Christianity and White Supremacy in the USA / Series Summary
This is part 4 of a four-part series on Christianity in the USA: White supremacism is chiefly Christian; other ‘Christian’ positions are self-deceiving masks for it.
Part 1: Persecution and Escape: Christianity in Colonial North America
Part 2: The Development of Evangelicalism and Rise of Fundamentalism
Part 3: “Rapture” “Tribulation” and the American Concept of “End Times”
Part 4 (this post): Christianity and White Supremacy in the USA / Series Summary
It is unfair to say that Christianity in the USA is necessarily white supremacist per se. Millions of sincere, well-meaning Christians have observed their religion without any conscious adherence to white supremacy as it is overtly expressed. At the same time, millions of people complacent about or complicit in overt white supremacism have also been faithful and observant Christians—evangelicals in the south, mainline Protestants in the Midwest, and Catholics in the northeast—without their religion giving them any qualms about their relationship to white supremacism.
We are just beginning to research and understand the relationship between U.S. American Christianity and white supremacy, not only as a system of conscious belief and overt opposition to societal change and justice for all, but also as a system of beneficial social and material structures and unconscious norms and attitudes. The crux of the matter, as it becomes increasingly apparent, is that white supremacy is not merely a set of beliefs to which individuals or groups might or might not openly subscribe; rather, it is also a set of unconscious material, social, cultural, and attitudinal norms, the structures and outcomes of which continue to be observably, measurably, and disproportionately harmful to people understood as other than white. The sociocultural system in the USA continues to be predicated on the unconscious assumptions of white supremacy, a notion that began to develop 170 years before the establishment of the USA, monumental changes to economic, social, and legal structures that bent society and culture toward justice notwithstanding.
It can still be seen, measured, and mapped in the results of urban planning, zoning laws, transportation and infrastructure, distribution of goods and services, health statistics, hiring practices, housing, education, research into implicit attitudes, and, not least, the criminal justice system. Bootstraps ideology is as lame an answer to this as anyone can give. The zip code into which one is born still helps to determine one’s prospects in life with stunning accuracy. The zip code system maps directly onto racial and socioeconomic demographics. People still fight tooth and nail in the political realm to suppress consciousness of these material and historical facts and to squelch their public discussion and their application to the education of the young.
During the immediate postwar era, there was a dramatic upsurge in church attendance and participation. Insofar as religion is part and parcel of its greater societal context, it is becoming increasingly clear that this was as much about an unconscious reverence by proxy for advantageous social and economic structures and their expression in the cultural realm as it was about any interest in spiritual renewal or religious discipline. The 60-year decline in religious participation since the 1960s is due in part to the church’s loss of credibility and moral authority resulting from its connection to and support for all manner of injustice at home and abroad.
A 1980s conservative political movement, ironically termed the ‘moral majority,’ had its roots in opposition to desegregation and the promotion and establishment of private, white Christian academies as a substitute for segregated public education. When it became clear that this was a non-starter in terms of public relations, focus shifted to a moral panic and culture war over access to abortion; the equality of women; response to the abiding existence and representation of homosexual people and other sexual and gender minorities in human societies; and more recently, the policing of Black bodies, of immigrants, of the poor, and of the mentally ill; public funding for private education; and, the education of children and youth concerning the legacy of white supremacy. During the past forty-plus years, an orientation toward evangelical or other conservative forms of Christianity has been nearly synonymous with reactionary positions on these issues.
As mentioned above, white evangelical Christianity cannot be said to be white supremacist (or patriarchal, or cishet dominant) per se; at the same time—in terms of the need for Christianity to evolve—a theology, identity, and outlook that is perfectly compatible with these things, and defensive toward inevitable social change, merits careful reconsideration. Jesus’ actual sayings, deeds, and relationships to outcast people vs. dominant structures and leaders of his society are a good starting point.
Check out the ARCHIVE of Faith Shifter posts.
This concludes the four-part series on Christianity as it has become widely understood in the USA. Christianity has a 500-year history in the Americas. Over that time, it has continued to be shaped and reshaped by the experiences and concerns of its adherents. The processes and results of its adaptation may be summarized as follows:
Spanish conquistadors, French traders, and immigrants to the British colonies all brought Christianity to North America, sometimes violently, to support their material pursuits.
Elite Christianity in the British colonies reflected an empirical view of mythos and an assumption that God’s existence would be proven as the originating force of nature.
A new Anglo-American version of Christianity developed, focusing on individual sin and damnation, a one-time, emotional conversion experience, and assurance of salvation.
This evangelical religion spread through waves of spiritual revival accompanying westward expansion and uniquely characterized Christianity in the USA.
Evangelical Christianity developed a fundamentalist ethos, rendering it literalistic, exclusive, opposed to collective social progress, rigidly schematic, and cynical.
An invented eschatology with rapture, tribulation, and Israeli conversion discredits collective solutions to social problems and negates Judaism as an abiding religion.
Much of Christianity in the USA is at best compatible with, and at worst, the very religion of white supremacy, and by extension, patriarchy, homophobia, and religious bigotry.
This religion of doctrinal correctness and emotional appeal, without metaphors for inner consciousness, has forsaken the ancient rituals, practices, and functions of Christianity.
Some conclusions can be drawn from a survey of the dominant forms of Christianity in the USA:
U. S. American ways of thinking about God and practicing Christianity developed over time in response to changing material, social, and cultural circumstances.
These sometimes-contradictory modes of thinking and practice are all still embedded within Christianity, even as it continues to evolve.