Black History Month is an effort by variously motivated black leaders to promote pride and self-respect in current Blacks. Often, truth and fiction are comingled into a confusing jumble of misinformation. As a white American interested in truth, I will add some balance to the narrative.

There were comparatively few slaves in New England (usually one or two slaves per family, if any), but New York had many slaves. Slavery was not very beneficial in New York because the slaves had to be fed and cared for all year, yet the growing season was short.

New Yorkers were very afraid of black slaves and had a constant fear of a slave uprising when Whites would be slaughtered in their sleep. There were few massive uprisings, but many small plots, fights, and flights during which a master or overseer was slain. So, in the early l700s, slaves were beaten if three or more congregated in one place unless they were working. That would keep down conspiracies, but if a slave killed a white person, he was tortured and executed.

There was a slave uprising in New York City (population of about 8,000 citizens and 1,000 slaves) in 1712 in which nine Whites were killed, and the authorities hanged 13 slaves, and burned four alive (one over a slow fire). One slave was broken on the wheel, and one was left to starve to death in chains.  So much for the sanctified, self-justification of the northern hypocrite.

Now, to answer the sanctified, self-justification of the southern hypocrite. The southern planter sat on his porch, chewing tobacco, and drinking a cool glass of rum, and said, “Well, the southern slave is much better off than he was living in miserable squalor, sin, and superstition in darkest Africa.” No doubt, his living conditions were better, and his eating was more on schedule in slavery, but I remind you that Africa was home, and he had been forced from his home. In Africa, he was with his family, in lifetime surroundings, among friends, speaking his own language, and around his own culture. In American slavery, he was not his own man. Often, he was separated from his wife and children. He was the property of others. Even if he lived in a condominium on Virginia Beach, it was still wrong for him to be enslaved.

It is also true that slavery was wrong even when the slave owner was kind, thoughtful, and benevolent. All slave owners were not haters and sadistic tyrants. Most of them were average businessmen who needed workers. It was not a good business practice to mistreat a worker. Dead slaves don’t work! Some slave owners were thoughtful and kind, which did not justify slavery.

Some slave owners saw the wisdom in taking care of their slaves, even encouraging marriage to the extent of giving them a house, a plot of ground, and household goods. A slave with a family, home, garden, and some farm animals would be less inclined to rebellion. Slaves were not worked from daybreak to sundown. The January 1979 issue of Natural History reported, “Slaves spent their hours away from the field doing household chores, making handicrafts, hunting, and fishing, cultivating their own food, and entertaining themselves with dancing.” Archeological research at slave cabins in Georgia and Florida reveals that some slaves even had firearms!

Black leftists would have us believe that all slaves were worked to death and were practically starved to death. However, that only happened when the owner was a sadist or an idiot! Two liberal (very liberal) professors tell us in their book, Time On The Cross: The Economics Of American Negro Slavery, that some planters instituted a profit-sharing for their slaves. They also reveal “the average pecuniary income actually received by a prime field hand was roughly fifteen percent greater than the income he would have received for his labor as a free agricultural worker.” Wonder why public school books and race-baiters on television never mention that.

On some plantations, the best workers were given tobacco, whiskey, cash, holidays, and trips to town on the weekend. Rather substantial year-end bonuses were sometimes awarded.

We are told that the slaves were docile and contented, but that is not true, especially in earlier years. There was a natural tendency for second-generation slaves to be less belligerent and more contented, but that was not true of the first-generation slaves. The facts debunk the “contented” theory.

When the slaves arrived at the ports, the slaves were examined and branded with the mark of the new owner and then marched to the beach. Those Blacks brought from the interior were terrified of the pounding surf, the swaying slave ship, and the white traders. Some of the Blacks thought the white men were cannibals and would devour them on the beach.  It was not uncommon for the captives to claw at the sand and attempt suicide rather than be crammed into the waiting ships. That doesn’t sound as if they meekly accepted slavery.

Suicide was prevalent, especially upon leaving the African Coast since they had no idea what was happening to them.

The Power to Die reveals that some slaves refused to eat or leaped into the sea, prompting some captains to install a net to make it more difficult to accomplish their desires. Many slaves strangled themselves, tore open their throats, and hanged themselves. In America, they jumped into rivers or out of windows or even ran into burning buildings.

One sea captain wrote: “The negroes [sic] are so wilful [sic] and loth [sic] to leave their country, that they have often leaped out of the canoes, boat and ship, into the sea, and kept under water till they were drowned, to avoid being taken up and saved by our boats….”  There are numerous incidents of slaves jumping into the sea, cutting their throats, self-strangling, and self-starvation.

Upon arrival in their new land, those incidents drastically decreased; however, they did not give up the thought of freedom.

There were many slave rebellions, although not massive, that resulted in many executions of the leaders. Any slave who reported a rebellion was rewarded with his freedom, so most “uprisings” did not result in freedom for many slaves. It is natural that the more vicious the owner, the greater would be the desire for freedom of his slaves; however, not all slave owners were cruel and sadistic men.

Nat Turner was a slave in Southampton County, Virginia, and always felt he was destined to do great works that he thought were established by seeing spirits fighting in the night sky. He often heard voices which he often passed to his fellow slaves. After a solar eclipse, he was convinced it was an indication for him to lead his fellow slaves in a rebellion against their masters. One evening in 1831 he led a group of 75 slaves to attack and kill their masters as they slept. No child was spared or gender as they killed with guns, swords, clubs, and farm equipment. Some adults and children were beheaded. About 51 Whites plus ten or so others were killed in two days until the slaves were found and tried. Turner and 16 of his group were then executed in Jerusalem, Virginia.

Some famous Americans who profess sanity even call Turner “legendary” (Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates) and spoke of his “heroism and sacrifices.” Say what?

Movie producer Nate Parker described Turner as “a measured, self-determined man of faith, whose courage and sacrifice left him a martyr.” Nat wasn’t martyred; he was executed for the murder of innocent men, women, and children, even babies.

Molefi Kete Asante, a scholar at Temple University calls Turner a “reflective and mature thinker” who “believed in liberty,” “demonstrated both gravitas and charisma” and “has earned his place in the panoply of revolutionary icons.”

All three of the above promoters of Nat Turner have two things in common: they are all black and have major problems in their differentiation between right and wrong. They are missing a moral compass.

Whatever the location and how kind the slave owners were, chattel slavery is always wrong. Many slave owners cared for their slaves and were interested in improving their living and working conditions. Of course, those owners were still wrong. Those owners would not have wanted to be slaves, so it was wrong for them to enslave others. Jesus taught that truth when He said in Matthew 7:12, “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them….”  That verse, if obeyed, would have wiped out slavery and all other injustices to men.

Slavery cannot be justified; however, it is easy for us to criticize the early Americans from our present advantage of enlightenment and abundance. What would you have done if you had lived in Jamestown in the 1600s with a farm to be worked, no white laborers to hire, and starvation facing you and your family? It is never right to do wrong, but it is easy for us to sit in judgment from a comfortable distance of more than 350 years.

While we can never condone slavery, let us at least be aware of the conditions that prompted it and be determined to never again enslave humans of any color for any reason.

(Dr. Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives who ran a large Christian school in Indianapolis and wrote columns for USA Today for 8 years. Boys authored 20 books, the most recent, Reflections of a Lifetime Fundamentalist: No Reserves, No Retreats, No Regrets! The eBook is available at Amazon.com for $4.99. Other titles at www.cstnews.com. Follow him on Facebook at Don  Boys, Ph.D., and visit his blog. Send a request to DBoysphd@aol.com for a free subscription to his articles and click here to support  his work with a donation.)

“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”  John Bunyan, Baptist Preacher

Church officials blamed their “mistake” on their “straight privilege” and begged forgiveness for the “pain” they had caused. The two gutless church leaders promised to schedule a “listening session” for the LGBTQ crowd who had turned blue from holding their breath.

The Episcopal Church is so twisted that it put one of their bishops on trial for following the Bible! William Love was a very conservative and orthodox Episcopal Bishop of Albany, New York, and was tried by his denomination for being too biblical. The Bishop abides by the traditional Christian doctrine that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. The courageous Bishop was put on trial “after banning gay marriage ceremonies in his diocese.”

Bishop Love is as out of place in the radical Episcopal denomination  as Louis Farrakhan at a Jewish bar mitzvah. After enormous pressure from his craven denominational leaders, Love resigned from his bishopric effective February 1, 2021.

Good, now other principled leaders and ordinary church members should leave the denomination as if their hair were on fire.

Frankly, all principled people, with any cursory knowledge of biblical truth, should cut all ties with all the mainline churches that have become little more than social clubs. Most of these churches are very light on the Bible and deep into social justice, promotion of same-sex “marriage,” transgenderism, globalism, climate change, etc. By continuing in apostate denominations, members become participants in the compromise and corruption of their evil deeds.

The Episcopal Church has been dominated by weirdos such as Bishops James Pike, John Spong, and Gene Robinson. Their best-known churches are the National Cathedral and St. John’s in Washington, D.C. Those churches would be empty and used as warehouses if they were not historic places.

I watched two hours of a dialogue held at the National Cathedral dealing with two cathedral windows that depict Robert E. Lee and Thomas Stonewall Jackson. Cathedral officials had been wrestling with this for a long time, and in September 2017, the windows were removed.

The media and the panel discussion I watched were concerned about the windows telling an “incomplete and misleading account of our History.” An official said, “We are committed to finding ways to offer a richer, more balanced expression of our nation’s history.” I’ll buy that; however, I demand some consistency, something that never concerns liberals.

During the panel discussion, the Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, Canon Theologian at the Cathedral, spoke approvingly of Nat Turner, and another spoke positively of W. E. B. Du Bois. The panelists also agreed that one must know about Thomas Jefferson’s ownership of hundreds of slaves to really know the man. Okay, I’ll accept that, but no one seemed concerned to tell the whole story about Turner and Du Bois, so I will. Maybe the panel, consisting of two white people and two black people, does not know the complete stories of those men.

Nat Turner, a black slave in Virginia, claimed to be a Baptist preacher who always felt destined for greatness, and his parents encouraged him, considering him a prophet. They were convinced of that because of unusual marks on his head and breast! Turner reported seeing spirits fighting in the sky, and he allegedly heard voices. Being a “prophet,” he communicated “revelations” to fellow slaves. I don’t need to emphasize that such is more indicative of a paranoid than a prophet.

Then, when Mount St. Helens erupted on February 12, 1831, nearly 3,000 miles away, Virginia’s atmospheric conditions convinced Turner that God wanted him to kill his white enemies! About seven months later, on August 21, 1831, he and other slaves attacked and killed 55 white people, including men, women, and children–some as they slept. One victim was a baby in its cradle. Some of the victims were beheaded, including children. The killers used axes, clubs, swords, and guns.

Armed citizens confronted the attackers, and Turner was captured, tried, and executed by hanging after hiding for two months. His corpse was flayed, beheaded, and quartered. It seems the slaveholders wanted to send a message to their slaves.

Mindless, guilt-ridden Whites and gullible Blacks seek to make every Black a hero, but surely, no sane person thinks Turner was anything but a monster.

Another black hero is W. E. B. Du Bois (who insisted on being called “Dr. Du Bois”), an impressive intellectual who, in 1895, was the first Black to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard. He was a founder of the NAACP (most of the executive officers were white) in 1909, and he was hired as editor of their journal The Crisis. Du Bois later resigned (some say he was dismissed) in 1934 over the reversal of his segregation position to accepting the “separate but equal” position as a satisfactory goal for Blacks. He had rejected Frederick Douglass’ plea for black Americans to integrate into white society. He also sparred with Booker T. Washington, the number one black leader in America who was highly respected by Whites and Blacks.

Du Bois thought Booker T. Washington was too slow and patient in dealing with segregation. Washington was an accommodator, and Du Bois was an agitator. Du Bois was an effective advocate for civil rights but leaned far to the left, defending and joining many socialist causes. He taught that capitalism was a major cause of racism. Du Bois was a peace advocate and promoted nuclear disarmament. He began to support the Communist Party and warmed to Marx’s atheism.

Many of Du Bois’ friends and supporters shunned him, especially after the FBI continued to investigate his actions, associates, and his advocacies. He ended up joining the American Communist Party, traveled to Russia and China (becoming their cheerleader), and became a citizen of Ghana, where he died in 1963.

I wonder why the Episcopal leaders did not think it necessary to reveal the full scope of Du Bois’ life. Maybe because of the stories of their own leaders.

Bishop James Pike died a bishop in the Episcopal Church, although he said that he was leaving the denomination. In his personal life, Pike was a chain-smoker and an alcoholic. In theology, he was a heretic even to many conservative Episcopalians. Many heresy charges were brought against him with plenty of facts to substantiate them. The cowardly bishops of the denomination refused to pursue heresy charges. Pike did not believe in Hell, the Trinity, and virgin birth.

Pike was a troubled man all his life. He married Jane Alvies then divorced in 1941. He married Esther Yanovsky in 1942, and she divorced him in 1966. They had four children. Pike lived with (but did not marry) his secretary Maren Bergrud until 1967 when she committed suicide after a heated argument with him. Pike performed her funeral in his church.

In 1968, he married Diane Kennedy and went to Israel on an extended honeymoon. They were researching a book Pike was planning to write. While near the Dead Sea without a guide, they had car trouble, and the couple walked away from the car. Soon, Diane went alone to seek help leaving her husband. She stumbled into workers who took her to safety. Pike’s body was discovered a few days later after an intensive search.

Bishop John Shelby Spong is another Episcopalian leader who is very careful that no one would ever mistake him for a Bible-believer. Of course, he, like Pike and other unbelieving Bishops, makes an excellent living preaching the Bible he does not believe. Such people have plenty of chutzpah but no character. Spong teaches that Christ was “adopted by God as his son” in his Born of a Woman, and He rejects the historical truths essential to Christianity, such as the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection of Christ. Neither does Spong believe that Christ is the only way of salvation. He teaches that the Apostle Paul was a pervert. He believes the creation story is nonsense.

When the Episcopal denomination consecrated homosexual Gene Robinson as a Bishop in 2003, the denomination experienced the “worst single outflow of Episcopalians in modern history,” over 100,000.

They should have lost every genuine Christian, but alas, many Christians don’t know what the Bible teaches, or they don’t care.

Every true Christian should leave every corrupt mainline church because without truth, all you have is a cult.

(Dr. Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives who ran a large Christian school in Indianapolis and wrote columns for USA Today for 8 years. Boys authored 18 books, the most recent being Muslim Invasion: The Fuse is Burning! The eBook is available here with the printed edition (and other titles) at www.cstnews.com. Follow him on Facebook at Don Boys, Ph.D.; and visit his blog. Send a request to DBoysphd@aol.com for a free subscription to his articles, and click here to support his work with a donation.)

It is normal for each entity—Indians, Whites, Blacks, preachers, teachers, philosophers, etc., to idolize people they look upon as their own kind. Of course, heroes are often chosen who are not heroes at all—more like zeros. I thought of this recently during the protests across America. I realized that we usually jump too quickly to identify with people who echo our own beliefs, and those people are often too flawed to hold up to children without qualifying our recommendation.

Many well-known Blacks and Whites are held up as people to be emulated even though they lived very wicked lives and destroyed themselves by making the wrong decisions as to drugs, education, religion, and associates. Frankly, there is no excuse for that since there are so many Blacks who made an impressive contribution that would be ideal heroes.

Many Blacks have set records and had major accomplishments in athletics yet were tarnished persons whose lives no one should emulate. I can understand why Muhammad Ali is considered a hero. Ali may have been the greatest boxer of all time; however, it is not much of a sport to try to knock out the brains of a man.

Ali was a draft dodger, Black Muslim, serial fornicator, and outspoken, rabid segregationist.

He told the media, “We don’t want to live with the white man; that’s all.” And concerning interracial marriage: “No intelligent black man or black woman in his or her right black mind want white boys or white girls comin’ to their homes, schools, and churches to marry their black sons and daughter to produce little, pale half-white, green-eyed, blond-headed Negroes.”

Are the hypocrites in and out of BLM demanding the cities change the streets named for Ali?

On a British television show, I heard Ali say that bluebirds fly together; red birds fly together, buzzards fly together. And “Blacks are more comfortable with other blacks.” The British interviewer was almost speechless. Indeed, Ali’s religious beliefs at the time included the notion that the white man was “the devil.”

The London Daily Mail quoted Ali’s son, who opined of his famous father, “when it came to his private life, his morals were those of an alley cat. The way he treated his first three wives and neglected some of his nine (known) children was frankly disgraceful.”

Ali had nine children by four different wives and two other relationships, and his large family has split the loot that was left—more than $80 million.

Muhammad was an incredible athlete; however, he was a very flawed individual with occasional indications of courage and commitment, but not much character. Why is he honored by Whites and Blacks, yet Strom Thurman, George Wallace, and David Duke are hated for their segregationist views?

Liberals are the biggest hypocrites in the world.

Louis Farrakhan is a black racist who has clearly stated his hatred for Jews and all Whites, yet the race-baiters pretend he is a gentleman with whom one can have dinner and a polite conversation. And hypocrites in the media refuse to hold white and black liberals to account for their close association with Screwy Louie. He’s called Screwy Louie because of his insistence that he is constantly protected by a vast flying object and scores of smaller flying saucers.

Why would any thinking black or white person consider that nut case a hero?

Abolitionist John Brown, in the mid-1800s, was a white wacko, killer, and thief, made into a hero by Unitarians in New England. After he and his five sons dragged five slavery sympathizers out of their cabins in “Bleeding Kansas,” they hacked them to death. John then moved back east to form a “provisional government” of the United States, and he was chosen commander-in-chief. He also planned to create an area in the Maryland and Virginia mountains to be a stronghold for escaped slaves. His plan was to convince well-to-do, self-hating Whites to finance a war between Whites and Blacks.

Surely, no sane white people would come near such a nut case, but they already had. Some famous New England white leaders had supported his “work” in Kansas. The group, in addition to Brown and his boys, was called the “Secret Six.” They were some of New England’s brightest! Men like physician Samuel Gridley Howe, industrialist George Stearns, journalist Franklin B. Sanborn, ministers Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Theodore Parker—all highly placed and respected men—known as “useful idiots.”

These men financed Brown’s plan to attack the Federal Armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now, West Virginia). With 16 white men and 5 Blacks, they took the armory and held 60 leading citizens hostage. The first person killed in this attempt at freeing the Negro was a free black railroad worker who was shot in the back at the railroad station.

The armory was stocked with weapons and ammunition that Brown planned to give to escaped slaves as they joined his rebellion. They didn’t rebel. Brown’s group held out all the next day and night against the local militia but surrendered the following day when Colonel Robert E. Lee and a few marines attacked. Brown was wounded, and two of his sons were killed along with eight others in the “army of liberation.”

Brown was tried for murder and treason and died on the gallows in what is now Charles Town, West Virginia. One of the town militiamen who observed the execution was John Wilkes Booth, who later had his time on the world stage.

It is shocking and scandalous that anyone, white or black, would consider Brown anything but a nut case, yet he was financed by New England’s elite. He does not qualify as a hero simply because he supported the anti-slavery movement. This speaks to how people are supporting racist, radical, revolutionary Black Lives Matter, Antifa, Nation of Islam, etc.

People who support unsavory, unlawful, and unhinged extremists are facilitators of their evil deeds. Every responsible leader should clearly denounce BLM, Antifa, and the Nation of Islam.

Nat Turner was a black slave in Virginia who claimed to be a Baptist preacher and felt destined for greatness. His parents considered him a prophet and encouraged him in his “ministry.” They were convinced of that because of unusual marks on his head and breast! Turner reported seeing spirits fighting in the sky, and he allegedly heard voices. Being a “prophet,” he communicated “revelations” to fellow slaves. I don’t need to emphasize that these are signs of a nut case, not a prophet.

Then, when Mount St. Helens erupted on August 21, 1831, nearly 3,000 miles away, the atmospheric conditions convinced Turner that God wanted him to kill his white enemies! About seven months earlier on February 12, a solar eclipse convinced him it was time to do what he was ordained to do. The eruption in August was his sign so he and other slaves attacked and killed 55 white people, including men, women, and children–some as they slept. One victim was a baby in its cradle. Some of the victims were beheaded, including children. The killers used axes, clubs, swords, and guns.

It is believed that none of the deadly weapons were registered.

Armed citizens confronted the attackers, and Turner was captured, tried, and executed by hanging after hiding for two months. He was flayed, beheaded, and quartered. It seems the slaveholders wanted to send a message to other slaves.

It is understandable that witless, guilt-ridden Whites and gullible Blacks seek to make every Black a hero, but surely, no sane people think Turner was anything but a monster.

It seems many Blacks are careless in choosing their heroes. However, black leaders, especially those who insist on telling the whole truth about Confederate heroes and founding fathers, should be cautious about holding up killers and Communists to be emulated by young Blacks! Any Black who supports BLM, Antifa, Nation of Islam, and similar hate groups should repent in sackcloth and ashes.

Why don’t some Blacks choose more principled heroes, rather than bottom feeders? But then, many Whites do the same going right to the bottom.

No, it’s not in our genes; it’s in our choices.

(Dr. Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives who ran a large Christian school in Indianapolis and wrote columns for USA Today for 8 years. Boys authored 18 books, the most recent being Muslim Invasion: The Fuse is Burning! The eBook is available here with the printed edition (and other titles) at www.cstnews.com. Follow him on Facebook at Don Boys, Ph.D.; and visit his blog. Send a request to DBoysphd@aol.com for a free subscription to his articles, and click here to support his work with a donation.)

The cathedral’s website boasts that its purpose is “to serve as the spiritual home for the nation. The Cathedral is a national treasure and an architectural feat, a place of stunning beauty built to inspire.” No one asked me to vote on its being “the spiritual home for the nation.” It might be rude or even crude for me to remind my readers that the Episcopal Church was the major opponent of our War for Independence. More than half of their Colonial ministers left their pulpits in disagreement with our demand for a break with England.

A couple years ago, I wrote a column dealing with the Rev. Gary Hall’s leadership of the National Cathedral as Dean and I called it a nest of vipers. I did so because of Hall’s apostasy. Hall retired the last of 2015 and my appellation is still true. His legacy lives on–a nest of vipers. It may be worse!

I wrote, “Hall is a religious rebel without a cause other than the cause of apostasy. He said, ‘No sex before marriage is not realistic.’ He did not try to prove that fornication was Biblical. He has even opened the cathedral for homosexual nuptials! He really jumped into a cauldron of confusion when he opined, ‘It is not only just OK to be gay, straight, bisexual, or transgendered. It is good to be that way, because that is the way God has made you.’ Hall even invited a ‘transgendered priest’ to preach in his pulpit recently. Wonder if he would invite me to preach for him!”

In case you are wondering, he never did and neither did his successor. Maybe someday they will–when pigs learn to fly in formation and do backward somersaults over the White House, maybe.

Hall opined, “Every person is loved by God. We can preach that from the pulpit, but the most emphatic we can say it is to live it by uniting same sex couples in marriage at the altar in our Cathedral.” Of course, God loves everyone, but He has revealed His parameters for sex in  personal and family lives. Homosexuals are simply heterosexuals who refuse to accept His plan for their lives.

At least the church does in public what they teach because Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde and members of the Cathedral’s LGBT ministry group, among others in the diocese marched in the 2016 Capital Pride March “to honor the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.” Hand me a barf bag.

While he was Dean at the church the Rev. Hall identified himself as a “non-theistic Christian,” but that is a silly statement, not scholarly, and certainly not Scriptural. Hall continued to expose his heresy and rejection of Bible truth by saying, “Jesus didn’t try to convert. He just had people at his table.” The leader of a mainline denominational church, even a radical leftist one, should know that Christ said, “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Moreover, Christ told Nicodemus that he “must be born again” in order to enter Heaven. Of course, anyone can enter the National Cathedral and most other churches without that qualification.

Recently, The Daily Caller reported that the governing body of the Episcopalian Diocese of Washington, D.C., approved three very controversial measures: to adopt gender neutral pronouns for God, to embrace transgenderism, and to promote open borders. They passed the three resolutions within an hour! More about that in another column. Could a thinking person suggest that such radical, unbiblical, and out-of-the-realm-of-common-sense actions be the reason the Episcopal Church is dying on the vine?

One Episcopal rector, Rev. Alex Dyer, put up banners suggesting the church was “a progressive church for a progressive city” but more appropriately “a dying church for a decadent city.”

The denomination displayed obvious signs of disintegration in 1974 when, despite objections of the denomination’s hierarchy, the church ordained eleven female deacons. It has been downhill ever since at a breakneck speed.

The Rev. Canon Gina Campbell, a divorced female priest, was hired as Canon Precentor of the National Cathedral in September of 2013. In November of 2014, she invited 100 Muslims to say their Friday prayers at the National Cathedral! She said: “This needs to be a world in which all are free to believe and practice and in which we avoid bigotry, Islamaphobia, racism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Christianity and to embrace our humanity and to embrace faith.” Obviously, the teaching of the National Cathedral is the antithesis to Christ and the Bible.

Ms. Campbell even had all the crucifixes covered and closed the church to Christian worshipers for four hours. She had armed guards at the church doors to exclude Christians who might want to attend. She even removed the pews so the Muslims would not be offended. She wanted the Muslims to pretend to be in a mosque where they sit and kneel on the floor. When she welcomed the Muslims she said, “Salaam, shalom, peace, you are all so very welcome here….Let us stretch our hearts and let us seek to deepen mercy for we worship the same God.” Maybe she worships that god, but I don’t!

The Muslim cleric, with no attempt at being sensitive to the location and the circumstances, said, “God has no son, that Jesus Christ cannot be his son, and that there is no god like Allah.” It is a wonder the massive cathedral did not fall on his head. Does any sane person think Ms. Campbell will receive a similar invitation to do her thing at the local mosque? Especially if she tells the truth about Islam!

Last week I watched two hours of a dialogue held at the National Cathedral Oct. 26, 2016 dealing with the two Cathedral windows that depict Robert E. Lee and Thomas Stonewall Jackson. The Cathedral officials had been wrestling with this for a long time, and in September of 2017, the windows were removed.

The media and the panel discussion I watched were concerned about the windows telling an “incomplete and misleading account of our history. An official said, “”We are committed to finding ways to offer a richer, more balanced expression of our nation’s history.” I’ll buy that; however, I demand some consistency, something that never concerns liberals.

During the panel discussion, the Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, Canon Theologian at the Cathedral spoke approvingly of Nat Turner and another spoke positively of W. E. B. Du Bois. The panelists also agreed that one must know about Thomas Jefferson’s ownership of hundreds of slaves to really know the man. Okay, I’ll accept that but no one seemed concerned to tell the whole story about Turner and Du Bois, so I will. Maybe the panel consisting of two white people and two black people does not know the full story about those two men.

Nat Turner, a black slave in Virginia, was an educated Baptist preacher who always felt destined for greatness and his parents encouraged him, considering him a prophet. They were convinced of that because of certain marks on his head and breast! Turner reported seeing spirits fighting in the sky, and he allegedly heard voices. Being a “prophet” he communicated “revelations” to fellow slaves. One of the “revelations” was to “take up the cause of Christ.” I don’t need to emphasize that these are signs of a nut case not a prophet.

Then, when Mount St. Helens erupted Feb. 12, 1831, nearly 3,000 miles away (most historic reports dealing with Turner wrongly call it an eclipse) the atmospheric conditions convinced Turner that God wanted him to kill his enemies! About seven months later on August 21, 1831, he and other slaves attacked and killed 55 white people including men, women, and children–some as they slept. One victim was a baby in its cradle. Some of the victims were beheaded, including children. The killers used axes, clubs, swords, and guns. Armed citizens confronted the attackers and Turner, after hiding for two months, was captured, tried, and executed by hanging. His corpse was flayed, beheaded, and quartered. It seems the slaveholders wanted to send a message to their slaves.

It is understandable that witless, guilt-ridden Whites and gullible Blacks seek to make every Black a hero but surely ministers of the Episcopalian denomination would not do that. Would they? After all, should not all the pertinent facts about a man, even a black killer, be known? The panel at the National Cathedral did not think so. One of the panelists was an historian but he said not a word!

Another black hero is W. E. B. Du Bois (who insisted on being called, “Dr. Du Bois”) an impressive intellectual who in 1895 was the first Black to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard. He was a founder of the NAACP (most of the executive officers were white) in 1909 and he was hired as editor of their journal The Crisis. He later resigned (some say he was dismissed) in 1934 over his reversal of his segregation position to accepting the “separate but equal” position as a satisfactory goal for Blacks. He had rejected Frederick Douglass’ plea for black Americans to integrate into white society. He also sparred with Booker T. Washington, the number one black leader in America who was highly respected by Whites and Blacks.

Du Bois thought Booker T. Washington was too slow and patient in dealing with segregation. Washington was an accommodator and Du Bois was an agitator. Du Bois was an effective advocate for civil rights but leaned far to the left defending and joining many socialist causes. He taught that capitalism was a major cause of racism. He was a peace advocate and promoted nuclear disarmament. He began to support the Communist Party and warmed to Marx’s atheism and many of Du Bois’ friends and supporters shunned him especially after the FBI continued to investigate his actions, associates, and his advocacies. He ended up joining the American Communist Party, traveled to Russia and China (and praised them), and became a citizen of Ghana, where he died in 1963. Shouldn’t Blacks know those facts when Du Bois is being presented as a Black hero?

It seems many Blacks are careless in choosing their heroes. However, black leaders, especially black leaders who insist on telling the whole truth about Confederate heroes and founding fathers should be very careful about holding up killers and Communists to be emulated by young Blacks! Or, maybe it is racist for me to hold their feet to the fire in this matter. Church leaders should not have consistency forced upon them. Their character should require it.

One headline tells the story of what’s happening: “Episcopalians Continue Bleeding Members, Attendance at Alarming Rate.” However, it seems the denominational bigwigs haven’t connected the dots. Members are fleeing their churches as if their hair is on fire because of the outrageous, anti-biblical, and leftist positions taken by the leadership.

The denomination’s website says nothing about reaching people for Christ with the Gospel but it does boast about their activity on Ash Wednesday of going to the streets, no not with Gospel literature, but to put ashes on the foreheads of people! However, there is no, absolutely no biblical foundation for such a church activity.

However, there is no Bible support for most of what is going on in mainline denominations: a church hierarchy; massive salaries, special clerical vestments, relics, and involvement in leftist political causes.

Boys’ book  Muslim Invasion: The Fuse is Burning! was published by Barbwire Books; to get your copy,  click here. An eBook edition is also available.