Wednesday, November 4, 2020

The Disneyfication of White American Christianity

Hate to break it to you, but you have not always been the heroes your elders created to uphold a false image. Keep reading to find out why.

Some of you do not know who you really are in this spiritual war. You claim to be all innocent and docile but at the first chance, you’re clamoring to run over nonviolent protestors exercising their First Amendment rights, butthurt when the dots are connected (see former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant when local journalists traced his family’s history and material successes since his uncle and two others murdered Emmet Till and the media’s suppression of said findings), or simply do not care as the Christian version of NIMBYism manifests itself.


Where do we find these folks? In most churches each Sunday mornings at 11 am, and easily identified by red caps, $50,000 pickup trucks, and SUVs with MAGA banners and bumper stickers, and assorted versions of the American flags the other 167 hours of the week. They are the same people whose patriotism borders on idolatry and hide behind fake names on social media spreading uneducated statements already disproven – they say a lie when repeated enough becomes truth, but in reality it is still a lie that when the fact reveals itself, they are so comfortable living that falsehood that a sliver of honesty shakes them to their very core. They traffic in conspiracy theories and establish alternative universes to isolate themselves from the truth. They are taught to vote based on that one single issue that is not discussed anywhere in the Bible and simultaneously gloss over the hard work of following Jesus Christ’s commandments citing their reasons as He’s coming back for a church without a spot nor a wrinkle versus working on the very real earthly problems (greed, hunger, avarice, racism, covetousness, etc.) that tend to separate people on a daily basis. In other words, John 15:12 explicitly tells us what to do and how to do it – this is one of my favorite Bible verses and the one I consistently use in most outreach and missionary ministries within our services.

This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. - John 15:12

Over the summer, I read a lot of interesting posts regarding allyship with the Black Lives Matter movement:  There was one that stood out in particular. I do not know who originally shared it to Facebook, but it was so emblematic of 2020 that I have to share it below:


How can you proclaim to love Jesus when…you call me the N-word (or thug – I have heard both) when my back is turned – or in some cases, only an earshot away? You cannot. Nor would you be a viable representative of the faith castigating our Hispanic brothers and sisters as illegals as they follow a similar path toward that shining beacon on the hill your conservative grandpa Ronald Reagan spoke of back in the 1980s.

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? - 1 John 4:20

How can I reconcile forgiving those who wrong me when you’re showing up with Tiki torches and flaming crosses, burning down our houses of worship, offended when we petition to change Dixie Street to another street name that honors a fallen brother in the community as if you do not understand why we are affronted by the very idea, and so forth? Some of their grandparents are the same folks who would organize, participate, or at the very least, attend a hanging in the public square on Saturday nights – and in some quarters, Sunday afternoon following that same 11 am service hence the word picnic (Study the etymology on your own time to gain a comprehension of the context I speak of) as it pertains to Black American history. Brothers Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey were not given a second chance; their martyrdom catalyzed marked changes in the struggle further cementing their places in the canon alongside Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, Emmet Till, and numerous others.

Just a messenger 

I call it the Disneyfication of Christianity as so many people white and black alike subscribe to only what they hear for that one hour Sunday after Sunday without any idea of why, and the lack of study clearly reflects in how your lives are lived. From my 41 years as a Black man on this rock, the default to whiteness is most prevalent in the houses of worship and in the insatiable quest for power at all costs to create a sort of theocracy not unlike the Middle Eastern ones suppressing differing beliefs and lifestyles. The only reason why the Religious Right got so involved in Republican Party politics – beyond the greed for power part, of course – was initially to codify racism as academies popped up throughout the South during the late 1960s to block school integration. Notice the founding dates of these segregation academies and their mascots. Once the Supreme Court consistently laid the smackdown on their naked hatred of Black people and the antiwar student supporters, that group of church folks switched gears to the issue of abortion.

The 62% of Arkansans who chose Trump and the 66% who picked Cotton need to feel this

Throughout the Bible, examples of a Disney princess theology are spread about to make your brand of Christianity palatable. As you read Scripture, you find yourselves in the position of the damsel in distress not the evil stepsister. You envision yourselves as Esther, not Xerxes or Haman trying to annihilate the Jews; Peter, the ride or die until it was actually time to ride or die, instead of Judas, who betrayed Jesus; the woman anointing Jesus with the last of her perfume, conversely the Pharisees who always had something to say. You think you are the Jews escaping Egypt, but you are the Pharaoh-led Egyptians enslaving other human beings for your own comfort and convenience denying and delaying freedom. To align yourselves with Israel when the United States of America, the most powerful nation in the world, has enslaved Black people, slaughtered Natives as their homelands were taken from underneath them, forced to walk hundreds of miles to Oklahoma and points west in the Trail of Tears and in exchange were given alcohol and casinos smacks of hypocrisy – and for some of the ‘Stand With Israel’ signs I have seen in town also wave Trump, the Confederate, and Gadsden flags in the same yard, it repeatedly proves that you and I do not worship the same God – yours is white supremacy, and I have proven who my Father is in words and actions over the past thirty years. With the series of comparisons, many of these so-called leaders risk guiding their flocks not from a just God rather to one who makes them feel like a week’s vacation around Mickey and Minnie Mouse; Donald and Daisy Duck; Snow White; Cinderella; Anna and Elsa; and so forth. Is the happy ending worth it?

My question is this – and it comes from Mark 8:36 below:

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? - Mark 8:36

Seriously, I need to know. Are the bag and the clout enough to kiss off eternal life? You sure act like it is.

We get it:  the work is too hard for you, and the laborers have always been someone else. At least keep it real among yourselves. As people in power, it is beyond reprehensible for you to inappropriately locate yourselves in Scripture or the context of 2020 society; as a result, you are simply ill-equipped and willfully blind to engage the people where we are as we contextualize our battles of injustice as a “sin problem” that was justified as a “skin problem” for most of this nation’s existence in its laws and ordinances which you cloak yourselves in the convenience of maintaining superiority.

As Americans, we are so used to finding a “happily ever after” ending that when our problems do not fit a neat solution, the tendency to slink away from a complex discussion and ghosting friendships becomes the inevitable reality. Same in Christianity:  Esther and Mordecai posted up on the low block and waited for God to do His work behind the scenes before Xerxes was exposed and killed.

Peter reminds me of the guy who wants to be Black until it is time be Black:  Despite his moments of proclaiming to be a ride-or-die for Jesus, he did deny the Savior three times as the cock crowed.

Moses worked the system from within (remember, he was raised in relative affluence) and once he found his jelly to stand up to Pharaoh, Let My People Go became something that was mocked like the Black Lives Matter movement is in some quarters today. Consider all of the plagues that Egypt was ravaged with before he and the Jews escaped slavery by crossing the Red Sea, and it still was not enough for Pharaoh and his army to soften their hearts to do the right thing.

Does it mean they were any less valuable due to their complicated legacies? I am only making a parallel to what we want to remember of some people versus what we may or may not necessarily know – and the knowledge that may color our perceptions for the worse. What should happen is we must acknowledge that despite the Gospel being taught in two diametrically opposed manners as referenced in the video I shared a few weeks ago, we must be able to confront some of the miseducation within our own congregations even if it hurts.

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