The Christian church in this country is the most segregated institution in America.
You go to church on Sunday and you worship a white God. You listen to a white preacher tell you to be patient, to love your enemy, to wait for justice in the next life, while injustice is practiced against you in this one.
I’m not against Christianity.
I’m against the way Christianity is practiced in America.
If Christianity were being practiced the way it was taught, Black people would not be in the condition they’re in today. You wouldn’t need civil rights legislation. You wouldn’t need demonstrations. You wouldn’t need to beg for rights that are supposed to already belong to you.
The same people who preach love and brotherhood on Sunday are the same ones who deny you housing, deny you education, deny you employment, and send you to fight wars for a country that won’t protect you at home.
Religion in America has been used to make people suffer peacefully.
It has been used to teach you to turn the other cheek while someone keeps their knee on your neck. It has been used to tell you that obedience is morality, and silence is virtue.
The government, the press, and the church work together. They don’t operate separately. They operate together to maintain the same system — and that system is not designed for your freedom.
If Christianity were truly a religion of justice in this country, it would not be standing on the sidelines while Black people are brutalized. It would not be silent while violence is committed in the name of law and order. It would not bless wars abroad while denying humanity at home.
I don’t judge a religion by what it says.
I judge it by what it does.
And when you look at what Christianity has done for Black people in America, you have to ask yourself a serious question:
If Christianity is right, why is America so wrong?
Sources
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)
“Message to the Grassroots” (Detroit, 1963)
“The Ballot or the Bullet” (Cleveland & Detroit, 1964)
“God’s Judgment of White America” (New York, 1963)
Interviews with Louis Lomax (1963)
University lectures and public Q&A sessions, 1962–1965
Malcolm X (1925–1965) was a human rights activist, internationalist, and one of the most incisive critics of American racism, imperialism, and religious hypocrisy. His speeches and writings challenged the moral contradictions of a nation that professed democracy and Christian values while practicing segregation, state violence, and global domination.
