Bible experts Eric Mason, James White clash over racist history of abortion
Two leading Bible experts and prolific writers, Eric Mason and James White, have clashed over the racist history of abortion.
The controversy erupted Saturday when Mason, who is the founder and lead pastor of Epiphany Fellowship in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and author of four books: Manhood Restored, Beat God to the Punch, Unleashed, and most recently Woke Church, blamed the creation of the mass abortion culture on racism.
“When white (sic) say speak out on abortion like you do other atrocities against AA’s I’m waiting for them to speak out on all of the history of racism in this country. What nerve to say that w/ the history they deny that created the environment for mass abortions in the AA community,” Mason wrote in a tweet.
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Mason, who is Southern Baptist and a proponent of Critical Race Theory, further argued that “white evangelicals …, particularly reformed white evangelicals have to stop reading in their theological ghettos and learn more! Like the false prophets in Jeremiah 23 y’all preach to each other but not from the Lord! Repent!”
Critical Race Theory, holds that race is a socially constructed concept that functions as a means to maintain the interests of the white population that constructed it. Racial inequality, according to the theory, emerges from the social, economic, and legal differences that white people create between “races” to maintain elite white interest in labor markets and politics which create the environment that give rise to poverty and criminality in many minority communities.
White, a scholar and director of Alpha and Omega Ministries in Phoenix, Arizona, who previously criticized Mason’s latest book that calls on Christians in America to confront racism and injustice, argued in his reply to his black counterpart that “whites” should not be blamed for abortion in the African-American community.
“Are you kidding? Now ‘whites’ are to blame for ‘mass abortions in the AA community’? Pray tell us, Dr. Mason—how does this not communicate 1) constant victim status, and more amazingly, 2) a denigrating view of the responsibility of black men and women morally and sexually?” he asked.
Mason’s statement triggered many other reactions supporting and criticizing his position.
Christian hip-hop artist Derek Johnson Jr., better known by his stage name Derek Minor, challenged White about the historical truth behind Mason’s point.
“Eugenics in America wasn’t started and funded by whites (sic) people? It wasn’t initially pitched from Margaret Sanger as a good thing to the US population because it killed off the most ignorant and diseased of the population (blacks and the ill)? PP didn’t evolve from that lie?” he asked.
“Surely we’re not gonna detach ourselves from our past are we? Blacks absolutely have personal responsibility to do our damndest to Free our community from THAT lie (as many of us are) even tho many of us ar still duped,” he added.
White argued that Mason’s point is “identity politics” which shouldn’t be a part of the Church.
“Brother, I reject identity politics, and I will shout from the rooftops that the only ‘identity’ that matters in the church of Jesus Christ is whether you are in HIM or not. Period. All the tribalism and ethnocentricity of the past is *wiped out* when it comes to the CORE,” White said.
Data cited by The Wall Street Journal notes that nationally, black women have abortions at far higher rates than other women. In 2014, 36 percent of all abortions were performed on black women who make up just 13 percent of the female population.
