Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: "In Reality, Evangelicals Did Not Cast Their Vote [for Trump] Despite Their Beliefs, but Because of Them"

I recently read Kristin Kobes Du Mez's book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (NY: Liveright, 2020), and thought the following passages were significant. Du Mez grew up in the household of a Christian Reformed theologian teaching at Dordt University, her alma mater, and knows the white evangelical world inside out. As her book notes, her own Christian Reformed church has in recent years moved inexorably in the evangelical direction, as have wide swathes of American white churches including the Catholic church — hence Amy Coney Barrett. She knows whereof she speaks, in other words, in Jesus and John Wayne.

Sarah Posner's Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump — Unholy Marriage of Alt- and Religious Right in the Trump Presidency

I recently read Sarah Posner's new book Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump (NY: Penguin Random House, 2020). Reading it as Robert P. Jones's White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity comes out is in many ways a thoroughly depressing experience. I began reading Jones's book as I was finishing Posner's.

Quote for Day: "Church's Radically Patriarchal Leadership Structure and Theology Are at the Root of Most Sex Abuse Cases in the Church"

Jamie Manson writes, "No, Jean Vanier is not 'like all of us'":

Centering Religion on Possession or Lack of a Penis Seems to Have Some Significant Downsides

Tina Beattie, "A 'frozen idea of the feminine," The Tablet, 20 Feb. 2020

I think this morning of three famous men in the world of religion I met while I was active in the religion academy as a scholar and teacher. One was a theologian whose work has been very influential in the area of peace studies, especially in his Protestant world.

"Ladies, You'll Never Have to Use a Washing Machine Again When You Get to Heaven": I Report on a Funeral Sermon

Maytag Ad 1959

"Ladies, just think! You'll never have to use a washing machine again when you get to heaven."

Then the preacher sidled his head around and gave an impossibly cute look-at-me grin to the "ladies" in the church, which was designed to communicate that he thought he was the niftiest thing since sliced bread, and quite the lady-killer.

Southern Baptist and U.S. Catholic Leaders Meet in Same Week, Both Confronting Serious Sexual Abuse Problems: A "Gender Hurricane" Results

It's a gender hurricane out there this week. Come Holy Spirit. https://t.co/ebDdAKIsEc

— Natalia Imperatori (@nimperatori) June 11, 2019

At the same time, the Southern Baptist Convention is holding its annual meeting in Birmingham, Alabama, and the Catholic bishops are meeting in Baltimore. High on the agenda of both sets of gentlemen: what to do about sexual abuse of minors and other vulnerable church members? What to do about the fact that the public knows and will not now unknow? 

Southern Baptist Convention's New Smiley Face: What Really Lies Behind It, When We Get Beyond Media Spin?: "Wives, Submit to Your Husbands"

Perhaps as a former Southern Baptist, I should keep my mouth shut. In the view of the mainstream media, which love a both-sides-have-good-points approach to these issues, I have an "agenda," as an LGBTQ Christian who repudiated my family's Southern Baptist church after it split in 1964 or 1965 over the question of whether to admit African-American members. Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress don't have an agenda, in the eyes of the mainstream religious media. 

"In Every Case, 'Wives Submit to Your Husbands' Appears in the Same Context As 'Slaves Obey Your Masters'": A Twitter Conversation for You

In every case, "wives submit to your husbands" appears in the same context as "slaves obey your masters." And yet I'm constantly told we need to consider context & culture with the latter but not the former...

— Rachel Held Evans (@rachelheldevans) May 9, 2018

I don't mean to shortchange this blog, but I sometimes find that, instead of making statements here, I'm using Twitter instead to engage in at-the-moment conversations about the kinds of issues that interest us at this site. 

SPLC on How Alt-Right Is Killing People: "Young, White, Middle Class, Heterosexual Males Commit Mass Murder at a Disproportionately High Rate"

Southern Poverty Law Center published this valuable essay by Keegan Hankes and Alex Amend entitled "The Alt-Right Is Killing People" on 5 February. On 14 February, Nikolas Cruz, aged 19, took an assault rifle and murdered 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Here is an excerpt from the SPLC's "The Alt-Right Is Killing People":

Two More Queer Catholics Fired, "Progressive" Evangelicals "Discern" Whether Queer Folks Should Be Treated Equally, CBF Discriminates Against Queer Employees: What's This All About?

Mark Guevarra writes,

"In early December 2017, a representative from the Archdiocese of Edmonton called me in for an investigation."

And we can stop Mark's painful testimony right there, at the opening line, can't we? Because we already see where this story of the firing of yet another LGBTQ employee of a Catholic institution — he was pastoral associate of a parish in Alberta, Canada — is going.

Two More Resources re: Non-LGBTQ-Affirming Policy of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Shane Claiborne's Refusal, as a "Progressive Evangelical," to Affirm Queer Folks Unambiguously

When a commitment to a doctrine overshadows the ability to see other people’s humanity, one has conceded their own humanity for ideology.

— Broderick Greer (@BroderickGreer) February 11, 2018

 

Two items I'd like to share with you today as a follow-up to yesterday's posting noting what's now happening in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, as the church creates a two-tiered structure for its employees that allows rights and privileges to straight folks denied to queer ones. In addition, my posting yesterday focused on the controversy that has ensued after Shane Claiborne, a "progressive evangelical" who refuses to affirm LGBTQ people unambiguously, announced that he and his Red Letter Christians will be sponsoring a revival of "progressive evangelicals in Lynchburg, Virginia, in April.

Trump White House and Rob Porter Story: "Nothing More Important Than a Powerful Man's Word"

Huffington Post U.S. Top Headline, 10 Feb. 2018, 8 A.M. CST

Amanda Terkel, "For Trump, There’s Nothing More Important Than A Powerful Man's Word": 

Trump's reaction is consistent with the way he and his supporters have handled other sexual misconduct allegations against powerful men.

"Excluding Women from the Gospel — in Jesus' Name": Twitter Hosts a Necessary Conversation Many Churches Don't Intend to Have

#T4G18 Excluding women from the Gospel - in Jesus’ name. pic.twitter.com/GIX8doKrPl

— Kate WallaceNunneley (@KateWallace1313) February 1, 2018

A set of tweets today (with a link to an article by Sarah MacDonald) that, in my view, all belong together. . . .They point to a necessary conversation that many Christian churches simply do not intend to have — no matter how many younger members walk away, no matter how many people are harmed by the exclusionary, clubby injustice, no matter how much the public witness of the churches is undermined by the lack of authentic catholicity at a moment in history at which this witness is desperately needed:

Cameron Altaras, "Mennonite Harvey Weinsteins, or #MeToo in the Mennonite World"

I'm honored today to share with you another essay from the Mennonite world, one making powerful connections between the #MeToo movement and the recovery of the voices of Mennonite women who have experienced sexual abuse at the hands of church leaders. "One stops one's voice in an effort to preserve one's life," Cameron Altaras writes, summing up the shattering pain women who have experienced sexual abuse in a religious context live with when they are told not to speak out, that they have deserved their abuse, that they are without worth, and on and on. What follows is Cameron Altaras' stellar essay:

Statement of Religious Right Leaders about Biology-Based Gender Roles as Key to Divine Revelation: "An Approach to God That Biblical Tradition Calls Idolatry"

Because they are fighting for the divine supremacy of heterosexual males, and the belief that heterosexual males are uniquely made in God's image — in the image of a heterosexual God.

This is an approach to God that biblical tradition calls idolatry. 10)

— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) December 18, 2017

 

I'm grateful to you readers who shared with us here a link to the "new" statement about gender matters from various religious right leaders. The U.S. Catholic bishops, several of whom are signatories to the statement, have placed the statement on their website, as several of you noted here yesterday. I read the response of Francis DeBernardo at Bondings 2.0 to this statement yesterday, and then offered my own response on Twitter as I shared Francis DeBernardo's reflections.

Quote for Day: Marie Griffith on How Deeply Entwined Is U.S. (White) Christians' Fixation on Sex and Power with (White) American Nationalism

At Religion News Service today, Jana Riess interviews Marie Griffith, author of the just-published Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics. Riess asks Griffith what surprised her as she did research about the fixation of American Christians with sex and power historically. 

"Love Does Not Permit Us to Plug Up Our Ears with Bible Verses": Donald Trump and White Christians' Patriarchal Worldview — Connecting Dots

I see lots of dots connecting in these valuable pieces of commentary I've read in the past several days. I hope you might, too:

White, Male, Heterosexual or Heterosexual Posturing — and Privileged to the Nth Degree: What Charlottesville Marchers Had in Common

As I watch video clips of and read articles about the young white men who made it their business to run to Charlottesville and march in a Nazi + Klan hate march, I'm struck by their sameness: same young white male faces, over and over again. Oh, I know, the features vary, the haircuts may be different. But these are an iteration of a type, over and over again: white, male, heterosexual or heterosexual-posturing.

Trump and the Christian Fascists, and What Trump Election Says About Us

compassion. is the longest emotion there is.

— . (@nayyirahwaheed) July 23, 2017

Speaking-truth-to-power sorts of statements I've read in the past day or so, that I'd like to pass along to you:

Doc's a Woman, My Inflatable Doll Is a Lesbian, and It's Never About Misogyny: "Doctor Who" Freakout and Trump-Era Politics

'Doctor' has no gender in English.

— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) July 17, 2017

There's a common thread in these tidbits from today's news, I think. Can you spot it? (One hint: it's never about racism, misogyny, or homophobia — even when it's always about racism, misogyny, and homophobia).