RS Courswork - Racism and Religion.

B: Christian views on racism and resultant action that may be taken: -

There are mainly two different ways by which Christians respond to racism. Violent and non-violent. There are a number of well-known Christian pacifists 'A pacifist is a person who believes that all forms of violence are wrong´, such as Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu and Trevor Huddleston. They believe that anything, which causes physical pain and suffering, is bad, and that there are always other ways of solving the problem. Martin Luther King, the American Baptist Minister, is very famous for his work opposing racism. In the Southern states of America in the 1950´s and 1960´s discrimination and prejudice against black people was very common indeed. People in the black community feared that the situation was going to escalate and become like that of South Africa where black people’s earnings were only about half of those of whites. Many blacks did not have the right to vote and certain public places were said to be for "whites only" Martin Luther King was a Christian who campaigned endlessly for equal treatments of blacks and whites. MLK taught that Christian love was the way forward. "Love," he said, is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

'The Christian League´ was started to campaign against the South African Council Of Churches and against Desmond Tutu, but he believed that they had no chance over the prayers of millions of Christians who wanted to end apartheid. When he accepted his Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 he did so on behalf of all those who sought to end apartheid, and when he was enthroned as Archbishop in 1986 he praised God: 'I pray that Our Lord would open our eyes so that we would all see the real, the true identity of each one of us; that this is not a so-called "coloured" or white or black or Indian, but a brother, a sister-and treat each other as such´.
Desmond Tutu’s beliefs came from his Christian faith. Prayer and worship were essential to him. He was a very comical spokesman, which seemed to get the point across better to people. Also it is very hard to be hostile towards someone who makes you laugh.

    Like Desmond Tutu, Trevor Huddleston also stated that Christianity was totally opposed to the system in South Africa:  'Christians are not only commanded to love. We are commanded to hate what is evil, and nothing is more evil than apartheid.´ Huddleston and Tutu had a life long friendship ever since Tutu was a small child, and was tremendously impressed by the way which Huddleston raised his hat to Tutu’s mother. It was almost unheard of for a white man to show that much respect towards a black.

    Not all Christians respond to racism non-violently. Many people use violence. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is an example of someone who used violent protest in an attempt to defeat Hitler’s racial policies during the Second World War. He believed that 'it is better to do evil than to be evil´. Malcom X assassinated 1965 was a large influence on American culture, he used violence to confront racism and this to him was felt as necessary to “free the black people of America from oppression”.

    These two great men but in stark contrast both fought for the same ideals but why not both violent or non-violent it is because we are a species of free-will and neither were wrong in what they were doing in a sense just different way of tackling the same issue but in the end both were assassinated which I find interesting as neither of the methods are the same but the racist at the time still saw both as a threat.

C: “Violence is appropriate to respond to racism” Do I agree?

To start I personal do and don’t believe that violence is an appropriate response to racism as I think it is all dependant on the situation at hand for example in the case where someone is being abusive as a result of race and can not be reasoned with and is causing a major problem then yes violence may be appropriate but ONLY as a last resort as anything else would be inappropriate. In the recent case of the war on Iraq I believe it was well justified to use violence to resolve the situation at hand as sadam Hussain was highly oppressive and dictatorial over his people to a state where it was unacceptable also he twisted the words of his religion to justify a Jihad (holy war) against westerners this is racism in a colossal form that  should have never been allowed to gain such momentum so the war was more than justified in my view even though it was to find weapons of mass destruction hmm where are they I wonder However I can se the side of racists and why sometimes they do what they do sometimes there afraid of change afraid of something different or maybe just they feel that they are being treat better than them selves because they are of an different race for example racism against asylum seekers so I can see the side of both racist and anti-racist and understand why anti-racists sometimes respond to racism in a violent way to resolve the  issues at hand but personally I am not dependant on adhering to wither violent or non-violent conscript as am free to chose whichever method I chose to in relation to the situation at hand, it is for this reason that I feel confident to address racism in an appropriate manor at all times.