This week we need to have an in-house conversation with our urban and inner city families. Hopefully, in last week’s letter, we were able to shed some light on the racism, policing and oppression that many have been trying to get their non-black or brown brothers and sisters to understand. Hopefully, we were able to explain that we are not blaming ALL white people for what has brought us to this point in America’s history. Hopefully, we were able to bring the revelation that there is a lot more happening under-the-radar, than they ever imagined.
Having shared these things, now it’s time to address the other side of the issues. The other side involves facing the fact that the out-of-control behavior of many of our black and brown young people, who are rioting in the streets, bullying their teachers and peers, and terrorizing our neighborhoods, is directly connected to the breakdown in our own hearts and homes.
We say this as two people who grew up in the 1960’s and 1970’s when racism, segregation, police brutality, and every other pressure was just as prevalent back then, as it is today. However, at that time, the majority of our families were intact and our moral fiber was pretty strong. We had a greater sense of self-control and responsibility to our families and ethnicity.
Chris, who grew up in St. Louis, MO, attended the oldest African American high school west of the Mississippi river. He often recalls how the teachers, administrators, assistants, secretaries, counselors, and even the janitors were constantly instilling a sense of pride and self-respect in the students. If a student got into trouble, the parents would come in, listen to the complaint, take a kid home, and take care of the situation.
Today, if a kid gets into trouble, the parent comes in and screams obscenities at the teacher, the administrators and everyone else, in defense of a child who may have been cheating, bullying, or even failing in school.
We have been working with, mentoring and parenting the 1980’s generation, in particular, for more than 20 years. Most of them were, what we used to call, latch-key kids. They were raised by the television. Their children have been raised by the computer. Hardly any of those latch key kids had their fathers in their lives. The majority of those fathers were absent, not due to prison or welfare, but simply out of selfishness or the conflict with the mother of their children. It was also astounding to discover the number of mothers who were envious of their daughters, even to the point of allowing them to discover the cruelty of the streets on their own.
We have a generation that has been raised on the glorification of violence and drugs. They have been groomed (the young men) to objectify and devalue women. They have been programmed to rebel against authority. Their mindset is saturated in the laws of the street: survive at all cost; kill or be killed.
The worst part is that we have allowed society-at-large to expand the picture and perpetuate this image of our children being nothing more than thugs and thieves. Not only do white people walk to the other side of the street when they see a large group of black young men, but so do we as their parents and grandparents. We're afraid of them, too. We're terrified at their angry outbursts in our homes or in the schools. We are afraid to publically admit that we have lost control of our own children. They are Godless, fatherless, fearless and heartless.
Recently, we saw a video clip of a well-known Black preacher telling his congregation that we need to stop asking, “What’s wrong with our black kids?” He then reminded them how they spent all their time and money on themselves instead of investing in their children. They were out at the night clubs or chasing their personal dreams instead of raising their kids. He went on to reveal that they did not take their kids to church. They did not pray in the home. So we have a generation that knows nothing at all about God.
And now let’s bring it down to the core issue for why we believe we are in this situation today.
The bottom line is that we rejected Jesus Christ as the answer. Yes, even with three and four church buildings in every neighborhood, we rejected the True and Living God. We exchanged Him for a religious version of Christ and for the god of Civil Rights.
We rejected the true Christ as being the white man’s God, because He was presented as white, the founding fathers of America were white, the slave owners were white, and because most, not all, of today’s harshest oppressors are white.
Many Civil Rights leaders found out, through historical documents, that some of the greatest leaders of America never had any intentions for the African slaves to ever be considered citizens. Therefore, many of the current Civil Right activists have rejected white America's God, their beliefs and their religion.
But even when God raised up black pastors who told us that Africans were there on the day of Pentecost; that Africans were part of the early church; and that the birth of the Church included every nation (including Africans), we still rejected it, saying the Bible was written by the white man and that those black pastors were traitors and sell outs, merely collaborators with the enemy.
When we rejected God and His salvation for us, as a people, we rejected His way of bringing us to our rightful place in this nation. God took Joseph, a former slave and prisoner in Egypt, and placed him as second in command over the entire nation. Imagine what GOD could have done with us by now! (We still don't believe that it's too late!)
The influence of a strong liberal and socialist-like agenda was key to the dismantling of black and brown families, but the seduction was made even easier when WE rejected God and decided that money and power were more important than God or our families. When thousands of black men decided that it was easier to cut and run, rather than resist and stay committed, the seduction of an evil demonic agenda was made even stronger.
Once the fight for survival was reduced to a matter of every-man-for-himself, then it was easy to tear our families apart with social services and programs that were, supposedly, going to benefit the women and the children that were left behind.
The incredible number of men who have abandoned their girlfriends and wives is simply astronomical. The number of abortions due to the unwanted pregnancies from these relationships is beyond belief.
We’ve heard the powerful argument that children are without their fathers because of the welfare system and the prison pipeline, both of which were produced due to extremely high unemployment. These are very legitimate arguments. But right now, we are addressing the spiritual conditions within hearts and homes that set the stage for the globalist agenda within our government to exploit a people.
Once God was out of the picture, we believed the half-truth, that it takes a village to raise a child. That African saying is based on the strength of each family within the village; not merely the influence of the village. So we lost the meaning in translation: It takes a family to raise a child. It takes families to raise a village. Only then, can a village raise a child. But we believed their rhetoric and let the villages of government, movies, hip hop artists, television and the perversions on the internet raise our children.
We believed the politicians when they said we were too poor and our neighborhoods were too awful to bring another child into this world. We let them tell us that the unborn baby is just a clump of meaningless cells and not a real person. They campaigned that it’s not a child, but it’s merely a choice. We agreed with it. We agreed because we no longer believed God.
We know that many Black leaders, and even some of our own family members will disagree with us and refer to us, now, as traitors and collaborators. Please know that none of this was written to excuse or condone the racism and oppression that still exists today. We’re just saying that we cannot hope to have a change in our plight in America if we continue to dishonor God, abandon our families, kill our babies, and mindlessly turn to ungodly lifestyles, corrupt political systems, and family-destroying programs for justice, peace and freedom.
Thankfully, things are beginning to change. More people of color are becoming open to Christian marriage and family counseling. Parents are beginning to return to their children. God has brought in new strategies, like life coaching, and has sent a new breed of pastors into the cities.
God is orchestrating and uniting Blacks, Whites, Latinos, Asians, Jews, Gentiles, the old, the young, males, females, and all of us to restore the gates and walls that have been torn down. Just like Babylon destroyed the walls and gates of Jerusalem, the spirit of Babylon has also destroyed the gates and walls of hearts and homes in the urban community; but the time has come to rebuild!
“…if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place.” ---2 Chronicles 7: 14-15
For the least of these,
Chris and Carol Green
