read the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-9, I see absolutely NO reference at all to bounds – only to confusing language and scattering. Very different from Segregation!