Five score and eighteen years ago, an educated, visionary black man by the impressive name of William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, better known as W.E.B. Du Bois, who was not a prophet but said these prophetic words in his famous book, The Souls of Black Folk:

Herein lie buried many things which if read with patience may show the strange meaning of being black here at the dawning of the Twentieth Century. This meaning is not without interest to you, Gentle Reader; for the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line.

For
the wonderful and yet strange experiment called America, W.E.B. Du
Bois was right, and showed great vision, for the problem of the 20th
century was and to many still is the color line. But why has the
color line stubbornly persisted as one of the biggest problems in
American society on into the 21st century? Well, there is what the
rather conservative Condoleezza Rice calls America’s “birth
defect” that continues to manifest itself in our society. That
is how the greatest country in the world was born, with a significant
number of its most important and productive citizens in slavery. Rice
said, “Black Americans were a founding population. Africans and
Europeans came here and founded this country together: Europeans by
choice and Africans in chains. That’s not a very pretty reality of
our founding. Descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start,
and I think you continue to see some of the effects of that. That
particular birth defect makes it hard for us to confront it (race),
hard for us to talk about it, and hard for us to realize that it has
continuing relevance for who we are today.”

W.E.B.
Du Bois’ vision, however, was fatally flawed. (We know that he and
all men are flawed in that we are imperfect beings. So, we are not
talking about him being a flawed individual.) If you read any of his
writings, you will know that even he knew he was a flawed individual.
But with all of his degrees, education, and erudition, his vision was
tragically flawed and incomplete because there was no real hope in
it—no real solution to the problem of the color line—because he
was a Christless, godless individual (even though he was good at
tapping into religious themes to make his points). His soul was
blank. He was an empty, lost human being, yet erudite enough to
produce a vision that has helped trap both black and white people
into a psychology that “the color line” is not just a
problem, but a permanent problem. Oh, the power of words in the
quiver of an educated member of the “talented tenth”!

Notice
this information from the Freedom From Religion Foundation regarding
W.E.B. Du Bois:

Although
he used some religious metaphor[s] and expressions in some of his
books and writings, Du Bois called himself a freethinker (see quote
below). In “On Christianity,” a posthumously published
essay, Du Bois critiqued the black church: “The theology of the
average colored church is basing itself far too much upon ‘Hell and
Damnation’—upon an attempt to scare people into being decent and
threatening them with the terrors of death and punishment. We are
still trained to believe a good deal that is simply childish in
theology. The outward and visible punishment of every wrong deed that
men do, the repeated declaration that anything can be gotten by
anyone at any time by prayer.” Du Bois became a member of the
Communist Party and officially repudiated his U.S. citizenship at the
end of his life, dying in his adopted country of Ghana.

Further,
W.E.B. Du Bois said:

“My
‘morals’ were sound, even a bit puritanic, but when a hidebound old
deacon inveighed against dancing I rebelled. By the time of
graduation I was still a ‘believer’ in orthodox religion, but had
strong questions which were encouraged at Harvard. In Germany, I
became a freethinker and when I came to teach at an orthodox
Methodist Negro school I was soon regarded with suspicion, especially
when I refused to lead the students in public prayer. When I became
head of a department at Atlanta, the engagement was held up because
again I balked at leading in prayer. … I flatly refused again to
join any church or sign any church creed. From my 30th year on I have
increasingly regarded the church as an institution which defended
such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor and war. I
think the greatest gift of the Soviet Union to modern civilization
was the dethronement of the clergy and the refusal to let religion be
taught in the public schools.”

—W.E.B.
Du Bois, “African-American Humanism: An Anthology,” edited
by Norm R. Allen Jr. (1968)

Another
reason why the color line is still a problem is because black and
white Christians have lost their souls, so to speak. Mind you, God
has not failed America or the world, but black and white Christians,
individually and collectively, have failed God, Jesus, and the
greatest country in the history of the world outside of Israel, and,
thus, we have failed the world, “gentle reader” (to borrow one of
Du Bois’ phrases from The
Souls of Black Folk).

If
God’s “chosen people” had done what God’s Word told us to do, the
problem of the color line would not have remained as big of a problem
as it is. And, yes, I am referring to the Church of the Lord Jesus
Christ (black, white, red, and yellow) as God’s “chosen people,”
knowing full well that the Church will never take the place of God’s
chosen people, the Israelites. In fact, how God dealt with His chosen
people, the Israelites, will play a major role in this book as you
will see. But, we are God’s blood-bought chosen people for this
present evil age.

Now,
what is it that God’s Word tells us to do?

1.
Obey the Great Commission. “Go
ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to
observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am
with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen” (Matthew
28:19-20).

2.
Obey the Great Commandment. “Master,
which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself” (Matthew
22:36-39).

3.
Obey the repeated command to pray without ceasing for all saints and
all people. “And
he [Jesus] spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought
always to pray, and not to faint”
(Luke 18:1). “Pray
without ceasing” (1
Thessalonians 5:17). “Praying
always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching
thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;”
(Ephesians 6:18).

4.
Obey God’s command to confess and repent of all sins. “If
we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1
John 1:9).
“From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew
4:17).

If
Christians in America are going to get back on track and be
victorious and helpful to this once great nation, they will need to
trust God, love God, fear God, and be faithful to God.

I
know that you will think that this is trite, however, it is still
true: “If
my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and
pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I
hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their
land”
(2 Chronicles 7:14).

I can hear from my writing desk hundreds of my Pharisaical, ivory tower brethren saying, “Oh, this is all so simplistic!” Let me remind them and you, “gentle reader”, that God is big on simplicity. When you think about what I call God’s wonderful system of grace, it is not complicated at all. In fact, it is very simple. Hard, but simple. Hard to give up His Son for our sins, but simple. Hard for Christ to die the cruel death He died for our sins, but simple. Anybody who walks with God and knows God will find that He is big on simplicity. In fact, the Holy Spirit moved Paul to write in 2 Corinthians 11:3, “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”

The Lost Souls of Black Folk and White Folk is available now on Amazon.