After reading this story, and getting past the breathtaking ignorance and inexcusable racism that is wrapped up in this particular incident, I took note of where it came from. Mike Keller, the guest preacher at Fairpark Baptist Church in the Ft. Worth area, is the father of Anna Duggar, the mother of the 19 children featured in The Learning Channel's reality show and the subject of the Netflix documentary Shiny Happy People. And that explains a lot.
There are more family connections to the Duggars there. The pastor of the church is married to the sister of Anna Duggar, so the guest preacher is his father-in-law. It is an independent, fundamental Baptist church, which also explains much of this spread of blatant ignorance and racism.
After the content of the sermon was made public in The Daily Beast and The Fort Worth Star Telegram, the church issued a statement claiming that they do not condone racism or slavery (well, thank God for that!) nor do they tolerate prejudice of any kind against people of color. I can hear echoes in the background, however, complaining and whining about the twisted mainstream media being a tool of the devil and invading the private business of their church. If it was preached from their pulpit, it's public and it is an expression of the church's position and perspective. There's no cause to blame the media for the problems this ignorant statement apparently caused.
The Back Side of Free Speech, Freedom of Conscience and Religious Liberty
Free speech gives this preacher, though I'd prefer not to refer to him in Christian terms, since his despicable remarks are a poor representation of his faith, whatever it is, the ability to spout his ignorance from the pulpit. But a Christian congregation, especially in a Baptist church, has control over who represents their views from their pulpit. In spite of their statement, there's nothing from them refuting his remarks. And the same freedom of conscience that lets him speak his mind also opens the door to his critics.
Though the church issued a public statement, there's a cultural backdrop here that explains the lack of real dissent. This is Fundamentalist Christianity on display. And in recent years, as it has been courted for its influence and its votes, it is now a strong, prevailing influence in one of America's major political parties. And that makes the superstition and ignorance it promotes a danger to democracy and to the freedom that is guaranteed by the Constitution. This ignorance exists because it is protected by the very Constitution that it wants to destroy.
It can't be outlawed, so it must be defeated with the truth.
Where Does This Come From?
Fundamentalist Christianity has its origins in the Second Great Awakening, and the period of time when the westward migration of Americans mixed with the emotionalism and fervor of frontier revivals. Churches were planted out of revival meetings and were being established at a rate that created a shortage of educated and trained ministers to serve as pastors. So the leadership, and preaching, of churches fell to individuals who, in many cases, did not even have enough education to actually read the Bible from which they were preaching.
The doctrine and theology that emerged from all of this forms the roots of Fundamentalism. Preachers had a King James Version of the Bible, and minimal reading skills or comprehension. They preached what they knew. They came up with a contradictory, literal interpretation of the Bible, going verse by verse, because they knew nothing about historical context, original languages, and worked their way through sermons by a method known as proof texting, making up a statement that claims to be true and then finding a text in the Bible which fits it or sounds like it does.
These were the Christians who fought against abolitionists and who came up with the language of justification of the slaughter of native Americans as an attempt to "Christianize" them. When ministers educated in the theological seminaries connected to the colleges and universities of the time reached these churches, they were often send on their way quickly, since their ability to interpret the Bible caused them to reach very different conclusions than the entrenched pre-suppositions of the churches. There is an anti-education bias against formal training for ministers in this movement, even to this day. The ignorance was perpetuated by the establishment of schools which taught the fundamentalist doctrine and theology.
So for the most part, this is now a closed group, convinced that the westward movement of settlers was God's plan to expand the Christian nation of his new chosen people, blessing white people with the resources of an undeveloped, virgin continent and it was God's will to cleanse it of savages and use the labor of inferior races to develop it.
It's on the Rebound
Wars have been fought, in this country and around the world, attempting to rid the world of this kind of bigotry and ignorance. We succeeded in eliminating slavery, finally, after the Civil War, though we have not yet rid the county of the residue of bigotry and racism that still persists and now seems to get worse with time. We fought two major world wars to help rid the world of the injustice of imperialism and the oppression and torture of fascism. But there is a growing fascist movement now within the United States that seems to be advocating even more severe hatred than the European variety did in the first half of the 20th century.
Is it too much of a leap to go from the sermon of an old man who is steeped in racial bigotry to the growing threat of anti-democratic fascism found in several forms in this country in the 20th century? I don't think so. The bottom line here is that he said it, and among the constituency in which he was preaching, it didn't really create much of a stir, until the media called them out. If this had not appeared in the local daily newspaper, and The Daily Beast, would the church have issued a denial anyway? I seriously doubt it.
Claiming to follow the "fundamentals of the faith," is what gives Fundamentalists their identity. However, exhibiting a racist attitude would run counter to that claim. So does following a political leader whose personal brand is one of immoral worldliness. So is the very legalistic set of rules and commandments which undermine the key element of Grace in Christian theology and practice. And so is the intrusion of secular, far right wing politics, the core principles of which contradict, point by point, the gospel that Jesus preached.
Education defeats ignorance, but in this country, the dubious quality and effectiveness of our whole educational system when it comes to social studies of just about any kind, makes its success against bad ideology questionable at best. We have to continue calling this out, identifying it, pointing out not only its ideological flaws, but where its dominance will lead to oppression if they ever gain control of government. Is that enough to motivate people to do a little research into the candidates that run for office and go cast a ballot for freedom? It should be more than enough.
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