Related to my own blog post today, here are links to other things that you’ll likely find interesting. Let me begin with a couple of my fellow Patheos bloggers. First, Vance Morgan wrote just recently:
My guess is that many of us were taught as youngsters that tolerance is an important virtue. Many of my (mostly white) students have told me over the past several years in my ethics classes of being taught that tolerance is perhaps the most important virtue, maybe even the only virtue when it comes to interacting with others. But I’m wondering . . . is tolerance a virtue that only privileged people have the luxury of cultivating? What does it cost me, a person privileged in gender, race, and economic status, to be tolerant of those believe differently than I do? Absolutely nothing. But does a person of color or someone in a same-sex marriage have the luxury of being tolerant of those whose opinions and attitudes dismiss and diminish their very existence? Absolutely not.
On his blog Fred Clark writes:
Everything we take for granted about white evangelical hermeneutics was shaped by the defense of slavery — the clobber-texting literalism, chapter-and-verse concordance-ism, even the faux-naive pretense that it isn’t even a “hermeneutic” at all because such a fancy-sounding term isn’t necessary for good-hearted good people reading their own Bibles for their own selves. It was — and still is — a hermeneutic designed to bless blasphemy and sin.
Acknowledging that is a necessary step for any attempt to separate evangelical Christianity from its pervasively intrinsic white supremacy.
Robyn Dyba wrote on Red Letter Christians:
Those like me who grew up in the Evangelical tradition were conditioned to take comfort in certainties and dispel doubt with platitudes. This brand of Christianity specializes in bumper sticker confidence to quell questions about anything from scriptural literalism to cultural relativism. “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” This is a literal bumper sticker.
The Evangelical Church and the Republican party bonded over caterwauling about family values and sanctity of life, even as leaders from both institutions failed to maintain the righteous standards of their own hypocrisy through public scandal in both camps. Yet the bond of religious nationalism grew so strong that Jesus became an inconvenient third wheel with his “love all, judge not, do good, welcome strangers” ethos. Better to call on the Jehovah of the old testament to validate war, imprison refugees, and create laws that enforce judgment on lifestyle identity, moral choice, and human desire.
Religious nationalism reached its zenith in this election cycle when Vice President Mike Pence actually altered sacred scripture and replaced “Jesus” with the American Flag in his RNC address this summer. “So let’s run the race marked out for us,” said Pence. “Let’s fix our eyes on Old Glory and all she represents.”
According to Pence’s own Evangelical theology, manipulating scripture to fit a political message would be akin to blasphemy. But more importantly, it crystallized the final consummation of church and state. The Evangelical Church’s support of a president who counters the life and teachings of Jesus actually makes sense when you take Jesus out of the equation. Then you can ignore the cruel, feckless, truthless, despotic, violent, abusive, petty, vindictive language of a dangerous charlatan who promises the Church what it wanted all along: power of judgement over others.
Also of related interest:
Evangelicals Will Be Forever Known As the People Who Traded Principles for Power
Review of David Gushee, After Evangelicalism
What Black Christians Can Teach White Christians about the Bible
Liberal Preacher: Conservative White Evangelicalism is “a Form of Heresy”
Will the debate over critical race theory divide the Southern Baptist Convention?
Church Without Walls pastor cuts ties with Southern Baptists
Who and What Should I Believe?
Next Most Faithful Steps in Healing Divided Community
Bad Theology Promotes Sexual Abuse
Civility Requires Less Preaching More Teaching
Liberty Students Call for Shutdown of Falkirk Center
Anti-Abortion Group Gives Donald Trump Award for Promoting a “Culture of Life”
Mark Meadows’ Dinosaur Skeleton Scandal is Gaining New Life Online
Reflection: Fighting on God’s Side
Immigration Law and the Politics of Disgust
A Look at Some Roots of the Political Paranoia Gripping America
Senate Passes Resolution Condemning “Blasphemy, Heresy, and Apostasy Laws”
Are Atheists and Freethinkers the Same Thing?
Evangelicals & Science – part 4 of 12 Bible & science during the time of Wesley
Beyond the Great Awokening: Reassessing the legacies of past black organizing
Franklin Graham rallies “God’s Troops” against Equality Act
Evangelist: If “Wicked” Democrats Win in Georgia, LGBTQ People Will Have Rights
Evangelicals & Science – part 4 of 12 Bible & science during the time of Wesley
Does the Left Have a Problem with Empathy?
On first converting the church (some thoughts on the Conversion Therapy legislation)
Indianapolis’ Center for Interfaith Cooperation
Indianapolis’ Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic
New Humanist on black feminism, plus a review of Caste
Religion and Ecology Has a Whiteness Problem. Let’s Confront It.
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