Do people tend to become nicer when they become racial nationalists? My general sense of things is no. Do most Jews become nicer when they become Orthodox? No. By contrast, most people become nicer when they become Christian (or work the 12 Steps).
Niceness is not my highest value but it is in the top five. When I read about black Christians becoming black nationalists or white Christians becoming white nationalists, it rarely reads like a happy story. By contrast, when these nationalists embrace Christianity (or the 12 Steps), they usually have a happier trajectory.
A good rejoinder to my muse is that Western society shuns people who become racial nationalists, that’s why they rarely have happy stories.
Rev. Ben Kinchlow, Co-Host of TV’s ‘The 700 Club,’ Dies at 82
By his own account, Mr. Kinchlow was a black nationalist firebrand and a philanderer before he became a born-again Christian in his mid-30s, in the early 1970s. He went on to found a youth ministry and a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Killeen, Tex., about 75 miles north of Austin.“That is the place where I saw bona fide miracles take place in the lives of people,” he recalled in an interview.
Those adolescent success stories came to the attention of Mr. Robertson, who invited Mr. Kinchlow to be a guest on his live, three-hour “700 Club” program. Imposing at 6-foot-5 and engaging as a son of the segregated South, Mr. Kinchlow was an immediate hit…
He founded Americans for Israel to promote mutual understanding between Christians and Jews, traveled worldwide as a motivational speaker and contributed commentary to WorldNetDaily, a conservative online publication.
Mr. Kinchlow, a Republican, wrote several books, including a memoir, “Plain Bread” (1985, with Bob Slosser); “You Don’t Have to if You Don’t Want To: The Marvelous Power to Choose” (1995), and “Black Yellowdogs: The Most Dangerous Citizen Is Not Armed, but Uninformed” (2008), in which he compared black Democrats to “house slaves” who vote not by principle but by the party that has bought their loyalty with economic benefits.
Mr. Kinchlow criticized what he called “radical environmentalists” and “militant homosexuals” (he said the gay agenda was not about civil liberties but to force Americans “to accept a particular type of bedroom behavior.” Still, he was considered an affable personality and somewhat less rigid than Mr. Robertson.
In one “700 Club” broadcast in 1985, Mr. Robertson was asked whether Christians should participate in government.
“Individual Christians are the only ones really — and Jewish people, those who trust the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob — are the only ones that are qualified to have the reign,” Mr. Robertson replied, “because, hopefully, they will be governed by God and submitted to him.”
To which Mr. Kinchlow replied, “Obviously you’re not saying that there are no other people qualified to be in government or whatever if they aren’t Christians or Jews.”
“Yeah,” Mr. Robertson said. “I’m saying that. I just said it.”
…Alienated from religion by conflicts within and between church denominations, he rejected a scholarship to a seminary, served 13 years in the Air Force and became a self-described reprobate who earned the nickname “Pagan” until a young minister friend reacquainted him with Christianity.
I also notice that blacks who join the Armed Forces or big corporations often have happy stories. Jews and Asians, by contrast, are often more suited for entrepreneurship.
