Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who led the Manhattan Project which developed the atom bomb, made a television statement just before he died in 1967. I remember his face as he spoke. He talked about the things that frightened and disturbed him most, about "civilized man's inhumanity to his fellow man," about the lack of reason in light of knowledge, and about how it seemed that rational, civilized people would not be able to negotiate peace and, therefore, would not be able to live on this planet together.
In the last few years, I've had opportunity to speak to various groups, mostly Christian, around America and in Europe. I too have become disturbed with "rational, civilized man," especially "evangelical man" and those who profess to know the gospel of Jesus Christ. What disturbs me most is that civilized, evangelical leaders hold much of the power and control in our nation and in our world. Yet our evangelical leadership is not creative or compassionate enough to deal with the truths that burst in upon us every day--the economic/social truths of race hatred, energy crisis, crime, hunger, and poverty--in light of the healing mandate of the scriptures.
Why is this so? In Luke 11:52 Jesus says, "Woe to you lawyers! for you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering" and that the "blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation" (11:50). Today I believe we have an evangelical leadership that is not allowing the prophetic message of the gospel or those who preach it to penetrate the rank and file Christian community. Yet this is a time when I see what appears to be a genuine revival--especially in white America--which may be second to none in our history. The revival is producing people who are less divided denominationally and theologically and are more open to the radical implications of the gospel than ever before. I am finding pastors and young men and women who desire the truth and are ripe for innovative ways to make that truth--even the tough truth of justice--real in their everyday lives.
Yet, as I move into the institutions where these leaders are trained, I find--with notable exceptions--a frightening situation. I find men who are presidents and seminary professors and board members of these institutions who are so tied to this present economic order that they cannot afford to do anything but to depower the gospel.
I stress economic order, because as long as I criticize the political system, the welfare system, or even the church I am OK. But as soon as I question the economic order that has made America unfairly rich and is creating massive poverty--maybe worse than the world has ever known--at the very height of its massive productivity, I find myself in very, very hot water. You must be a communist if you criticize the economic system. If you're white, you're called red; if you're black, you're called militant. And so we bomb and kill communists, and we have lots of militant niggers in jail.
Or you are simply barred from the evangelical institutions of our nation. I have not yet been barred, but many black evangelical leaders who have the message of the hour--the black leaders like Tom Skinner, Bill Pannell, William Bentley, and Ed Reddix--have been. Not to mention some of the liberal blacks like Jesse Jackson and James Cone who, though I don't agree with their theology, have a great deal to teach us. Of course, not all are formally barred.
I spoke with one man from a well-known evangelical seminary who told me forthrightly that Tom Skinner was not forbidden to speak there. No, they were not against Tom. But he would never be invited back under that administration. What garbage!
This institutional assassination of prophetic black leaders--even those of evangelical persuasion--is a sign to me that we are in big trouble as Christians in America. We have developed an economic system through international corporations that not only determines whether people in various countries live or die, but it also has a stranglehold on the only conscience it has--the church of Jesus Christ. We have so organized and incorporated the church into our economic system that not only can't that system be disciplined, but if one does speak against it he or she is speaking against God and America and must be locked up quick.
But that system will be disciplined--if not by the prophet, then by the terrorist. I do not believe that the hungry and suffering worlds lingering on the fringe of our own are going to stand back and allow six per cent of the world's population to use more than one-third of the world's resources and to control most of the rest. I think that there will be kidnappings and killings, nuclear blackmail and assassinations. What will happen when a real terrorist--not from Hollywood--gets a hold of a test tube of bacteria and threatens germ warfare upon nations unless those nations respond to human needs?
I believe we have forgotten so quickly what made this nation great: that there were some people seeking God and the freedom to serve God--people who carved out a constitution that said all men are created equal. And whether they all practiced it or not, that meant black, yellow, red, and white. They are endowed by their creator--and whether they meant it then, that to me is the God of the Bible--with the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I don't think any of the prophetic black leaders are asking for any more than to live up to these words and the even higher mandates of scripture. And I believe that in America we have a young people--made up of all the races--who are ready to take the gospel of Jesus Christ and apply it in a new way to human need. If only they would be allowed by the evangelical leadership to get the incentive they need.
In Ron Sider's book, Rich Christians in An Age of Hunger, there is a quote from the notes of the 1903 Scofield Bible which reads: "The present social order is the most abject failure the world has ever seen.... Governments have never learned yet how to so legislate as to distribute the fruits of the industry of their people. The countries of the earth produce enough to support all, and if the earnings of each were fairly distributed, it would make all men toil some, but no man toil too much. This great civilization of ours has not learned so to distribute the product of human toil so that it shall be equitably held. Therefore, the government breaks down."
We need to hear words like these again. So I plead with my brothers and sisters--who are leaders and who know Jesus as their Lord--to stop stoning our black prophets. Just because they cannot stand up and praise you and the institutions as they exist, just because their journey has been far different than yours, don't try to silence them. You may be so deeply tied to an economic system as to be blind to what's happening in our society. You may be blinded by your own success and glory, poisoned by your own sense of evangelical goodness and charity.
We need the Amoses of our day. When Amos went to Bethel to cry out against the king and the nation, Israel was at its peak of prosperity. But just as the rich were never richer, so the poor were never poorer. Amos cried out about the misery of the poor and the luxury of the rich; he cried out for a redistribution of goods, services, wealth, and the power that makes wealth. He was demanding for the poor the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the midst of the system that was oppressing them.
America's poor cry out today with Amos. We have organized a technological society based on education, and we have deprived the poor, and especially black, people of the right to gain the technology. Instead we have made them servants of that technology. When technology advanced to the point where it didn't need slaves--when the cotton picker replaced the field hands--then, instead of giving them the opportunity to learn the manuals and run the machines, we pushed them into small delta towns in Mississippi and ghettos in the North. Then we created a welfare system and got the churches to bring Christmas baskets for these people to calm down the pressure.
But it hasn't worked.
The gap between rich and poor that Amos cried out about, and that Amoses today are crying out about, is wrecking our country. We've sown that disparity to the wind, and we are reaping a whirlwind. We kept poor people out of the development of space shuttles, rockets, and television. Then we put TVs in their homes which tell them that life is great if they smoke cigarettes, drink whiskey and beer, and drive a new car. So now we have looting and robbing and stealing to get those things that our technological media tells us are wonderful.
We have Amoses crying out today against this present economy. And for every Amos there is an Amaziah, a high priest of the system, telling people that "Amos has conspired against you.... The land is not able to bear his words" (Amos 7:10), and that "Amos is not a patriot but a communist and a heathen and a liberal--and not even a Christian." Usually the Amaziahs are white, but sometimes they are black people who are propped up, never to represent the deep feelings of deprived people, but to seek their own glory by "getting over" into the system.
Here I can identify with my brothers and sisters who speak out. Amos answered Amaziah, "I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, "Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'"
For me there is no choice, no alternative, no second thought of speaking anything else. I started as nothing. I am no prophet nor a prophet's son. My folks were gamblers and bootleggers, and the Lord took me from designing shopping baskets and from organizing co-ops to speak about what I know of him and what I know about the poor people with whom I grew up. The God whom I love still cares about the people I love, and these people are still dying and suffering outside this economic system.
The purpose of the gospel is to burn through all racial, cultural, and economic barriers. The purpose of the gospel is to challenge all economic and social orders. The purpose of the gospel is to call all men and women to accountability to each other and to the fellowship of the body that is based on faith in Christ Jesus. The purpose of the gospel is to make us into a new family.
I would be crazy and foolish and wrong and insane and unfaithful if I didn't believe these things, if I didn't shout these things from the rooftops; because there are thousands of poor people who need and want to hear this, and thousands of rich people who want and need to hear this.
The promise is that they will--that God's word will not return void.
John Perkins was a Sojourners contributing editor and president of the Voice of Calvary Ministries in Jackson and Mendenhall, Mississippi, when this article appeared.
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