Tag: white supremacy

A Young Man and His Nation

My heart goes out to the families and the community grieving the loss of 10 African Americans murdered in Buffalo by a young White man, murdered by White supremacy. I also feel the deep brokenness of a nation in which such violence is fomented and released—and of which I am a part.

The 18-year-old White man who walked into a grocery store with the intention of killing Black people operated from both an inner and outer landscape to his life. Within himself, he made choices that allowed hate to take root, and he decided to act on what he had received into his life. But there was also an outer landscape to his life, a breeding ground for what entered into him and eventually took over his life and took the lives of others.

It is this outer landscape that we are all responsible for: our decisions, our actions, what we say and do deposit love or hate into the world. Justice or injustice, mercy or judgementalism, compassion or complacency, trust or fear are woven into the fabric of our society by our choices and actions.

Our news sources and social media bubbles, our indifference, and our choosing escapism over participation in the struggle for justice rob our society of the compassionate change it so desperately needs. Our ignorance, our ignoring of what love would have us pay attention to, contribute to a landscape devoid of true knowledge and love (they go together).

We allow White supremacy to remain and grow. We, who are White, when we refuse to acknowledge our supremacist history and attitudes and the “privileges” racism has given us, contribute to the landscape of our society what we have hidden from ourselves. When we allow our fears and prejudices to choose our leaders, we add to the fertile ground for hate and violence.

Because there is a receptivity to the idea, politicians are able to spout a “replacement theory” (the idea that people of color are going to replace White people). This idea is part of the landscape and breeding ground for division and hate. The truth is that there is one human race, one human family made up of a beautiful diversity, and yet, we can choose a lie and choose division and choose leaders who feed us the lie and division.

We are tempted by both the inner and outer landscapes of our lives. (St. Paul writes of the temptations of the flesh and the world.) Consequently, spiritual discernment and true self-awareness are necessary for real change. The terror, pain, and death unleashed in the grocery store in Buffalo come not only from the actions of one young man. They also are the outcome of years of White supremacy felt, thought, lived out, allowed, reinforced, and also expressed in the leaders Americans choose.

Jesus says, “Every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.” Every society bears fruit. The fruit that is borne tells us something about our society and ourselves: the good and the bad.

A major theme in the New Testament is one of dying. We must die to a false self and falsehood and the loss of love. So Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit.” The fruit that Jesus has in mind is the fruit of justice and compassion which bring healing and liberation. We have much to die to, much to turn away from that is destroying us.

Filed under: Justice, Racism, SocietyTagged with: , ,

Donald Trump and White Nationalist Christianity

At Dordt University, a Christian college in Sioux Center, Iowa, in January 2016, Donald Trump said to a group of Christians, “Christianity will have power. If I’m there, you’re going to have plenty of power, you don’t need anybody else. You’re going to have somebody representing you very, very well. Remember that.” (New York Times)

Eighty percent of self-identified White evangelical Christians remembered and voted for Donald Trump. He was the one that White nationalist Christianity chose for its president. Donald Trump, however, is not a Christian president nor a president for Christians, but a president that appeals to a White nationalism that has the veneer of Christianity and uses Christian language and a theology that shelters White supremacy. A Christianity that finds in Trump a protector and provider is far removed from the life and teaching of Jesus and our participation in his death and resurrection (dying to the old life and rising to the new).

What kind of Christianity looks to Trump to give it power? An idolatrous Christianity. The roots of its idolatry go deep, to the beginnings of a nation established as a White nation for Whites built on the free labor of enslaved Africans and the genocide of Native Peoples of the land. A theology was developed (some of it ready-made for the task) that justified, supported, and reinforced White nationalist values and commitments. This theology has remained, in one form or another, through Jim Crow and the new Jim Crow. While no longer providing a rationale for slavery, it remains White supremacist. Rather than being a blatant, ideologically framed White supremacy, much of it operates hidden (especially to participants) and persistent. As Ibram X. Kendi has so clearly pointed out, the opposite of racist is not “not racist” but antiracist.

A Christianity that follows Jesus is active in doing justice. It works to make right what is wrong. It seeks to dismantle in order to build a just society. We have a mission like that which was given to the prophet Jeremiah “to pull down” in order “to build and to plant.” In its most subtle forms, White nationalist Christianity simply overlooks or diminishes the racism, disparities, and injustices experienced by people of color and seeks to maintain a White supremacist status quo. It will not acknowledge this, but its denial is seen for what it is when it supports voter suppression (while calling it something else) and dismantling affirmative action (as if it were no longer needed), opposes true reform of the criminal justice system, and works against initiatives to address disparities in health, education, and housing.

I share with other Christians the concern for the life of the unborn, but I also believe that being pro-life means care for the life of the born and therefore health care for all. I oppose the taking of any life and therefore, as with the early church, oppose capital punishment and cooperation with war. I believe that following Jesus includes doing what he told Peter to do and that was to put down his sword. It is hard to follow Jesus in loving and praying for our enemies while killing them. Jesus calls us to be witnesses to God’s reign, not to the nations of the world and their security solutions.

Now, I do believe there are evangelicals (and other Christians) who voted for Trump that know and love God and have experienced God’s grace. There are all kinds of reasons people get caught up in various belief systems and do not recognize the inconsistencies with their new life in Christ. And, of course, God comes to us where we are and has us on a journey. We begin a journey that brings us out of many false, hurtful beliefs. For Christians, this happens by following Jesus daily. We expect transformation and growth. Increasingly, we become responsible for exercising discernment, with the help of the Spirit—discernment regarding leaders and teachers in our lives. The greatest responsibility, however, goes to leaders. James says that not many should be teachers for they will be judged more harshly. The greater the responsibility, the more required. And Jesus says, “Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling block comes!” (Matthew 18:7)

What, at times, happens is that a person “accepts Christ” in a genuine desire for a life change, perhaps from a drug addiction which is the immediate idolatry or obsession that they are aware of, from which they need deliverance. God is gracious and they experience healing from their addiction as well as help with other personal struggles. At this point, in their spiritual journey, theirs is a malleable Christ. (If only we would be malleable to Christ.) The guidance they receive is critical. What they may receive from an available pastor is a theology shaped by nationalist values and ideologies or that does not question these (which is fine with the person who holds them). The only way out of this false religious bubble is to actually follow the Jesus of the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, and the New Testament. Let Jesus’ teaching challenge, disrupt, and “take every thought captive to obey Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5) Above all, this means that we do what Jesus tells us to do: Count the cost of following. It goes beyond initial acceptance. Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves [including their present commitments and ways of thinking] and take up their cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)

Filed under: Discipleship, Justice, Leadership, RacismTagged with: , ,

“I Can’t Breathe”

“The opposite of ‘racist’ isn’t ‘not racist.’ It is ‘antiracist.’

Ibram X. Kendi, How To Be An Antiracist

George Floyd, a black man, his arms handcuffed behind him, cries out for help with the words, “I can’t breathe,” as a white police officer presses a knee down upon his neck. There are three other officers at the scene. They all hear the cry for help. Bystanders hear and call out for the police officers to help: The man is down and handcuffed; how much more brutality is necessary to demonstrate your power? All of the officers, who are called to “serve and protect,” ignore the pleas. George Floyd dies.

There are many steps before murder: many attitudes, fears, prejudices, demeaning actions, and unjust behaviors. Some talk about a white supremacist police culture, but this kind of police culture flows out of a wider American white supremacist culture.

Often, in the media, white supremacists are depicted as an ideological minority. But white supremacy is an inherent ingredient in the narrative of this nation. The history of the United States is a history of white supremacy in the form of white law-making and actions that created and maintained the institution of slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, the present mass incarceration of people of color, voter suppression, and continued support for inequities in education, health care, jobs, wealth, and power—if not supported actively, certainly by white apathy toward these injustices.

White supremacy must not be seen merely as the ideology of a few. Those of us who are white do not need to have a developed supremacist philosophy to have attitudes, tendencies, and views that keep us from truly understanding and addressing the injustices in our society. White sense of entitlement, along with denial of our racism, allows us to ignore the voices and experiences of people of color.

White supremacy involves us in viewing white ways and culture as the norm and standard by which we judge others. This all happens, of course, implicitly and in an unacknowledged manner. But it allows us to form views without listening as if all we need are the “answers” that our biases and fears provide. We simply draw from what we already think. Where and how our thoughts are formed goes unexamined.

Every aspect of racism, whether blatant or subtle, minimizes the humanity of another human being. There is a link between the apathy that ignores injustices and police officers who act with brazen disregard for the life of a fellow human being. The distance between the two is not so very great.

When we realize this, we are approaching the first step of the Twelve Step Program for Addicts (racism being very similar to an addiction). Step one requires us to come out of denial: We admit our racism and powerlessness and that this way of living has become unmanageable. The acknowledgment of unmanageability means we are recognizing the massive scale of the problem: the deep entrenchment of racism. We feel our inadequacy and realize we need power to change. We need spiritual liberation. We need step three: “We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.” We need to be raised up into a higher reality—into the One in whom “we live and move and have our being.” We need to be freed into our true selves that have their source in God.

With the confession of our brokenness and a spiritual turning (repentance) and the grace that brings liberation (steps 1-3), we are released into action. In this spiritual journey, there are further steps that involve a “moral inventory” of our lives. We become involved in inner work, the Spirit helping us to acknowledge the intentions, motivations, and attitudes of our hearts, and the actions that flow from them. We are helped by words of truth that come to us from others and from their experiences. We listen to others, and the Spirit of truth helps us to receive truth.

There are also steps for “making amends,” that is, making right what is wrong. These steps have us moving outward. We become intentional about addressing racism not only in our own lives but in the institutions, laws, and structures of our society. We work for radical change and reform—the reformation of the criminal justice system, the removal of voter suppression laws, and the dismantling of discrimination and inequities of all kinds. We are becoming antiracist. The defensive “I am not a racist” does not work for us anymore. Our focus is outward on understanding the nature and extent of this social disease and equipping ourselves to fight against it.

Formerly, we were not seeking to understand and gain knowledge and wisdom for action—not about racism and white supremacy. But now that we are on a journey of openness and action, we are seeking—and finding. In our seeking, we reach out to others who have a history of being antiracist. We are being liberated into community antiracist action. Together we become agents of change. Or, as Jesus puts it, “salt and light.”

Are you on the journey? If not, this blog post is an invitation.

Filed under: Justice, Racism, Spirituality, WitnessTagged with: ,