The Church and Hate – A Brief Reflection

A good friend and colleague in ministry shared a quote by Howard Thurman on her Facebook page. It is found in an article that he wrote in 1946 titled The Fascist Masquerade. In this article he addresses topics such as Christian Nationalism, Americanism, the KKK, fascism in WW2 Europe, and anti-semitism. Thurman wrote the following in a letter to his friend, Ruth Smith, in April of 1946. “I have just completed an essay on the ‘Fascist Masquerade’ which marks my venturing into a brand new field of creative expression,” Thurman wrote his friend, Ruth Smith, in April 1946. “I shall let you know what becomes of it.” 

These words are prophetically relevant today as they were when he wrote them They spoke to me of the challenges we face in this country today as I watch the ongoing dismantling of democracy here and is well worth the time to read and study.

It is to the utter condemnation of the Church that large groups of believers all over the United States have stood, and, at present, stand on the side of a theory of inequality among humans that causes the Church to practice in its own body some of the most vicious forms of racial prejudice. It often affirms separateness solely on the basis of race, which separateness it insists upon in worship, in organization and even in its graveyards….

The bitter truth is that the Church has permitted the various hate-inspired groups in our common life to establish squatter’s rights in the minds of believers because there has been no adequate teaching of the meaning of the faith in terms of human dignity and human worth.