The sermon I hope for from every White Evangelical Church this Sunday

This is the sermon I hope will be preached from every white evangelical pulpit this Sunday.

1. We deplore the way that President Elect Trump has talked about immigrants. We follow a Lord who was an immigrant in Egypt. We are heartbroken that people within our community are afraid. We weep with the teachers of Southwest community campus, who cried as they thought of their students whose parents are here without documentation. We think President Trump is a blowhard who said many outrageous things, but we hope he is not going to actually act on them. Should he begin to attempt his mass deportation: We pledge to oppose any effort at mass deportation. Our best lawyers are going to work in the courts to keep families together. Our homes and churches will be open and places of sanctuary. We will place out bodies in front of the agents of deportation.

2. We are disgusted by the things President Elect Trump has said about women and the way he has treated women and their bodies. We also recognize the unique burden an unplanned pregnancy places on women and their bodies. We follow a Lord whose Mother was not planning to be pregnant with him. We pledge to open our checkbooks to help with the expenses that come with an unplanned pregnancy. We pledge to open our homes if that would be a help through the pregnancy and beyond. If a mother wishes to put her child up for adoption we pledge to open our homes to adopt.

3. We are sickened by the way President Elect Trump talked about many minorities. Many of us in the white community have no idea what it is like to have been the victims of systemic oppression through the centuries. But, we do follow a Lord who was part of a people who were under systemic oppression.We have no idea what it is like to be in your shoes. When we think about having “the talk” with our sons or daughters we are thinking about talking about “sex” – not what our sons and daughters need to do to be safe if they are pulled over. We pledge to be better listeners, and after listening, we desire to be allies in the struggle for equal justice for all.

I think a sermon like that might go a ways towards bringing some peace and comfort to the people within the US who have been deeply troubled since Tuesday evening.

A Parable in response to a Parable of my former Professor

My former Professor Mike Wittmer, has written a parable. I have written one in response. Hopefully this qualifies as playful engagement.

There once was a race of people that had enslaved people from a different continent after having conquered the indigenous people of the land they now inhabited. The enslaved cried out for justice, but were told that a Holy book authorized their enslavement, and in fidelity to the book they must remain enslaved. But eventually the cries of the enslaved reached the ears of the high King and they were emancipated. They were emancipated, but they were still a minority.

The majority race used their Holy book to keep the minority race as  domestic workers and field workers and did everything within their power to keep the minority race from being educated. The majority race hung over 3000 of the minority race from trees whenever they felt the minority race got uppity. The minority race cried to the high King for justice. Slowly but surely many hearts changed within the nation. And the government of the land declared that the schools of the land would be integrated.

This greatly angered members of the majority race with a particular read of their holy book. One of them named Job Bones had started a school, and really, really did not want people of the minority race attending the school. The government instructed Job Bones University to integrate. Leaders of the religious community of the majority race rallied around Job Bones University. 

They rallied but they began to realize that their base was not completely charged up about fighting desegregation. It no longer felt like the moral high ground to the base. The religious leaders of the majority race looked for another issue to further their agenda, and they landed on an issue they had not shown much concern about in the past. In fact a number of them had spoken on the other side of the issue. But they decided on the issue and gave it a compelling name and declared themselves the Righteous People. Their base took greatly to this issue.  They elected a new leader of the land using that issue. Under that leader the thing they decried actually increased.

Years passed. And a miraculous thing happened in the land. A man who was similar in race to the people who had been formerly enslaved became the leader of the land. Under his leadership the thing the Righteous People decried actually decreased, even though this leader did not share the position of the Righteous People. The following election a man who was not a part of the Righteous People, but who was the same race as the Righteous People decided to seek the highest office the land. He said many racially charged things. Things that were offensive and disappointing to the formerly enslaved people. This man seeking office told the Righteous People that he was for their one grave concern, (remember the issue they had not cared about previously?, but the issue their leaders chose as a surrogate for fighting desegregation). 

The religious leaders of the Righteous People mostly - though certainly not all -eventually lined up behind this candidate, because he was for their issue, even though the thing they hated so much actually declined under the leader that belonged to the race of the formerly enslaved people. The religious base of the Righteous People voted at a 4 to 1 margin for the man who had said the racist things, but gave lip service to the issue that the religious leaders had convinced them was the most important issue. The 4 to 1 ratio of the Righteous People was a prime reason that the man who had said the racist things was elected. 

People who belonged to the previously enslaved race were shocked. They read the same holy book as the people of the majority race. They served the same high king. They had voted in an inverse way than the Righteous People. They were sad and they were scared. The man who had said the racist things had threatened mass deportations of another race of people, who also read the same holy book and served the same high king. He had said shockingly derogatory things about women. But, he was for the one issue that the Righteous People had been taught was the most important. How would you explain to people who belonged to previously enslaved race that you had to vote for the man who said racist things?

To the White Evangelicals who loved me....

Over the course of the past few years, I left my former tribe of conservative white evangelical Christians. I recently heard a much more prominent former member of the tribe, say that he was once told: “Love is not rude, and it is rude to leave when you are wanted, and it is rude to stay when people want you to leave.”

I may have been guilty of the latter. I may have overstayed my welcome when my tribe was ready for me to leave. For that I am sorry. I hope I attempted to stay for the right reasons - because I do believe in unity and because I loved people in the tribe – and I still do - and because I thought change was possible. I’m sure those were part of my motivations, but there was also likely the mixed motivations of fear of being without a tribe, and the prideful motivation of wanting to make a point. All together these motivations led me to overstay my welcome – that was rude - and I am sorry.

Today, I am first writing a letter of thanks. And second, what I hope will be a charitable critique of some the darker elements of the history of the tribe.

First thanks! Thanks for loving me. I was without a doubt absolutely loved by my tribe, from Sunday school teachers to pastors to professors.  The love was expressed through welcome and acceptance and sacrificial giving of time – thank you. Thank you for teaching me that grace cannot be earned. Thanks for pointing me towards Jesus. To paraphrase Walter Percy, because of the gift you gave me early in life, I have lived a Christ haunted life (I mean that in the best way). Thank you for making me Biblically literate. Thanks for helping me as I grew to recognize the importance of forming a Biblical worldview. Thank you for encouraging learning and the life of the mind, and for encouraging me to seek to do all things well in the name of Jesus. So truly thanks to all who loved me well.  Thanks, especially to my first conservative community that surrounded me with love, grounded me in the idea of grace, and wrapped me the pages of the Bible. Thanks to my last evangelical community, who really did love me well and was quite patient with me, even as it became increasingly clear that I did not fit in the tribe any more. I wish the separation would not have been so painful. Truly I am thankful. I love how I was loved and accepted. Thank you.

Now two brief critique(s). In this I want to first make it clear that this is a critique of a system, not of people, or if there is a critique of people it is limited to the most powerful.

1.       The great sense of belonging and love within our community was often bought at the price of painting ourselves as the morally superior. Morally superior to the “liberals, secular humanists, Hollywood, evolutionists, etc.” I think there is a way to belong within a tribe that is not dependent on denigrating other tribes. I think “othering” the people with whom we disagree is ultimately bad for us, and for them.  Once in a Bible study I described the life of a man I did not know well as a “den of iniquity.” Within my tribe that was a perfectly acceptable explanation of the man’s life. In fact it was the acceptable explanation of the man’s life. Years later when I actually knew that man, he said, “You know the den of iniquity, was really just a den – with books.”

2.       My old tribe, white evangelicalism, has severely underestimated the degree to which the theology of the tribe has been shaped by a sense of white privilege and American exceptionalism. That is the polite way of saying racial politics. I mean no offense but I think it is a simple matter of fact that the tribe of my childhood had a de facto racial prejudice. Here are three things I recall vividly: A) My Sunday school teacher who truly loved me, and patiently taught us saying with great sincerity that whites and blacks should not marry because, “what fellowship has light with dark.” B) Taking a trip to Detroit and being warned to put our wallets in our front pockets so that we wouldn’t be robbed by "the coloreds." C) A testimony time when a woman (she was mentally ill) stood up and said, “We went to Detroit and I thank Jesus that we didn’t let the N--------s push us around.” My recollection is that this was met with chuckles – I’m certain there was no reprimand that said "No! this is not who we are as Jesus’ people" Now of course this is anecdotal, and I have only lived my life. So I’m sure that not all conservative Bible believing churches were this way. And again to be clear these people loved me, and taught me the Bible. But I hope it is patently obvious that this is racism and wrong. 

What I want to make clear is that these anecdotes are a small part of the systemic sin of America that has been peculiarly manifest in conservative evangelical Christianity. There is fairly compelling evidence that the peculiar evangelical obsession with the “inerrant infallible authorityof scripture” was rather closely tied first to a defense of slavery, and then to Jim Crow, and was leveraged against the civil rights movement. In fact I have recently learned that in many ways the battle against abortion was actuallymainly a proxy fight against desegregation. So I’m sad that people whom I love, and who love me have been misled by a system that is less than good news for all people. I'm sad and ashamed of some of the work I did in propping up the system for a season. So, if you find yourself still in the white evangelical tribe – I hope that you will take a long look at the racial basis of the doctrine of inerrancy, infallibility and absolute authority. And the long history of the tribe in - at best - remaining silent in the face of racial injustice, but more often propagating injustice in the name of being Biblical.

So to my old tribe white evangelical Christianity – thank you very much for everything you gave me. I have left the tribe, and it is good. It does not mean I don’t love you, it means the tribe doesn’t fit me anymore, and I will not be returning - it would be rude and love is not rude. I hope to playfully, non-anxiously engage with people still in the tribe who wonder if there is a bigger world outside of white evangelical Christianity. I hope to humbly listen to the voices of people who were harmed by my old tribe. I hope I can be an ally in the struggle for justice for those who have been on the underside of power.  I hope I can in a helpful way name the dark side of White evangelical Christianity.