{"id":35756,"date":"2017-12-11T18:51:05","date_gmt":"2017-12-11T23:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=35756"},"modified":"2018-01-14T15:30:27","modified_gmt":"2018-01-14T20:30:27","slug":"broken-arrows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2017\/12\/11\/broken-arrows\/","title":{"rendered":"Broken arrows"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

So I was working on a post about Roy Moore \u2014 the disgraced former judge and slavery enthusiast facing multiple, credible accusations of child-molestation who stands poised to be elected the next U.S. senator from Alabama, thanks to overwhelming support from that state\u2019s white evangelical voters. But then I got distracted.<\/p>\n

I got distracted by President Trump\u2019s decision to start tossing lit matches into the tinderbox of the Middle East by announcing that the U.S. recognizes the West Bank city of Jerusalem as Israel\u2019s capital. So I started writing about that, and about how it\u2019s driven by, and being celebrated by, the very same bloc of white evangelical voters who make up Roy Moore\u2019s base of support. But then I got distracted again.<\/p>\n

I got distracted by this:\u00a0\u201cOklahoma preacher arrested with racist prostitute in massage parlor bust<\/a>.\u201d This is the Elmore Leonard\/Frank Peretti mash-up I didn\u2019t even realize I\u2019d been waiting for. But it\u2019s also a story that ties together all the threads connecting all that other stuff about Roy Moore, Donald Trump, Jerusalem, and the Last Days.<\/p>\n

We should clarify here that the preacher was not arrested as a patron of the racist [alleged] prostitute, but as her business partner\/employer. This isn\u2019t a preacher-busted-at-massage-parlor story, it\u2019s a preacher-[allegedly]-owned-and-operated-massage-parlor story.<\/p>\n

Walter Eugene Brazington, Jr., an \u201capostle and prophet\u201d for the All Nations Evangelistic Team<\/a>, is charged in Tulsa County with attempting to \u201cencourage, induce or persuade women to become inmates of a house of prostitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 55-year-old preacher used the same phone number for his ministry and to recruit women for the house of prostitution he operated under the guise of a massage parlor in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, police in that community disclosed.<\/p>\n

Following an undercover investigation, police arrested Brazington late last month, identifying him as the \u201coperator\u201d of the massage parlor, one of several he has owned in recent years. Tiffany Ann Roach, 40, who worked at the establishment, also was arrested.<\/p>\n

Her Facebook page includes images related to white supremacy, including \u201cWhite Girl Pride\u201d and references to \u201c88\u201d \u2014 code for Heil Hitler.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Please don\u2019t mistake me here as saying that the Apostle Brazington is somehow \u201ctypical\u201d of white evangelical preachers. He very much is not<\/em>. Most white evangelical preachers are not also (allegedly) the owners and operators of multiple massage parlors that operate as fronts for prostitution. Nor are the owners and operators of most such massage parlors also white evangelical preachers. The double-life that Walter Eugene has (allegedly) been living is anything but typical.<\/p>\n

We say that Walter Eugene Brazington is a preacher, but that he is only alleged to be<\/em> a pimp. That\u2019s because the latter is a crime and the former is not. We can observe and identify his status as a preacher on our own, but whether or not he has also \u201cencouraged, induced or persuaded women to become inmates of a house of prostitution\u201d is something the courts will have to decide. We can accurately say he has been accused of<\/em> the latter, or that police say<\/em> he is\u00a0suspected<\/em> of it, but his guilt or innocence has yet to be determined on this matter.<\/p>\n

Thus we describe him as a preacher and an alleged pimp, even if the details of the story make it easier for us to think of him as a pimp and, therefore, only an alleged<\/em>\u00a0preacher. That, at least, is how we Christians are inclined to think of him \u2014 how we want<\/em> to think of him. Surely if he was spending half of his double-life running massage parlors as fronts for prostitution, then he can\u2019t have been in any way sincere in the other half of his life where he worked as a revival preacher, Pentecostal<\/a> \u201cprophet,\u201d and \u201cBible prophecy\u201d evangelist. It\u2019s certainly more comfortable for us to assume that \u2014 to\u00a0think he is only an alleged preacher who was, in reality, nothing more than a cynical, Gantry-esque grifter.<\/p>\n

\"Every person on the planet must hear the good news of Jesus Christ before He returns. The greatest harvest of souls and the biggest demonstration of the power of God that the world has ever seen is starting.\" -- Apostle Walter Eugene Brazington Jr.
\u201cEvery person on the planet must hear the good news of Jesus Christ before He returns. The greatest harvest of souls and the biggest demonstration of the power of God that the world has ever seen is starting.\u201d \u2014 Apostle Walter Eugene Brazington Jr.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And that\u2019s entirely possible. It may very well be that Brazington developed a fluent mastery of white evangelical language and culture for no reason other than to prey on believers for financial gain. It may very well be that his \u201cAll Nations Evangelistic Team<\/a>\u201d was\u00a0nothing more than a counterfeit imitation of the tens of thousands of similar white evangelical \u201cministries\u201d it emulated.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a sense in which that doesn\u2019t matter. If it is a counterfeit, it\u2019s a nearly\u00a0perfect<\/em> counterfeit \u2014 one otherwise indistinguishable from the thing it pretends to be. If he\u2019s a fraud, then he\u2019s a fraud whose genuine customers went away genuinely satisfied. (The customers of his All Nations Evangelistic Team revivals, I mean, I can\u2019t speak to the relative satisfaction of his other set of customers.)<\/p>\n

Brazington seems to have compartmentalized his (alleged) criminal life from his (alleged) ministry, but his (alleged) example seems to highlight that these two sides of his double-life are not\u00a0as incompatible as it might seem.<\/p>\n

Yeah, it\u2019s true that the vast majority of Brazington\u2019s fellow white evangelical ministers and ministries would unambiguously condemn operating or patronizing a massage parlor\/brothel. They would consider that an unacceptable sin \u2014 precisely the sort of obvious and intolerable sin that the white supremacy of Ms. Roach is never regarded as. Just like Brazington, they\u2019re perfectly comfortable allying themselves with white supremacists in service of some larger purpose. Their Christian nationalism is wholly compatible with her white nationalism, and doesn\u2019t skip a beat when encountering her white supremacist views.<\/p>\n

Or when encountering Roy Moore\u2019s white supremacist views. Or Jeff Sessons.\u2019 Or Steve Bannon\u2019s. Or Richard Land\u2019s. Or Donald<\/del>\u00a0Douglas Wilson\u2019s. Or Donald Trump\u2019s.<\/p>\n

And a theology that can comfortably accommodate that is a theology that can easily be made to accommodate anything else. Including Brazington\u2019s (alleged) double life.<\/p>\n

This is because the white evangelical Christian nationalism (or just \u201cwhite \u2026 nationalism,\u201d for short) that Brazington preaches is designed specifically to accommodate the sin of white supremacy. The mechanism in this design is universally<\/em> adaptable. It can be used to accommodate, minimize, dismiss, excuse, or even to bless any<\/em> sin.<\/p>\n

Ten years ago I got a lot of pushback whenever I spoke of this in such categorical terms \u2014 \u201cuniversally,\u201d \u201cany.\u201d Surely there must be limits. I would usually concede the point, even though the model didn\u2019t allow for that.<\/p>\n

The whole point of Satanic baby-killers, after all, is that they are a\u00a0superlative evil \u2014 the<\/em> superlative evil. By definition,\u00a0the Satanic baby-killers\u00a0are worse than anything<\/em> else, and therefore anything<\/em> else\u00a0can be minimized and accepted as Not As Bad As the Satanic baby-killers. That is how the model works. That is it\u2019s purpose. It is absolute and categorical.<\/p>\n

But surely its application<\/em> has to have some limit, right? I mean, like, if they attempted to apply it to endorse an actual child-molester<\/em> or something, right?<\/p>\n

I thought that was right.<\/p>\n

I was wrong.<\/p>\n

This is what has been so disconcerting over the past year and a half \u2014 the realization that this model, for those in its grip, can be made to excuse absolutely anything<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the Elmore Leonard\/Frank Peretti mash-up I didn’t even realize I’d been waiting for. But it’s also a story that ties together all the threads connecting all that other stuff about Roy Moore, Donald Trump, Jerusalem, and the Last Days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[28,29,240],"class_list":["post-35756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicals","tag-religious-right","tag-satanic-baby-killers","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nBroken arrows<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This is the Elmore Leonard\/Frank Peretti mash-up I didn't even realize I'd been waiting for. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Broken arrows","description":"This is the Elmore Leonard\/Frank Peretti mash-up I didn't even realize I'd been waiting for. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}