Soul Searching

After a recent conversation, I have been thinking about my disillusionment with the white evangelical church, and why it lies so deep. I think I have at least a partial explanation:

Over the course of my lifetime, our society has become aware of its history of systemic racism, sexism, and how we have marginalized and disadvantaged categories of people (LGBTQ community, handicapped, etc). We have made more or less successful attempts to right those wrongs. We have also realized that the demographics of our country are dramatically changing - by 2045 it is projected that people of color will become the majority of the US population. 

The white evangelical church has not led us in grappling with the way we have and do marginalize people. She has not helped us learn to live in a pluralistic society. She has not been willing to face the way her use of power and authority have damaged and traumatized individuals (e.g. sexual abuse) and groups. She has not tried to understand how the early church faced persecution as a minority group and helped us follow that lead as we have faced whatever “persecution” (e.g. being “forced” to use pronouns or bake cakes) we claim we face. 

Instead, she has doubled down on her longtime doctrines and practices. She claims more and more stridently that she has the “truth” of God’s Word, and that ”truth” is often a binary - black and white. It becomes clear who is in and who is out. The exclusion of today is not subtle, as it was when I was growing up. Back then, we did not know anyone who was Black, gay or trans, Democrat, or even atheist. So we could ignore them. Now we proclaim from the pulpits and in lengthy (weekly or daily) podcasts that certain groups are definitely “out”. 

This movement also has a subtle twist to it: by pursuing the goal of bringing us back to where we used to be - either the 50s of the last century or all the way back to the Founding Fathers -  we hold up our way of life as the norm, sending the message that we have the “truth” and the “good”, and thus should have the ”power” on our side to make that “good” happen. It is understood that anyone who does not agree with us or belong to our group does not have a seat at our good and true table. 

The authoritarianism and cruelty with which the Trump administration is going about its mission - made possible by white evangelical Christians - to make America great again is one fruit of the approach of the church to the developments of the last decades. Instead of emptying herself to become the servant of all, as Jesus did, the church has made a grab for power, abandoned the moral high road (“we are electing a President, not a pastor”), and decided that the ends justify the means.

In the uncertainties of our time, many young and old people are attracted by those who, with power and authority, proclaim the certain truth. It's hard to resist the call to "biblical manhood" and "we're taking it back" with its implicit lure of power.

As Kristen Kobes DuMez puts it in the subtitle of her book Jesus and John Wayne, the white evangelical church has “corrupted a faith and fractured a nation.”

These are my people. I was raised and have worked in these churches all my life. I am troubled, disillusioned, disappointed, and at times angry with them. 

I have no idea what the future holds. I think we’re in deep trouble - not just or even primarily politically. Transactional theology, rooted in the dominant culture and lust for power, has brought us here. I sense very little desire for renewed biblical (a word they use all the time) understanding or penetrating soul-searching. 

I don’t have a winning, wise or witty closing sentence for this blogpost. 

Maybe Jackson Brown can help:

Doctor, my eyes have seen the years

And the slow parade of fears without crying

Now I want to understand

I have done all that I could

To see the evil and the good without hiding

You must help me if you can

Doctor, my eyes

Tell me what is wrong

Was I unwise to leave them open for so long

'Cause I have wandered through this world

And as each moment has unfurled

I've been waiting to awaken from these dreams

People go just where they will

I never noticed them until I got this feeling

That it's later than it seems

“Doctor My Eyes”