Finished a really heavy book, Your God is too White by two evangelical men, one black and one white Columbus Salley and Ronald Behm. They had some good stuff to say but it really has to be sifted.

White society has possessed and dictated the terms and definitions, and values for black identity and the identity it has provided for blacks has been a negative one. So today blacks seek to redefine themselves to find self worth and humanity completely separate from any white standards. The Black Power movement has done this, along with the Black Panthers and the Black Muslims.

The role the Christian Church has played has been one of supporting racism in this country, because the church is an anti change institution. Christianity in its American sociological expression is unacceptable to blacks. But once they have found a positive self concept through black power, they are responsible for evaluating true Christianity Christ, not the American brand.

"The black man who wants to think independently cannot allow the white "Christian" society to define the Christian faith for him. The white American who has perverted history to exclude his own atrocities and the black man's achievements also may have perverted Christianity.

"Any black person who hates himself has, in a very real sense, disqualified himself for an experience with God. Black Power seeks to destroy the negative self concept and images (created in the white world and furthered by its institutions) that make black people hate themselves and view themselves as less than human. These negative self concepts are replaced with a positive self image which affirms the full humanity of blacks, the beauty of blackness, the rich legacy of black achievement, and the potential of blacks in controlling their own destiny. Here it is enough to say that a sense of independent responsibility and worth has a tendency to confront a man with his own adequacy and inadequacy, his own strengths and weaknesses and his own achievements and failures. As long as an individual can project his failure or displace it, and his apathy, and social impotence to others, he is incapable of accepting full human responsibility, thereby disqualifying himself from a complete and genuine experience with God.”

This agrees so much with Bill Gothard's principle of self acceptance!

One criticism I have of the book is that it lets its view get out of perspective. It tends to divide the whole world into black and white, forgetting the existence of other peoples and their problems. You get the idea that white people’s main goal and chief pleasure in life is figuring out ways to put down blacks. I think a lot of prejudice goes on at a subconscious level meaning that people just are not aware that they are!

"We believe, however, that the white man who admits his ignorance and guilt and confronts his fears is, in actuality, affirming his humanity, because he views himself as a creature capable of both good and evil.

The book really made me feel guilty about attending BJU, when I felt that their policy towards blacks was wrong.