The late novelist Gore Vidal spoke of America as “the United States of Amnesia” [1]. I fear he wasn’t exaggerating. Americans generally dislike the study of history, whether in school or elsewhere. And it shows. One survey a few years ago found that only half of Americans remembered when the Civil War took place [2], only 18 percent knew the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves living in territories still in rebellion against the United States [3], and more respondents identified lines from the Declaration of Independence with President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address than the lines Lincoln himself uttered [4].
In contemporary America, it is being alleged that the Black Lives Matter movement and similar forces seeking equality and justice for African-Americans are being influenced, even directed, by atheists, Marxists, communists, and others who espouse extreme and destructive philosophical and spiritual beliefs. (Please note that the ideologies listed above, though in some respects similar, are not in fact the same.) What follows will demonstrate that the warning of George Santayana still rings true, that “those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Haunting Parallels
Many today don’t likely remember him. But James Henley Thornwell was a prominent Presbyterian minister from South Carolina, who strongly supported slavery, the secession of the Southern states from the Union, and the resulting Confederacy [5]. A staunch defender of the alleged compatibility of slavery with Christianity [6], Thornwell founded the Southern Presbyterian Review and led the way in establishing the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States [7].
But the following statement by Thornwell sounds hauntingly familiar in today’s environment. Declaring those in opposition to slavery as being opposed to Christianity itself [8], he stated:
The parties in this conflict are not merely abolitionists and slaveholders. They are atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, Jacobins on the one side, and friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the battleground—Christianity and Atheism the combatants, and the progress of humanity at stake [9].
Have we heard such talk lately?
For those who don’t remember, the Jacobins were the radical party during the French Revolution [10]. In the above statement, Thornwell is accusing those wishing to abolish slavery of being the Jacobins of his day. In America’s current political climate, the Black Lives Matter movement is also being accused of promoting atheism and the principles of the French Revolution [11].
Truth and Falsehood Mingled
As we noted in a previous article on this site, error is by nature parasitic [12]. Truth can stand on its own. Lies cannot. Satan has recognized this principle since the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:5). And we see this principle at work in the attacks on movements seeking racial justice, whether past or present.
The claim that the abolitionist movement included atheists and rejecters of Christianity wasn’t entirely false. Frederick Douglas, the famous former slave who became a prominent abolitionist, was at one time an atheist. Writing in his second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom, Douglas wrote that throughout his life his religious views “pass[ed] over the whole scale and circle of belief and unbelief, from faith in the overruling Providence of God, to the blackest atheism” [13]. Remaining a non-traditional religious figure for the rest of his life [14], Douglas embraced such prominent skeptics as Robert Ingersoll [15]. William Wells Brown, another escaped slave who became an abolitionist, also rejected Christian beliefs [16].
But none of this sustains James Thornwell’s allegation that the abolitionists were the natural allies of atheists, communists, and the French Revolution. The record of history indicates that most abolitionists were religious [17]; indeed, much of the impetus for the abolitionist cause appears to have arisen from the Second Great Awakening [18]. Such leading figures in the latter movement as Charles Grandison Finney were abolitionists [19], whose Oberlin College included many abolitionist faculty and was a link on the Underground Railroad [20]. The early pioneers of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Ellen White chief among them, were also devout abolitionists [21]. Ellen White counseled early Adventists to disobey the infamous Fugitive Slave Act [22], and stated that those Adventists who lacked sympathy for “the oppressed colored race” could not receive the approval of God [23].
The involvement in the movement for African-American rights on the part of persons disbelieving in Christianity didn’t cease with the abolition of slavery. When people see online articles attacking the Black Lives Matter movement because one of its founders says she and her colleagues are “trained Marxists” [24], perhaps these critics forget that one of the original founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People—W.E.B. Du Bois—was an avowed agnostic who openly embraced communism [25]. But as with the abolitionist movement, this hardly proves the NAACP to be, or have been, the creature of anti-Christian forces.
Recent attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement have alleged not only Marxist affiliation, but also a spiritualistic one [26]. But once again, history is instructive. The movement to abolish slavery also included persons with a strong affinity for spiritualism. The infamous Fox sisters, along with such abolitionist leaders as William Lloyd Garrison, Joshua Giddings, Thomas Higginson, Ohio Senator Benjamin Wade, William Cullen Bryant, and newspaper editor Horace Greeley were—according to historian Brenda Wineapple—some of the “better-known antislavery activists with at least one foot in the spiritualist movement” [27].
But did this make the abolitionist movement a spiritualist movement? Hardly. The moral imperative of eliminating slavery stood supreme in its own logic, having nothing to do with the unscriptural, demonic teachings of spiritualism. The same holds true today for the moral imperative of racial equality and justice. Neither Marxism nor spiritualism is needed to buttress opposition to racism, and the vast majority of Americans who support movements like Black Lives Matter have no affinity for either of the above philosophies.
More Recent Examples
With the advent of the modern Civil Rights movement in the mid-twentieth century, opponents again sought to discredit the cause of racial justice by connecting it to anti-American, anti-Christian ideologies and alleged conspiracies. And once again, elements of truth were exaggerated for the purpose of tarring an entire movement on the basis of negative associations.
J. Edgar Hoover, who served as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for many years—and whose attitude toward African-Americans throughout his life was one of hostility and suspicion [28]—tended to view any efforts toward black equality as communist-inspired [29], despite the fact that his own investigation of black rights movements had produced little or no evidence for his opinion in this regard [30]. Indeed, though the official manifesto of the American Communist Party had in fact stated that “the Communists will carry on among the negro workers agitation to unite them with all class conscious workers” [31], Hoover was constrained to report to President Eisenhower that “despite the [Communist] Party’s having devoted an ‘inordinate’ amount of its time to recruiting Negro members, its efforts had been a failure” [32].
In spite of Hoover’s frequent allegations that Martin Luther King Jr. was a communist agent [33], by 1976 the FBI was forced to acknowledge that despite having conducted extensive surveillance, no evidence could be cited that King, or the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) he founded, had any connections whatsoever with any communist organizations [34].
But again, as with all misleading and false accusations, there were some shreds of truth to Hoover’s claims. Certainly the acknowledgement of the American Communist Party’s manifesto noted above, regarding their intention to recruit African-American workers for their cause, indicated that such efforts were part of their strategy—even if, as also noted above, these efforts showed little evidence of success. But one of Dr. King’s principal advisors and financial supporters, one Stanley David Levison [35], did for a time have ties to the Communist Party [36], though these ties appear to have been severed by 1957 [37]. Jack O’Dell, another civil rights activist and ally of Dr. King, was also part of the American Communist Party during the 1950s [38]—though again, as in Levison’s case, his communist connections appear to have been broken before his involvement with King [39].
Because of these connections, tangential though they were so far as the larger Civil Rights movement was concerned, John and Robert Kennedy urged King to separate himself from Levison and O’Dell [40], which King eventually did [41]. But these urgings were due less to the fear of communist influence on King through these men than to political pressures inspired by Hoover’s guilt-by-association tactics [42]. King would later observe that “there are as many communists in this freedom movement as there are Eskimos in Florida” [43].
Somehow I suspect that if a careful survey were taken of those participating in the recent Black Lives Matter protests, a similar observation could be made.
In his account of the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, King spoke of having read Karl Marx’s Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto in 1949 [44]. After reading these works, King strongly rejected the communist philosophy, and explained why in the following statement:
First I rejected their materialistic interpretation of history. Communism, avowedly secularistic and materialistic, has no place for God. This I could never accept, for as a Christian I believe that there is a creative personal power in this universe who is the ground and essence of all reality—a power that cannot be explained in materialistic terms. History is ultimately guided by spirit, not matter. Second, I strongly disagreed with communism’s ethical relativism. Since for the communist there is no divine government, no absolute moral order, there are no fixed, immutable principles; consequently almost anything—force, violence, murder, lying—is a justifiable means to the “millennial” end. This type of relativism was abhorrent to me. Constructive ends can never give absolute moral justification to destructive means, because in the final analysis the end is preexistent to the mean. Third, I opposed communism’s political totalitarianism. In communism the individual ends up in subjection to the state. . . . Man becomes hardly more, in communism, than a depersonalized cog in the turning wheel of the state [45].
There is every evidence that Dr. King retained these convictions till the end of his life, and that the above worldview with its Christian underpinnings guided his leadership—and that of his colleagues—throughout the 1960s Civil Rights movement.
Radical Forces in Legitimate Movements
Extremists are naturally drawn to reformatory movements, whether in the church or society. This is because extremism thrives on disruption of the status quo and the opportunities such disruption can create for advancing an agenda which in most cases is too radical to be considered under normal circumstances. This was true in the Protestant Reformation, as evidenced by the violence of Wittenberg students in December of 1521, when Catholic priests were driven at knife-point from their altars, worshipers stoned while kneeling before a statue of the Virgin, and the altars of Wittenberg’s Franciscan monastery destroyed [46]. Martin Luther urged his followers to desist from such violent gestures [47].
Ellen White speaks at length of the fanatical forces that imperiled the German Reformation [48], and how such extremism played into the hands of the papacy and its supporters [49]. Such misguided zealotry also scarred the efforts of the French Reformers, as when placards opposing the Catholic doctrine of the Mass were posted in major French cities on the night of October 17, 1534 [50]. Ellen White speaks of how “this zealous but ill-judged movement brought ruin, not only upon its propagators, but upon the friends of the reformed faith throughout France” [51].
And none of us need reminding of the damage wrought by extremist elements at different times in the early history of Seventh-day Adventism. The modern prophet warns us that such fanaticism will be repeated, especially during the period just before Jesus comes [52]. But both the Protestant and Advent movements remained divinely-driven and divinely-directed, despite occasional incursions of fanatical and discordant elements.
Conclusion
Movements seeking reformatory change being what they are, negative forces seeking to piggyback on their efforts can always be expected. The historical record is clear that such negative forces, no matter how highly placed they may seem to be in various reformatory movements, cannot fairly be portrayed as representing the larger agenda and ultimate goals of such movements. The familiar guilt-by-association fallacy, no matter how tempting to some, is a canard long employed by opponents of genuine reform both sacred and secular, and should be eschewed for the distraction it has consistently been.
What is more, a rule sadly ubiquitous in media coverage of human events is that bad news always makes the best copy. If a Congressman and his wife celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary, it won’t even make the small print. But if that same Congressman is caught in an extramarital affair, it will be breaking news on all the networks. In our contemporary world of 24-hour news, the Internet, and social media, this rule is even more operative than in the past. The old saying about a lie belting the world before truth can get its boots on, is even truer now than before.
Violent protests, no matter how rare, will always get bigger headlines and receive wider coverage than peaceful protests, no matter how disproportionately common the latter may be in contrast with the former. By the same token, voices claiming to be “trained Marxists”—no matter how few in number compared with their colleagues and the forces they lead—will always receive more attention than those seeking simple justice commensurate with U.S. Constitutional principles and the teachings of the Bible.
As watchful Seventh-day Adventist Christians surveying the signs of the times, it is imperative that both Biblical and historical awareness be uppermost in our perceptions. The core of Biblical justice and the goals of a free society must remain paramount in our thinking, irrespective of extremists who may seek to hijack such endeavors for their own, unrelated purposes.
REFERENCES
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gore_Vidal:_The_United_States_of_Amnesia
2. “Survey: Half of Americans Don’t Know When the Civil War Took Place,” American Council of Trustees and Alumni, April 14, 2015 https://www.goacta.org/2015/04/survey_half_of_americans_dont_know_when_the_civil_war_took_place/
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. “James Henley Thornwell,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Henley_Thornwell
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. “Jacobin (politics),” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobin_(politics)
11. Musa Nkosi, “Marxism and Black Lives Matter from a Black Adventist Perspective,” Fulcrum7, July 17, 2020 http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2020/7/17/marxism-and-black-lives-matter-from-a-black-adventist-perspective
12. Kevin D. Paulson, “Poison and Wholesome Food,” ADvindicate, Jan. 7, 2020 http://advindicate.com/articles/2019/9/20/paulson-draft-1-s88fl-zkbns-37938-hddjm
13. Christopher Cameron, “Black Freethought from Slavery to Civil Rights: Atheism and Agnosticism in African American Cultural and Intellectual Life,” Readex, October 2018 https://www.readex.com/readex-report/issues/volume-13-issue-2/black-freethought-slavery-civil-rights-atheism-and
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. “Abolitionism in the United States,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism_in_the_United_States
18. Ibid.
19. “Charles Grandison Finney,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Grandison_Finney
20. Ibid.
21. Ellen G. White, Testimonies, vol. 1, pp. 253-260,264-268,355-368.
22. Ibid, pp. 201-202.
23. Ibid, p. 534.
24. Nkosi, “Marxism and Black Lives Matter from a Black Adventist Perspective,” Fulcrum7, July 17, 2020 http://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2020/7/17/marxism-and-black-lives-matter-from-a-black-adventist-perspective
25. “W.E.B. Du Bois,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._E._B._Du_Bois#Religion
26. “Remember When We Advised Avoiding Black Lives Matter? We Were (of course) Correct,” Fulcrum7, July 6, 2020 http://www.fulcrum7.com/news/2020/7/6/remember-when-we-told-you-to-avoid-black-lives-matter-we-were-correct
27. Brenda Wineapple, Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848-1877 (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2013), p. 39.
28. Richard Gid Powers, Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover (New York: The Free Press, 1987), p. 324.
29. Ibid, pp. 127-128,325.
30. Ibid, pp. 127,325.
31. Ibid, p. 127.
32. Ibid, p. 325.
33. Ibid, pp. 370-372.
34. “Martin Luther King Jr,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.#Ideas,_influences,_and_political_stances
35. Powers, Secrecy and Power, pp. 369-370.
36. “Stanley Levison,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Levison
37. Ibid.
38. “Jack O’Dell,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_O%27Dell
39. Ibid.
40. Powers, Secrecy and Power, p. 372.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid.
43. “Martin Luther King Jr,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.#Ideas,_influences,_and_political_stances
44. Martin Luther King Jr, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1958), p. 92.
45. Ibid, pp. 92-93.
46. Will Durant, The Reformation (New York: MJF Books, 1957), p. 364.
47. Ibid.
48. White, The Great Controversy, pp. 186-193.
49. Ibid, p. 192.
50. “Affair of the Placards,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affair_of_the_Placards
51. White, The Great Controversy, p. 225.
52. ----Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 28.
Pastor Kevin Paulson holds a Bachelor’s degree in theology from Pacific Union College, a Master of Arts in systematic theology from Loma Linda University, and a Master of Divinity from the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He served the Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for ten years as a Bible instructor, evangelist, and local pastor. He writes regularly for Liberty magazine and does script writing for various evangelistic ministries within the denomination. He continues to hold evangelistic and revival meetings throughout the North American Division and beyond, and is a sought-after seminar speaker relative to current issues in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He presently resides in Berrien Springs, Michigan