Christians, WTF?
To all my compassionate friends and family, I am here to tell you that it does not matter how many pics you post about children being ripped from their families at the border or how many articles you link to from legitimate news sources. The people on the right — many of whom call themselves (conservative) Christians — will never believe the truth. They will not be moved to action. They will cling stubbornly to their deeply ingrained belief in the U.S. government as the good guys of the world — as the military and law enforcement as “protecting Americans,” keeping us safe from all those dangerous (read foreign) others. What do we do about people who refuse to believe what’s right in front of them? I’m wringing my hands in despair because I don’t know. But this essay is not for those people. This essay is for my Christian friends who give a damn. For real.
Almost none of the Christians I grew up with engage in these discussions on social media. Almost none of them take a public stand for equality, for justice, or against police brutality and racial injustice. Some of the Christians I went to college with do take a public stance. But not enough of them.
The first time Obama ran for President — against Mitt Romney — I was incredibly vocal. I cared mostly about the ways Romney’s views (along with the rest of the GOP) were detrimental to the LGBTQ communities I was a part of. I focused on that and didn’t pay enough attention to the ways that Republican and Democrat policies were threats to other people around the globe and to the ways that their policies had long hurt Black Americans.
I’m sorry. I know better now. I think many of us are just waking up, learning how to think about our own privileges and also our own blind spots. It has to be a process where we keep learning. A friend recently mentioned the concept of “imperfect allies” to me, a term coined by comedian Dave Chappelle.
I do think we need to accept those allies and we all need to learn how to work together to destroy, not just the current hideous Republican administration, but our entire system that has worked to put so few people in power and destroy the lives of many people in our own country and around the world. How can we be different? I know I lose patience too easily with people who cling so insistently to their conservative beliefs. I find it incredibly difficult to find common ground sometimes. I don’t know what the answer is. But this essay is my attempt to find one.
Today I read the Atlantic piece on the shifts taking place within the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant group that has deep ties to the Republican party. Apparently, despite the fact that Pence was a guest speaker last weekend, many people in the group are organizing members to rethink the denomination’s stance on women and racial injustice. Please read the link to the article below after you finish reading my essay.
While I am somewhat heartened by the shifts in the SBC, I don’t know how you can read that piece, have that knowledge and not recognize the hypocrisy of right wing Christians. The article talks about the two main architects of the Convention who brainstormed and organized in the late 1960s to position conservative Evangelical Christians as major force in American politics: (Keep in mind that this was all happening in the midst of MLK Jr.’s civil rights movement, which these two men, Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler were surely against):
“The two men successfully executed their strategy in the subsequent decades, a movement they labeled the “Conservative Resurgence” and their opponents dubbed the “Fundamentalist Takeover.” Whatever one calls it, the result was a purging of moderates from among denominational ranks, the codifying of literal interpretations of the Bible, and the transformation of the Southern Baptist Convention into a powerful ally of the Republican Party.”
Whatever one calls it? How about the solidifying of white supremacy and patriarchy. That’s what I call it. And too many Christians I know have gone right along with it. If you haven’t, or even if you have, please read MLK’s Letter to a Birmingham Jail.
People who want to be taken seriously as followers of Christ need to disassociate themselves from the brand of Christianity that is in line with the SBC and from the Republican party in general. They need to disassociate themselves from rigid, literal interpretations of the Bible and seek to build bridges with the people they have alienated.
I’m tired of being told that as a liberal I need to find a way to build bridges and reach people on the right, especially conservative Christians. These people who want to remain so entrenched in their conflation of patriotism and Christianity, and often in their misogyny, their racism, their homophobia — their self-righteous missionary-izing (yes, I just made up that word) — can they be reached? What kind of bridge would I need to build?
BUT I know that this is not ALL Christians. I know this. I am so grateful that at the Christian college I attended in the 1990s I encountered professors whose spiritual practices were in line with questioning authority and seeking social justice. It is because of this that I know that Christianity can be something else other than an instrument of Imperialism and state sanctioned hate. The Christians of the GOP don’t get it. They are turning a blind eye to the hatred and injustice being done in the name of their God. I know this is not you, friend.
But listen to me: their voices are louder than yours. And that is a problem.
The people who need to build the bridges are my friends who call themselves Christians who do believe in social justice but constantly say they just want us all to get along, that they are not “political,” that they want Facebook to just be pictures of people’s kids, dancing kittens, and farting unicorns instead of images and stories of dead unarmed Black men and brown children weeping at the border.
Please. I am begging you. This essay is for you. You’re here — on social media. I know you care. I know you don’t want the world to be this way either. I know you want to fight for peace and justice but you’re afraid of challenging our president or your pastor or your own parents in their beliefs. I know. But now is the time. It’s OK if you don’t consider yourself left or even liberal. Why should it be that the compassionate view is the one labeled as “liberal?” Christians, it doesn’t have to be this way. Speak up! If you want the world to be different, YOU have to build these bridges. You have to reach!
I used to believe that FB gave us a space for discussion where there existed the potential for people’s hearts and minds to change — I used to believe that people’s hearts and minds could change — change towards caring about social justice, about humanity. These days it feels tougher and tougher to see it that way, but I’m not sure what choice I have. The alternative is just too devastating.