Devotion to beliefs doesn’t change behavior. That is why it is so great to me how Christ can reach down deep within us and live out a new behavior (Galatians 2:20), that “God is at work in (us), both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). For this reason, I am able to look at my own behavior and evaluate my spiritual development as change occurs; so, too, with the behavior of us as a nation.
I grew up in 1930s as a patriotic young man who believed in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and America. But unlike the generation before me who did not have the education to know about the basic freedoms of America and unlike my children who have come to disbelieve America, I have always believed in the spirit of the promises of this country. But, never have they been reality for the majority of my people.
In terms of race, America has tried to heal itself. The Civil War took place in the 1860s. The Civil Rights movement took place in the 1960s. From America’s two biggest domestic conflicts emerge three main elements: the first, a group of people, primarily white, the majority and ruling group in society. Let’s call this group the “Land of the Free;” the second, also a group of people, but a minority, primarily black, originally from Africa, the “Other America;” and the third element of our simplified history is the slavery and poverty which divides the first group from the second and which we will call the “Wall.”
America’s first argument with itself, the Civil War, went something like this:
There was a Wall in America dividing the Land of the Free from the Other America. The people who built the Wall, the ones in the Land of the Free, began arguing with each other. Half of them wanted to tear the wall down, some for economic reasons, some on moral grounds. A war began.
The fighting got so rough, so many were killed, that some very tough thinking was done. Finally, the people who wanted the wall torn down in the first place backed off a little; both sides got together and issued a piece of paper, a Proclamation, which said, “Before the war we called this side of the wall “free” and the other side we called “slave.” Now we really don’t believe that there is any difference; all people are created equal. So, from now on we’ll call both sides of the wall “free.” There is, therefore, no need to take down the wall since we are now equal, even though we are also separate.
Of course, the only problem with the result of the first argument was that it was just what Abraham Lincoln thought had been escaped: “an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding” (from his Second Inaugural Address). Both groups of people in the Land of the Free got just what they wanted. One group got their consciences cleansed, the other got their economics. Slaves became “free” sharecroppers, and rather than depending upon their masters for their food, they could now buy it on credit from the plantation store.
The second argument was the Civil Rights movement. This argument was different because it was the first time masses of black people, or citizens of the Other America took part in an argument concerning their own destinies. The second argument went something like this: Because most of the Other America’s side of the wall was low swamp land and got flooded every spring, and because people from the Land of the Free owned the little bit of good land, black folks began to gather around in groups next to the wall and consider how to “get over.”
Some families made human stairways so that some of their children could get over the wall by climbing over their backs. Some very remarkable men and women dug their fingernails into the wall and clawed their way over into the Land of the Free. A few who did get over just stayed over. Nobody ever heard from them again. But a few, once they got over, began to carry-on about life on the “other” side and began to write things down on cards and carry them around in front of stores.
But then some of the young people from the Land of the Free began to carry on with the people from the Other America. In fact, one day, some of them got beaten and killed too. Now this disturbed everybody, and a lot of people agreed that the wall was a bad thing, mostly because it was the issue that was causing all the disturbance. “It must be torn down,” everybody said. But, after several years of deliberation, the wall-demolition study committee said that it would be much too expensive to knock it down, and proposed--”Why not just put a door in it?” So that’s what happened.
A door was put in it and all the people who wanted to walk from the Other America into the Land of the Free could line up at the door and then come in. Of course, the door was only large enough for one at a time to come through and even then they had to meet certain entrance requirements. The requirements were so high (because so many people wanted to come through that they had to be screened) you almost had to act and look exactly like the people in the Land of the Free just to get through. And for that reason they called this plan “Equal Opportunity,” because it would make everyone equal.
The point is that the country has fought two civil wars and has lost them both. Our behavior as a nation has not changed. Just like a person can know nothing about the Kingdom of God if he believes that all he has to do is improve those little flaws that keep him from being all God meant him to be, we as a nation cannot deal with the deep problems facing us until we are willing to see that they are throughout our whole way of life; that we like them and stand bankrupt before God.
There are several questions I must ask myself if I am to be a Christian in America today. One that gives me a great sense of urgency is this: “If change only comes after confrontation and violence, what type of confrontation is needed to make the country liveable for all people?”
The problems in the Other America are so deep and rooted spiritually as well as educationally, socially, and economically, that it will take a super natural power to deal with them short of violence. That power can only be released through people committed to a love that mobilizes all of their skills, resources, and much of their time and life in the struggle. That power is to be re leased through the church, “the fullness of God who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:23).
Where has the church stood in the past and why?” The fundamentalists--and I consider myself a fundamentalist--deserted the needs of people and let the gospel reach the people over the radio. The liberals came to help but left the gospel at home and so the quality of their help was reduced to charity and welfare. The southern white minister either participated in the lynchings or simmered his conscience in silence. The black church, for the most part, was either paralyzed by its long-term powerlessness or became an economic means to “make it” for some of its ministers.
The question now is, “Where are the Christians who are strong enough to tear down the wall for good and apply their energies to building the people?” In the next three columns I will deal with the problems of trying to reform a neighborhood community, with community development by Christian principles, and with the church.
When this article appeared, John Perkins was a contributing editor to Sojourners and president of Voice of Calvary in Mendenhall and Jackson, Mississippi.
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