White Supremacist Ideas Have Historical Roots In U.S. Christianity

Ok... you KNEW I had to jump in here, right?

I'll try and keep my point concise: Christianity began 2,000 years ago in Judea... a Jewish province occupied by a pagan Mediterranean empire. There were not a whole lot of "white" people around, since at that time... most of them were comporting themselves in reindeer hide a whole lot further north. Christianity derives its name from the Christ... an ethnically Jewish man who was probably called Yeshua , or Yeshu... or something similar. Greek/Latin influence eventually gave us "Jesus Christ"... but historically, he was probably not Caucasian (nor African, Aztec, or female either). As a rabbi, he taught a revolutionary version of faith rooted in ancient Jewish tradition, but linked with the new message of forgiveness and freedom from the "law". It was a wondrously complex message expressed in very simple terms that even today... many Christians are struggling to understand.

Enter "religion".

It's arguable that the first Europeans who arrived here were Norse Christians only "recently" converted from paganism. If true... they didn't leave much impact on the natives. When the English arrived, they first sent mercenaries and traders... not clergymen. The Pilgrims came later, and largely because they'd been pushed out of other nations owing to their reformist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Anglican views. It's interesting then that it was THEIR take on Christianity that took the deepest root. By 1776, Colonial beliefs in New England were decidedly "Puritan", while the South... such as it was, was sparsely populated by a mixture of former Jacobite Catholics, Scots-Irish Protestants (Orangemen, basically), and Spanish/French Catholics. If you study the history of abolition in this country, you may find that it was from these northern "Quakers" and "Puritans" that much of the Christian support for emancipation would later evolve. I've often heard historians make the loose comparison between the "Roundheads" and the "Cavaliers" in 17th Century England... and the various cultural and religious views between the Northern and Southern states of the USA just prior to the Civil War. This honestly makes "sense', and explains a great deal.

Without a doubt, Southern ministers preached interpretations of Scripture that favored slavery... even while their Northern counterparts railed against with other Scriptures. If one sits down and reads these themselves... it begins to become clear that the former were taking things decidedly out of context. It would be like someone quoting Moby Dick to defend the annihilation of whales... when the author's true message concerned the vanity and hubris of mankind against nature.

Thank you for the share sir.

Do the roots of black supremacy movement next.