Atlanta megachurch pastor Louie Giglio sets off firestorm by calling slavery a ‘blessing’ to whites

(Source washingtonpost.com)

Many white pastors have been addressing racism in the past few weeks, since the outbreak of widespread protests across the country over police brutality and the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in the custody of Minneapolis police. At Passion City Church in Atlanta, Giglio described slavery as a blessing after talking about “the blessing” of the cross on which Jesus died.

“We understand the curse that was slavery, white people do,” Giglio said during a conversation Sunday about race in America with hip-hop artist Lecrae Moore and Chick-fil-A chief executive Dan Cathy, who is an evangelical Christian. “And we say that was bad. But we miss the blessing of slavery, that it actually built up the framework for the world that white people live in.” Giglio’s comments became a trending topic on Twitter on Tuesday as people objected to slavery being described as a “blessing” and to his implication that the concept of white “privilege” — a term that refers to the advantages white people enjoy in a racist society — could be equated with a gift from God. “It’s a bad theology that has existed since the beginning of the slave trade,” said Anthea Butler, a professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania who is working on a book on white evangelical racism. “Giglio said what was true to him and what’s true to a lot of evangelicals, but it doesn’t make it right.”