Native American Repression

The Cherokee Indians did more than any other Native American peoples to adopt to early American customs. They adopted a system of British education. They began to dress like and live like the early colonists. During the Second Great Awakening at the very beginning of the 19th Century the Cherokees converted en masse to Christianity.

President Andrew Jackson, a pious North Carolina Presbyterian layman, was running for re-election to a second term. He needed the strong support of his southern political base. However, gold had been discovered on the Cherokee reservation. Southerners wanting access to this newly discovered wealth wanted the Cherokees moved out of the South. In exchange for their political support they pressured President Jackson to strongly endorse an Indian Removal Act.

This legislation calling for the removal of Native Americans from the eastern States, with the strong support of Jackson, eventually passed.

The US Supreme Court called the legislation "unconstitutional." Jackson's response, like the modern defiance of Alabama Governor George Wallace, was, "Let's see if you have enough troops to impose your ruling."

President Jackson, using federal troops, marched the Cherokee nation at gun-point, in small groups of a thousand, all the way to what is now eastern Oklahoma.

A few Moravian Christians stood with the Cherokees, and accompanied these indeginous peoples all the way to the Oklahoma Territory, but for the most part Christians were silent...

The Opium Wars

It is almost inconceivable that the sale and distribution of illicit drugs, on the one hand, and the sending of Christian missionaries on the other, could be connected. Yet this, in fact, was the case in 19th century China during and after what came to be known as the “opium wars.”

The Chinese, by the terms of the Treaty of Nanjing (1842) and the British Supplementary Treaty of the Bogue (1843) and eventually the Treaty of Tianjin (1858), were compelled to open ports to trading, allow the sale of opium, allow foreigners with passports to travel to the interior, and permit western missionary societies to spread the Christian faith and hold property inside China.

Seizing on the opportunity, missionaries were sent out by British, American, and German missionary agencies as they sought to bring the good news of Christ to the “heathen of China.” Yes, Protestantism arrived in China at the barrel of a gun as thousands of missionaries arrived on ships laden with chests of addictive, ruinous opium.

The Rev. John Liggins, an Episcopal missionary to China, campaigned against the opium trade, but for the most part Christians were silent...

Slavery

The Englishman Sir John Hawkins had the dubious distinction of becoming the first slave-ship captain to bring Africans to the Americas.

Hawkins was a religious gentleman who insisted that his crew "serve God daily" and "love one another." His ship, ironically called the "HMS Good Ship Jesus," left the shores of his native England for Africa in October 1562. He arrived at Sierra Leone, and in a short time he had three hundred blacks in his possession. Hawkins claimed to have acquired them "partly by sword and partly by other means."

A member of the British Parliament, William Wilberforce, campaigned incessantly against slavery, but for the most part Christians were silent...

Exploitation of Child and Immigrant Laborers

At the end of the nineteenth century immigrants, specifically those from southern and eastern Europe, were essentially naïve dreamers with ideal images of America. Relying on undependable sources such as letters, advertisements, and word of mouth for news, they generated unrealistic, idealized visions of life in the United States.

Eagerly looking for work, these immigrants readily heard the beckoning calls of big businesses and willingly accepted jobs and working conditions that American factory workers deemed unsuitable for themselves.

While the overwhelming majority of American Christians turned a blind eye to the repression of these immigrant workers, men like Samuel Gompers stood up and spoke out: "To be free, the workers must have choice. To have choice they must retain in their own hands the right to determine under what conditions they will work"

An 18-year-old Baptist minister in Matwann, West Virginia, preached a series of sermons relating the difficulties of working in the local coal mines to that of the children of Israel toiling under the rule of Pharoah in the land of Egypt. He was gunned down on the steps of his church after a morning service. Again, for the most part Christians were silent about the exploitative conditions of miners and factory workers...

Women's Suffrage

On the day before Woodrow Wilson took office, on March 3, 1913, more than 8,000 women marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, carrying banners, demanding the right to vote. As the women started marching, they were met with jeers and hit by eggs. As the march progressed, onlookers attempted to break up the march, by throwing rocks, pushing the suffragists, and yanking them off the streets. Police witnessing the attack refused to intercede, and order was not restored until the Secretary of War, acting under presidential order, called out federal troops from the U.S. Army garrison in Ft. Myers, Virginia.

For the most part Christians were silent...

Antisemitism During World War II

The voyage of the German ocean liner St. Louis dramatically highlights the difficulties faced by many people trying to escape Nazi terror. In May 1939, 937 passengers, most Jewish refugees, left Hamburg, Germany, en route to Cuba. Most of them planned eventually to emigrate to the United States and were on the waiting list for admission. All passengers held landing certificates permitting them entry to Cuba, but when the St. Louis reached the port of Havana, the President of Cuba refused to honor the documents.

After the ship left the Havana harbor, it sailed so close to the Florida coast that the passengers could see the lights of Miami. The captain appealed for help, but in vain. U.S. Coast Guard ships patrolled the waters to make sure that no one jumped to freedom and did not allow the ship to dock in the U.S. The St. Louis turned back to Europe. Belgium, the Netherlands, England, and France admitted the passengers. But within months, the Germans overran western Europe. Hundreds of passengers who disembarked in Belgium, the Netherlands, and France eventually fell victim to the Nazi "Final Solution."

The Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran theologian, organized and led a small underground resistence to Nazism, but for the most part Christians were silent...

Modern Civil Rights Movement

"...I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.

"When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leader era; an too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows.

"In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed." (Dr. Martin Luther King, Letter From a Birmingham Jail)

For the most part Christians were silent...