Natalie's Narrative

Privilege and silence of white "beyond evangelicals"

Encouraging things are happening within U.S. evangelicalism.  No longer solely aligned with Religious Right politicians, six-day creationists, anti-gay movements, and other conservative-leaning groups, many evangelicals are questioning the status quo.  We're concerned about the environment and poverty, and have moved away from a premilennial dispensationalism that disregards the now.  Rather than dish out condemnation, we've learned to be more willing to extend grace.  

Various labels describe these movements: emergent, missional, progressive.  Frank Viola chose the name "beyond evangelical."  I'm conflating several different strains here, but the general direction has been away from the evangelicalism that emerged in opposition to modernism.

While these developments are encouraging, I've noticed most progressive evangelicals are no different from their predecessors when it comes to race.  The heavy-hitters in these movements are white, and the privilege that comes with being white remains even in the new evangelical streams.

Efrem Smith often points this out, and I've shared how evangelicalism's growth was spurred by corresponding growth of white suburbia and its racist underpinnings.  If you follow Anthony Bradley on Twitter, he also provides great critiques of evangelicalism's whiteness, and Lisa Sharon Harper discusses the black-white divide here.

What most determines what progressive evangelicals believe or what they feel worth promoting is not their faith.  The dividing line is actually race.  

A great illustration of this color line is the death penalty.  Attorneys have meticulously researched the psychology behind jury selection.  Researchers have found that "similar religious beliefs can lead to completely opposite policy preferences among respondents of different racial backgrounds." Black evangelicals are more inclined to oppose the death penalty than white evangelicals, who are more likely to support it.¹ 

Although it's fair to say that most of these new kinds of white evangelicals have reconsidered their stance on the death penalty, to have a more consistent pro-life ethic, another illustration of the color line between white evangelicals, including the more progessive ones, and Christians of color is happening right now.  

Natalie Burris ‏ @natalieburris

Such a color line in my timeline re: Trayvon Martin. Who do you think is tweeting about his murder, who do you think has made barely a peep?

Yes, Twitter is anecdotal and unscientific.  But the radio silence from white evangelicals - even the more progressive ones - is disappointing.  White evangelicals yield a lot of influence, politically, economically, and in the media, enjoying massive amounts of privilege.  Invisible Children's recent "Kony 2012" campaign demonstrated that earnest, well-meaning, young evangelicals are capable of spurring world leaders to action and causing 100 million hits on a YouTube video.

 

But when the uproar over the murder of a black child, Trayvon Martin, goes viral, most white evangelicals are silent.  Despite adhering to a religion that came from the margins, many white evangelicals' privilege keeps them silent.  White evangelicals are oblivious to the invisible knapsack of privilege they carry around.  Most don't have to worry if their children will be shot when returning from the corner store.  Most don't even have to think about race itself.

Whiteness is neutral, the air they breathe.  White evangelicals can remain oblivious to the injustices that people of color face in the U.S.

Sadly, their whiteness, rather than their faith, is what informs their thinking.  Here's another take on the color line:

Blacks [...] support the death penalty less than any other major social group (about fifty-eight percent in the 1998 election survey), largely because they are keenly aware of the way in which capital sentencing values the lives of black victims and offenders less than those of their white counterparts.  More white conservative Christians would be likely to appreciate this flaw at the heart of the system if they interacted more with their black brothers and sisters. 

[...]

[M]any black leaders are skeptical of [white evangelicals' efforts to add black members to their churches]. In their view, such contacts have gone on for years, are largely symbolic, and have not increased white suburban evangelicals' concern about the situation of racial minorities or the needs of the inner cities.  Black leaders remark that whites want to form individual friendships with blacks, but that they balk at confronting social and political issues such as inequality in the economy and racism in the criminal justice system.²

Trayvon Martin's murder is a major issue in the African-American community.  It must hurt deeply to see a group as influential as white evangelicals not take initiative to spread the word, despite taking very energetic initiative recently to "make Kony famous."

White "beyond evangelicals:" if you haven't tweeted, blogged, signed a petition, or otherwise promoted the unjust circumstances surrounding Trayvon Martin's murder, I'm interested to know why.  As you can tell from the absence here on my blog, I've been busy, so I understand many simply don't have time to react to every current event.  But many are online all day, and many have smartphones.  

I also have a broader question: do you know any people of color?  If not, why not?  Do you actively make efforts to read or listen to perspectives from Christians of color?  If not, why not?

I'm curious about the general silence from my fellow white Christians with regard to Trayvon Martin. This silence should give us pause.  Let's examine whether our whiteness is the most important factor in our lives, rather than our faith in a subversive Christ.  And to white evangelicals who push against the status quo: let's keep pushing.

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¹ Melynda J. Price, Performing Discretion or Performing Discrimination: Race, Ritual, and Peremptory Challenges in Capital Jury Selection. 15 Mich. J. Race & L. 57, 87-8 (Fall 2009).

² Thomas C. Berg, Religious Conservative and the Death Penalty. 9 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 31, 58 (2000).

Pro-life evangelicals and prior inconsistent statements

The Gospel Coalition blog recently rounded up some evangelical leaders' calls for civil disobedience. Requiring religious employers to provide health insurance that covers contraception (regardless of who actually pays for it), is effectively forcing pro-life Christians to violate their conscience. These evangelicals claim that some of the drugs to be covered are abortifacients.

Such violation of religious liberty will not stand.  These men, along with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, are so concerned about human life that they will not tolerate even the most remote connection to birth control that results in the ending of even the most basic forms of human life.  Innocent, defenseless lives are at stake here.

Chuck Colson says he loves his country, "but I love my God more . . . I've made up my mind---sober as that decision would have to be---that I will stand for the Lord regardless of what my state tells me."  

Rick Warren so bravely proclaimed, "I'd go to jail rather than cave in to a govement mandate that violates what God commands us to do."  

Richard Land and Barrett Duke wrote an impassioned call to Christians to oppose this measure, which is an "affront to all people who are pro-life" (emphasis added).

I'm in my last semester of law school, and have been trained to impeach witnesses up on the stand because of a little something called a "prior inconsistent statement."  Our justice system is so concerned with the credibility of witnesses that we have carved out an exception to hearsay rules, which normally prohibit out-of-court statements, so that those words can be used against witnesses if they make previous inconsistent statements.  Once the witness is confronted with the inconsistency, she is impeached and her word is no longer credible.  

To me, Colson, Warren, and Land have lost credibility based on their prior inconsistent statements about their support of innocent, defenseless human lives and whether they would put the state before their faith in God.

In 2003, when the Bush administration was preparing to pre-emptively invade another country, many evangelical leaders offered their support, or at least helped justify, this military action, which resulted in over 100,000 documented Iraqi civilian deaths.  When allegations later surfaced that the U.S. military was using an especially heinous form of torture on prisoners of war, some evangelical leaders again stepped up to help justify torture.

Chuck Colson reasoned that "if a competent authority honestly believed that [torture] was the only way to get information that might save the lives of thousands, I believe he would be justified."  Yes, this is the same Chuck Colson that you just read about above, who proclaimed that while he does love his country, he wouldn't let his state get in the way of his stand for the Lord.  

Rick Warren, in 2008, performed some post-hoc rationalization for the Iraq invasion, despite the Bush administration's later-disproved reasons for invading in the first place: "whether or not they found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is beside the point."  Yes, this is the same Rick Warren who valiantly rails against a government who makes us violate God's commands.

Richard Land stated in 2006 that the Iraq war "was just; I think it was one of the more noble things we've done."  Yes, the same Richard Land who, as we saw above, so passionately protested against government action that is an affront to people who are pro-life.

None of these men offered such an unequivocal statement in support of innocent, defenseless human lives when the U.S. decided to invade Iraq and later sanction torture.  No one called for civil disobedience when reports started pouring in of civilian deaths, or of the U.S.'s best and brightest being blown up by roadside bombs, or of those same best and brightest being driven to suicide once they're home, or of the estimated 900,000 Iraqi women who are now widows.

Such duplicity disgusts me.  I know no one is perfect and that stances change, and I'm certainly not claiming to be perfect.  But such pompous calls for civil disobedience simply make my stomach turn.  I can't help but think of the death and destruction in Iraq that was abetted by some U.S. evangelicals.  The juxtaposition doesn't sit well with me, and I have a feeling it doesn't sit well with many other people in my generation.  

If you want to make valiant, impassioned, public calls to put your faith in God before your obedience to the government, at least be consistent.  Because if not, even an inexperienced law student would have you impeached on the stand in a heartbeat.

Wheaton problems, evangelical problems

It wasn't until my senior year at Wheaton, in 2005, that my friends and I signed up for Facebook.  "Status updates" weren't yet an option.  Twitter wasn't even launched until after I graduated from Wheaton.  This means that my peers and I didn't have an instant social media forum to share our opinions.

Even in our oh-so-ancient pre-Twitter era, we still found a way to communicate, converse, and share opinions on campus, but I bet the advent of smartphones and easily-accessible social media has dramatically changed how information flows in such a tight-knit community.  One such change is students tweeting during chapel services, using the #chapeltweets hashtag.

Each February, usually in honor of black history month, Wheaton has a chapel dubbed "Rhythm and Praise," in which students (of all backgrounds, but the majority are black) lead a "gospel-style" worship service.  Keep in mind that the college is overwhelmingly white, with very few students of color.  Last Friday, some white students sent out a series of racially insensitive and derisive tweets during this particular chapel.  Noah Toly, an urban studies professor and director of the Urban Studies Program, summarized the tweets here.

My heart is heavy for the students who led worship that day.  I can't imagine how painful it must be to know that your fellow Christians take your worship style lightly, or wish for a return to business-as-usual. 

As I'm no longer on campus, I don't want to portray the events incorrectly.  However, I did want to comment on many white students' and alumni's responses I've seen online.  What may seem like an isolated incident at a Christian college reveals, to me, a bigger issue within white evangelicalism as a whole.  One white professor thinks we should be quiet about the incident, because "talking it out" sometimes piles on to the hurt.  One presumably white alum sees nothing wrong with stating a preference toward "traditional" worship styles.

White evangelicals have a complicated, uncomfortable history with our black neighbors, and we don't come to a historically-neutral table.  Christian Smith has asked believers to "stop excluding, dismissing, discounting, and ignoring other Christians" who don't belong to their own "in-group."  Speaking of in-groups, many white evangelicals have created an "insider" culture, with our own unwritten grammar of conduct and nuances of cultural idiom.  

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a preference for a European or white U.S. American style of worship.  But when we white evangelicals convince ourselves that our worship services, music, preaching style, and other aspects of church life are simply "neutral" or "traditional," we effectively shut out Christians of color, even if excluding others is not our intent.  When Christians of color point out how hurtful it can be to "joke around" about a particular worship style--even when the comment was made with no harm intended--a defensive response only makes the wound grow deeper.  

Anthropology professor Brian Howell, who was extremely influential during my own time at Wheaton, explains that a seemingly neutral statement or preference can still perpetuate hurtful racism, even if the person who makes such a statement or has such a preference isn't a racist:

When someone listens to gospel music and declares it "disorganized," (true example from #chapeltweets), he may just be intending to say that he doesn't know where to look; there's a lot going on; he is confused. At the level of intention and reference, nothing racial there. But indexically there are some layers here. Mind you, the performance in question did not involve people forgetting the lyrics, bumping into each other, or not knowing who should step up to the mic. At that level it was orderly. But it was more complex than some other (European based) forms of music. To call it "disorderly" is to make a comparison. To what? To "orderly" worship. To "normal" worship. To "white" worship. 

On a broader scale, I wonder what white evangelicals could learn from this teachable moment.  Perhaps we could realize that worship styles and church services are not race-neutral.  Worship and the theology that underlies it are rooted in a specific context, which includes race.  White evangelicals may not think our views about church or worship have a racial influence. We instead consider them race-neutral.  Only allowing space or only legitimizing white, suburban, middle-class preferences, then, can speak volumes. 

When it comes to worship, one of the most vulnerable times in the practice of one's faith, perhaps we should unpack our preferences and question our assumptions, as Dr. Howell mentioned.  What seems completely natural to one group of believers may have a different meaning for another.  At the foot of the cross, why would we make value judgments or insist that one's preferences are somehow neutral?