{"id":981,"date":"2014-01-07T09:16:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-07T09:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/01\/genealogy-of-a-white-american-jesus-from-slave-master-to-billy-graham.html"},"modified":"2014-01-07T09:16:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-07T09:16:00","slug":"genealogy-of-a-white-american-jesus-from-slave-master-to-billy-graham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/01\/genealogy-of-a-white-american-jesus-from-slave-master-to-billy-graham.html","title":{"rendered":"Genealogy of a White American Jesus: From Slave Master to Billy Graham"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Through five years of immersion in what is arguably the \u201choly land\u201d of white evangelicalism in Midwest, USA (i.e. Wheaton has\u00a0<\/span>\u201cmore churches per capita than any other town in America\u201d<\/a>), I have come to the conclusion that white evangelicalism has a \u201cWhite American Jesus\u201d problem. While some white evangelical institutions are engaged in what some scholars call \u201crace-bridging,\u201d they are few and far between (less than 7%), and are unconsciously \u201cChrist-centered\u201d on a \u201cwhite American Jesus.\u201d As such, racial reconciliation efforts by white evangelicals have had\u00a0<\/span>little to no impact on the segregated nature of their white evangelical institutions<\/a>\u00a0(Christerson, Edwards, and Emerson 2005; Emerson and Woo 2006; Lichterman, Carter, and Lamont 2009). Below is an excerpt from a larger work of mine, entitled:\u00a0<\/span>The Evangelical Ethic and the Spirit of Color-blind Racism.<\/i><\/span>

<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

SLAVE MASTER\u2019S JESUS VS SLAVE\u2019S JESUS<\/span><\/div>\n
In my opinion, the root of white evangelical color-blind racism is insidiously hidden in the history of pro-slavery \u201cChristianity.\u201d An analysis of pro-slavery \u201cChristianity\u201d will elucidate the Christological differences between Black and White Church traditions today. W.E.B. Du Bois described how Christianity in the Colonies functioned to justify slavery (2000). White Christians claimed that \u201cslaves were to be brought from heathenism to Christianity, and through slavery the benighted Indian and African were to find their passport into the kingdom of God\u201d (Du Bois 2000:70). Eventually, whites were confronted with \u201cthe insistent and perplexing question as to what the status of the heathen slave was to be after he was Christianized and baptized?\u201d (Du Bois 2000:70). Many slave owners questioned whether to expose their slaves to Christianity due to \u201cthe implications of equality in the Bible and\u2026the fear that education might cause the slave to fight for his freedom\u201d (Cone 1997:75).<\/span><\/div>\n
The measure taken by white Christians to appease this contradiction\u00a0is still with us today<\/i>\u2014that is, the \u201cWhite\u201d Jesus of the slave master was\u00a0completely divorced from any implications of freedom or justice related to civic matters<\/i>\u00a0(Du Bois 2000; Cone 1997). As such, \u201cIt was expressly declared in colony after colony that baptism did not free the slaves\u201d (Du Bois 2000:71). The crux of pro-slavery \u201cChristianity\u201d was to ensure peace, by creating \u201cgood slaves\u201d that would emulate \u201cWhite\u201d Jesus\u2019 \u201cmeek-and-turn-the-other-cheek\u201d side. While many abolitionists were eventually motivated (in part) by their Christian faith, the majority of the White Church then, as the White Church today, was\u00a0silent<\/i>\u00a0about the oppressive and racist\u00a0structures<\/i>\u00a0of America (Cone 1997; Emerson, Smith, and Sikkink 1999). Like the slave masters\u2019 \u201cWhite\u201d Jesus, the \u201cWhite\u201d Jesus of evangelicals today is not concerned with ameliorating the plight of the oppressed on Earth as much as he is concerned with \u201corder\u201d and \u201csaving individual souls\u201d (Cone 1997).<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Conversely, black slave ministers emphasized the God of the Exodus who freed the slaves from Egypt. Many who led slave rebellions were black slave ministers who identified with the suffering of Jesus and saw his resurrection as the triumph over the oppressive forces of his day (Du Bois 2000; Cone 1997). In addition to eternal salvation, the Jesus of the Black Church has historically identified with the poor and oppressed of the land, unlike the Jesus of the White Church today (Cone 1997). In this way,\u00a0\u201cBlack Christianity\u201d has operated as both \u201cthe\u00a0expression\u00a0<\/i>of and also the\u00a0protest\u00a0<\/i>against real distress\u2026the sigh of the oppressed creature,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0while \u201cWhite Evangelicalism\u201d was intended to be \u201cthe opium of the [oppressed] people\u201d (Marx 1975:175). Today, white evangelicals usually claim \u201cobjectivity\u201d in their Christology, but have\u00a0forgotten<\/i>\u00a0the racist roots of their \u201cWhite-American Jesus\u201d who is not concerned with social justice. This is why both White and Black Church traditions can be \u201cChristocentric\u201d while having incredibly different interpretations of what it means to emulate Christ\u2014i.e., to be concerned with saving individual souls\u00a0or<\/i>\u00a0concerned with justice on Earth as well as saving souls.<\/span><\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Through five years of immersion in what is arguably the \u201choly land\u201d of white evangelicalism in Midwest, USA (i.e. Wheaton has\u00a0\u201cmore churches per capita than any other town in America\u201d), I have come to the conclusion that white evangelicalism has a \u201cWhite American Jesus\u201d problem. While some white evangelical institutions are engaged in what some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nGenealogy of a White American Jesus: From Slave Master to Billy Graham<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Through five years of immersion in what is arguably the \u201choly land\u201d of white evangelicalism in Midwest, USA (i.e. Wheaton has \u201cmore churches per\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/01\/genealogy-of-a-white-american-jesus-from-slave-master-to-billy-graham.html\" \/>\n<meta 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