Evangelical Leaders Open Letter Condemning Christian Nationalism

Capitol Insurrection on January 6, 2021

Evangelical Leaders Statement

Condemning Christian Nationalism's role

in the January 6th Insurrection

Link: An Open Letter to the Church by Church Leaders

"As leaders in the broad evangelical community, we recognize and condemn the role Christian Nationalism played in the violent, racist, anti-American insurrection at the United States Capitol on January 6.

"We recognize the damage done by radicalized Christian Nationalism in the world, the church, and in the lives of individuals and communities. 

"We know from experts on radicalization that one of the key elements is a belief that your actions are "blessed by God" and ordained by your faith. This is what allows so many people who hold to a Christian Nationalism view to be radicalized. 

"While we come from varied backgrounds and political stances, we stand together against the perversion of the Christian faith as we saw on January 6, 2021. We also stand against the theology and the conditions that led to the insurrection.

"Over the centuries, there are moments when the Church, the trans-national Body of Christ-followers, has seen distortions of the faith that warranted a response. In ages past, the Church has responded by holding emergency councils in order to unilaterally denounce mutations of the Christian faith, and to affirm the core values at the heart of Christianity. It is in that spirit that we unite our voices to declare that there is a version of American nationalism that is trying to camouflage itself as Christianity -- and it is a heretical version of our faith. 

"Just as many Muslim leaders have felt the need to denounce distorted, violent versions of their faith, we feel the urgent need to denounce this violent mutation of our faith. What we saw manifest itself in the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, is a threat to our democracy, but it is also a threat to orthodox Christian faith. The word "Christian" means "Christ-like." As leaders in the Church, we do not agree on everything, but we can agree on this -- Christians should live in a way that honors Jesus, and reminds the world of Him. 

"As Jesus himself said, "They will know that you are my disciples by the way you love" (John 13:35). No Christian can defend the unChristlike behavior of those who committed the violence on January 6. Not only was it anti-democratic, but it was also anti-Christian. 

"On January 6 we saw the flags claiming Trump's name, calling for violence, and raising the name of Jesus. We saw images of a police officer being beaten with an American flag and another being crushed in a doorway. We know an officer was murdered in the act of insurrection. We witnessed the cross and the gallow being erected. We saw and heard the prayer the insurrectionists prayed from the Senate desk in Jesus' name. Many of us recognized the content, the structure, and the style of that prayer as matching our own churches and faith.

"But we reject this prayer being used to justify the violent act and attempted overthrow of the Government. 

"We have witnessed the rise of violent acts by radicalized extremists using the name of Christ for its validity in the past, including the deadly actions in Charlottesville in 2017. We join our voices to condemn it publicly and theologically.

"We recognize that evangelicalism, and white evangelicalism in particular, has been susceptible to the heresy of Christian nationalism because of a long history of faith leaders accommodating white supremacy. We choose to speak out now because we do not want to be quiet accomplices in this on-going sin. But we also want to celebrate the long tradition of prophetic Christian witness in this nation that has challenged white supremacy and violent Christian nationalism. Though the KKK in the South claimed the symbol of a Christain cross, prophetic Black Christians formed and discipled children in Birmingham, Alabama who led a nonviolent witness in the face of dogs and firehoses. Though an appeal to "biblical values" has been used to demonize immigrants, undocumented Christians in America today have led a movement that insists upon the dignity and full humanity of all undocumented people. There is a powerful Christian witness for the common good in our past and in our present. White evangelicals in America can grow in faithfulness by following this cloud of witnesses, including the many white freedom-fighters who risked their lives standing up for love in the face of violence and hatred. 

"We urge all pastors, ministers, and priests to boldly make it clear that a commitment to Jesus Christ is incompatible with calls to violence, support of white Christian nationalism, conspiracy theories, and all religious and racial prejudice. 

"Just as it was tragically inconsistent for Christians in the 20th Century to support the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi ideology, it is unthinkable for Christians to support the Proud Boys, Oathkeepers, QAnon, 3 Percenters, America Firsters, and similar groups. 

"We urge faith leaders to engage pastorally with those who support or sympathize with these groups, and make it clear that our churches are not neutral about these matters: we are on the side of democracy, equality for all people, anti-racism, and the common good of all people.

"Instead of seeing the United States as God's chosen nation we thank God for the church around the world that calls people of all races, tongues and nations to the knowledge and love of God. Instead of seeing any particular political leader or party as divinely appointed, we believe in the prophetic and pastoral ministry of the church to all political leaders and parties. Instead of power through violence, we believe in and seek to imitate the powerful, servant love practiced by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

"Our faith will not allow us to remain silent at such a time as this. We are also aware that our world needs more than a statement right now… we need action. 

"Every one of the signers of this declaration is committed to taking concrete steps to put flesh on our words. We will combat bad theology with better theology. We will resist fear with love. We will tell the truth about our nation’s history. 

"We will seek to repair and heal the wounds of the past. We will seek racial justice on a personal, ecclesial, and systemic level. We will support organizations led by people of color. We will listen to and amplify the voices of people of faith who have been marginalized by the colonizing force of white supremacy and Christian Nationalism. 

"We will do our best to be faithful to Jesus, and to those Christ called “the least of these."

* * * * * * * * * *

The scene outside the Capitol on 6 January. The presence of Christian nationalists

was evident during the insurrection. | Photograph: Shafkat Anowar/AP

Evangelical leaders condemn role

of Christian nationalism in Capitol attack

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/24/evangelical-leaders-christian-nationalism-capitol-riot

by Ed Pilkington in New York

February 24, 2021

Pastors reject ‘perversion’ of Christian nationalism and say

they do not want to be ‘quiet accomplices in this ongoing sin’

More than 100 prominent evangelical Christian pastors and church leaders have spoken out against what they call the “perversion” of Christian nationalism and the role it played in enabling the violent insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington on 6 January.

In an open letter released on Wednesday, the evangelical leaders say they are speaking out now because they do not want to be “quiet accomplices in this ongoing sin”.

They call on all church people to clarify that Christianity is incompatible with “calls to violence, support of white Christian nationalism, conspiracy theories, and all religious and racial prejudice”.

The letter, first reported by NPR, notes that the evangelical community in the US has long been susceptible to the “heresy” of Christian nationalism – the belief that the country is fundamentally Christian and run by and for white conservative Americans. The signatories blame that tendency on church leaders accommodating white supremacy over many years.

As a result the ideology of Christian nationalism was allowed to flourish and helped to legitimize the 6 January attack by giving participants the false impression that their actions were “blessed by God”, the religious leaders said.

The presence of Christian nationalists was evident during the insurrection. Rioters carried signs proclaiming “Jesus Saves” and “In God We Trust”, and crosses were erected among the crowd.

A Reporter’s Footage from Inside the Capitol Siege | The New Yorker

Jan 17, 2021

A video of the unfolding catastrophe filmed by the New Yorker magazine showed one of the seditionists saying a prayer from the rostrum of the US Senate. He said: “Thank you Heavenly Father for gracing us with this opportunity to stand up for our God-given unalienable rights … and to send a message to all the tyrants, the communists and the globalists that this is our nation, not theirs.”

Among the influential figures who signed the letter were Jerushah Duford, granddaughter of the TV evangelical preacher, the late Billy Graham. She told NPR that the events of 6 January had long been brewing. “It felt like this was a symptom of what has been happening for a long time,” she said.

White evangelical Christians remained remarkably loyal to former president Donald Trump in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. They voted for him on both occasions by about 80%, exit polls showed.

A survey by the American Enterprise Institute earlier this month found that 60% of white evangelicals continue to believe Trump’s “big lie” that last November’s election was stolen from him and that he should have been returned to the White House.

Jesus and the Christian Faith v Christian Nationalism

Amazon Link

Why do so many conservative Christians continue to support Donald Trump despite his many overt moral failings? Why do many Americans advocate so vehemently for xenophobic policies, such as a border wall with Mexico? Why do many Americans seem so unwilling to acknowledge the injustices that ethnic and racial minorities experience in the United States? Why do a sizeable proportion of Americans continue to oppose women's equality in the workplace and in the home?

To answer these questions, Taking America Back for God points to the phenomenon of "Christian Nationalism," the belief that the United States is-and should be-a Christian nation. Christian ideals and symbols have long played an important role in American public life, but Christian Nationalism is about far more than whether the phrase "under God" belongs in the pledge of allegiance. At its heart, Christian Nationalism demands that we must preserve a particular kind of social order, an order in which everyone--Christians and non-Christians, native-born and immigrants, whites and minorities, men and women recognizes their "proper" place in society. The first comprehensive empirical analysis of Christian Nationalism in the United States, Taking America Back for God illustrates the influence of Christian Nationalism on today's most contentious social and political issues.

Drawing on multiple sources of national survey data as well as in-depth interviews, Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry document how Christian Nationalism shapes what Americans think about who they are as a people, what their future should look like, and how they should get there. Americans' stance toward Christian Nationalism provides powerful insight into what they think about immigration, Islam, gun control, police shootings, atheists, gender roles, and many other political issues-very much including who they want in the White House. Taking America Back for God is a guide to one of the most important-and least understood-forces shaping American politics.

* * * * * * * * *

RLC Book Club

Streamed live on Jul 25, 2021

Authors Andrew Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry

discuss their book "Taking America Back for God"

with Shane Claiborne | 57:18

* * * * * * * * *

https://christandpopculture.com/taking-america-back-for-god-persuasion-podcast/

PODCAST LINK HERE

https://megaphone.link/CHRTDY9641440676

T

aking an active role in shaping our communities—and nation—is a valid way for us to fulfill Jesus’ mandate to love our neighbor. Such work is both Christian and political. It’s that intersection we’re exploring in this For God and Country series. Once we determine it is our duty to work toward the common good in this way, a new question arises: What kind of community or nation are we trying to build?

In this episode of Persuasion, Erin Straza and Hannah Anderson dig into their fall series called For God and Country. Each episode will tackle an aspect of how faith and politics collide. In this conversation, Erin and Hannah look to the pain points Christians are feeling and use them to unearth the way fear can sway our political leanings. In Christian circles, there has been increasing concern about religious rights and freedoms, as well as rally cries to take our nation back for God. To help us understand the factors feeding these ideas, Hannah speaks with Sam Perry, who has done significant research on Christian nationalism. Together with Andrew Whitehead, Sam authored a book of these findings titled Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States. Sam addresses the growing conflation of Christian faith with nationalism, which at its core is political idolatry. Because we are so accustomed to these messages and stances within the Church, we can become blind to how we’ve adopted ideals and stances that are contrary to the gospel:

• Is it truly our mandate to take America back for God?

• Are Christians under persecution in the United States—or is it just a loss of privilege and status?

• Should Christians focus on protecting our own rights or is it more important to reach others with the love of God found in Jesus?

Listen in for dialogue on questions like these as we learn to think more clearly about the intersection of faith and politics. Then continue the conversation on Twitter @PersuasionCAPC or in the CAPC members-only community on Facebook.

Today’s episode of Persuasion is sponsored in part by Plough Publishing House, publisher of new title The Gospel in Dickens, edited by Gina Dalfonzo. CAPC members receive 30% off when purchasing from Plough!

HOSTS

Erin Straza: Web / Twitter

Hannah Anderson: Web / Twitter

PERSUASION PODCAST

PersuasionPodcast.buzz

Twitter: @PersuasionCAPC

Instagram: @PersuasionCAPC

Facebook: /Persuasioncapc

PERSUASION 201 RESOURCES & LINKS

Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States by Sam Perry and Andrew Whitehead

Christians Against Christian Nationalism

Did you enjoy this episode of Persuasion? Give the entire series a listen:

Persuasion 200 | For God and Country? with Kaitlyn Schiess

THEME MUSIC by Maiden Name.

* * * * * * * * *

https://hope.edu/

https://hope.edu/alumni/

https://hope.edu/about/index.html

In the following article I have placed the last section first ahead of the main article because of its relevancy to the topic being discussed today. Afterwards I have posted the entire article as it was originally written.

Hope College of Holland, Michigan, is a private Christian university which is part of the Reformed Churches of America (RCA). They are located not far from where I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where my wife and I for many years had enjoyed their Summer Repertory Theatre when dating and our early years of marriage.

Thankfully, the students and faculty at Hope have a clear enough vision of the Christian faith to say no to Christian racism and Christian nationalism. Which gives me hope that not all Christians are shovelheads. Here are their thoughts....

R.E. Slater

July 28, 2021

... One more thing on this topic, and not just a post script. You could write a whole book on it. In fact, Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry already have, and I recommend it to you:

It is a data-driven analysis of Christian Nationalism, people for whom their Christian faith and their American patriotism have fused so completely that they see no discernable difference between the Kingdom of God and the U.S. of A.

Measured in terms of agreement with just six questions (e.g., “The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation” and “The success of the United States is part of God’s plan”), Christian Nationalism predicts all kinds of attitudes about race and racism, rooted in a very clear sense of the boundary that divides “us” from “them.”

Christian Nationalists are more likely to believe that “true Americans” are White Christians, born in the U.S. with forebears from the U.S. Everyone else lives on the other side of the boundary, and therefore is highly suspect.

Immigrants are seen as bad people who pollute the purity of the culture. U.S.-born minorities are believed to be lazy or criminal or both - people who deserve substandard housing, low-paying jobs, and inferior schools.

It is absolutely telling that those who have fused God and country are the biggest bigots in the nation. Racism is intertwined in the history of both the U.S. government and the U. S. church. Put them together, and the result is pure White supremacy.

Now please don’t conclude that all Christians in this country are Christian Nationalists. That is far from the truth. Christians who are low in Christian Nationalism have beliefs about race that are completely opposite from Christian Nationalists. (More on that in the next section.)

And many Christian Nationalists aren’t especially Christian, as measured by things like church attendance and Bible reading. It isn’t the Christian faith itself that promotes xenophobia and racism; it is the heresy of White Supremacy that has found its way into the hearts and minds of many, but by no means all, people who profess Christian beliefs.

Peter Wehner, who worked for Ronald Reagan and both Presidents Bush, summarizes it in this way:

Countless people who profess to be Christians are having their moral sensibilities shaped more by Tucker Carlson’s nightly monologues than by Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Perhaps without quite knowing it, many of those who most loudly proclaim the “pre-eminence of Christ” have turned him into a means to an end, a cruel, ugly and unforgiving end.

Can I get an Amen?

The Bottom Line: Overt racism is alive and well, and quite visible, especially in recent years. One reason is politics: the Republican party has played on White racial resentment in order to win votes, a strategy that has worked pretty well for them since the 1960s.

A second reason is U.S. Christianity, which has been part and parcel of U.S. racism since Europeans first landed in the Americas. The good news comes in the next post: anti-racism has been on the rise lately, too, offering some hope in what has been a pretty difficult time.

* * * * * * * * *

GETTING RACE RIGHT

https://blogs.hope.edu/getting-race-right/ourselves-who-we-are/the-view-from-above/embracing-racism-race-politics-and-religion/

A project of Professor Charles Green &

Race in America students at Hope College

"Racial justice is the path to racial progress."

Embracing Racism: Race, Politics, and Religion

"Racial justice as the path to racial progress."

Follow us on twitter @GetRaceRight

I don’t want to write this.

Part of it is the difficulty of writing about race, politics, and religion in a way that is true, honest, and respectful. As a person of faith, I believe every human being is a child of God, beloved by God. That includes people who perpetuate racism. (I keep looking for an asterisk, an escape clause, or a list of exceptions in the Scriptures. No luck as of yet, but I’ll keep you posted.) At the same time, as a person of faith—more specifically as a Christian—I believe that Jesus cared quite particularly for those on the margins. He sought them out and brought them in. He gave them his time, his love, and eventually, his life. And he had no apparent difficulty “speaking truth to power.” When was the last time somebody called you a brood of vipers or a whitewashed tomb?

In the first two posts in this section on “The View from Above,” I wrote about the experiences and perspectives of that plurality of White Americans who rather vaguely want to do the right thing but don’t really know how and, for the most part, aren’t actively trying to figure it out. In this section, I write about that growing number of White Americans who are owning their racism, talking about it in public, sometimes with a veneer of respectability, but increasingly in horrid, shameful ways. They have always been part of the mix, but they now are emboldened. Some of them hold a great deal of political and economic power, and they do not intend to give it up. Others don’t hold much power themselves, but are deeply devoted to maintaining White Supremacy nonetheless. There are real concerns that the backlash to the civil rights movement has gotten so strong that we have entered an age of Jim Crow 2.0—and for good reason. (See, for example, Bentele and O’Brien, 2013.) We need to understand what’s going on and commit ourselves to stand against it. (As you read this, keep in mind that the number of White Americans who take racism seriously and want to do something about it is also rising. More on that in the next section.)

RACE AND POLITICS

For most of our history racism was big and loud and ugly. In the first few decades following the civil rights movement, more people were quiet about their racism, often keeping it “backstage.” Many still do, but an increasing number are bringing it right up front.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson

Historian Heather Cox Richardson puts all this in context for us. During the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt interrupted the political Gilded Age by putting the federal government mostly on the side of ordinary Americans (ordinary White Americans, that is). This followed decades of government favoritism for the wealthy and privileged. The 1954 Brown v. Board Supreme Court ruling, however, gave plutocrats the opening they needed: they began to connect, in the minds of many citizens, the policies of the New Deal with equal rights for people of color. They hoped that if working White people believed they had to choose between their economic interests and their racism, many would choose their racism. And, indeed, many did.

The Reagan Revolution was the culmination of that work. With a ready smile, Pres. Reagan cut taxes for the wealthy, reduced government oversight of the market, slashed the social safety net, and—not coincidentally—found ways to let racists know he was on their side.

Ian Haney López, teaches law at the University of California, Berkeley

In Dog Whitle Politics (2014), Ian Haney López, who teaches law at the University of California, Berkeley, calls this “strategic racism.” Powerful people, especially politicians, use other people’s racism to advance their own interests. The specifics of the strategy can change over time (e.g., how openly racist to be), but the goal—to keep money and power in the hands of powerful White people—is constant. In the introduction to his book, López offers this overview:

So we need to be clear: the connection between race and the Republican Party is not accidental, vestigial, or comical, and it’s certainly not trivial. lnstcad, as we will see, over the last half-century conservatives have used racial pandering to win support from white voters for policies that principally favor the extremely wealthy and wreck the middle class. Running on racial appeals, the right has promiscd to protect supposedly embattled whites, when in reality it has largely harnessed govcrnment to the interests of the very affluent. Thc result is an economic crisis that has engulfed the nation . . .

Those who have wondered where in the world Donald Trump came from in 2016 need to understand that Goldwater, Nixon, and Reagan all made Trump possible. The big, angry backlash to Obama’s election made Trump inevitable. (What—you thought the Tea Party was about taxes?)

You may or may not like Richardson’s or López’s analysis of the big picture, but here are just a few of the many, many facts about race and politics today:

In their 2020 annual report, the Public Religion Research Institute identified many differences in attitudes and beliefs between Republicans and Democrats—so many, in fact, they named their report Dueling Realities. Here are just some of those differences when it comes to race, ethnicity, and culture:

68% of Democrats believe that racial inequality is a critical issue to address; only 17% of Republicans agree.

77% of Republicans believe that Islam is at odds with U.S. values; only 26% of Democrats agree.

78% of Republicans (93% who trust Fox News more than other news sources) approved of Donald Trump’s handling of Black Lives Matter protests, versus 9% of Democrats.

79% of Republicans (and 90% of Republicans who trust Fox News), compared with only 17% of Democrats, believe that police killings of Black Americans are isolated incidents, and not part of a broader pattern.

49% of Republicans believe that the country is made better when Americans protest unfair treatment. However, only 24% of Republicans (10% of Fox News Republicans) agree that the protests of Black Americans make the country better. Among Democrats, there was no difference—71% for both “Americans” and for “Black Americans.”

Republicans are more likely to say that there is significant discrimination against White people than against Black people (57% v. 52%). For Democrats, 92% see discrimination against Black people and only 13% see discrimination against White people.


The list goes on, but you get the idea.

One thing to remember when comparing the views of Republicans and Democrats is that, according to the Pew Research Center, 81% of Republicans identify as White while only 59% of Democrats do. When comparing the attitudes of Republicans and Democrats, then, we are comparing a mostly White group of people with a more diverse group of people. However, there are consistent differences between White Democrats and White Republicans, too. For example, an April, 2021 opinion poll conducted by the Washington Post and ABC News found that 87% of White Democrats believe that ethnic minorities do not receive equal treatment in the criminal justice system; only 36% of White Republicans felt the same way.

Why does Donald Trump maintain such strong loyalty among most Republicans? Thomas B. Edsall offered many reasons and quoted many scholars in a column he wrote in the New York Times. Many Trump supporters believe that White dominance is under attack. The resulting fear and insecurity lead them to a sense of victimhood, and to believe they need to fight to regain the status they believe they have lost. Edsall quoted a political scientist at Temple University, Kevin Arceneaux, who studies the effects of psychological biases on political opinions:

The civil rights movement was about mobilizing an oppressed minority to fight for their rights, against the likelihood of state-sanctioned violence, while Trump’s appeals are about harnessing the power of the state to maintain white dominance. Trump’s appeals to discontented whites are reactionary in nature. They promise to go back to a time when whites were unquestionably at the top of the social hierarchy. These appeals are about keying into anger and fear, as opposed to hope, and they are about moving backward and not forward.

This is dangerous territory. Miller and Davis (2021) found that racism and anti-democratic values often go hand-in-hand:

“White Americans who would not want an immigrant/foreign worker, someone who speaks a different language, or someone from a different race as a neighbor are more likely to support strongman rule in the United States, rule of the U.S. government by the army, and are more likely to outright reject having a democracy for the United States.”

Dr. Oleka

If you are a Republican, no doubt this is difficult reading for you. I ask that you be open to the facts. And please know that I am not suggesting that you leave the party. Frankly, I’d rather you stay right where you are and make a difference from the inside. At the height of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, OJ Oleka wrote an essay entitled Why conservatives should be leading the way to end institutional racism. As a self-described conservative Black man, Dr. Oleka made the following argument:

Modern conservatism defends voluntary community, encourages strong families, praises earned wealth and demands honest labor. Racism oppresses. Conservatism liberates. Conservatives should be front and center, leading the way on how to end institutional racism in America.

Look at it like this: Democrats were the party of Jim Crow racism for nearly a century. 1948 was the first year they adopted a party platform in favor of civil rights. By 1964, only 18 years later, Lyndon Johnson, of all people, pushed the Civil Rights Act through a reluctant congress. Lord knows the Democrats continue to have their own problems with race, but they no longer organize their existence around the perpetuation of overt White Supremacy. There’s no reason the Republicans can’t make the same kind of change—but they first have to decide that it’s time, finally, to do the right thing.

RACE AND RELIGION

Still with me? I appreciate it.

In his compelling book, White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity (2020), Robert P. Jones, the director of the Public Religion Research Institute, offers many examples of how White Christians are more likely to be racist than most other White Americans. Just a few examples (all taken from pages 161 – 172):

• White Christians are more likely than other Americans to assert that generations of slavery and discrimination make no difference in Black people’s ability to get ahead in life.

• White Christians are more likely to oppose immigration to the U.S., including legal immigration.

• White Christians were more likely to support Donald Trump’s ban on Muslims coming to the U.S., even for a visit, and more likely to support his vision of building a wall across the border with Mexico.

• White Christians score much higher on Jones’s Racism Index than any other group of Americans (see chart below).

As you can see, White evangelicals scored a bit higher than White Catholics or White mainline Protestants on the Racism Index, but the differences among these Christian groups are small. The differences between White Christians and other subsets of the population, however are sizeable. That is true for each of the issues in the list. White non-evangelical Christians who think that only evangelicals are racist are letting themselves and their churches off the hook way too easily.

This is just one small glimpse into the research on racism in the U.S. church. I could go on and on and on, but the point, sadly, would be the same: racism in this country is very strong among people whose faith teaches them—above all—to love both God and neighbor. Why would this be?

We have to begin with the role of the church in colonialism. The church was not a bystander; it was an active participant. When European Christians were looking for a justification for genocide and slavery, the church was there to help. The Doctrine of Discovery, laid out over the last half of the 15th Century, was the church’s blessing—a mandate, even—to conquer non-Europeans around the world and exploit their land and their labor. For centuries, the church has blessed Indian removal, slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, racial hierarchy, and racial inequity. There have been prophets along the way who preached the gospel Christ actually taught, but not enough. Mark Charles, a Navajo Christian pastor, explains it like this:

The Rev. Dr. E. Ross Kane of Virginia Theological Seminary argues that in aligning itself with conquest and colonialism, the church so thoroughtly intertwined faith and White culture that it is difficult to know the difference anymore. Merging faith and culture is called syncretism. The Western church has been vigilent in calling out syncretism in colonized lands, trying to maintain the “purity” of the faith in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. But it paid no attention to the myriad ways that the racism of European culture infiltrated the church, from the local parish to the highest councils. Prof. Kane says:

“White Christianity saw itself as the norm and as the primary bearer of divine revelation. It did not expect to discover something new through different cultures’ encounters with Christ. Rather, these cultures were expected to conform to largely White understandings of Christianity. The closer one came to White expressions of Christianity, the less likely one would be dubbed a syncretist. In this way, racism inhibited comprehension of divine revelation by narrowing its scope.”

'We the People' - the three most misunderstood words in US history

| Mark Charles | TEDxTysons | Jan 24, 2019

Dr. George Kelsey (1965), a Christian theologian, believed that White Supremacy in Christians went beyond syncretism. He called it an idolatrous faith. He argued that racism was so inimical to Christianity that racist Christians should be considered polytheists:

“When the racist is also a Christian, which is often the case in America, he is frequently a polytheist. Historically, in polytheistic faiths, various gods have controlled various spheres of authority. Thus a Christian racist may think he lives under the requirements of the God of biblical faith in most areas of his life, but whenever matters of race impinge on his life, in every area so affected, the idol of race determines his attitude, decision, and action. . . . Polytheistic faith has been nowhere more evident than in that sizable group of Christiansn who take the position that racial traditions and practices in America are in no sense a religious matter. . . A probable explanation of this peculiar state of affairs is that modern Christianity and Christian civilization have domesticated racism so thoroughly that most Christians stand too close to assess it properly.”

Baylor University social psychologists (Johnson, Rowatt, and LaBouff, 2010) would agree. They found that White U.S. Christianity and racial prejudice are, indeed, deeply intertwined in our thinking. They primed research participants with Christian words like church, Bible, and Jesus—as opposed to neutral words like shirt, butter, and hammer— and learned that the Christian words led the participants to express more negative attitudes and feelings toward Black Americans—regardless of their own personal religious beliefs.

Christians and non-Christians alike implicitly

associate the Christian faith with racial prejudice.

Gloria Purvis

Friends, this is who we are—both to ourselves and to others—and it’s heresy. Gloria Purvis, who hosts a show on a Roman Catholic radio network, says it well:

“Racism makes a liar of God. It says not everyone is made in his image. What a horrible lie from the pit of hell.”

TAKING AMERICA BACK FOR GOD

One more thing on this topic, and not just a post script. You could write a whole book on it. In fact, Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry already have, and I recommend it to you:

It is a data-driven analysis of Christian Nationalism, people for whom their Christian faith and their American patriotism have fused so completely that they see no discernable difference between the Kingdom of God and the U.S. of A.

Measured in terms of agreement with just six questions (e.g., “The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation” and “The success of the United States is part of God’s plan”), Christian Nationalism predicts all kinds of attitudes about race and racism, rooted in a very clear sense of the boundary that divides “us” from “them.”

Christian Nationalists are more likely to believe that “true Americans” are White Christians, born in the U.S. with forebears from the U.S. Everyone else lives on the other side of the boundary, and therefore is highly suspect.

Immigrants are seen as bad people who pollute the purity of the culture. U.S.-born minorities are believed to be lazy or criminal or both - people who deserve substandard housing, low-paying jobs, and inferior schools.

It is absolutely telling that those who have fused God and country are the biggest bigots in the nation. Racism is intertwined in the history of both the U.S. government and the U. S. church. Put them together, and the result is pure White supremacy.

Now please don’t conclude that all Christians in this country are Christian Nationalists. That is far from the truth. Christians who are low in Christian Nationalism have beliefs about race that are completely opposite from Christian Nationalists. (More on that in the next section.)

And many Christian Nationalists aren’t especially Christian, as measured by things like church attendance and Bible reading. It isn’t the Christian faith itself that promotes xenophobia and racism; it is the heresy of White Supremacy that has found its way into the hearts and minds of many, but by no means all, people who profess Christian beliefs.

Peter Wehner, who worked for Ronald Reagan and both Presidents Bush, summarizes it in this way:

Countless people who profess to be Christians are having their moral sensibilities shaped more by Tucker Carlson’s nightly monologues than by Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Perhaps without quite knowing it, many of those who most loudly proclaim the “pre-eminence of Christ” have turned him into a means to an end, a cruel, ugly and unforgiving end.

Can I get an Amen?

The Bottom Line: Overt racism is alive and well, and quite visible, especially in recent years. One reason is politics: the Republican party has played on White racial resentment in order to win votes, a strategy that has worked pretty well for them since the 1960s.

A second reason is U.S. Christianity, which has been part and parcel of U.S. racism since Europeans first landed in the Americas. The good news comes in the next post: anti-racism has been on the rise lately, too, offering some hope in what has been a pretty difficult time.

Hope College, Holland, Michigan

What if Roe v Wade is defeated?

 

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me;

for of such is the kingdom of heaven - Jesus, Matthew 19.14

If pro-life abortion succeeds there will be a lot of unwanted kids sloshing through the foster care system. Solving "the problem of abortion" will create yet another world of trouble for unwanted children on the other side of that "solution." - re slater

What if Roe v Wade is defeated?

I don't say much about abortion because I basically agree with both sides. I agree with the sanctity of life but also agree with the sanctity of the womb that it remains a personal decision. I realize people from both sides play around with the the idea of what constitutes life and when. That late-term abortions seem more inhumane than near-term abortions. For me, its not a when but a what. If it's life, then it's life. Life must have a sanctity to it....

I say this knowing that not only new life, but all life, must have a sanctity to it. How we end up treating all forms of after-birth life continues to apall me. BLM lives matter to me as much as LGBTQ+ lives matter to me. Ghetto lives, homeless lives, non-white races, global ethnicities, and religious life matters to me as much as white Christian and non-Christian lifes mean to me.

More simply, "All lives matter"... not just white, blue, or whatever. All lives. And when we do not serve all lives - but only some lives - I have a deep problem with the "half-and-half" ideological attitudes pushing at one thread rather than at the whole garment.

HOW WILL NEW LIVES MATTER?

So let me say this another way. Let's assume the "half-and-half" boundary attitude people win out and succeed in overturning Roe v Wade. I wonder if they have thought through the consequences of their victory in just this one area of new lives and what to do with those babies when they are given birth?

Sadly, I suspect its all verbiage. The Pro-Lifers wish to preserve life but how do they go about saving those little helpless lives after they are delivered? What plans are they making once they have won?

Perhaps some anti-abortioners wish to place those little lives into the "right kind of homes" to be raised by other Pro-Lifers who feel as they do. But I really don't think they will be able to keep pace with their virtuous alter-egos. There will be too many babies of all colors, backgrounds, and environments to place into ("the right kind of Christian") homes. So that leaves public and religious orphanages and foster care agencies including private homes of all kinds.

But we have a problem right off... I expect to see some very hard consequences to occur if anti-abortion laws win out when overturning Roe v Wade... What are they? Let me share a few thoughts noting that I have no experience with placement agencies but I do have quite a few concerns about new life and what happens to those babies after an unwanted birth...

THE PROBLEM OF PLACEMENT

I tell you this, if-and-when abortion laws are removed, Republicans and evangelical churches need be ready to step up to receive all the unwanted children of society into their families. They will not be able to legislate their way out of this. And if they are planning to organize for the event, it needs to be now... not later.

Why? Because there will be a lot of unwanted kids being birthed... a lot! And I do not think any Christian church, fellowship, agency, or their families really understand what a nightmare this will be to create, maintain, and self-audit themselves (from outside child care agencies) so that public standards of health and welfare are met.

AND, know this... orphanages, foster care, etc, are all ready solutions for abuse, harm, unloving, and uncaring environments for the forgotten, unwanted, and invisible children of society.

These are not solutions in themselves... just as nursing homes must be regularly audited for social health and welfare conditions.

The problem is, many churches I know of do not want the government or public agencies looking over their shoulder. And just as many churches have been found criminal in their conduct towards young people and their faithful congregants seeking to please God in all they do.

Which will be really, really sad... and very little different for most of the helpless unwanted children who were to be aborted because they were unwanted in the first place. To go from a place of not being wanted to another place of not being wanted is the worst thing I can imagine for those babies not qualifying by white (Christian) standards of acceptability.

(And yes, as a white Christian I will be extremely critical of my well-meaning brethren who say they care but in the end may mean nothing more than the air out of their lungs.)

And though joyfully, babies are not being killed under anti-abortion laws, they will also be dying a thousand different ways of death after birth because cause-justifying Christians et al will refuse to adopt the children they are saving. Or create institutions which allow themselves to wipe their hands clean and walk away.

Or, if unaborted babies are adopted, these poor children may readily suffer deep personal and tragic abandonment when times get tough with their adoptive families and they are either mistreated or placed back into the foster care system.

SOCIETAL CONSEQUENCES OF AN ORWELLIAN WORLD

Let's continue to think out loud how anti-abortionist's may wish to go next after their win. I suspect first-and-foremost they will wish to criminalize the pregnant, create fines and fees, seek jail time, and perhaps even suggest unwanted hysterectomies of the pregnant mother.

In the anti-abortionist's mind this may help reduce the numbers of unwanted children through restrictive action for the "social good" of their ideological positions (hopefully excluding the hot hormones of teens and young adults; although I'm sure white prerogatives will take place here as well.)

So now we have entered into the world of the strange and strangely terrifying... where church laws wish to take precedent over public laws of equality and fairness. As a Christian, most church laws I've read of historically have been exactly of this caliber. Unfair, highly subjective, full of hate and judgment, and completely unloving:

Whenever we go to play God we see just how 

fallen from God we have become. - res

So for those white communities who vote for abortions to become non-occurring events, they may then begin to ready themselves to take action in removing the reproductive abilities of unwanted rapes of women who will suffer under male-dominated societies... especially church societies whose ecclesiastical structures are wrapped around patriarchal power paradigms and relationships.

Again, from my perspective, this is highly unfair to the female sex and I would rather point to the male rapists out their to consider their part in the incestuous tryst. Specifically, the white men of all classes - not just the poor, but the rich, the privileged, the clergy, the elder, the deacon, the father of the household, etc. To hold them responsible for their actions rather than the woman.

And in what wretched part of the religious mind would we next find their ginning thoughts?.... exactly. I cannot even write down such cruel speculations. Which is why charging criminality on either sex's part just gets more ridiculous, harsher, crueller, and hellish.

If this is beginning to sound like an Orwellian World of the religiously-minded then you are beginning to see where we may be going as a society trying to play God on all levels... - res

In the final verdict, as harsh as it sounds, it seems women will suffer more than their male counterparts. And will be made to suffer the loss of their rights rather than the males themselves.

Certainly, such unwarranted action may help reduce the number of unwanted children being born out of wedlock due to rape and incest. But what we're creating are inhuman institutions of human slavery, mocking injustice, deep personal harm, and hardened, seared hearts imputing cruel laws.

THE PORN INDUSTRY

While we're at it, and thinking about white males, let's propose to shut down the porn industry so white males have less time interacting in their thoughts about promiscuity, lust, rape, and debasement.

Bear in mind though, looking back historically, the effectiveness of such actions have not worked too well in the past. Consider the bootlegging world of the 20s-40s when prohibition was at its height. The industry never shut down even as good white Christians continued to subsidize it surreptitiously behind closed doors, down dark street allies, and under the counters of local establishments.

I wouldn't expect any different from the porn industry even as I haven't expected any different from the local marijuana trade (I voted to legalize marijuana so that it's overwhelming life consequences of jail, fines, loss of work, etc., would reduce the harm it created on individuals and their families.) Of course, I still support the illegality of drugs including noncertified FDA over-the-counter drugs (usually scripts of questionable viability and frequently containing harming "filler" substances such as chemicals,  metals, poisons, and toxins to the human body).

IN REVIEW

With the removal of Roe v Wade we may now expect some or all of these action items to occur - from one extreme to another.

For myself, I feel for the children even as I did when they were being aborted. I have no confidence in mankind ever doing the right thing unless it is self-serving in some manner. The more to the shame of our species - whether they are religious or not, Christian or not. 

Like money, its is a rare event to see a Christian use this resource aright regardless how religious they think themselves to be. Similarly with the vestment of our lives into the lives of the vulnerable.

If they are not of the right color, gender, sex, race, or genetic creed, I expect white Christians to extremely fail in their equality of vision for at-risk children. Such dear ones will be storage away, out of sight, out of mind, for many.

And how, I wonder, was this any different than before when those little lives had little expectation for longevity. Now, with birthed life these little ones simply become the unwanted refuse of a hypocritical white church claiming rightness over love and kindness to all, at all stations of their lives.

Further, if succeeding, this new calamity will be handled by the very same white Christians who began it. Who pretended to themselves they are caring for aborted babies when in reality caring for babies will require manning up to the facts that churches and communities will be too easily overwhelmed by the very legalese machinery they are rushing to put in place.

Nor would I expect white Christians to admit to their deep failure in managing what they had hoped to achieve through every  theocentric law and dogmatic organization they willingly advocate. Like Solomon himself, the wise king would have a hard time determining the future of the non-aborted.

I believe it was Jesus who said to the religious crowd - who were reviling him - to look into the planks of their own eyes before judging another. That the spirit of the law cannot be fulfilled by religious dogmas and harsh doctrines. That God's love is greater than all militarisms, unjust legislations, or vindictive decrees. - res

And finally, pity the more, the poor infants growing up unwanted and out-of-sight of the Christian church. Placed so innocently, so zealously, into the terrible worlds of the sincere and sympathetic, hoping to rescue those who at the same time are ignorantly promoting pain in so many of their harming discriminatory doctrines across all levels of society.

I sincerely hope to be proved wrong in all my harsh assessments here put forth. But I doubt if I will be. I leave it to the white Christian churches to prove me wrong as I watch in fine detail all the failures and excuses they will give for not being up to the task they had fought so diligently for....

In my experience, it is easier to destroy than to rebuild. There are many like myself who are rebuilders. But there are many, many more who can only tear down. Again. And again. And again. I call them the destroyers. Destroyers without a plan. Full of fury for fury's sake alone.

And this is why I do not write on such a delicate subject. I cannot find a solution on either side of the argument of Roe v Wade. For myself, I would not overturn it, just as I wouldn't remove helpful parental programs and social agencies. I believe it was Jesus who said, "For the one who is not against us is for us (Mk 9.40 ESV)."

But in not removing Roe v Wade I would wish to continue to make inroads into all forms of societies in America and around the world. To help the despairing mom, the raped woman, the hard-hearted teen couple, the abused, beaten, and unloved. Yet, instituting law for love is a no-win situation. We have our laws, let's use what we've got and make them better.

Blessings to the Remnant of God who are Faithful, Loving and Kind,

R.E. Slater

July 23, 2021

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Suffer the Little Children to Come unto Me

Oct 31, 2013

Luke 18:15-17

15 And they brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them.

16 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer [the] little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.

17 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.