The Theology of the Bible-Belt,
cradle of "Conservative Christianity"

Pages : [1] 2

If you want to understand what makes the Christian Conservatives of the U.S.A. tick, then you must begin by understanding the theology of that part of the country variously known as "the Bible-Belt", "the Confederacy" or "Dixie". And here is why :
Have you noticed that despite having lost the Civil War some 140 year ago the Confederacy, long believed to be extinct, is now pretty much in charge in these good old United States of America? When President Lyndon Johnson succeeded in getting the historic civil rights legislation of the 1960's passed, he observed sadly that he had just signed the death certificate for the Democratic Party in the South. He was right, and with that loss, and the Republican Party's "Southern strategy" to capitalize on the Democratic Party's loss, everything fell into place for the victory of the Confederacy over the Union. Conservatives all over the country were persuaded to abandon the "nigger-loving" Democratic Party (whether stated that way, or in coded messages to that effect), and to join the party once known as the Party of Lincoln, but now become the unofficial Party of Jefferson Davis.
All over the country, influenced by this brand of Christianity, "people of faith" have helped to deliver the Congress and the Presidency into the hands of the Old Confederacy. The only way that the Democratic Party has been able to win an occasional presidential election since then has been by running a fairly Conservative Southern Democrat (i.e. Jimmy Carter & Bill Clinton). And who owns today's Republican Party? Just look at it's leadership : Bush in the White House, Trent Lott & Bill Frist (from Mississippi & Tennessee) in the Senate, and Speakers of the House like Georgia's Newt Gingrich (who tried to have Louisiana's Bob Livingston as his replacement) and Republican Leaders in the House, Tom Delay, Dick Armey, Bill Archer, all Texans. The only exception in recent years has been Speaker Denny Hastert of Illinois, who was hand-picked by Gingrich and Delay to be the token Northerner in the bunch.
If you have been unaware of the overlapping of religion with politics in this country, despite the official wall of separation between them, you should find this web page especially enlightening.
While not all religion in the U.S.A. is not yet under the sway of "Dixie Christianity", Conservative Christianity country certainly is. Whether they be white, black, yellow, red or brown. or they reside in the south, north, east or west, Conservative Christians in the U.S.A. embrace beliefs developed over several centuries, not in Israel, Greece or Rome, but right here in the Bible Belt of the good old U.S. A. Just as Catholics worldwide espouse the Catholicism of Rome in Italy, Conservative Christians espouse a faith that has its roots in Dixie, where it has its headquarters, and where the vast majority of its leaders come from, people like Billy Graham and his family, Pat Robertson (700 Club & Christian Coalition), Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwell (Moral Majority), Oral Roberts, James Dobson (Focus on the Family), Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Jan and Paul Crouch, Fred Phelps, Bob Jones, George Roche IV, Jan and Paul Crouch, Louis Sheldon, Bill Bright (Campus Crusade for Christ), Gary Bauer, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyers, Louis Sheldon, Tim and Beverly LaHaye, Phyllis Schlafly, Rex Humbard, Kenneth Copeland, Charles F. Stanley, Don Wildmon, James Kennedy, James Robison, and a multitude of others.
Read or listen to most proponents of Conservatism and you will see that they insist on being the ones to tell you what their rivals, i.e. Liberals, stand for. Rather than direct their conservative followers to what liberals themselves say about their beliefs, Conservatives are so unsure of their positions that they fear (with good reason) that many of their followers might well be persuaded by liberal views, if they were exposed to them directly.
But at "Liberals Like Christ", you will find exactly the opposite, because Liberals know that there's nothing more convincing of the error of Conservative thinking than their own words. So here, you will find the arguments of Conservatives in their own words. That probably won't prevent Conservatives from complaining -- when people turn with disgust from their views -- that their ideas have been misunderstood or misinterpreted or whatever, but so be it.
Apart from the section titles ( or "claims"), which I will underline and print in white text on black background, most of what follows is from a Conservative Christian web site www.mindspring.com/~dennisw/articles/theocon/index.htm. Dennis Wheeler, is a very intelligent son of Dixie who does a very good job of systematically laying out the case for America's Bible-Belt Christianity. Whether you like his views, (which are displayed here in a black "Times Roman" font) or dislike them, feel free to write to him to tell him so. If you don't agree with the views expressed below, please don't voice your complaints to me. They are not my views; I am simply bringing the views of a Christian Conservative spokesman to your attention, as the best way I know to answer the questions many observers ask about how people who pride themselves in being "good Christians" can believe as many of them do :
that God never intended blacks to be the equals of whites;
that God never intended women to be the equals of men;
that God never intended children to be the equals of adults;
that God never intended gays to be the equals of straights;
that God's cause was defeated when the North prevailed in the Civil War;
that the U.S.A. was founded by Christians for Christians, only;
that God never intended science to go beyond the bible's view of the world;
that God never intended to replace "the divine right of kings" with "democracy";
that God never intended government to help the needy;
and that it is therefore against God's plan and "unChristian" to support such things.

Although I (Ray Dubuque) am the person responsible for the organization of this page, its introduction, and the introductory caption, i.e. "Thesis" of each section, most of the substance of this BibleChristianity page is the work of Dennis Wheeler, and is displayed in a black "Times Roman" font. When Wheeler quotes someone else, I indent the quote and display it in blue, between single quote marks. My own comments, which I have tried to keep to a minimum are displayed in this more casual maroon font.

Twelve Important Conservative Beliefs
(as set forth in black and white by Dennis Wheeler )

Thesis # 1. White, southern Christians are the only true Christians in America
Thesis # 2. Belief in Science and belief in the Bible don't mix, and true Christians go with the Bible
Thesis # 3. Man's law needs to be the reflection of God's law (the ten commandments)
Thesis # 4. "There is no ethical righteousness apart from the law of God"
Thesis # 5. People aren't entitled to the "rights" claimed for them by "humanistic" theories
Thesis # 6. God's plan calls for INEQUALITY among human beings, rather than EQUALITY

[The links to the remaining Theses will take you to a second page.]
Thesis # 7. The Word of God supports absolute authority, RATHER THAN DEMOCRACY
Thesis # 8. "Civil governments derive their powers from God"
Thesis # 9. To OPPOSE slavery is to go against God's Word
Thesis # 10. The enslaving of non-Christian black Africans by White European Christians was the best thing that could have happened to them
Thesis # 11. The Civil War won't be over until the true Conservative Christianity of the South triumphs not just there but throughout the rest of the country

Thesis # 1 = White, southern Christians are the only true Christians in America :

"The success of the Civil Rights movement since the 1960s has operated to demolish a great deal of the Christian civilization (in America). It has done so by introducing a Humanistic structure of morality which stands in direct contradiction to Biblical morality as anchored in the Ten Commandments. This new morality is an ethical system which values toleration and equality over obedience to God's Holy Law. This has worked to unleash a torrent of violence, crime, and wickedness across our land.
America was founded as a continuation of Christian Europe which had been the cradle of the Protestant Reformation. After a time, many of the people and institutions of the North forsook this religion of their forefathers, turning instead to the tenants of the Enlightenment and its ignoble Humanism. This had produced the French Revolution seventy years earlier, and more than anything else provoked war with the Christian South.
The Southern (i.e. white, Conservative or orthodox Christian) viewpoint was that the states of the North had embraced this Humanism as its new religion. They had mutated from the country's original religious, philosophical, and legal cornerstones. Yet, the South remained true to the ideals upon which America was founded in 1789.
[ See how erroneous all this is.]
Again to quote Richard Weaver,
'The realization which especially angered the Southern apologists was that they were held up as traitors or subverters of the established order, whereas it appeared plain to them that the North, led on by fanatical reformers, had promoted a revolution on principles rejected by the Founding Fathers. It seemed to them that in the light of history the South was the loyal section, for it had poured out its blood and treasure in defense of the common inheritance of laws and customs.'
We need to be crystal clear about what Christianity is, what Christian civilization is, what true Americanism is."
[True Christianity, true Americanism, this "theologian" will teach you below is what is believed and practiced in "the Confederacy", as opposed to the "false Christianity" of the rest of the county.

Thesis # 2 = Belief in Science and belief in the Bible don't mix, and true Christians go with the Bible :

"Being proponents of Southern Presbyterianism, (Major Robert Lewis) Dabney, (James Henley) Thornwell, and many other important thinkers in the Confederacy held unswervingly to the Westminster Confession of Faith. This is a document which was framed by our forebears in London in 1634. Presbyterians believe it to be the clearest interpretation of the Bible ever set forth.

A. The Bible as the Key to Life.
Dabney's theology and Southern society were anchored on the belief that the Bible is not only the key to salvation, but also the key to life itself. Observing the tie between the Bible and the Southern people, Historian Richard Weaver wrote, "Reverence for the `word of God' is a highly important aspect of Southern religious orthodoxy."
Concerning the Bible, the Westminster Confession of Faith states,
'The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture... The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.' B. Creation: The Proper View of Man and the World.
Because the vulgar theory of evolution has gained such a hold over the minds of so many in today's South, the doctrine of creation needs to be asserted in no uncertain terms.
1. The Confederate (i.e. Conservative) Doctrine of Creation.
Dr. Thornwell was also (in addition to (Dabney) very adamant in his view that the world was created directly by God, and went to great lengths to attack and destroy every theory of evolution being advanced in his day. . .
Both Dabney and Thornwell were convinced that the Bible alone was the place from whence we should draw our beliefs concerning the creation of the world. Dabney held that we are to hold to the doctrine of creation by faith, just as we hold to every other doctrine of the Christian religion.
Dabney was a theologian and didn't claim to be geologist. It was not within his field of expertise to have the answer to every speculation put forward by evolutionary expositors. Still, Dabney knew that evolutionists had surreptitiously used science many times before to assail the Bible and its teachings on creation. So, he urged ministers to withstand these onslaughts against the Bible with these words,
These apparent difficulties of geology are just such as science has often paraded against the Bible; but God's word has stood firm, and every true advance of science has only redounded to its honour. Christians, therefore, can afford to bear these seeming assaults with exceeding coolness.
The denial of the supremacy of "science" has been a tenant (sic) of the Southern nation for centuries. It is crucial to our existence. The Southern historian, Richard Weaver, recognized this in 1943,

I should list first of all the fact that the South, alone among the sections, has persisted in regarding science as a false messiah. . .

2. The Status of Evolutionary Thought.
The theory of evolution which Dabney and Thornwell were fighting 135 years ago, has remained as a thorn in the side of the Christian Church unto this very day. Evolutionism has gained such a foothold in American life that since the 1960s it has been taught in all of the government schools of the land. Furthermore, it is no longer taught as theory, but forms the basis for much of the legal and social philosophy in the United States.
The status which this spurious heresy is accorded in the academic circles of America can be demonstrated by the following quotation from a well-known journal of 'science,'
'Evolution is the central organizing theory of biology, and has fundamental importance in other sciences as well. It is no more controversial in scientific circles than gravity or electricity... There is no scientific dispute that evolution has occurred and continues to occur; this is why evolution is regarded as a scientific fact. '
From the preceding words we see that science in our culture has regressed to the place it held in the 1400s when dogmatic assertions about the flatness of the earth were submitted. For the entire earth can be searched, and the entire history of the earth can be searched, and not one shred of evolutionary evidence will be discovered.
As Christians and Southerners we need to fight this ludicrous onslaught against Christian civilization with all available means. Indeed, this is already being done as Christian churches all across our nation and the greater United States have established a gigantic network of schools and colleges which teach that the world was created by God, and that all of the universe should reflect this fact. In this manner the great work of our Confederate theologians of ages past still lives and flourishes in our day and in our time.
3. The Absurdity of Evolution.. . .
The absurdity of (evolution) is far more than the human mind can comprehend, yet, here in the South and all across America, this foolishness forms much of the basis of our society, and is even called "scientific fact" by most of the leading academicians of our day.
4. The Philosophical Nature of Evolution.
The philosophy behind the "theory of evolution" is nothing new. Darwin and his followers have dressed it up in new garb, but underneath the current costume remains one of the same-old, worn-out, pagan philosophies of ancient history. When the prophet Elijah squared off against the prophets of Baal, he was essentially confronting a system of belief identical to modern-day Darwinism.
The Baalism of Elijah's day was philosophically no different from the evolutionary humanism of our day. Such beliefs lead inexorably to the deification of Nature, and, ultimately, to the deification of the state as Nature's regent. Elijah destroyed the prophets of Baal by calling down fire from Heaven. Our opposition to their modern-day appearance should be just as vehement, if not as dramatic.
5. The Political Effects of Evolution.
Evolution has spawned two political systems which have been highly visible in the 20th Century: Communism and Nazism.
a. Communism.
Communism has sprung from the idea that all men have evolved into being, and that the differences among the various peoples, along with their natural aversion to admixture, is a result of them having evolved in different areas and locations around the earth.
This being the case, the communist perspective is that if the various peoples of the earth are mixed together, they will eventually learn to get along with one another. Thus, they view ethnic integration as a moral positive which ought to be pursued.
b. Naziism.(sic)
Naziism (sic) approaches the differences of the earth's peoples in another way. The Nazi idea is that the lighter-skinned peoples evolved first and the darker-skinned peoples evolved at a later date: the lighter the skin, the earlier the development, hence the further along on the evolutionary scale.
Although experience doesn't give rebuke to this theory in the manner that it does to the communist idea, nonetheless, the Christian Southerner ought to reject it on the basis of Scripture. There is no biblical basis to claim that the lighter-skinned peoples of the earth evolved first and have therefore advanced further. . .
This is important because so many in today's South who have taken up the Southern cause operate from a National-Socialist (i.e. NAZI) perspective. This is not our heritage and a plan of action based on Nazi principles will not gain for us the blessings of God to whom all of our actions are to bring glory.
5. Man in God's Image.
An alternative to both communism and naziism is Christian nationalism (otherwise known as 'white Christian supremacy'). This is the Biblical perspective. The ideal here is that although all peoples exist as a result of God's creative act and are therefore made in His image, at a later time God subdivided mankind into ethnic units called nations (or 'races') for His own purposes and reasons. (Deuteronomy 32:8, "When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples.)"

Back to the list of Theses

Thesis # 3 = Man's law needs to be the reflection of God's law (the ten commandments) :

"God's law, as published in the Ten Commandments and expounded in the rest of the Bible, is the standard of righteousness and morality by which we as Southerners and Christians need to live. It is not our duty to attempt to live by other anti-Christian moral orders such as the Koran, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Code of Hammurabi, Hollywood morality, the Talmud, the Civil Rights of the Martin Luther King Cult, or any others.
The law of God is the Confederate standard. The Ten Commandments are:

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.
Honor thy father and thy mother.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Thou shalt not covet.
Concerning this law one of America's founding fathers, James Madison, a Virginian, made a very pertinent comment. 'We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.' [Although this quote, has been circulated widely by Conservative propagandists, according to researchers at the University of Virginia, where James Madison's writings are kept, it appears nowhere in his known writings. So, unless and until a reliable source for it is found, this quote should be considered bogus:]
In addition to Dabney's pronouncements, James Thornwell also weighed in heavily on the Christian nature of the laws of the Confederacy. He stated,
'The State realizes its religious character through the religious character of it subjects; and a State is and ought to be Christian... As every legislator is bound to be a Christian man, he has no right to vote for any laws which are inconsistent with the teachings of the Scriptures. He must carry his Christian conscience into the halls of legislation. In conformity with these principles, we recognize Christianity today as the religion of our Commonwealth. Our standard of right is that eternal law which God proclaimed from Sinai, and which Jesus expounded on the Mount. We recognize our responsibility to Jesus Christ.'

So, the legal, political, and moral precepts of the Bible are to be the civic framework for the Southern nation. We need a body of criminal law based on the Bible. We need a body of tort law based on the Bible. We need a gold-based monetary system based on the Bible. We need a body of law relating to religious liberty based on the Bible. Indeed, every idea we think and every action we undertake, both personally and governmentally, needs to be based upon and derived from the Holy Bible.
This is the essence of Christian civilization! The main civic question which confronts Southerners (i.e. white Christian Conservatives) today is, What is to be the source of our laws and legal precepts? For Dabney and his Confederate cohorts, this question was elementary: They looked to the Bible as the source of their legal ideas.
Concerning the legal right of self-defence, [ Regarding the 5th Commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill.'] Dabney wrote,
'The Scriptures expressly confirm us. The right of slaying the house-breaker clearly implies a right of self-defence. (Exodus 22:2). . . But I have showed you that the Old Testament teaches precisely the same morality with the New.'

[See if these verses say to you
what they say to Dennis Wheeler]
Genesis 6: 5-13 :
"The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, "I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created--people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them." . . .
Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. And God said to Noah, "I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth."

"Concerning capital punishment Major Dabney stated,
'As to the delegation of the right of capital punishment for flagrant crimes, the feeble attempt has been made to represent the injunction of Genesis 6:6 as not a precept, but a prediction; not as God's instruction of what ought to be done to the murderer, but His prophecy of what human vindictiveness would do. The context refutes this. The command for the capital punishment of the murderer, having been given to Noah... is of course, universal...
Capital punishments are also authorized in the New Testament. Romans 13 assures us that the magistrate "beareth not the sword in vain," but in bearing it he is God's minister to execute wrath upon the evil-doer. '

[ Regarding the 3rd Commandment, "Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy." ]
"In 1862 the Confederacy countenanced the strange practice of delivering mail on Sundays. Every Southerner's hero, "Stonewall" Jackson, found this morally repugnant and he thus mounted a charge against the offending procedure. In his letter to a Colonel Boteler, Jackson wrote, "I do not see how a nation that thus arrays itself, by such a law [allowing the delivery of mail on Sundays] against God's holy day, can expect to escape His wrath."
Thus we see that General Jackson sought to have our people draw their laws from the text of the Bible."
[To see how little the 3rd commandment means to today's "Christian Conservatives" and Republicans, see http://www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/about/sabbathobservance.html .]

Thesis # 4 = "There is no ethical righteousness (virtue) apart from the law of God." :
"There is no ethical righteousness apart from the law of God.
Herein lies the essential error of yesterday's Abolitionists and today's Civil Rights advocates - they seek righteousness according to a standard separate and distinct from the law of God. They have reduced the Ten Commandments to two dissimilar commandments: (1) Thou shalt have toleration for all viewpoints which oppose the Christian religion, and, (2) Thou shalt gladly give all of thy possessions so that everyone around you attains equality.

[Conservatives regularly dismiss the clear teaching of Jesus on the necessity of sharing one's possessions with the dispossessed. Instead they offer competing Capitalistic ideas in the guise of "interpretations". I lay out Jesus' views in considerable detail in his own words at LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/about/challenge.html, along with some of the Capitalistic "interpretations". See also www.JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/about/godvsgreed.html as well, where I lay out the teaching of the entire Bible on this subject.]
Back to the list of Theses

Thesis # 5 = Human beings are not entitled to the "rights" claimed for them by "humanistic" theories, (because people are all intrinsically evil and only earn rights to the extent that they conquer their sinfulness) :
"In his theological treatise, Dabney quoted from the Westminster Confession's Larger Catechism, 'The sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell, consists of the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want [lack] of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original sin; together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it.'
1. Man's State of Sinfulness.
. . . This is the Christian view of man, and it stands diametrically opposed to the Humanist view of man so prevalent in our culture. The Humanist error begins with their faulty understanding of man's present condition and "needs." The consensus among modern Humanists is that man is basically good and his basic need is a better set of circumstances surrounding him to help him meet his needs and live up to his potential. They see man as an autonomous and sovereign individual, who can define the world around him according to his sovereign dictates.
Humanists believe that men need self-actualization to bring meaning to their lives. This self-actualization, however, is little more than a carte blanche to interpret all of life as one sees fit, and to determine one's needs for one's self, without direction from the Bible. The disastrous result has been to define things which are wants and desires as needs: love, a good job, an education, freedom, political empowerment, and now, according to President Clinton, affordable health care. This leads people to see themselves as entitled to things which are actually a reward for accomplishment and the blessings of God.
The Christian must reject all of this and realize that man needs, first of all, a restoration of the righteousness which was lost in the Garden of Eden. After this, his need is to understand and to do righteousness. He cannot achieve this without the grace of God regenerating his corrupted nature, yet, nonetheless, these are man's basic needs. After men perform the duties they need to do, then as a general rule, God grants to them blessings and the good things of the earth. Because of this, the idea of duty has always been important to Southern society.
Albert Taylor Bledsoe joined Dabney in preaching the necessity for a religious authoritarian government, and few issues of the Southern Review appeared without some attack upon the godless doctrines of the French Revolution. Bledsoe was chiefly opposed to the chimerical notion that man is by nature good. He argued that on the contrary no government can hope to survive which does not proceed on the assumption that man is a fallen being.
The belief in original sin, and the denial of man's intrinsic goodness, need to be two of our trademarks as Southerners" (i.e. white Christian Conservatives).

Thesis # 6 = God's plan calls for INEQUALITY among human beings, rather than EQUALITY :

"The Civil War was the historical experience which forged the (white European) peoples of the Southern states into one people and one nation." (from this author's use of the word "nation", it is clear that he really means "race", or the collection of those of white European nationality into a new white nationality in America.)
"After the war the Confederates, suffering under the cruelty of Reconstruction, yet desirous to keep their national (i.e. white race) identity, rose up and surreptitiously maneuvered to drive the federal troops off Southern land. This program was completed in 1877 when the last U.S. soldier of Reconstruction left South Carolina.
At this point the Southerners (i.e. white Christian Conservatives) set up a system of legal segregation to preserve the ethnic and cultural identity of the nation (i.e. white Southern race). This system called separate but equal, but pejoratively referred to as 'Jim Crow', eventually won judicial approval at the Supreme Court level in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson. This legal state of affairs continued to preserve the integrity and the identity of our nation (i.e. white Southern race) until 1954 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Plessy and ordered the desegregation of our schools in Brown v. Board of Topeka, Kansas.
We had been defeated in the Civil War, in which we lost the ability to control our external affairs. In 1954 the Civil Rights War began which was a struggle for control of our internal affairs. Southern men put up a valiant struggle as they protested against the Civil Rights agitators in the streets, meeting African force with Southern force. Our politicians and sheriffs placed every legal obstacle in the path of the enemy. But Washington sent troops to Little Rock to quell our uprising. We had no troops to defend ourselves and over the following decade the Civil Rights War was lost and we had forfeited our ability to control even our internal affairs.
Since that time the African-Americans have made immense political gains in the South. The Civil Rights Act has been passed and re-passed and now stands as a punitive measure against Southern individuals, businesses, and communities. The Voting Rights Act has also been passed and is used as a whip with which the African-Americans bring us to heel whenever election laws on any level do not 'maximize minority electoral strength.' The schools have been forcibly desegregated at great financial cost and a plethora of jobs are reserved for 'blacks only.' This shows the legal standing they occupy over us as surely as when the reverse was true as Southerners posted 'whites only' signs on public swimming pools and bus benches.
The tactic which our people have employed with modest success against integration with the Africans is mobility. As African-Americans begin to move into our neighborhoods, Southerners (i.e. white Christian Conservatives) begin to move out and find other accommodations. In Atlanta, for instance, our people have continued to move farther and farther from the city's center, many of them now commuting 50 miles or more to work each day each way.
In some places our people have attempted to politically partition their county, so that the Southern people do not have to pay for the social services of the African-Americans living in another part of the county.
God divided the various peoples of the earth to keep them from uniting which would tend towards their ideas of self-sufficiency and rebellion against Him and His moral law. The New World Order and the United Nations are but the latest attempts to destroy God's world order of separated peoples and separated nations.
Nonetheless, we still need to view other peoples as significant persons, created in God's image, and not as something inferior to us, as inferior as their pagan cultures may be to our culture. Whatever the process may have been in dividing mankind into ethnic and national distinctions, we know that the cause of those divisions was God working according to His will. Nothing in the Scriptures has ever countermanded the world order of separate peoples and separate, sovereign nations (i.e. races) which God instituted early in the history of mankind. Therefore, the Southern (i.e. white Christian Conservative) people should resist the integrationist programs of communists, Martin Luther King Cultists, New World Order enthusiasts, and United Nations bureaucrats.
Thornwell realized where this would lead. He had warned that the principles of Unitarianism, and its illegitimate child equalitarianism, would work their way into the fabric of the country until all property and all life were both unsacred and unsafe. Thornwell wrote,
The situation we now face in America is as foretold by our Confederate forefathers. In order that the non-productive have equality with the productive, we are taxed to the brink of poverty and our income is redistributed. Because Unitarianism does not admit to national borders, the breach of our borders goes virtually unchecked. Because logically, equalitarianism does not allow for any distinctions among people, the differentiation between good and evil becomes blurred and undefinable. Thus people are less and less held accountable for the moral choices they make. This leads to criminals walking the streets unpunished and escalating crime becoming a way of life in America. ( Although the United States now has more 'criminals' in prison than any other nation on earth, save Communist China, Christian Conservatives aren't happy yet.) It has also led to abortion on demand. It further leads to sodomites and lesbians demanding and receiving equality in the name of social justice.
The Civil Rights Movement was undertaken to allow the 'blacks' an opportunity to have equality with the 'whites.' After 1964 it soon became apparent, however, that it would take a great deal more than laws to equalize the two peoples. Thus punitive measures of affirmative action, quotas, and race-norming began to appear to provide a more equitable result, while demanding that the whites ignore the fact that the process which produced this equalitarian result was in itself both unequal and unfair.

Abolitionism (i.e. the promotion of equality of races).
Although this subject has been touched upon in several places already, we need to look at Abolitionism by itself and on its own merits.
1. Equalitarianism.
Abolitionism was the application of equalitarianism to the institution of domestic slavery. Equalitarianism may be defined as an abstract belief in equality, which holds that all men exist in a state of sameness, and that this excludes any sort of natural rank or authority among them. The goal of equalitarianism is the elimination of all social, political, moral, and economic differences between men.
2. Implications of (the heresy of) Equalitarianism.
Because they believed that all men are inherently equal, the Abolitionists viewed slavery as an inherent evil. That was their thesis. We have already shown that far from condemning the institution of slavery, the Bible in some places commends it. Hence, the Abolitionist thesis must be incorrect.
Besides this, if the authority of one man over another in the master-slave relationship is inherently immoral because it violates the principle of natural equality, then by logical extension, any authority which any man exercises over any other without their consent, must also be immoral. This has to include the parent-child relationship, the husband-wife relationship, all relationships between company owners and their employees, along with that of all governments and their citizens.
3.The Christian Response to Abolitionism.
The immediate problem contemporary Southerners (i.e. white Christian Conservatives) face . . . is that the philosophies of equalitarianism, Abolitionism, and democracy, have been so thoroughly ingrained into us, through Abolitionist schools and the Abolitionist media, that we naturally tend to agree with their premises. Nonetheless, we realize that the equalitarian philosophy is erroneous in that God has ordained authority to be exercised in all of the above-mentioned relationships.
This principle of God-ordained authority is first true in the family. The fifth commandment states, 'Honor thy father and thy mother,' which gives the parents God-ordained authority over the children. Ephesians 5:22-23 states, 'Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church... Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.'
God has also ordained rulers in the church. Hebrews 13:7 states, 'Remember them that have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God. . .' Also, ruling is listed as a spiritual gift which God has given to some in the church in Romans 12:8. Besides this,
I Timothy 5:17 says, 'Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine.'
Back to the list of Theses

Go to our second page for Theses 7 through 11
Twelve Important Conservative Beliefs
(as set forth in black and white by Dennis Wheeler )

Thesis # 7. The Word of God supports absolute authority, RATHER THAN DEMOCRACY
Thesis # 8. "Civil governments derive their powers from God"
Thesis # 9. To OPPOSE slavery is to go against God's Word
Thesis # 10. The enslaving of non-Christian black Africans by White European Christians was the best thing that could have happened to them
Thesis # 11. The Civil War won't be over until the true Conservative Christianity of the South triumphs not just there but throughout the rest of the country

Pages : [1] 2 of Bible Belt Christianity