Threat of White Christian Nationalism to US Democracy: A Recent Public Discussion

A week ago, Georgetown University's Center on Faith and Justice and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty co-sponsored a public discussion of white Christian nationalism in the US. Participants: included Rev. Michael B. Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church; Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee; Dr. Samuel Perry, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Oklahoma and Rev. Jim Wallis, Chair in Faith and Justice at the McCourt School of Public Policy and Director of the Georgetown University Center on Faith and Justice. I recommend the whole video, and would like to highlight the following statements by Michael Curry:

"Where is the Sense of Decency? What Does It Profit a Great Nation to Conquer the World, Only to Lose Its Soul?" — The Legacy of John Lewis

This interview with Congressman John Lewis -- in front of a live audience in Kentucky in October 2013 -- was one of the most memorable and moving experiences of my professional life.

It feels just impossible to lose him at a time when we need him so much.https://t.co/QO2kEwLVvz

— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) July 18, 2020

Is It That the Democrats "Lost" White Christians, or That Obama's Elections Re-Energized GOP's "White Christian Strategy"?

Yesterday's PRRI "Morning Buzz" email newsletter* discusses a recent article by Jack Jenkins' entitled "Democrats lost white Christians. Can they win them back?" As I read this article yesterday, the thought that kept running around in my head was this: But the Democratic party did not "lose" white Christians. White Christians have walked away from the Democratic party because US white Christianity is deeply racist.

The Holocaust and Christian Theologies of Sin and Forgiveness: Imperative Need for Christians to Listen to Jews

Elizabeth Johnson, The Quest for the Living God (London: Bloomsbury, 2007)

Ruth Krall's recent sounding of various ecclesial responses to the sexual abuse of minors and how they raise profound questions about theologies of sin and forgiveness has made me think about the valuable contribution of Jewish thinkers to Christian theological reflection about these matters. Ruth's essay includes a paragraph surveying some Jewish thinkers on the topic of sin and forgiveness.

Ruth Krall, A Brief Afterword to "Recapitulation: Affinity Sexual Violence in a Religious Voice"

Healthcare Workers in Ebola Protective Gear (i)

Ruth Krall has generously prepared a brief afterword to her six-part series of essays entitled "Recapitulation: Affinity Sexual Violence in a Religious Voice." I've published those six essays in installments at Bilgrimage, and at the end of this posting, will provide links to the entire series. The basic premise of Ruth's series of essays is that sexual abuse of vulnerable people by leaders is an endemic problem in religious groups across the globe, and, as she states in the afterword below, "Until the world community learns how to accurately assess this world public health/community mental health phenomenon of clergy sexual abuse of the powerless and the vulnerable, the problem will continue to proliferate." Ruth's essay follows:

Sri Lanka, the Spiral of Violence, and Global Turn to Strongmen Messianic Solutions: The Temptation of This Moment

I grieve — so very much — the carnage we've just seen enacted in Sri Lanka, on the day many Christians consider the holiest day of the liturgical calendar. I grieve above all the enormous loss of life, the manifestation of gross religious hatred we see on full display in this event, and the way in which it's very clear that this latest act of religious hatred is immediately rooted in the atrocious act of religious (and white supremacist) hatred we saw recently in New Zealand. As Dom Hélder Câmara reminded us over and over, violence spawns more violence in an endless chain of reaction until someone finally has the courage and compassion to break that chain.

Celebrating Mary Oliver & Asking: Do We Want to Be the Kind of People Celebrating Mary Oliver, or the Kind Celebrating Karen Pence & John Finnis?

That's the big question, the one the world throws at you each morning, "Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?" 

     ~ Mary Oliver, Long Life (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2004), p. xiv. 

More on Missionary John Allen Chau: "You Go on a Beach, You Throw a Fish at Some People, You Holler at Them" — This Is Missionizing?

Several days ago, I posted some reflections about the story of American Christian missionary John Allen Chau, who was killed by the Sentinelese recently after he insisted on going to North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal to missionize them, though he had been warned that doing so would place him in grave danger. As my posting noted, this story has placed religious missionizing in the spotlight of the mainstream media. It raises serious questions about how Christians understand (or should understand missionizing) — a topic that has been fruitfully discussed for some time now in theology programs in which new understandings of mission are emerging.

Boston Declaration: A Prophetic Appeal to Christians of the United States

As followers of Jesus, the Jewish prophet for justice whose life reminds us to, "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:31) we hear the cries of women and men speaking out about sexual abuse at the hands of leaders in power and we are outraged. We are outraged by the current trends in Evangelicalism and other expressions of Christianity driven by white supremacy, often enacted through white privilege and the normalizing of oppression. Confessing racism as the United States' original and ongoing sin, we commit ourselves to following Jesus on the road of costly discipleship to seek shalom justice for the least, the lost, and the left out. We declare that following Jesus today means fighting poverty, economic exploitation, racism, sexism, and all forms of oppression from the deepest wells of our faith.

~ Boston Declaration, 20 November 2017

In Today's News: "If Jesus Christ Gets Down Off the Cross and Told Me Trump Is with Russia, I Would Tell Him, 'Hold on a Second. I Need to Check with the President'"

Astead W. Herndon, "Why evangelicals are again backing a Republican despite allegations of sexual misconduct":

As Violence Is Discussed in Light of Brussels Atrocities, Some Food for Thought — About Violence As Our Problem, Too

Violence is in the air these days. After the events in Brussels, it's being discussed all over again — as if it's something occasional, far-away, over there, not really affecting most of us much of the time. As if violence has roots in them but not among us . . . .

Alan McCornick on Why Religion Is the Problem: "Imagine a World Where Cherry-Picking Does Not Take Place and You Have the Kind of World Which ISIS Is Trying to Create"

An early Christmas gift: Alan McCornick's smart, wonderfully dense (think an outstanding slice of dark, rich fruitcake), fetchingly written essay about religion as the problem at his Hepzibah site yesterday. Precisely because Alan's essay is dense and so well-written, it's hard for me to select a passage to try to tempt you to read it in its entirety. Here's one that does leap out at me, since it so well summarizes the primary point Alan is making in the essay — that religion is the problem when adherents of a particular religion (and the culture at large) permit any given religion to rest easy with the reduction of its complex message to something like the obligation to kill one's perceived enemies: Alan writes, 

Christianity, Islam, Violence: Three Thoughtful Reactions to Mr. Obama's National Prayer Breakfast Remarks

Three thoughtful quotes from three thoughtful articles responding to the manufactured right-wing outrage after President Obama told the attendees of the National Prayer Breakfast that Christianity, too, has its heritage of violence with which to contend:

Islam, Christianity, and Barbaric Violence: Discussion of the Issues in a U.S. Catholic Forum, National Catholic Reporter

In response to an article by Sister Maureen Fiedler in National Catholic Reporter this morning about the bogus controversy following President Obama's statements that Christianity has its own history of violence to face, a Catholic regular at NCR who is ever ready to demonize Muslims, one Purgatrix Ineptiae, writes,*

Wil Gafney on Rape Culture, Kidnapping of Nigerian Schoolgirls, and the Bible:" We Must Teach the Bible’s Iron Age Theology Because It Permeates Our Culture and Society"

I find Wil Gafney's approach to the kidnapping of Nigerian schoolgirls to force the girls into rape-marriage illuminating. Gafney's essay is at Religion Dispatches, and follows on the heels of one by Anthea Butler telling the story of the recent kidnapping of some 200 girls in Nigeria by the Islamic theocratic group Boko Haram, which Gafney cites.