{"id":18564,"date":"2019-11-03T06:00:29","date_gmt":"2019-11-03T10:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/freelancechristianity\/?p=18564"},"modified":"2019-11-06T18:21:32","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T22:21:32","slug":"noah-and-his-children-bad-new-for-white-evangelical-christians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/freelancechristianity\/noah-and-his-children-bad-new-for-white-evangelical-christians\/","title":{"rendered":"Noah and his Children: Bad News for White Evangelical Christians"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This coming week marks the beginning of a series of classes in my General Ethics course on race issues\u2014first up will be \u201cwhite privilege.\u201d I\u2019m looking forward to these classes, particularly because I have a more racially diverse group of students this semester than in previous iterations of this class. Last year toward the end of a particularly interesting and, at times, frustrating conversation a student blurted out a question that, for me, has become definitive of the generational divide between my millennial students and baby boomers such as myself. She asked \u201cAre we going to have to wait until all of the old white guys die off before things get any better??\u201d My immediate response was \u201cI don\u2019t know\u2014maybe so.\u201d That\u2019s still my response.<\/p>\n

I was reminded of this exchange last week when I read two recent Washington Post <\/em>op-eds by Michael Gerson. Gerson is a regular columnist for the Post<\/em>, was a senior speechwriter for George W. Bush, and is also an evangelical Christian who is appropriately appalled by what his fellow evangelical Christians are up to and whom they are supporting en masse these days.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In an op-ed last Monday,<\/p>\n

Michael Gerson: Evangelicals have been reshaped into the image of Trump himself<\/a><\/p>\n

Gerson uses the story of Noah from Genesis to frame his discussion. No, not the obedient Noah who saves a minor fraction of living things while everything not on the ark drowns, but rather the drunken Noah lying exposed in his tent after the familiar part of the story is over, the one whose embarrassed sons cover his naked ass to limit his (and their) shame. \u201cWhite evangelical Protestants (WEPs) are fully disrobed,\u201d Gerson writes, concluding that \u201cThe older generation betrays civilizing values in full sight of its children. Many evangelical leaders now lie drunk, naked and exposed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gerson supports this striking image with various findings from the recent American Values Survey from the Public Religion Research Institute. These findings include the following:<\/p>\n