Deconstructing Evangelicals: Let’s Move Towards Our Historically Estranged Siblings
The past couple weeks I’ve been dipping in and out of a book titled From Bible Belt to Sunbelt that describes the history of the Christian Right’s development from the Bible Belt in the US American South to the US Sunbelt, which includes a center of power in Southern California, where my family of origin has been located for three generations. I was thinking about conversations I’ve had with so many deconstructing US evangelicals when I read this paragraph:
“…evangelicalism’s politicization was a product of an earlier time made possible by an earlier generation, a generation that came of age on the West Coast during [Franklin] Roosevelt’s time, not Reagan’s.”
Like so many others during Roosevelt’s years (1933–1945), my family moved to Southern California from western Kentucky/Missouri. There were historical movements of previous generations that gave our parents’ generation the opportunities they had. During World War 2 the government invested in developing the West Coast to fortify against possible attacks, and the jobs in Southern California paid twice as much as other jobs in the nation. Many moved from other parts of the country for those jobs, and many people were set up to succeed/fail on the basis of race, class, and gender. We live downstream from choices made by the generations before us. It is a simple fact that rather than invest in things like affordable housing, education, or healthcare, our ancestors chose to fund things like war projects around the world. Those decisions have results.
Previous generations (sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously) built foundations on the backs of pushing out Native Americans, exploiting and often excluding African, Asian, and Hispanic Americans, demanding that women take care of the man’s house, and seeing LGBTQ people as broken. Those societal building blocks were often cloaked in Christian terms, claiming a divine/historical justification. It allowed many white men to flourish and their subordinates to subsist so long as the status quo remained. These men often cite their hard work as justification, but if hard work was the only requirement for financial success, African women would be the wealthiest people on earth.
We, the children of those generations, were encouraged to take their Christian premises seriously, and many of us realized the movements they operated in were hypocritical regarding minorities of race, class, and gender. Those who sang, “red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight” and pledged “liberty and justice for all” relied on historical exclusion and exploitation of BIPOC, women, and LGBTQ people… essentially anyone that wasn’t useful to the dominant class of white men. Through much study and wide conversation, I have come to realize previous US American generations weren’t even particularly well-informed Christians. Does the Christianity of people like William Apess, Walter Rauschenbusch, Jane Addams, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, and Oscar Romero count?
What is particularly egregious for us is that because earlier generations did not set up justice and equality to succeed, it means there are few opportunities for genuine, justice-based self-realization. Our parents’ generation spent their social energy defending the top 1% while taking the loans offered to finance ever-growing consumerist appetites. They built their houses upon the sand.
Neoliberalism is the word to describe the social consensus in the western world from the early 1980s until today. It gives a provisional “ok” to identity politics, i.e. we’ll paint “Black Lives Matter” on the street, but we won’t do anything to disrupt the historical exclusion of Black people and others from opportunities. Rather than seeing historical marginalization of all people, neoliberalism uses its best intentions to selectively highlight small groups of individuals when it becomes expedient. Unfortunately this creates a fight between marginalized groups to prove who is most deserving of these bits of charity. Many marginalized groups will too often seek and take a position of power rather than the pledged promise of liberty and justice for all.
Neoliberalism, whether of a conservative or liberal variety, will not participate in liberty and justice for all but instead ignores social history and blames individuals for their poverty. No one is perfect, therefore we blame ourselves.
It’s a disappointing situation and few want to consider it. We have the highest suicide and depression rates in recorded history. It is not a coincidence that millions of people are experiencing depression at the same time. Rather than face the generational conundrum we live in, we cling to the individualist solutions offered: “I will learn to find joy in the small things,” “I need to work harder,” etc.
What is happening in neoliberalism is similar to what conservative Christianity did: it substituted piety and self-discipline for paying attention to the hungry, thirsty, naked, stranger, prisoner, and “helping orphans and widows in their distress.” It’s not that piety/self-discipline is bad, but it is a poor substitute for James 1’s “pure and undefiled religion” of “caring for orphans and widows in their distress.” All systems whether exclusionary/exploitative or inclusionary/emancipatory can use pious and self-disciplined adherents.
Matthew records Jesus saying he cared less whether you said “Lord, Lord” to him than if you paid attention to the hungry, thirsty, naked, stranger, and prisoner, i.e. asked the question, “What is excluding the outcasts?”
We too often accept identity-based self-realization actions, hoping that they will fulfill us. These are poor substitutes for creating a society that makes it easier for people to do good.
In reality, self-realization is in the long, slow work of being maladjusted to injustice: trying to civilly disobey the contexts we were supposed to flourish in. I say trying to civilly disobey because as we have seen in 2020, like early US American revolutionaries, some have given up on the “civil” part. It took violence for George Washington to overthrow the British tyranny, it took violence for slavery to come to an end, will it take more violence before today’s minorities are heard?
That being said there were some splits in history that offer opportunities for us. I’ll follow a template given by the German Pastor Martin Niemoller in his poem summarizing how Nazism came to power:
Stories of our Historical Estrangement:
A movement of people in the 1800s realized that the US, Haitian, and French revolutions in the late 1700s were incomplete: while overthrowing tyrannical colonizing monarchs, they did nothing to stop those who had control of money-making enterprises from exploiting those who did not. Instead of prioritizing the privately wealthy/capital, people in these movements prioritized the whole society/community–they said everyone had a right to have their basic needs met. This generation was successful in ridding the western world of race-based slavery, but unsuccessful in removing slavery by other names.
The movements toward society/community were often united under the banner of socialism/communism, and in many of its 19th (and subsequent 20th) century manifestations, it drew a line against religion. Socialism/Communism is not perfect, especially in its 20th century forms. For many reasons it mixed its liberatory spirit with oppressive actions. Nevertheless, many people, such as Rosa Luxemburg, Eugene Debs, Charles Sheldon, Albert Einstein, Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, and others who cared about the hungry, thirsty, naked, stranger, prisoner moved towards socialist/communist movements. As MLK said, Christianity failed to see it had the revolutionary spirit.
At the same time these movements were gaining steam, new forms of Christianity were used to justify the actions of those who owned money- making enterprises. The French philosopher Blaise Pascal said of human history, “Unable to fortify justice, we justify force.” It is always profitable to create a justification for the powerful; it is much easier than advocating for the outcast.
Therefore capital used religion to oppose socialism/communism. Between capital, religion, and enough corruption and lack of imagination of its own, large-scale socialist/communist movements collapsed in the early 1990s.
The choice was made before we were born to exclude us from reformers/revolutionaries who operated in socialist/communist networks. Today some of these movements may be places for us to come alongside and make a better world.
Trade Unions and Social Workers
In the late 19th century, trade unions formed, with social workers following shortly after. These are still existing (imperfect) movements towards justice, but if our heritage stems from the influence of D.L. Moody’s Bible Institute, or other non-denominational and Southern Baptist counterparts, the choice was made for many of us before we were born to exclude us from these movements for justice. Trade unions and social work are not perfect movements, but they do represent opportunities to come alongside and work with them towards liberty and justice for all.
Liberal Christianity
In the early 20th century, fundamentalism was formed by the Union/76 Oil magnate Lyman Stewart to oppose so-called modernist or liberal Christianity. Powerful people were afraid of the implications of new historical/scientific ideas such as evolution and new ways of reading the Bible as an ancient library. If our heritage relies on a so-called “plain” or “literal” reading of scripture, the choice was made before we were born to exclude us from liberal Christianity. Liberal Christianity is not perfect, but it is something for us to come alongside and work with toward liberty and justice for all.
Interreligious Dialogue
I look to the accomplished Christian theologians James Cone and Richard Rohr for definitions of Christianity: Cone says, “A Christian is one who strives for liberation” and Rohr, “Solidarity with the larger pain of the world is what it means to be Christian.” These definitions reflect Jesus’ warning that many who say “Lord, Lord” are not part of his movement. Jesus’ message is firmly in the tradition of prophets like Hosea who said that it is mercy, not sacrifice, that the divine wants, and Amos who cried away with your noisy hymns and instead let a river of justice flow, and Isaiah who warned that God will not listen to your prayers if you have the blood of orphans and widows on your hands.
Using this definition of Christian, there were other even larger “Christian” movements we were excluded from, namely the vast networks of justice and emancipation which are not perfect but go under the banners of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, and Indigenous traditions.
Can we find our brothers and sisters in these networks? Will we disengage when we discover they are not perfect? Must we reinvent the wheel or are there ways to join those already in pursuit of the powerful call in history written on our hearts, traditionally called the divine?
While individualist solutions for self-realization are not bad, they are a poor substitute towards these generational efforts at transforming societal structures. It may be that our call is like William Apess, Walter Rauschenbusch, Jane Addams, MLK, Dorothy Day, and Cesar Chavez to lay a foundation for the next generation. That involves helping our parents’ generation see the exclusion and exploitation that created their way of life. If the older generation doesn’t hear this message, dust off your shoes and move to the next town.
To those of you in communist, socialist, trade union, social work, liberal Christian and other traditions, will you welcome your estranged siblings into your ongoing work? We are not perfect either.
Considering again Cone and Rohr’s definition of Christian, I conclude with the Apostle Paul’s thesis in his letter to the Romans: “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.” For our sisters and brothers in inclusion and emancipation worldwide, we strive to save the world alongside you, not to condemn it or the language and tradition you use.
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