All Christians are Bad, confronting the sin of our complicity with white supremacy
Ephesians 6:12
12 For our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places
Growing up, I was taught that there was only one way to be Christian and all others were Christians who were not serious about the faith (“lovingly” referred to as lukewarm). While the faith tradition I grew up in did not teach this, the surrounding Christian communities that dominated my culture hammered this view into me. This world view seemed so different from the Christianity that I understood in the Bible and the love that my late grandfather exuded in his life. As I grow and reflect more, I suspect this worldview and the theologies that contribute to this worldview has much more to do with seeking control in our lives. This need for control in our lives, quickly and sadly extends into a need to control everything around us, people, truth, and even God themself. This need for control seems to permeate every branch of American Protestantism sadly and as a Christian I feel a need to address the log in our collective eyes. This desire for control, to be like god, is what drives many of the sins that plague Christianity today including but not limited to white supremacy, colonialism, and various justifications for the exploitations of our local and global neighbors.
Whether you realize it or not, your theology affects how you interact with others and the world around you. Even if you are not religious you have a metaphysical philosophy that acts as a non-theistic philosophy that colors your world view. These worldviews create a foundation for what we believe about the world we live in. For example, the idea of a loving God will influence a person differently than the idea of a Petty God. Whether or not if God is part of nature or completely divorced from it will have an impact as well. Understanding this, will help understand the root of American Christianity’s problem with these grievous sins plaguing it today.
The first glaring sin that made itself most obvious in recent events is that of white supremacy. It is so intertwined with American Christianity that for many hurt by white supremacy within American Christianity that it has become synonymous with it. It’s so toxic that we miss that Christianity fueled the civil rights movement and the abolitionist movement before that. That there are black Christian churches and that the oldest existent Christian traditions are the Ethiopian Church and the Syrian Christians of India. White supremacy will white wash any history that goes against its narrative. It seeks to subvert the transformative power of Christ and use this tradition to serve its own purpose. For example there are four theories of atonement but American Christianity seems to hone in only one theory, penal substitution. This theory has only been around since the beginning of the Protestant Reformation but yet white supremacy will claim this theory has always existed. Penal substitution is the theory that atonement is a transaction, that humanity’s sins are so great a cost that the only way to pay for them is through a substitution of who should receive the punishment with God through the person of Jesus taking the place of punishment. White supremacists push this particular view because it helps furthers their agenda since it provides a convenient justification for subjugation. For white supremicist, they see themselves as superior than others so this view allows them so see others as disordered and in needs of their unjust leadership. They bring this false authority to their communities and abroad, using Chrstianity’s tenant to proselytize as a way to dominate and expand.
Closely related with white supremacy is colonialism. Colonialism is the process in which white supremacy spreads. Colonialism is the process in which settlers mass migrate to a territory and take it over while maintaining strong ties with their country of origin. This is different from migration in that the colonizers are not looking to move to a new land to live but a new territory to take over as an extension of their home country. This take over can be through a takeover of strategic resources or areas that forces the locals to be dependent on their overlords, or through right out genocide. White supremacist have learned how to use Christian missionaries as way to colonize. American Christian missionaries do more than just teach Christianity but push very specific values to make the populace more susceptible to the colonization process. Most missionaries never become a part of the community, instead they replace the local community, only working toward short term goals that help in the short term but never addressing any systematic problems that arise due to the foreign settlers’ presence in the territory. They do not teach ways for the people to overcome their oppressors but rather how to please and become like their oppressors. They knowingly or unknowingly become complicit in the colonization process. This is not a sweeping condemnation of all missionaries. Other religions such as Islam and Buddhism proselytize and have an equivalent to missionaries but where they differ from many of the flavors of American Christianity in that they become part of the community they exist in, they don’t attempt to usurper the community for a foreign power. White supremacy has no desire to become part of a community, only to dominate it and exploit it for the resource for the benefit of the empire they represent.
Imperialism is the driving force behind colonialism and the source of white supremacy. White supremacy is an offshoot of imperialism that is based on American racism. Imperialism is a poison that kills all involved. It literally kills its victims and spiritually kills those who are supposedly in control of it. Imperialism requires a rigid hierarchy that is often unjust in that it is antithetical to any truth other than the whims of the one at its helm. These hierarchies serve as a way for the warlord to pit people against each other, preventing people from working together against this petty ruler.
As sad as it is to admit this, a majority of Christian leadership has been complicit with imperial powers for a very long time, as far back as to ancient Rome, and there is no avoiding this. Recounting all the sins of our complicitness would require an encyclopedia that I am not qualified to write. While we cannot change the past, what we can do is ask forgiveness and seek guidance from God in how They want us to reconcile with our neighbors. We should also recognize the empires we are a part of and avoid complicity. Work to be part of the communities and seek relationships with others models the persons of the Trinity, where we have mutuality with each other while retaining our self-determination. Since empires depend on rigid unjust hierarchies so this may be difficult to do at first but with God’s help, all things are possible. With the Holy Spirit, those of different tongues can understand each other.
All Christians are bad in that we for too long have been complicit with an Empire in its various incarnations that seek to undermine the Heavenly Kingdom. The kingdom in which no one is lacking and we are taken care of. A kingdom in which we are allowed to be ourselves without fear of oppression or losing our place in the community for aspects of ourselves we cannot change. A world in which one’s worth is not based on how much they can produce or how useful they are to an overlord. A world in which the marginalized are included as part of the community. Our fight is not against flesh and blood but against the powers and principalities of our age. White supremacy, colonialism, imperialism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, religious bigotry, are just some of the powers and principalities that plague us. While these are powerful forces, they are no match for Christ who ransomed himself to save us from these powers. He became subject to these powers and these powers killed him, but they were shown to be powerless through his resurrection. We are brothers and sisters in Christ, when these powers kill us, we will resurrect in the end and these forces will pass away. Our battle is not with any one person, even if there are horrible people out there. Our battle is with the forces that enable the horrible people to do horrible things and to all the victims, those who are dying literally and those who are dying spiritual because they serve these idols. With God’s help, we will live and have eternal life. Amen.
