5 ms·

I certainly agree that white evangelical christianity in its modern (post-1619) incarnation is so completely entangled with american slavery that they’re indist

I certainly agree that white evangelical christianity in its modern (post-1619) incarnation is so completely entangled with american slavery that they’re indistinguishable. I don’t agree at all that that statement or population is somehow emblematic of “the real religion”, because the unspoken priors there are precisely the sort of white- and christian- centric circular definitions that, for example, white american evangelicals believe and promulgate. It’s giving up the game before you even get started. Tangentially, the sanctification of Dr. King as an american saint is part of an extremely long tradition of blunting the impact of prophets. If you put someone up on a pedestal you add them to a history that is done and somehow over and safe now. We remember “i have a dream” and tacitly conclude that the dream is realized now; we forget that King died largely hated and in the process of screaming against the war and organizing for (mostly white) trash collectors. And we forget that the work never stops. To conclude more hopefully, though, I’d also say that people do keep the flame alive — and, i suspect and pray, we’ll look back at this year as a time when the embers were fanned back up into a flame to get some more work done at a great cost.

sonotathrowaway 6y ago
I don’t want to make any claims as to ‘real religion’, just that religions reflect the values of the communities that hold them. As to American evangelicals I don’t think we have a lot of disagreement, but I remembered an an excerpt from “Letters from a Birmingham Jail” that I thought was very apt: I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious-education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"

sonotathrowaway 6y ago

I don’t want to make any claims as to ‘real religion’, just that religions reflect the values of the communities that hold them. As to American evangelicals I don’t think we have a lot of disagreement, but I remembered an an excerpt from “Letters from a Birmingham Jail” that I thought was very apt: I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious-education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"