East Texas Church Still Misuses the Bible to Justify Racist Ideology

One of the tragedies of segregation was how some Christian churches misused the Bible and religion to justify racial bigotry. In recent decades, however, many have renounced their racist pasts. In 1995, for example, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution apologizing for the denomination’s past support of slavery, segregation and white supremacy. The denomination elected its first African-American president just last year.

Sadly, not all churches have progressed. That apparently includes Appleby Baptist Church in the East Texas town of Nacogdoches. Even today the church uses the Bible to justify openly racist beliefs. Some examples from the church’s website cited by the Southern Poverty Law Center:

“Satan wants to eliminate color by interracial marriages. Someone will ask why do we have to see color when we look at one another? Why can’t we just see each other as people? The same reason you see a Poodle, German Shepherd, Beagle, etc. God made us different and set the bounds. You don’t get thoroughbreds by taking the fences down. You get thoroughbreds by putting the fences up.”

“Christ terms her people as dogs. ‘It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to dogs.’ … Unlike modern day blacks yelling about equal rights, this woman humbles herself and says ‘Truth Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from the master’s table.’”

“Interracial relationships bring much heartache. … Before the coming of Christ, there will be many more half-breed producing marriages that will, in turn, produce more hate and envy against what the Lord has commanded.”

“The New Testament does not condemn slavery. What it does condemn is the misuse of a slave.”

You can read more about Appleby here. We thought it was interesting that the church still teaches the vile, discredited concept of “the curse of Ham,” which racists have long used to justify their beliefs. As we reported in January, at least one Texas public school still teaches students about the underlying concept that the world’s races come from Noah’s sons .

11 thoughts on “East Texas Church Still Misuses the Bible to Justify Racist Ideology

  1. They need to read the book of Hosea. For some odd reason Isolationism and the Gospel are at odds with each other. Its like Evangelical isolationism. Yeah That a winning combination.. WITCH! WITCH! WITCH! Runway! Runaway! Runaway!

  2. “Christ terms her people as dogs. ‘It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to dogs.’ … Unlike modern day blacks yelling about equal rights, this woman humbles herself and says ‘Truth Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from the master’s table.’” Question: Is that a direct quote? From their website? The bible? Aside from the vile attitude I’m having trouble making grammatical sense of this. “It is not meet ….” “Christ terms her people….” Anyone?

    1. It’s an excerpt from the scene in Matthew 15: 22-28, in which a Canaanite woman approaches Christ and begs him to save her sick daughter. He at first ignores, then rebukes her, but when she responds as quoted, he agrees to heal the daughter. It’s a badly abused and misused scene.

  3. Rubin: I was wondering, too. I never heard of Christ being referred to as Her before. Is this a transgender Church or what? Snark.

    1. As stated by Patricia above, the ‘her’ grammatically refers not to Christ but to a woman Jesus talks with (stating that her (the woman’s) people are not his (Christ’s).

  4. Besides misinterpretation of the buybull, there is a more than obscene use of that collection of myths to justify there intolerance and bigotry. I am amused that racists still use this book to justify their bigotry when it clearly states in that book that everyone is equal before that imaginary being.

  5. There is a lot wrong with this,

    For starters, it compares race with purebred dogs.

    All dogs are dogs, there is the poodle and the german shepard, but regardless they share the same genes as dogs.

    Biologically, thoroughbreds and purebreds are actually NOT better than mixed breeds. We put so much value on purebreeding, but the reality is the mixing of genes allows for a stronger, healthier race.

    Purebred dogs are often subject to numerous health problems because of the lack of variety in their genes