America’s Unholy Ghosts: The Racist Roots of Our Faith and Politics
By Joel Edward Goza (Cascade Books)
Joel Goza presented the gist of America’s Unholy Ghosts during the 2018 No Need Among You Conference in Waco. The room sat in stunned silence through most of the presentation, which was a distillation of his forthcoming book, scheduled for release Feb. 1, 2019.
After rescuing children from a gunfight outside his home in Houston’s 5th Ward, Goza set out to understand why racial divisions persist in a nation heralding freedom and justice for all. His search took him to the philosophic foundation for this nation, to the writings of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Adam Smith, devoting one chapter to each of these three influential philosophers.
What left Goza’s audience speechless were the prescriptions of these philosophers for the establishment of a society thoroughly designed—inclusive of politics and religion—to favor a select few on the backs of the vast majority, a system still being perfected by his accounting.
Inasmuch as he is taking on giants and questioning the very groundwork for the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and American capitalism, Goza’s analysis deserves consideration. While some of his conclusions may seem unsupported—such as changes in hairstyles among prominent white men in the colonial period—such assertions should not distract the reader from Goza’s more substantial argument, which springs directly from the writings of Hobbes, Locke and Smith.
Goza concludes with a recounting of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and the prophetic voice of Martin Luther King Jr., an era beyond which the United States has not moved for reasons Goza suggests are rooted in the nation’s philosophic foundation.
Eric Black, executive director / publisher and editor
Baptist Standard
We seek to connect God’s story and God’s people around the world. To learn more about God’s story, click here.
Send comments and feedback to Eric Black, our editor. For comments to be published, please specify “letter to the editor.” Maximum length for publication is 300 words.