Insurrection, Idolatry, and an Invitation to Risky Discipleship

In the days following the January 6 insurrection, a lot of us tried to make sense of the violence and chaos we watched unfold on live TV from the US Capitol. For as unpredictable as were the days following the election, the scenes of an enraged mob attacking police officers, chanting for the Vice President’s death, and waving symbols of national and religious allegiance defied even the most pessimistic expectations. In the months since, we’ve learned more about the motivations which drove the seditionists and which animate ongoing attempts to disenfranchise voters around the country. And, if we’re paying attention, Christians – and pastors who lead white Christians especially – ought to be rattled by what we’re figuring out.

So, who participated in or supported last year’s insurrection? In a thoroughly researched article for The Atlantic Barton Gellman investigates a number of possible motivating factors. But only “one meaningful correlation emerged. Other things being equal, insurgents were much more likely to come from a county where the white share of the population was in decline. For every one-point drop in a county’s percentage of non-Hispanic whites from 2015 to 2019, the likelihood of an insurgent hailing from that county increased by 25 percent. This was a strong link, and it held up in every state.” Additional research drew out another disturbing nuance. “Respondents who believed in the Great Replacement theory, regardless of their views on anything else, were nearly four times as likely as those who did not to support the violent removal of the president.” This theory, popular in the right wing media, states that the day is rapidly approaching when white people will not only no longer represent an overall majority in the country, but “African American people or Hispanic people in our country will eventually have more rights than whites.”

In other words, those most supportive of the violent overthrow of a democratically elected government are white people from regions experiencing demographic change who believe they are losing their rights to people of color.

Animating this resentment has been the former president’s lying insistence that he won the election. In reporting done by National Public Radio, Dr. Carol Anderson connects Trump’s “big lie” with his birtherism conspiracy theories during the Obama presidency. According to Anderson, “This is about, ‘My nation is about the real Americans. And all of those folks aren’t real Americans.’ It is so vile. It is so racist. And it works. That’s the thing, it works.” When she says that the tactics work, Anderson is thinking not simply about the insurrection but about the successful attempts by many state legislatures during the last year to make voting more difficult for their citizens. We have, says Anderson, “these legislatures write these laws figuring out not only how to stop Black people, brown people, indigenous people from voting, but also how to lower the guardrails of democracy that prevented Trump from being able to overturn the results in these states.”

According to the Times, the “Capitol riot continues in statehouses across the country, in a bloodless, legalized form that no police officer can arrest and that no prosecutor can try in court.” Almost three dozen voting laws, many in battleground states, which “empower state legislatures to sabotage their own elections and overturn the will of their voters,” have been passed in recent months. As should be clear by now, these laws will disproportionately impact citizens of color.

So the January 6th insurrection and the systematic attempts to disenfranchise voters are motivated by racial resentment and the desire to consolidate white power. But why should Christians be especially concerned? Shouldn’t we interpret these events through a civic lens?

This is undoubtedly a civic crisis, but recent research by scholars like Samuel L. Perry and Andrew L. Whitehead show how Christianity has been utilized by those who want to remake the country, often through authoritarian tactics, as a haven for white power. In a new article Perry writes that “Christian nationalist ideology — particularly when it is held by white Americans — is fundamentally anti-democratic because its goal isn’t ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people.’ Its goal is power.” Whitehead and Perry’s research shows that white Americans who support Christian nationalist ideology also favor making voting more difficult. Those surveyed were asked whether they’d support “a policy requiring persons to pass a basic civics test in order to vote or a law that would disenfranchise certain criminal offenders for life.” Such policies hearken back to Jim Crow laws which kept Black citizens from voting. “Why? Almost certainly because these arrangements currently give white, rural, conservative Americans an electoral advantage even when they are numerical minorities. Again, the goal is power, not fairness or democracy.”

The research into Christian nationalism is nuanced and shows, in some cases, that the more people participate in the historic practices of Christianity the less likely they are to affirm Christian nationalism. However, this leaves many more nominal Christians susceptible to this undemocratic and racialized ideology. The result is not simply the stomach-turning use of Christian symbols and language at the Capitol insurrection, but also the more subtle ways that white Christians support efforts to disenfranchise their fellow citizens.

And this is where we need to be precise. Many of the people these white Christians want to disenfranchise are their Christian sisters and brothers. Not that their efforts are more tolerable when they impact those who don’t share our faith; Jesus’ teaching on neighbor-love doesn’t allow for that ugly distinction. But the racialized grasp for power is made more evident when we can see that those affected are fellow members of the Body of Christ. Christian nationalists are not acting from their identity as members of Christ’s Body but from imaginations infected by racial resentment and visions of white, nationalistic power.

In the coming months and years we’ll hear a lot about the fight for voting rights. The events of January 6 will be debated and different meanings – traitorous insurrection or patriotic intervention – will be ascribed to them. What will typically be missed, though, is that many white Christians can hold the beliefs common to Christian nationalism, can nurse feelings of racial resentment and utter disregard for neighbors and Christian siblings of color, and simultaneously and happily participate in the ministries of their local congregations. They’ll be able to sing the hymns, amen the sermons, serve in the soup kitchen, and chaperone the youth retreat without their anti-Christian inclinations being disturbed in the least. And this is because their pastors and ministry leaders are interpreting these events in only the most surface of ways- as civic debates about which good people can hold different opinions. They will miss the truer story, which is that the Christians in their spiritual care are captive to racist and nationalistic ideologies that actively harm neighbor and kin.

However, for those willing to dig into deeper truths, a risky opportunity opens up. We have, in the next couple of years, a chance to invite people to renounce their idols and ideologies. This is not a call to partisanship. No, this invitation is better and way harder. With the psalmist we’ll ask, “How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?” (Psalm 4:2) There is no gloating in this question, no shaming. Broken-heartedness and confession must characterize any attempt to lead people into the truth of the gospel and solidarity with the Body. We’ll remember that January 6 commemorates not only an insurrection but the miracle of Epiphany, yet more evidence of God’s unexpected grace displayed in the most unlikely ways.

The specific nature of this discipleship will necessarily look different in each congregation and community. We can trust the Holy Spirit for the contextual wisdom which will produce fruit of repentance. Still, for those willing to risk the invitation, here are a few suggestions. First, the work begins with clarity in our own minds about its specifically Christian nature. While others try to frame the struggle for civil rights in strictly political terms, we will remember the flesh and blood humanity whose well-being is threatened both by the lawlessness of January 6 and the unjust laws marching though legislatures throughout the country. The challenge is one of discipleship so it’s our responsibility to take it on. Second, we’ll count the cost before moving forward. Christian nationalism is powerful and its forming impact has been incredibly thorough. If my own experience is at all representative, we need to be prepared to be written off as misguided, partisan, and wolves in sheep’s clothing. Jesus prepared us for this sort of thing so we don’t need to be afraid when the slander begins. Finally, we’ll be sober about how long this will take. The idols which have recently been unmasked are not new. We won’t preach this false worship away with a single sermon. A book club won’t be enough to rescue people from their warped allegiances. We’ll need all of the Spirit’s gifts and power and each of the pastoral and congregational resources discerned by the church over many generations. Thankfully these gifts and resources exist and are ready for us to apply them to this particular idolatry.

In his article, Gellman writes about January 6 that “the chaos wrought on that day was integral to a coherent plan. In retrospect, the insurrection takes on the aspect of rehearsal.” The events of a year ago will not remain in the past; they are a glimpse into a reality many of us had missed but which will continue to exert great and terrible damage. The devastation will be inflicted not only on our democracy but upon our Christian sisters and brothers as well. Are we prepared to stand in the way? To disciple people away from the idolatry of Christian nationalism and into real solidarity with the Body of Christ?

May God give us the wisdom to understand our times and the courage to respond with the love of Christ no matter the cost.

—

(Photo credits: Uncivil Religion and Wikimedia Commons.)

“…life-transforming, Satan-crushing, God-glorifying…”

Could it be that in the West the presence of the demonic is muted not because demons have ceased to exist or never were, but for the precise reason that no one fights against nothing? Perhaps, as long as lukewarm faith exists, perhaps the demonic need not be troubled nor trouble themselves. While the purpose of the Christian life is not to irritate demons and incur their wrath through spiritual attacks, a quasi Christianity that is washed out and bears little resemblance to what is epitomized in the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles and demonstrated in the account of Jesus in the Gospels is also bankrupt in holiness and power. It is probably that the lack of knowledge and experience of the presence of the demonic in modern times – through to our current times – has made it easy to turn Christianity into a primarily cerebral, morality-infusing code for civilizing humanity, rather than the life-transforming, Satan-crushing, God-Glorifying powerful religion or lifestyle that was intended… We seem to have exegeted (almost exorcised) the power out of the Logos and propped it up with philosophy.

I’ve been thinking about this passage from Esther E. Acolatse’s fascinating book in the aftermath of this weekend’s massacres in El Paso and Dayton. I understand how it is that people who are not Christian can ignore the spiritually malevolent forces wreaking havoc in our violent society. But what about the Christians? Those who are more liberal in their disposition are clear about the profound problem of gun violence but their strategies rarely seem able to even acknowledge the existence of, as Acolatse says, the demonic. On the other side are the conservatives who, while often acknowledging what Paul calls the spiritual forces of evil in Ephesians 6:12, are ideologically unwilling to apply this belief to the terrors of gun violence.

Readers of this blog won’t be surprised to hear me next say that this strange relationship to what Jesus assumed to be a normal part of the Christian life – that is, engaging with Jesus in the battle against immaterial evil – seems to me a characteristic of white Christianity. There are plenty of churches where this bifurcation has been avoided. It is to these Black and immigrant churches that the rest of us would do well to turn and humbly learn from if we are ever to do more than mourn the impact of an evil we have thus far been barely able to name.

Review of Whole and Reconciled

I recently reviewed Al Tizon’s new book, Whole and Reconciled for Missio Alliance.

https://images.booksense.com/images/627/095/9780801095627.jpg

One of the defining and disappointing characteristics of western Christianity has been our instinct to bifurcate the church’s mission. Consider, for example, the countless ways we find to debate whether evangelism or justice should be our priority. Is it the church’s primary mission to address the material sources of a person’s present suffering or the spiritual nature of their future? These either-or debates often happen within privileged confines among those with the ability to theorize about these things. It’s probably not surprising that communities relegated to the margins have often held together the same attributes of Christian identity that others of us have torn apart. I’m thinking of the many African American congregations in my neighborhood whose services end with an old-school altar call and whose bulletins are filled with opportunities for their members to seek justice throughout the week.

In Whole and Reconciled: Gospel, Church, and Mission in a Fractured World, Al Tizon applauds those who have attempted to bridge theological bifurcations such as this by encouraging, in the language of the Lausanne Movement, “the whole church to take the whole gospel to the whole world.” By emphasizing whole—or, in other contexts, holistic—these theologians and practitioners are advancing a version of mission that cares about word and deed, evangelism and justice. Importantly, the church beyond the west is included in this vision. Rather than the old assumptions about western missionaries being sent to the majority world, mission is now from everywhere and to everywhere.

Whole and Reconciled is a paradigm-shifting book with the potential to enlarge how our churches envision and participate in God’s mission. Here are four ways Tizon succeeds in challenging us to think bigger about everything, beginning with reconciliation.

Read the rest over at Missio Alliance.

“I was in a holy place, a place for pilgrimage only a few miles from my home, and I had no idea that this church still existed.”

https://revcom.us/i/401/EmmetCrowdAP5509060223-600.jpg

My friend Kevin Considine is a Catholic theologian whose work I always look forward to. I was especially interested in his most recent article because it engages with the theme of pilgrimage as an important, and thoroughly Christian, way of engaging the work for racial justice and reconciliation. He writes about an experience in the church that held Emmett Till’s funeral.

Like a modern Pietà, Till Mobley displayed the corpse of her son for the world to view and to expose the deep evil pulsing through the veins in the United States. The funeral was attended by thousands; pictures of Emmett Till’s body appeared in Jet, Ebony, and other magazines; and his story was told and retold in newspapers and conversations around the nation and the world.
“I was in a holy place, a place for pilgrimage only a few miles from my home, and I had no idea that this church still existed.”This was the spark that lit the fire for the modern civil rights movement: In the depths of tragedy, sorrow, and injustice, God “happened” through the actions of Ms. Till Mobley.

He goes on,

This pilgrimage problem is larger than my own ignorance, because the vast majority of Catholics and other Christians are also ignorant of this period of time during which God again became tactile in our midst. As in many other times and places, the God of Jesus Christ “happened” and few of the powerful, healthy, and privileged paid attention.
Too few of us make a pilgrimage to seek out the “hush harbors” where ekklesias of slaves gathered, journey along the path of the Underground Railroad, shed tears at the sites where white “Christians” lynched black men on Sundays after church, or pray with and for the martyrs at any of the numerous black churches bombed and attacked by white “Christians.”

Please read the entire article. Kevin is on to something very important for American Christians. We don’t need to travel across the world to visit holy sites. Pilgrimages to the sites of faithful saints are all around for those of us with eyes to see beyond our racial blinders.

Children, Discipleship, and the Painful Way of Jesus

Is it a lost cause? This morning I wrapped up a draft chapter about children’s ministry for the book on discipleship and race I’m working on. I began my ministry serving children, but that’s been quite a few years ago so it was good to spend a couple of weeks reading and thinking deeply about the church’s kids. There were a number of books and articles that were helpful to me – Jennifer Harvey’s Raising White Kids is a treasure and Michelle Clifton-Soderstrom and David Bjorlin have written a great book about incorporating children in worship – but a theme in Marva Dawn’s Is It a Lost Cause? is probably what will stick with me the most.

Dawn writes repeatedly about the ways American culture forms us to avoid pain. She says that “one of the glaring characteristics of contemporary U.S. culture is the insistence that life be comfortable, easy, entirely without any kind of suffering.” Though she doesn’t make this connection, it seems to me that this tendency is especially pronounced within white churches whose experiences of racial privilege become conflated with our discipleship to Jesus.

The expectation that we must avoid pain is, as Dawn points out, totally incompatible with Jesus’ own experience. “Jesus himself suffered in every way imaginable – not only the pain and shame of the cross, but also homelessness, foreign oppression, the need to escape terror and live as a refugee. He lived as one who had no place to lay his head.” And then, of course, there was the crucifixion.

What Dawn is pointing out – and what I hope to contextualize to the goal of discipling white children away from racism – is how our discipleship to Jesus will inevitably lead us through pain. We must invite our children and their parents to come to see their pain – to really see it – as an opportunity to meet the crucified Savior more intimately and to then follow him more closely on the way to redemption.