On Jimmy Taylor and White Expats — Missionaries Especially
I first encountered the Jimmy Taylor in Uganda story through a now viral video where he was yelling at hotel staff telling them that Uganda hated Jesus, and give him a key to a hotel room now — among other less honorable things. I thought who is his missions agency? I looked it up and found nothing.
I’m a young white male, blond-ish hair, blue eyes. I’ve lived, studied or worked in 10 different countries. Most notably for this story, I lived in China for a year and taught English at a high school.
Within this experience there is something to be learned about Jimmy Taylor, his actions and our world today.
At least weekly, the school in China where I taught was sure to take groups of prospective middle schoolers by my classroom to show that they had a class taught by a US American. The students took pictures of me teaching.
That is when I first became aware of this idolizing of what I come from. I’d like to think I was a good teacher, but I was probably pretty average. In China, everyone loved me, I could go to a bar and not have to pay for drinks. In restaurants people would take pictures of me. I read stories about businesses who would pay random white people to dress up and give speeches at their business meetings.
In my research into this Jimmy Taylor character, I found his Facebook profile and noted a couple of his entries. It seems he had just gone on a trip to India where they worshipped him. His August 3 Facebook status is (spelling errors included):
“Body of Christ
I’m at my final hotel in India.
Bound for Uganda tomorrow.
I haven’t the words to express appreation to Pastor Prim, his wife and children and the Pastors who assisted me
I wasn’t allowed to remove my on shoes.
The Ladies bathed my feet with rose pedals and I became Father.
Humility abounds in India,exceeded by service.
I’m reminded that Love tancends all differences, amen”
One time, in China, a Chinese friend told me that he had some girls who wanted to meet me. Being new I said sure, let’s hang out. They came and treated me like I was a movie star. They probably would have bathed my feet with rose pedals. We had no conversation regarding the way we understood and related to the divine. All they knew was that I was a white male from the US.
I have also had this experience in the US. I grew up very religious and was given the opportunity to speak in evangelical and/or non denominational settings on a number of occasions. Mothers brought their daughters to meet me on many of those occasions. On those occasions I did talk about how I understood and related to the divine, but rarely did any of these non-denominational evangelicals have much interest in that, only that I meet their daughters, as if I was some kind of celebrity.
Here’s my theory with Jimmy Taylor: He’s an expat who became a self-appointed missionary —he doesn’t seem to have a supporting missions agency, not that that is too important. I’m guessing he is a retired ex-pat who combined his white male US identity with God, a concept nearly everyone innately has a (non-uniform) understanding of. He probably went to Uganda and people worshipped him, because he had so much status. He drew a crowd, made some connections, then ended up in India where they worshipped him even further.
He was probably convinced himself that he had some kind of special calling to ministry because people seemed to love him so much.
Then he comes back to Uganda, but he is old news. His special calling fades, and he gets upset. Then in a drunken fit, he lashes out in the video we see going viral. As it has been said: “to the privileged, equality feels like oppression.”
The US (and Europe before it) has spent much time and energy dominating economic systems everywhere, so much so that being associated with these empires, (wealthy white men and those who mimic them) one is perceived to carry their authority and there is a mystique around the globe with one’s association to it.
People in Uganda, India, China or the working class in the US cannot immediately tell if a person is especially rich, they cannot immediately tell if they have a divine connection, but they can spot a wealthy ethnicity and gender, and that is enough. Most of the success of western missionaries (whether supported by an agency or not) is due to this, then interpreted by those western missionaries as favor from God. It’s not.
What we are seeing today is an unravelling of that imagined authority. Pre-dating Christianity, Empires claimed their authority from a God. In the 4th Century AD/CE the Roman Empire appropriated and gave definition to the previously mystic “One True God” of Christianity / Judaism. Western Christendom was created out of Christians who collaborated with the Empire to define God at the Nicene Council and so cast their fortune in with the Western Empires. The legitimacy of this God during the Enlightenment, beginning with Martin Luther then Descartes and Spinoza has been falling apart.
Philosophers and Biblical Scholars like Spinoza and Emerson have refuted this definition, as others from those disciplines have continued to curry favor with the Empires to do the same (see White US Evangelicalism). Secularists have rejected all uses of the term God (while continuing to assign a divine status to profit and/or “science”).
In 19th century German (in particular) Biblical Studies and Philosophy it was a common refrain to refer to a dying God, until in 1882 Nietzsche said in Die Frohliche Wissenschaft or The Gay Science: “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”
The God which was claimed by western society, was dead. And western society, through it’s horrific actions had de-legitimized (or killed) him.
Jimmy Taylor just found that out. Claiming and then beating the corpse of the Western Imperial God yet again.
