Forrest G. Wood THE ARROGANCE OF FAITH - (Knopf, 1990)
From: Robert Huck
Subject: Review: Wood(Huck)
Review: THE ARROGANCE OF FAITH - Forrest G. Wood
(Knopf, 1990)
Robert Huck
Illinois State University
April 16, 1994
"Blest are you poor; the reign of God
is yours.
Blest are you who hunger, you
shall be filled.
Blest are you who are weeping; you
shall laugh." (Luke 6:21)
Did the speaker of these words launch a movement that is
inherently racist? Using Christian attitudes towards slavery, Forrest
Wood in THE ARROGANCE OF FAITH, claims that Christianity is inherently
and iredeemably racist.
Wood's argument rests on two fundamental precepts of
Christianity. His first argument is that Christianity's devotion to
evangalization and belief that only Jesus is "the way, the truth, and
the life" give Christians a superiority complex vis-a-vis
non-Christians. "Christianity - from Richard the Lionhearted to Billy
Graham - has almost certainly been responsible for more worldwide
proselytizing and obtrusion than any religion in history. One can only
wonder how many 'infidels' have been killed or enslaved in the name of
Christ" (27). He goes on for chapters; quoting from pamphlets, sermons,
personal letters, tracts, and books of every obscure Christian
clergyman, theologian, missionary, or lay church official whose racist
views support Wood's thesis.
The second Christian precept that Wood says contributes to its
racism is the Christian teaching on the Bible. Christianity's belief in
the inerrancy of scriptures, according to Wood, gives the Christian
blinders when it comes to dealing with people of other faiths. In the
United States, Southern Protestants took the King James Version (a
deeply flawed translation) and used it, along with their view of the
Bible's inerrancy, to justify the holding of slaves. The King James
Version rarely made distinctions between servants and slaves by often
using the same English word in translating very different Greek and
Aramaic words. But to the Southern slaveholder, grey areas in Biblical
translations didn't matter. The slave owner would read Leviticus 25:44
"Both thy bondsmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be
of the heathen that are round about you" and believe that God had
ordained slavery. The Bible is the inerrant word of God himself. The
Bible authorizes the enslavement of heathens. Africans are not
Christian, therefore they are heathens. Therefore God must approve of
enslaving the Africans. End of discussion.
Wood's observations of Christianity are true. Many Christians
have used their faith to commit unspeakable acts against millions of
people. Many Irish Protestants and Catholics are still using religion
to justify discrimination, murder and terrorism. However, many truths
are not complete and this is where Wood's argument falls apart. Wood
makes many mistakes and omissions so glaring it is tempting to call them
stupid. Wood set out to chronicle Christian attitudes towards race but
mentioned Martin Luther King only in passing. He also failed to mention
Rev. Vernon Johns (King's predecessor in Montgomery, Alabama) at all.
The same for Archbishop Desmond Tutu. How can anyone write about
religion and race and fail to examine the records of these three
Christians? The answer is quite simple. King, Johns, and Tutu prove
that Wood's thesis is wrong. How can Christianity be "inherently
racist" and produce Martin Luther King? It can't. The Ku Klux Klan is
inherently racist. The National Socialist Party is inherently racist.
These groups did not produce people like King, Johns, and Tutu. They
produced David Duke and Adolf Hitler.
Wood's slight of King, Johns, and Tutu is the key to his false
premise. To Wood, Christianity is represented primarily by 19th-Century
fundamentalist white American Protestantism. It isn't. Not by any
stretch of the imagination. Most Christians are Roman Catholic. Wood
admits this but doesn't examine the racial attitudes of Catholics in
Europe, South America, or Asia. He also ignores current attitudes of
most American Protestants and their co-religionists in Europe. He
doesn't mention the Eastern Orthodox at all. In short, Wood believes
that Christianity is "inherently racist" because 100 years ago there
were a few million racist Protestants in the United States. Using this
rationale I could make the same claim about Judaism. The Book of
Leviticus, where God supposedly endorsed the enslavement of non-Jews,
was written by Jews for Jews. Jews claim to be God's chosen people. The
Old Testament says that the Jews are destined to rule all land between
Egypt and the Tigris-Euphrates valley. Therefore Judaism is inherently
racist. I won't make this claim. It is not true. I know there are
some Jews who are racist (e.g. the Jewish settler who murdered more than
30 Palestinians in Hebron) but there are many Jews who are not racist.
Therefore Judaism is not inherently racist. Wood admits there are
Christians who are not racist, but will not back down from his statement
on Chrisitianity's supposed inherent racism.
Wood's false assumptions of Christianity are not his only
shortcoming. He also makes several false assumptions of history. In
his examination of Christian/Native American relations, he questions the
Christian's belief that his or her religion is for all people. "[I]f
Christianity is for everyone, why was it not from the beginning revealed
to everyone?" (23). Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are all based on
the belief that God acts in history through people. The Christian would
say God revealed himself through Jesus Christ at a specific time and
place in history and gave Jesus' followers the mandate preach his
gospel. This continued the partnership God created when Abraham first
revealed that there is but one God. Admittedly God could have revealed
his word to "everyone" but he chose not to. Instead he established a
partnership, or covenant, with the people he created. This is an
entirely plausible explanation that Wood does not bother to answer.
This is typical of Wood's approach. If a theory gets in the way of his
ideas, it is better to ignore it than to answer it.
Wood also ignores the fact that Christianity is a child of
Judaism. Many of Christianity's "racist" teachings come from the Old
Testament, written by Jews centuries before Jesus, St. Peter and St.
Paul. If Christianity has racist teachings, shouldn't Wood blame
Judaism? He does no such thing.
THE ARROGANCE OF FAITH reminds us that many atrocities have been
committed in Jesus' name. It is important for all Christians to
understand the dark side of their history. However, Wood utterly fails
to prove his thesis. He even offers evidence (such as writings by
Christian abolitionists) that argue against his ideas. This may be done
in the interest of fairness, but Wood does not realize the consequence
of these statements. He presents them without understanding that
Christians do not have to be racist. Since racism is obviously not a
logical consequence of Christianity, Wood's thesis cannot stand up to
even the most casual criticism.
I have used 1,118 words to disprove Forrest Wood's ideas. I
could have used three: Martin Luther King.