Burying White Privilege

Resurrecting a Badass Christianity

Miguel A. De La Torre

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780802876881
• eBook ISBN:
  9781467453257
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Short. Timely. Poignant. Pointed.  Burying White Privilege is all of these and more. This is the book that everybody who cares about contemporary American Christianity will want to read. 

Many people wonder how white Christians could not only support Donald Trump for president but also rush to defend an accused child molester running for the US Senate. In a 2017 essay that went viral, Miguel A. De La Torre boldly proclaimed the death of Christianity at the hands of white evangelical nationalists. He continues sounding the death knell in this book.

De La Torre argues that centuries of oppression and greed have effectively ruined evangelical Christianity in the United States. Believers and clerical leaders have killed it, choosing profits over prophets. The silence concerning—if not the doctrinal justification of—racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia has made white Christianity satanic. Prophetically calling Christian nationalists to repentance, De La Torre rescues the biblical Christ from the distorted Christ of white Christian imagination.

1

Let the Dead Bury the Dead

Contrary to stereotypes, millennials and Generation Z are neither self-absorbed nor indifferent to the suffering of the world.¹ These generations, generally speaking, abhor hypocrisy and have a deep grasp of right and wrong. The younger generations express genuine concern for the ever-increasing degradation of the environment and the worsening economy, which prevents so many from becoming self-sufficient adults. Meanwhile, far too many baby boomers sit idly by, ready to offer only their critiques. Our nation’s churches could bring forth a powerful word for such a time as this but have instead become convalescent congregations comprised of rapidly shrinking numbers of communicants representing the upper echelons of United States demographics. Not surprisingly, churches have become bastions of indifference and fortresses of the noncommittal.

Lacking vision, churches perish. Millennials are abandoning the church in droves, not because they lack spirituality but because the church has failed them. A 2018 study by the Pew Research Center shows that a higher percentage of millennials categorize themselves as “nones” (36 percent) than as evangelicals (19 percent), mainline (11 percent), or Catholic (16 percent).² Why? I suspect many millennials have a deep grasp of justice and an abhorrence for religious institutions that historically justify oppression—economic oppression, racial oppression, gender oppression, and sexual oppression. According to a 2018 study, 31 percent of millennials and 23 percent of Generation Z reject Christianity in any form because they are repelled by the hypocrisy of Christians.³ They recognize you cannot love the God whom you cannot see while hating your gay neighbor, your “illegal” neighbor, or your Muslim neighbor whom you can see. Not surprisingly, members of Generation Z increasingly embrace atheism at a staggering pace. This move away from the church is not limited to the young, those coming of age during the new millennium. According to a 2017 study by the Pew Research Center, 27 percent of the overall population claims to be “spiritual but not religious,” while another 18 percent state they are “neither religious nor spiritual.” Less than half of the people in this so-called Christian nation (48 percent) would characterize themselves as “religious and spiritual.”⁴

The death of Christianity within the United States has been a slow process, and it may very well be in its final throes. So I say, let the dead bury their dead.

This next generation, which will soon be inheriting the power structures of the United States, recognizes that the barbarians are not at the gate. The barbarians are and always have been the gatekeepers. The next generation gets it! And while some millennials and those of Generation Z can find common ground with the good news, they are turned off by money-grubbing clergy who stand in solidarity with silence and are too fearful of offending the wealthy, older, tithing congregants responsible for their compensation. In the graveyard where Eurocentric doctrines have gone to perish, and where churches act as catacombs and seminaries become cemeteries, cathedrals stand as ossuaries holding the remains of a former religious glory. Yesterday’s glory is today’s tourist destination. Whitewashed tombs may appear gentle on the eye, but they are full of the rotting bones of white theologies, where the stench of all manner of unclean Eurocentric religious theological propositions designed to exclude the spiritual contributions of the world’s colonized offend the nostrils, choking and suffocating those seeking life. These sacred crypts reek with the decay of Eurocentric Christianity, captured by demagogues, and bring forth a foul odor of faith laced with fear and hatred, hoping to procure and secure votes from those whose ears are tickled by patriotic rhetoric. It is worth repeating: such a Christianity—the Christianity of so many Euro-Americans—is dying. Let the dead bury their dead!

Who Is Killing Christianity?

The gospel is slowly dying in the hands of so-called Christians, with evangelicals supplying the morphine drip. Christ’s message of love, peace, and liberation, has been distorted and disfigured by Trumpish flimflammers who made a Faustian bargain for the sake of expediency, whose licentious desire for ultraconservative Supreme Court justices trumped God’s call to judge justly. These Euro-American Christians have made a preferential option for the golden calf over and against the Golden Rule as they revel in an unadulterated power grab, deeming white privilege to be more attractive than waiting for the inheritance promised to the meek. White Christianity has more than a simple PR problem; it is inherently problematic.

When I write white Christianity, you might think that I am generalizing and essentializing a broad Euro-American demographic group based solely on the pigment of their skin. However, ontological whiteness has nothing to do with skin pigmentation. This is important, so I will say it again: the word white in my usage has nothing to do with the color of one’s skin. Instead, it has to do with worldview, a way of being, thinking, and reasoning morally. A white Christian can be black, Latinx, Muslim, or atheist. While it might be easier for those with whiter skin to embrace white Christianity, those of us who would never be considered white by our physical appearance have also had our minds so colonized that it is difficult to break free from this white, Christian milieu. Even when the periphery rebels, it can do so only in conversation with and in relationship to the white, Christian center, as illustrated by this very book. We seek prophets who can raise our consciousness to distinguish the difference between a form of Christianity that has been legitimized and normalized through time in the fiber of the life and culture of the United States and a Christianity based on the words and action of a certain brown, Jewish, Middle Easterner called Yeshua.

One can only cringe when witnessing self-proclaimed religious leaders swap their prophetic voice for the satisfying porridge at the emperor’s banquet table. The votes were counted: 58 percent of Protestants voted for Trump in 2016; 60 percent of white Catholics voted for Trump; 61 percent of Mormons voted for Trump; 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump!⁵ These individuals—Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, and evangelicals—share more than an ethnic identity. They share a cultural identity: white Christian. They voted for a person who promised them power and standing even though his entire life repudiates everything Christ modeled and taught. Those who confess to regularly attending church are among his greatest supporters. False prophets have arisen in the land representing the empty husk of white Christianity as exemplified by Jerry Falwell Jr.’s hustle for Donald Trump, an owner of strip clubs and an unrepentant bedswerver. Infidelity within serial marriage becomes the newest benchmark of virtue as Falwell publicly compares Trump to Jesus Christ. But as troubling as it may be to equate vulgar politicians to Jesus, the Christology they profess tells us more about the political culture from which their Jesus narrative arises than about who Jesus was historically or theologically. These Jesus-creators, in their cosmic fight against whomever they have designated to be the enemies of Christ, implement oppressive structures that politically protect their accumulated privileges. The Jesus whom they create in their own image is, not surprisingly, all too often homophobic, xenophobic, and misanthropic. Such a Jesus celebrates wealth. Such a Jesus builds walls. Such a Jesus separates children from their parents. Such a Jesus fears Muslims. Such a Jesus votes for Donald Trump. MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) disguises itself as WWJD (“What Would Jesus Do?”).

Trump brags about having nothing to ask God to forgive, contradicting the foundational Christian doctrine that everyone falls short of the glory of God. Nonetheless, the guardians of Eurocentric morality, like James Dobson, attempt to convince us that Trump is a “baby Christian.” And while I might agree with the “baby” depiction, I cannot help but doubt the “Christian” part. Like the rich young ruler who was unwilling to use his wealth to alleviate the poverty of the masses, the justifiers of the affluent endanger their claims to the eschatological promises of God when they safeguard and spiritually defend their power and privileges rather than demand justice for the least of these. No one obtains occupancy in heaven without a reference letter from the world’s dispossessed. God’s reign does not belong to the racist, to the sexist, to the homophobic, to the classist, nor to the xenophobic, despite what public profession of faith they may or may not have made. The promises of God are neither for the oppressor nor for those complicit in oppression, regardless of how “churchy” they may be or which commandments they selectively keep. Believing in Jesus is never sufficient, for even the demons believe and tremble at his name. When Jesus encounters the rich young rulers, then and now, he rejects what they claim to believe for what they actually do as a response to the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the alien in our midst, the infirm, and the incarcerated.

The Gospels of Jesus Christ are politically charged, revolutionary documents. Yet many Euro-American religious leaders in megachurches and well-paid theologians in comfortable ivory towers exert great energy to neuter and domesticate the political call for justice that resonates in the words of Jesus. The radicalness of the Gospels—a message usually missed by the privileged living in nice houses within the heart of the empire—is watered down. The Jesus narratives, at their core, are anticolonial literature about a native resident displaced by the invading imperial power. The Gospel narratives depict a careful dance between Rome, the colonizer, and Jesus, the colonized. Not far from the story-telling surface is the real-world dynamic of experiencing the consequences of empire. We see it throughout Jesus’s everyday life and how he responded to the circumstances brought about by the economic and political occupation of Judea. He answered questions concerning paying tribute to Caesar, constantly faced danger for preaching about another reign or kingdom more powerful than the one to which Jews were subjugated, and finally was charged with being a rival sovereign (“king of the Jews”) and sentenced to death. The very audience who first heard the words of Jesus were his colonized compatriots, many of whom held an abiding hatred toward the Roman oppressors. From this colonized space, then and now, the gospel message is shaped and formed. Ignoring this reality leads to false remembrance, if not pure delusion.

This realization of the gospel’s political edge was expressed by Pope Francis as he boarded his plane leaving Mexico for Rome in 2016. He urged the modern-day empire of the United States to address the “humanitarian crisis” on its southern border. This is what religious leaders—regardless of their faith tradition—are called to do; they are meant to urge all of us to be more humane toward our fellow global sojourners. Not surprisingly, then-candidate Trump was appalled that his faith was challenged. Calling the pope’s comments “disgraceful,” Trump goes on to say, “No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man’s religion or faith.”⁶ Because white, evangelical Christianity reduces faith to the individual who depends on a personal relationship with Christ, the communal aspects and responsibilities of the gospel can be disregarded and discarded. Even more bizarre, Jerry Falwell Jr. defends Trump by claiming, “Jesus never intended to give instructions to political leaders on how to run a country.”⁷ Let the sweet irony of his pronouncement sink in for a moment. After all, it was his father, Jerry Falwell Sr., who galvanized the Christian Right as a political religious movement by crusading against civil rights. Specifically, Falwell Sr. railed against Brown v. Board of Education. He denounced Martin Luther King Jr. as a communist subversive. Private Christian schools became the answer for circumventing integration, protecting little, white Sally from sitting next to a black boy.

So who then is the Christian? Is it Trump? Is it Falwell? Is it another spokesperson for Eurocentric nationalist Christianity? Is it the pope? Is it the author of this book? If a tree is known by its fruit, then the answer should be easy to determine. Jesus gives us a vision of a day when the heavens will roll away and the son of humanity returns in all his glory, accompanied by the host of heaven, gathering all the people and separating them as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats. He will invite the sheep to enter the reign prepared for them since the foundation of the earth. “For I was hungry and rather than vote to eliminate the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, you gave me some food to eat. I was thirsty, and rather than condemn me to drink out of Flint’s lead-tainted faucets, you provided me with clean and safe drinking water. I was naked, and rather than criminalize my appearance by passing antivagrancy laws, you clothed me. I was an alien, without proper documentation, and rather than debate whether to build walls—visible or invisible—to separate my brownness from your vanilla suburbs, you welcomed me. I was infirm, wasting away, and rather than attempt to repeal Obamacare, you worked to create a sustainable medical system that could heal me. I was incarcerated, and rather than privatize the prison system, which profits by maintaining high brown and black occupancy, you sought to develop a just judicial system not dependent on profiting off the existence of my dark body.”

When the virtuous, as well as the condemned, ask how their salvation, or lack thereof, was determined, Jesus replies that he himself was the person avoided, ignored, or shunned. Jesus does more than simply show empathy for the poor and oppressed. He does more than simply express some paternalistic concern. Jesus is the poor and oppressed. “Inasmuch as you did it to one of these, the least of my people, you did it to me” (Matt. 25:40).⁸ If you want to gaze into the eyes of Jesus, look into the eyes of the undocumented immigrant caught and abused while crossing artificial borders. If you want to place your hand in the hand of the one who calmed the waters, then shake the hand of the homeless person. The sheep are not separated from the goats by the criteria of which faith tradition they claim, or which house of worship they attend, or which doctrines they profess, or even whether they have made a confession of faith. Sheep and goats are separated by what they did or did not do to the least of these. And truly I say unto you—because of their faithful care for their communities—Muslims, atheists, Buddhists, and Wiccans are entering the kingdom of God ahead of Euro-American Christians.

Christianity in the United States sleepwalks toward apostasy. If the purpose of religious and theological critical thought concerning the personhood of Jesus is to serve humanity by transforming the normative oppressive social structures into the justice-based reality preached by Jesus, then neither Donald Trump nor any other presidential candidate (either Republican or Democratic) comes close. For Euro-American Christians to seek saviors among politicians is to find anti-Christs. To honor the gospel message of liberation, Christians must hold politicians accountable to the demands of justice, not crown them as God’s chosen. If this is true, then we must ask whether those who use, misuse, and abuse the disenfranchised—even if they are running for president—are actually Christians. And more importantly, are those who pledge allegiance to oppressors—even though they call themselves born-again evangelical Christians—saved? Only those who refuse to see would claim that Trump is a Christian. His hubristic claims of being without sin are supported by the use of theocratic mirages to distract and deflect truths. We are told Trump is a Christian because those who claim to speak for God—James Dobson, Jerry Falwell Jr., Tony Perkins, Franklin Graham, and Pat Robertson—say he is. But if these self-appointed mouthpieces for God actually do speak for the divine, then God surely is a simpleton. Where are the erudite sages of yesteryear who struggled with complex theological questions? Can God no longer speak through an Augustine, an Aquinas, or a Teresa of Avila? Are our modern self-proclaimed spokespersons for the divine an indication of God’s shrinking bailiwick? The unsophisticated pronouncements of these ultracrepidarian spokespersons for Euro-American Christianity condemn God to the realm of hackneyed, pollyannish platitudes.

White churchgoers have historically been, and continue to be, the greatest existential hazard for humanity, especially for the dispossessed and disinherited. Since the foundation of the republic, white Christians have reigned supreme in North America by using invasion, genocide, and slavery as instruments of political control. During the 1980s, evangelicals positioned themselves as the moral voice of the nation. This is a constituency who gained a foothold in the political process by helping—contrary to their rhetoric—a divorced actor (deeply interested in astrology!) win the presidency over and against a Baptist Sunday School teacher. Falwell and Graham’s fathers lived during a time when they had a say in political discourse. Those were no doubt evangelicalism’s political golden years, in which personal piety buttressed conservative social positions.

And yet, after years of unchecked hegemony, many white Christians now feel less secure. It has become more difficult to exist in a world being pulled toward inclusion when one has become accustomed, for centuries, to an exalted and exclusive place in society. The birthright of white privilege is being undermined as the previously voiceless are effectively demanding a more pluralistic social configuration. The call to “Make America Great Again” is a demand to return to an era where my brown skin would have relegated me to mopping the floors at my graduate school rather than teaching in its classrooms. The once-powerful religious Right had tremendous sway and power within the GOP (God’s Own Party!) and the nation, and it is natural for those losing their footing to want to reclaim some of their standing. But at what price? When we remember that the message of the biblical prophets usually revolved around the theme of economic justice, or that Jesus spoke more about money than any other topic, we are left dumbfounded by the failure of Christian churches (evangelical and mainline), who claim to be Bible-believing disciples within prosperous nations, to broach one of the main themes (if not the main theme) of the biblical text: justice.

Our quest is for a Jesus not captured by the dominant Eurocentric culture. The white Jesus is damning to the disenfranchised. The world’s dispossessed search for a Jesus who resonates specifically with those excluded by the hegemonic Eurocentric Christianity. The Jesus of the United States of America to whom Donald Trump and his apologists bend their knees can never save the disenfranchised who are consigned to the underside of whiteness. The crucial first step toward saying yes to God, yes to salvation, yes to liberation, and yes to our communities is to say no to oppression masked by a nationalist Christianity draped in the Stars and Stripes.

Embracing Hypocrisy

Values and virtues seem to matter only when they can be hurled at opposing candidates. Protectors of family values who once feigned righteous indignation over “scandalous” photos of Michelle Obama’s armpits offer multiple mulligans to a Manhattan sybari...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• 1. Let the Dead Bury the Dead
• 2. The Fallacy of Whiteness
• 3. Maintaining and Sustaining Self-Deception
• 4. Badass Christianity
• Notes