Dear Christian white brothers and sisters,
I say all of this, with love, and not in hate. Please open your eyes to the painful realities of your African American brothers and sisters. Stop turning a blind eye to our reality, and blaming the media. Stop using God’s name to push your personal convictions and political agendas — God is not a mascot. Stop trying to legitimize our pain before you empathize with it. Stop calling anyone who opposes your conservative ideas divisive. Stop trying to mix white nationalism and globalization, with Christianity. Stop crying censorship – when social media censorship is typically due to harmful, obtuse posts.
Stop saying that those who support different ideas than you “didn’t do their research”. Stop saying unbiblical things and calling yourself a “truth teller”, when your words are masked in ego and carnality. Stop virtue signaling those who are pro-choice for reasons you know nothing about. Stop minimizing the Black Lives Matter movement whilst amplifying the human trafficking issue, when they are both important. Stop using paid, black conservatives to validate your skewed belief systems. Stop virtue signaling “looters” and those who express pain, in a way you don’t agree with. I could go on forever, I really could, because I want you to get this — because I love you.
Don’t you see it? The dangerous mixing of American nationalism and white evangelicalism? “Patriotism is woven into the gospel like an insidious vine, choking out truth and distorting God’s Word into an anthem of entitlement, racism, and white nationalism. As a white Christian, it is your duty to hack away at your cultural bias to excavate through the idea of Jesus in search of the reality of Jesus. There are well documented historical facts about who Jesus is and the events of His life. These facts stand in the air clear above the muck of human interpretation. The Bible warns that followers of Jesus will be persecuted– that people who look like Jesus will be hated and rejected. Maybe that’s true for those who look like him in spirit and appearance. How can you be the hands and feet of Jesus if you don’t fight to protect your neighbors who look the most like Him? — those who wear His skin?” (Nina Rygiol)
You openly call Black Lives Matter a Marxist movement, when 2 years ago, you didn’t even know what Marxism is. It is not a coincidence that there’s a long history of white “Christians” erroneously and dangerously connecting their faith to bigotry, racism, lynching, slavery and nationalism. That connection continues as many sing ‘Amazing Grace’ with hateful ideology in their hearts and Confederate flags in their hands. Isn’t it crazy that white Americans in the 50’s and 60’s used the “Cultural Marxism and Communism” argument to condemn integration? And now that same argument is being used today to condemn social justice and racial equality movements like Black Lives Matter? I get it, Black Lives Matter was started by two, politically liberated, queer women, but what does that have to do with fighting for our lives? For 400+ years black Americans and people of color have cried and grumbled of injustice, and the last 4 years Donald Trump was in office, we have cried all the more. How can you see our cries and our pain and our tears and turn the other cheek? How can you support and vote for a man who refuses to condemn white supremacy? How can you support a man who calls Coronavirus the Chinese virus, inevitably amplifying hate crimes against Asian Americans? How can you be pro-life and not fight for the lives that are already here? How can you condemn ANTIFA and turn a blind eye to the KKK and the “Proud Boys”? How can you see clearly the wrongs of the democratic party, but turn a blind eye to the evils of the republican party? How can you condemn Biden for one, false sexual assault allegation, while Donald Trump has had 22 allegations, and openly disrespects women?
“I’ve watched a surge of people walk away from Jesus in the last few years… Just about ZERO have been lured away by Marxism, liberalism, or atheism, and almost all have “shipwrecked” over the politicizing of Christianity and their church’s hostility towards justice” (Kevin Burgess). People are falling away from the church because of white evangelicalism, not Marxism; and modern day white supremacy being dangerously embedded into your ideologies is the root cause. The truth is, people of color are suffering from church hurt and that has been detrimental to our faith and mental health. How can we trust our white, Christian brothers and sisters when they choose political candidates that do not prioritize our most basic human rights and safety? This is why there is so much division in the church. Black Christians cannot even begin to consider abortion and other important political matters when one party is exceedingly life threatening to us. Black Americans cannot prioritize a pro-life candidate when those candidates don’t protect the black lives that are already alive. We can’t fight for Christian values, if we are pre-occupied with fighting for our lives! (Lynchings, hate crimes, institutionalized racism, etc.)
“Please remember, that Jesus makes it clear that the Kingdom of God is not advanced by worldly means of power, so what makes evangelicals think that the way change happens is by amassing as much political power as possible, regardless of the cost (black lives, racism, bigotry, hate)? That’s not how the Kingdom of God works. Whatever power they’re trying to amass is not the power of God and it’s not necessarily for God’s purposes. When you have to engage in unrighteousness and compromise Godly values to gain power, it’s not the power of God you are desiring. At that point all the talk about using power for God’s purposes just becomes an excuse for using power for your own purposes. If you think you need the power of the world to advance The Kingdom then you don’t understand The Kingdom of God. Now this is not saying that power and institutions are inherently bad and that Christians should not establish or have their hand in them. What I’m saying is that this should not be the main aim by which we think Kingdom advancement occurs and we shouldn’t compromise for it” (Ameen Hudson).
“Regardless, God is going to get what HE wants. He’s above politics. He is above man in office. He is above our feelings. He is above our personal opinions regarding politics in any other matter. He’s above any idea or person. He doesn’t care about whether you’re correct or not regarding a certain situation/ topic, He’s still going to do what HE is set to do. Do remember, if God needed Trump to win a second term, it would’ve happened. Biden won, and it happened on God’s watch! It’s by His power and Glory that His will was set in stone. Regardless of human thinking and ideology, He is in control” (@therealmemie)