Tags
Bloodlines, Gospel, John Piper, Life, Personal, racism, south, southern, video, writing
Well, it’s here. The full 20 minutes of Piper’s “Bloodline” documentary. It’s “his personal story of growing up in the racist South” at least that’s the description on Vimeo. On the DG site, the description says: “Crossway traveled with Pastor John to his hometown of Greenville, SC to revisit the world in which he grew up. This 18-minute documentary takes us through his experience of racism in the 1960′s American South.” Justin Taylor said it moved him. It moves me too, but not the same way.
Again and again, everywhere this book and video is promoted, the South is maligned and connected as, for all practical purposes, the root of racism. What garbage. How politically correct, how multicultural, and what an endless sucking-up to minorities for selfish gain. You reckon there’s any racism in the North? Naah. If John had just dealt with racism and the Gospel, and not singled out the connection with the South, do you think he’d sell as many books? Of course not.
If you think I align myself more with the South than the Gospel, well, you would be dead wrong. Do I identify with the South? Absolutely, you betcha and without shame, and for good reasons; reasons, Lord willing, I will, in some effort, lay forth soon in a post.
This sickens me, that the Gospel of Jesus Christ would be used as an excuse to, even indirectly, put down a people. Hypocrisy, that’s my first impression. I’ll post after I gather my thoughts. I may drop a 12 pound confederate, tend-yer-biscuits and whistle Dixie while your at it hammer on this. Until then, here’s the video:
My family and I stand solidly with you as to your reaction. We’ll join you in swinging that hammer!
My view is, anyone who sees the South in this condescending, all too typical northern way understand precious little about the races, history or the South. I ceased trying to explain the South to public school educated drones, it’s just a waste of time.
Can’t watch it all.. Piper is creeping me out.
CHICKEN! You go to bed before 10 don’t you?
I’ve written Piper off, never having been much of a fan. Truth is, northerners were more racist than the southerners. One bit of evidence is Lincoln did not even give lip service to freeing slaves in the north – the “owners” of which were much less thoughtful toward their charges.
As far as selling books goes, Pastor Piper gives 100% of his royalties to Bethlehem Baptist Church. He’s never kept any of them. I’m not writing this as a justification for anything he’s written (I haven’t read any of his books and don’t plan on reading Bloodlines), but just as a point of clarification.
I just read this comment under their video on the Vimeo page:
“excellent! Thanks! Great video by the way. I’m from South Carolina and old south racism is still lingering…praise God for the gospel!!!!”
I’m with Bryan Morgette: I made it to the 1′ 18″ mark before stopping it in disgust.
Piper makes me want to puke; can’t stand the guy, AT ALL. This weirdo missed his calling as a character actor in corny soap operas. He sure ain’t no Bible teacher.
I am definitely not one who views Piper uncritically, as my own criticism here demonstrates:
http://reformedbaptist.blogspot.com/2009/06/disappointed-in-john-piper.html
However, I didn’t come away with the same impression after watching the video. I didn’t think the video attempted to present the South as particularly more racist than the North; it just dealt with the fact that racism in the segregated South is what he experienced.
Of course, I grew up in the North — and then lived in Columbia, S.C. for about 4 1/2 years while in Bible college there — and can confirm that there is every bit as much racism in the North as in the South, even though we had no legally enacted segregation, although it is worse in some parts of the North than in others. For example, I grew up with a grandfather who was quite racist and used the ‘N’ word pretty liberally. My father and mother, on the other hand, were anything but racist. They were more the liberal ’60s hippie civil rights protester types.
My own experience with racism growing up in Indianapolis, Indiana, was quite different than Piper’s was growing up in South Carolina in another important way though. For example, I grew up for part of my childhood as a member of the only white family in an all black neighborhood and then, after my father was able to move us out to the suburbs, after a time I was bused back into worse schools than we had escaped and right back into an all black setting again (during the early to mid ’70s.) So I was in the unique position of being on the receiving end of a fair amount of racism myself and discovered that racism is not just a problem that white people may have (despite my parents’ sometimes seeming to think so). As a matter of fact, my own struggle with racism was far more similar to the kind many black people experience in that much of my experience was on the receiving end and I had to work hard not to become racist in my response and not to justify racism towards them because, after all, they had been racist towards me.
Anyway, just thought I would weigh in with a slightly different perspective and agree with Joel that, yes, racism is just as much a problem in the North as in the South … and not just among white people either.
Keith