The Word of God is Dangerous

By Demetric Muhammad-Guest Columnist- | Last updated: May 7, 2019 - 11:11:23 AM

The Real Reason Facebook Banned Our Beloved Minister Farrakhan

Long before the recent controversy between the Jewish community and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, the American ruling class of plantation owners and slave masters understood the revolutionary potential of the “Word of God.” Specifically, the sacred texts of Jews, Christians and Muslims all condemn slavery and oppression in all of its forms. They therefore knew that in order for the enormously profitable enterprise of enslaving Black people to remain in existence they had to completely control the religious training and instruction of their chattel slaves.

The historical context of the Black man and woman’s experience in America should always frame our analysis and interpretation of current events and trends. What is happening to our beloved Minister Farrakhan is wicked and evil. It is a modern attempt to stop the dangerous Word of God from liberating the masses of the American people. They are doing to Minister Farrakhan the same thing they did to the Bible.

According to NPR reporter Michel Martin in her December 9, 2018 report, “Slave Bible from 1800s Omitted Key Passages That Could Incite Rebellion,” plantation owners feared constantly that their slaves would revolt and overthrow their wicked slave system. This fear of revolt caused them to literally castrate the Bible. They created an edited, censored and spiritually impotent text to give to their slaves, seeking to hide the elements within the scriptures that condemned slavery and oppression. Martin’s article states:

“… rare Bible from the 1800s that was used by British missionaries to convert and educate slaves … What’s notable about this Bible is not just its rarity, but its content, or rather the lack of content. It excludes any portion of text that might inspire rebellion or liberation … . About 90 percent of the Old Testament is missing [and] 50 percent of the New Testament is missing … Put in another way, there are 1,189 chapters in a standard protestant Bible. This Bible contains only 232 … passages that could have prompted rebellion were removed, for example: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus’. - Galatians 3:28.”

This is important historical context through which to view Facebook/Instagram’s decision to censure and ban the strongest and most effective preacher of the Word of God in America—the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. They literally said that they consider him “dangerous.” Yet the Minister is a man who forbids all of his followers from carrying or possessing in our homes weapons. In fact, of the Nation of Islam Canadian Professor Martha F. Lee has written:

“In many ways then, the NOI provides a case study of why and how a religious movement with a radical belief system did not engage in violence related to its doctrine. Its members waited in faith for Allah to destroy the forces that oppressed them. Instead, it was law enforcement agencies that more actively fostered violence in the hope of destroying the NOI.”

No, the Minister is not dangerous to the public peace. He is not dangerous to the well-being of the American people. His ministry, however, threatens all that is harmful to the future destiny of the American people. His ministry is dangerous to those who see an aware, awakened and enlightened electorate as problematic. He is dangerous to those who want White privilege and White supremacy to continue as the governing philosophy of America’s institutions. His ministry is dangerous to the prison industrial complex, because he has proven the ability to take the same Black youth that might otherwise end up in jail or prison and make them productive. Swedish professor of theology Mattias Gardell said of the Minister:

“Farrakhan has a unique capability … able to reach deeply into the souls of black youths … is able to talk to them in a way that really makes them listen … this rapport enables Farrakhan to criticize and redirect destructive behavioral patterns.”

The Minister, as a preacher of the unedited, unabridged and spiritually virile true Word of God, is viewed by oppressors of all kinds as dangerous because he interferes with their plan of oppression and genocide. But he is viewed by the oppressed and their God as a hero and champion, a bold man with a salvific message and strong personal example.

Not only did slave masters tamper with the Bible to keep their slaves from rebelling. They also were deathly afraid of preachers that they didn’t educate, appoint or approve. I am always fascinated and really amazed when I read the history of how plantation owners and legislators reacted to Nat Turner’s rebellion. One might think that they would move quickly to prohibit any enslaved man or woman from being able to have access to guns or weapons. But instead they reacted by toughening laws against literacy and religion. The Richmond Enquirer in 1831 published an editorial that said:

“The case of Nat Turner warns us. No black man ought to be permitted to turn preacher through the country. The law must be enforced-or the tragedy of Southampton appeals to us in vain.”

According to W.E.B. Dubois in his “History of the Negro Church”, after Nat Turner’s rebellion, “A wave of legislation passed over the South prohibiting the slaves from learning to read and write, forbidding Negroes to preach, and interfering with Negro religious meetings. For example a Mississippi law said it is unlawful for any slave, free Negro, or mulatto to preach the gospel upon pain of receiving thirty-nine lashes upon the naked back of the presumptuous preacher. If a Negro received written permission from his master he might preach to the Negroes in his immediate neighborhood, providing six respectable white men, owners of slaves, were present.”

Similarly it was Nat Turner’s rebellion that infamous Virginia legislator Henry Berry was reacting to when he said:

“Pass as severe laws as you will to keep these unfortunate creatures in ignorance. It is in vain unless you can extinguish that spark of intellect which God has given them. … Sir, we have as far as possible closed every avenue by which light may enter their minds. We only have to go one step further to extinguish their capacity to see the light and our work will be completed. And they would then be reduced to the level of the beasts of the field and we should be safe.”

I noticed that Facebook/Instagram decided to ban the Minister on what is celebrated in America as Holocaust Remembrance Day. This was a clear wink and nod to the nefarious adversaries of the Black community who have planned an ill-advised character assassination attempt against Minister Farrakhan. Groups like the ADL (Anti-Defamation League of B’Nai B’rith) and the Southern Poverty Law Center have sought to paint the Minister as anti-Semitic. But these same groups have also labeled the word of God, specifically the Bible’s New Testament as being an anti-Semitic text.

According to long time ADL chairman Abraham Foxman:

“For almost twenty centuries ... the church was the archenemy of the Jews—our most powerful and relentless oppressor and the worlds’ greatest force for the dissemination of Anti-Semitic beliefs and the instigation of the acts of hatred. Many of the same people who operated the gas chambers worshiped in Christian churches on Sunday ... . The question of the complicity of the church in the murder of the Jews is a living one. We must understand the truths of our history.”

Moreover Foxman’s sentiments harmonize with what is documented in the Jewish Virtual Library, wherein it states:

“The gospel story, which has generated more anti-Semitism than the sum of all the other anti-Semitic writings ever written, created the climate in Christian Europe that led to the Holocaust. Long before the rise of Adolf Hitler, the gospel story about the life and death of Jesus had poisoned the bloodstream of European civilization.”

What then do we learn from this? We learn that the life of Jesus, commonly referred to as the Gospels, is looked upon as the source, root and seed-bed of global anti-Semitism by the same folks who label Minister Farrakhan an anti-Semite. Wow! That is amazing!

Perhaps then, Minister Farrakhan and those of us who stand with him should rejoice, because apparently we are in good company right alongside Jesus and the scriptures.

Demetric Muhammad is a Nation of Islam student minister, author and a member of the NOI Research Group. Follow him on Twitter: @brotherdemetric.

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