Week Two—Holding Faith in Divided Times: Your Neighbor Doesn’t Live Next Door
Our time together this week was formed around the question asked of Jesus in Luke 10: “who is my neighbor?” The essence of white nationalism is who is in, and who is out. And so “Who is my neighbor?” becomes the most central question to our faith and democracy today.
How we are formed by our picture of God
My favorite theologian, Greg Boyd, tells us the greatest predictor of the quality of your life is the picture you have of God. I am convinced this is a significant nugget of wisdom, and in fact is my primary motivator in offering this workshop.
If your picture of God is controlling and unyielding, that’s what you’ll take into the world—domination and authoritarianism. If your picture of God is detached from our human suffering– perhaps even thinks of humans as deserving of death for our wickedness—that influences how you’ll treat your neighbors.
But when our picture of God is framed by Jesus as the one who comes to us in love and compassion, to rescue us from fear and shame and death—that’s what we take into the world. When you see Jesus as a servant, coming with a very different notion of a non-coercive power, that shapes how we live and love our neighbors.
I believe Boyd’s warning can be seen in the rise of Calvinist theology in American evangelicalism. We can see this in the Westminster confession which says God is: “without passions, immutable... most sovereign dominion over (his creatures), to do by them, for them, or upon them, whatsoever himself pleaseth... By the decree of God... some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life and others fore-ordained to everlasting death.” The Gospel Coalition includes similar statements in its confessional statement.
When one’s view of God is so centered around controlling power, it’s inevitable that will be lived out in all sorts of human relationships, including authoritarian ecclesiastical structures. In many evangelical churches, a dominant pastor speaks with almost divine authority. Similarly, these same churches often reject egalitarian relationships, and instead favor complementarianism: the notion that only men should exert leadership in both church and home. The Gospel Coalition’s confession writes, “men and women are not simply interchangeable... God ordains that they assume distinctive roles... the husband exercising headship... and the wife submitting to her husband...The distinctive leadership role within the church given to qualified men is grounded in creation, fall, and redemption and must not be sidelined by appeals to cultural developments.”
Henri Nouwen writes: "What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life. Jesus asks, 'Do you love me?' We ask, ‘Can we sit at your right hand and left hand in your Kingdom?’”
In contrast, the view of God we see in Jesus as the suffering servant, is lived out in every area of life, from the way we treat one another to the way we treat the earth’s valuable resources. Boyd suggests we reflect the image of God when we reject domineering, controlling “power over” in favor of non-coercive “power under,” serving one another in sacrificial love.
This is a theme we will come back to often as we explore the impact of our view of God on the way we live out our life together.
Authoritarian Reactionary Christianity
So how did we get here? Why are we so often drawn to the seductive lure of power, even to the extent of sacrificing our freedom?
David Gushee uses the term Authoritarian Reactionary Christianity (ARC) to describe the anti-democratic movements we’re seeing now in the US. Each of those three terms help define and explain what we’re seeing:
1. Authoritarian: rejects or weakens democracy, condones violence against opponents, curtails civil rights, patriarchal, centralized top-down power, compels submission to authority
2. Reactionary: a reaction to social change, opposes “liberalism” and “secularism,” nostalgia for the past and despair for the present, rejects egalitarianism, seeks to “take back the nation,” binary good vs evil in which liberals are the enemy
3. Christianity: politicians use Christian rhetoric, want to impose Christianity on the culture, seek Christian power and influence, oppose religious diversity. Advocates traditional values on gender and sexuality. Is apocalyptic, sees the nation as “chosen” or holy land
Gushee points out that ARC is a counter-revolution—a reaction to the cultural revolutions that began in the 1960s around gender, sexuality, marriage, race, immigration, media, technology, patriotism, war, abortion, contraception, etc.
This pattern can be seen at other times throughout history, and helps make sense of conservative Christian support of problematic authoritarian leaders. They perceive that Christians are at war, and in a war, you behave differently. You don’t compromise, you’re more aggressive. You don’t negotiate until you’ve won.
The pattern is not unique to the U.S. Gushee outlines authoritarian reactionary politics in other places: France leading up to WW2 (1877–1944), Poland, Hungary, Brazil, and others. Two I found particularly interesting are Germany and Russia.
In the early 20th c., German biblical scholars were at the forefront of the historical-critical method of biblical interpretation (the more modern way of reading the Bible in its historical and literary context that most seminaries teach today). This was interpreted by some as a weakening of Christianity, leading to feelings of uncertainty. So these Germanic ideologues sought to create national unity through a new Germanic quasi-Christian religion—the Deutsche Christen (DC) movement of the 1920s. The DC movement embraced Naziism and Hitler as a way to strip Protestant churches of their “Jewish” elements. This was opposed by Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, leaders of the Confessing Church. The movement included several themes that we see emerging today in the US: romantic idealism about the past, elevation of rural culture over urban (“blood and soil”), belief in the cultural superiority of Germany as ordained by God, strongman rule, and the myth of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy toward world domination.
Similarly, under Vladimir Putin, Russia has become what Gushee describes as “a personalist authoritarian state, ruled by one man with no current provision for a successor. There are no real elections, no free media, no independent judiciary, no political pluralism, no unhindered opposition leaders and parties.”
Putin has received crucial support for his authoritarian rule, including for the war in Ukraine, from the Russian Orthodox Church. Putin claims to be “the defender of traditional Christian values.” The Russian Orthodox patriarch Krill is the only major religious leader to support the invasion. They both see Ukraine as key to their interests, with the Russian Orthodox patriarch seeing gaining control over Ukraine essential to obtain preeminence in the Eastern Orthodox world. To do this, the patriarch has tied the invasion to his opposition to homosexuality—he suggests Putin is freeing Dornbos from having to tolerate gay pride parades. Homosexuality is portrayed as a symbol of godless decadence.
Why this is a threat to the nation but also to the Church:
All of this is a threat to democracy and to our unity as a nation. But it is also a threat to Christianity, to the health of the church and our ability to reflect the counter-cultural nature of the Kingdom of God.
Greg Boyd writes: “The evangelical church in America has, to a large extent, been co-opted by an American, religious version of the kingdom of the world. We have come to trust the power of the sword more than the power of the cross. We have become intoxicated with the Constantinian, nationalistic, violent mindset of imperialistic Christendom.…
Whenever Christians have gotten what so many American evangelicals today are trying to get—namely, the power to enforce their righteous will on others—it eventually harms the church as well as the culture. The lesson of history, a lesson the Devil has known all along, is this: The best way to defeat the kingdom of God is to empower the church to rule the kingdom of the world—for then it becomes the kingdom of the world! The best way to get people to lay down the cross is to hand them the sword!” —Greg Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Nation
White privilege and racism
Another key component of white Christian nationalism is racism. Here I recommend the work of Christian scholar Soong-Chan Rah. His books The Suburban Christian and Prophetic Lament both are excellent resources.
Rah defines white privilege as: “the system that places white culture in American society at the center with all other cultures on the fringes... the primary standard by which all other cultures are judged.” Note that because white culture is centered it becomes invisible—it is the “water in which we’re swimming.” That very invisibility is what gives power to white privilege. It becomes insidious, working under the radar. Its invisibility fosters the belief that those who succeed do so because of their own intelligence, hard work, or drive, rather than recognizing the role privilege may have played in their success.
Both Rah and Gushee talk about the “privatization” of faith—in which faith is seen as an internal, personal experience, not a communal expression. And so evangelicals think of “racism” only in terms of individual sin, of which no individual is guilty, since none of us committed the original racist acts. Its easy to dismiss our personal involvement, and ignore our corporate responsibility for sin. Rah reminds us that while we may not have individually committed a personal sin against persons of color, we have benefitted from the past atrocities. We are marked by racism as “America’s original sin.”
The role of proximity
In ch. 2 of his book, Jim Wallis highlights a significant tool for overcoming the toxic threat of racism and white Christian nationalism: proximity. He notes that in the U.S., our pathways are “deliberately determined by race, economics, and culture. Our geographies are planned, by public policy, to segregate us from one another, to separate us from those who are different from us, the ones Jesus calls us to love.”
But intentionally breaking through those barriers and finding ways to build relationships with those who differ from us, can help us to build empathy and fight the toxic effects of racism and insularity. Even widening the books and media we consume to include diverse first person testimonies can be beneficial. Proximity—getting to know someone personally— can change our views by helping us move from “political issues” to seeing the real persons behind the issues. Wallis writes, “Proximity is what creates the concern, understanding, solidarity and even action to change.... Proximity is what most often creates understanding, empathy, and compassion... Proximity changes perceptions.”
Lord, help us to draw near. Open our eyes to the barriers that keep us from seeing the beautiful diversity of the world you created. Open our hearts to care and love deeply. Help us build bridges to a world as diverse, as beautiful, as filled with life and color, as the one you created and desire for us. Amen.
Preparing for next week
This week we will read together ch. 3 of Wallis’ The False White Gospel and meditate on Gen. 1:26-27. We will focus on humans as created in the image of God.
As we prepare to discuss the controversial Project 2025, we will begin with an opening question: describe your first time voting, or a memorable election.
As we closed our time together this week, I shared some wisdom from my friend Pastor Rebecca Stringer. Pastor Rebecca urged us to guard our hearts in the days and weeks ahead as we draw near to the election. To resist the lure of fear, anger, and violence. And so she urges us to ask, “What is one healing or peacemaking action I can take right now?”
She offers several helpful suggestions: reaching out with kindness and care to a neighbor or coworker who flies a particular flag in their yard or car, or unfollowing a group or person who riles you up and makes you angry with those who vote differently. It might mean intentionally cultivating relationships with people who view the world differently than you. It might mean taking care of your body– going for a walk, breathing deeply, reading the Psalms, eating something nutritious. She reminds us that “peace begins from within and is itself a defiant act against the powers of violence and dehumanization.”
I love her thoughtful and wise words. So I’m going to return to this question each time we gather: What is one healing or peacemaking action you were able to take this week?