“GOOD” WHITE CHRISTIANS, DONALD TRUMP, AND WHITE SUPREMACY

©Wendell Griffen, 2017

Justice Is A Verb!

August 17, 2017

It has been interesting to observe reactions by “good” white people who claim to be followers of Jesus and also supporters of Donald Trump in the past several months.  And it has been “interesting” to observe “good” white followers of Jesus who are Trump supporters struggle to explain their disappointment and shock surrounding last weekend’s tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia.  There, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, neo-Fascists, Ku Klux Klan sympathizers, and others associated with the so-called “alt-right” movement physically assaulted and threatened counter-protestors, including people assembled for a Friday evening prayer and preparation service at a Charlottesville church.  The next day they attacked counter-protestors.  After those attacks, a young woman named Heather Heyer was killed and 19 other persons were injured by someone who rammed into a car into them as they were walking away from the site of the violence.

It has been “interesting” to observe “good” white politicians who claim to be followers of Jesus and also Trump supporters as they’ve tried to distance themselves from Mr. Trump’s full-throated claim that the people who carried torches and shouted racist and anti-Semitic chants as they marched toward the church where counter-protestors were praying were “many fine people.”

It has been interesting to watch Southern Baptist and other neo-fundamentalist clergy and laypersons who voted for Trump in overwhelming numbers and, by doing so, elected him to the presidency.  The common theme running through their responses to what happened in Charlottesville has been a call to prayer and re-affirmation that racism and bigotry run counter to the gospel of Jesus, as shown in this article (http://bpnews.net/49363/charlottesville-violence--sbc-leaders-urge-prayer).

But white evangelical Christian leaders have not criticized President Trump since Charlottesville.  When have you seen or heard a local pastor of a congregation of Trump voters criticize Trump’s statement that the crowd of torch-carrying and slogan chanting people who marched on and surrounded a Charlottesville church where counter-protestors gathered for prayer and preparation included “many fine people”?  “Good” white evangelical Christians have been practically speechless since the November 2016 presidential election despite the fact that news outlets, in-depth magazine reports, and even Facebook and YouTube postings have detailed acts of hate speech as well as physical and online acts of racism. 

Given what happened in Charlottesville, white Christians who voted for Donald Trump should remember what John Pavlovitz, a member of the pastoral staff of a white, non-denominational evangelical church in Raleigh, North Carolina, wrote on his blog the day after Donald Trump’s electoral victory in a post titled White Christians Who Voted for Donald Trump:  Fix This, Now (http://johnpavlovitz.com/2016/11/10/white-christians-who-voted-for-donald-trump-fix-this-now/).  

We Christians like to talk about Hell a lot, so let’s talk about Hell a little.

In the very first few daylight hours after Donald Trump’s election victory it began:

Near San Francisco, a home in Noe Valley flew a Nazi flag where kids walk by to get to school.

A white middle school student brought a Trump sign to school and told a black classmate it was time for him to get “back in place”.

A gay New York City man getting on a bus was told that he should “Enjoy the concentration camps, faggot!”

The NYU Muslim Students Association found the word “Trump!” scrawled on the door of their prayer room.

A female seminary student was stopped at a coffee shop with the words, “Smile sweetheart, we beat the cunt.”

Parents of children of color spent the day picking up their children early from elementary, middle, and high schools across the country because they were inundated with slurs and harassment and unable to study.

A group of Hispanic kids in Raleigh were taunted by white children, telling them they were “going back to Mexico.”

And it has continued 

This is the personal Hell we’ve unleashed upon our people. 

And if you’re a white Christian and you voted for Donald Trump: You need to fix this. Now.

You comprise the lion’s share of Trump’s elevation to the highest office of our country.

You knew exactly who this man was while you held your noses and covered your eyes and endorsed him anyway.

You are fully responsible for the flood of personal sewage now engulfing children and adults of color, those in the LGBTQ community, those in the Muslim community.

And you, white Christian, better get your spiritual shit together and figure out how you’re going make this right.

Let’s be clear about something, brothers and sister:

This is not the time to appeal to minorities and marginalized communities to “come together in unity” with white people right now. That was Hillary Clinton’s message, and even though she had the track record and the experience and the wherewithal to make it happen—you passed on it. Instead you chose the guy who’s [sic] entire resume is about supremacy and privilege, whose entire campaign was about the fear of the other (the other in this case, being anyone not white, straight, and Christian). You chose the guy endorsed by the KKK. You did.

You need to understand this.

Oppressed people aren’t obliged to make nice with their oppressors.

The bullied don’t owe anything to the bullies.

Victims don’t have to make their assailants feel better.

Young children of color aren’t responsible to educate racist children—or their parents.

In the 25th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells his listeners, that those who followed after him, those who would bear his name are to love the least; not those who are less-than, but those who are treated as less-than. He then paints the picture of the eternal suffering Christians are always so willing to condemn others to, and he says that it will be their lack of love and compassion and mercy for these most vulnerable, most hurting people—that will condemn them.

White Christians and the white Church, especially if you voted for Donald Trump: this is all on you.

Your pastors need to speak clearly and explicitly into this, now.

Your church websites and social media pages need to address this harassment and bullying and terrorizing, now.

You need to talk to your white children and teach them how not to be horrible to other kids, and how to stand up to those who are being horrible, now.

You need to talk to your kid’s coaches and to your midweek Bible Study and to your co-workers and your church staff and your gun club—and you need to call this poison out, now.

White churches, this Sunday, your only sermon should be the one that reminds your white members what the parable of the Good Samaritan was compelling followers of Jesus to be: radically merciful when everyone else looked the other way.

You need to reach out to your neighbors and coworkers and classmates and social media friends who are part of marginalized communities and reassure them, listen to them, care for them, be Jesus to them.

If not, no matter how you rationalize it or try to squeeze your way out of it, the personal Hell so many people are living in and will continue to live in over the next four years, will be one of your design.

It will be your shared sin.

The blood will be on your hands.                       

I read Pavlovitz’s blog post during my sermon the Sunday after the November 8, 2016 presidential election.  I did not sanitize his wording.  I read the whole post during the sermon because I wanted our congregation to know that at least one white religious leader realized – and was willing to publicly call out – what “good” white Christians who voted for Donald Trump had done.  And I referred to the blog post in the first chapter of The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope because I agree with Pavlovitz that “good” white Christians unleashed “the personal Hell” the latest episode of which occurred last weekend in Charlottesville. 

There is a Biblical lesson that sheds further light on the white supremacy we witnessed at Charlottesville – to which Donald Trump shamelessly gave presidential endorsement by his unscripted remarks on August 15 – which I wrote about in The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope.  It is the story about a commoner named Naboth, King Ahab of Israel and Queen Jezebel, his wife, and the Hebrew prophet named Elijah (see 1 Kings 21:15-19). 

Naboth lived in Jezreel, one of the most fertile regions in Palestine.  He had a vineyard beside Ahab’s palace.  Ahab wanted Naboth’s vineyard so he could convert it into an herb garden.  But Naboth refused all offers to trade or purchase his vineyard property because it was ancestral land. However, Queen Jezebel – acting in Ahab’s name and authority – sent letters ordering that Naboth be publicly and falsely accused of slandering God and the king, and then executed by stoning.  Her instructions were followed.  Naboth was falsely accused, wrongfully convicted, and then publicly executed by stoning.  Then Jezebel told Ahab to claim possession of Naboth’s vineyard property.  When Ahab did so, he was denounced by Elijah, the prophet. 

Naboth’s life could have been saved if the people who receive the letters from Jezebel had been more interested in love and justice than in being popular, privileged, and favored.  Naboth could have enjoyed peace in his vineyard if the people of Jezreel had loved him as a neighbor.  Instead, they craved access to power. They feared offending Jezebel and Ahab.  Their cravenness for power and cowardice made them complicit in Naboth’s death and the theft of his vineyard. 

White self-professed evangelical followers of Jesus who consider themselves “good Christians” voted for Donald Trump.  They did so, overwhelmingly, despite Trump’s history of commercial violence, personal and commercial racism and misogyny, untruthfulness, and complicity with white supremacy and xenophobia.  Then and now, “good” white Christians preferred access to power over liberty and equality for persons they and Trump consider “others” (racial minorities, Muslims, immigrants, women and girls who dare to live free from patriarchy and who reject the heresy of male supremacy, and persons who are LGBTQ). 

The “good” Christians who overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump cannot bring themselves to disavow and denounce Trump after he called people who chanted racist and anti-Semitic chants in Charlottesville “fine people.”   Instead, they will flock to churches this weekend and listen to preachers tell them to pray for peace and healing in the nation. 

Those prayers, sermons, and theology of those “good” white evangelical “Christians” will suffer from one glaring flaw.  They will not include any semblance of personal and collective responsibility for white supremacy, bigotry, and other oppressiveness associated with Donald Trump’s presidency. 

 “Good” white evangelical Christians prefer the contemporary version of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel known as Donald Trump.  That is why Trump is President of the United States.  And that is why we should not expect moral leadership from “good” white evangelical Christians and their leaders concerning prophetic condemnation of and opposition to white supremacy, bigotry, and other manifestations of social injustice during the Trump presidency.

They need to hear from Elijah-like prophets – such as John Pavlovitz.  They will not do so from one reason.  Their preachers are not like Elijah, not like Pavlovitz, and not like Jesus.They need to hear from Elijah-like prophets – such as John Pavlovitz.  They will not do so for one reason.  Their preachers are not like Elijah, not like Pavlovitz, and not like Jesus.