Many who drop money into the red kettles of the Salvation Army during the holiday season may rethink their financial giving this year as the organization is taking heat for an online publication it recently distributed called “Let’s Talk About Racism” in which it urged Christians and “White Culture” to evaluate their racist attitudes.
The guide has since been removed from the website, as links to it on several other media outlets are broken.
Several media outlets have reported that the guide said the Salvation Army hopes “Christians will lament, repent and apologize for racist ideologies held and actions committed. There is an urgent need for Christians to evaluate racist attitudes and practices in light of our faith and live faithfully in today’s world.
CBN News reported that the guide contended that “white culture” should strive to overcome “denial of racism” and “defensiveness about race” and that “White Americans” need to “stop trying to be ‘colorblind.'”
The guide, before it was removed from the internet, read: “While this might sound helpful, it actually ignores the God-given differences we all possess, as well as the beautiful cultures of our Black and Brown brothers and sisters. Instead of trying to be colorblind, try seeing the beauty in our differences and welcome them into your homes, churches and workplaces.”
Newsweek reported that the racism guide indicates the Salvation Army has shifted to the left and that many of its donors have withdrawn their support in response to its “racial wokeness initiative.”
Newsweek’s Carly Mayberry wrote, “Definitions of institutional and systemic racism are included while real or perceived differences in life outcomes (‘inequities’) are attributable not to individual effort and other circumstances, but to discrimination. Sections address topics including police brutality, health care and Black unemployment linking such topics to ‘racial inequity.’ That’s troublesome for those who note The Salvation Army has been a leader in confronting racism long before the rest of the country and over five decades before the civil rights movement. And they’re asking why then should members of an organization built by the Christian faith to actually assist people of all races in need, be repentant of behavior they never perpetuated?”
Christian apologist Greg Koukl wrote an open letter to the Salvation Army on Facebook earlier this month telling the organization that he was terminating his monthly donations and “directing them to another organization.”
“I recently became aware of your International Social Justice Commission material, ‘Let’s Talk About Racism.’ I read virtually every word of the material in ever session and surveyed your bibliography. It rapidly became clear to me that TSA has fallen for critical race theory lock, stock and barrel.”
The Salvation Army released this statement in response to the criticism it received for posting the “Let’s Talk About Racism” guide since it has become a source of controversy, but did not apologize for its content, saying the “claims are simply false, and they distort the very goal of our work.” {eoa}
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