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How white supremacy infected Christianity and the Republican Party

cigaretteman

HR King
May 29, 2001
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Opinion by
Jennifer Rubin
Columnist
August 3, 2020 at 8:30 a.m. CDT
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Robert P. Jones, chief executive and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), is fast becoming the leading expert in the values, votes and mind-set of White Christians. His work has explained how loss of primacy in American society fueled a white-grievance mentality — the same mind-set President Trump so effectively read and manipulated.

His latest book, “White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity,” is a masterful study documenting how white supremacy came to dominate not just Southern culture, but White Christianity. In it, he argues that “most white Christian churches have protected white supremacy by dressing it in theological garb, giving it a home in a respected institution, and calibrating it to local cultural sensibilities.” He also recounts ways in which White churches are moving to account for their past and explore their history with Black Americans.

Jones posits that it is not simply intermingling a celebration of the “Lost Cause” and religion that has led White Christians who do not think of themselves of racists to harbor views that reinforce racism; he also points to the theological worldview of White Christians, including “an individualist view of sin [which ignores institutional racism], an emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus, and the Bible as the protector of the status quo.” If you want to know why White Christian ideology is the best predictor of racist attitudes (a shocking revelation for the author and likely many readers), the book is essential reading.

Below is my conversation with Robert P. Jones, edited for style and length.

Q: Did Trump inspire this undertaking?

A: In some important ways, “White Too Long” represents my accounting of a journey I’ve been on at least since my seminary days in my early 20s. I was raised as a Southern Baptist in Mississippi and attended a Southern Baptist college and seminary. At the same time, I attended newly integrated public schools in Jackson, where I attended classes and played sports with African American classmates. But our social lives, our neighborhoods and churches were largely still segregated. It wasn’t until I was in seminary that I became aware of the genesis of my denomination, which I capture in the first sentence of the book: “The Christian denomination in which I grew up was founded on the proposition that chattel slavery could flourish alongside the gospel of Jesus Christ.” That appalling contradiction, and its legacy all around me growing up, has haunted me my whole adult life.

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In the more recent context, the eruption of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013, coupled with the racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric that became the central campaign strategy of Donald Trump in 2016, were certainly catalysts for writing the book. Trump’s response to the neo-Nazi demonstrations in 2017 was also a turning point for me. Trump waited 48 hours to issue any statement, and when he did, he equivocated, stating there were “very fine people on both sides.” And I was stunned that Trump’s inability to flatly condemn neo-Nazis — who were chanting “Blood and soil!” and “Jews will not replace us” and who murdered a person protesting that hatred — had no discernible impact on his White Christian support. PRRI’s fall American Values Survey, conducted just a few weeks after these remarks, for example, found his favorability among White evangelical Protestants remained remarkably high, at 72 percent. So I began working on the book in earnest in 2018 with the goal of getting a deeper understanding of these confounding and unsettling patterns.

Notably, these dynamics are still with us. In more recent days, Trump’s use of police and federal agents to disrupt peaceful protests connected to the Black Lives Matter movement and his doubling down on support for the Confederate flag and monuments has also done little to dislodge White evangelical support, which remains at 63 percent favorable.

Q: How did Trump use white supremacy to co-opt White evangelicals in the Republican Party?

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A: It’s important to note that the Republican Party has a decades-long history of deploying, in various degrees, what has been dubbed “the Southern Strategy,” a racist dog-whistle politics that fuels white grievances and exploits racial divisions to win elections. In 2005, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman formally apologized to the NAACP for these tactics. But that was 2005.

I think it is clear that Trump’s own racist instincts are driving his strategy, and this is becoming abundantly clear to the American public. Remarkably, last fall a PRRI survey found nearly 6 in 10 Americans said that his words and behavior were encouraging white supremacists. But it’s also true that Trump is dusting off an old Republican playbook that many in a former incarnation of the Republican Party were hoping to leave behind. He’s certainly had help crafting this appeal. His 2016 campaign manager, Paul Manafort, for example, was also the Southern political coordinator for Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign, which symbolically was launched with a speech lauding “states' rights,” the mantra of segregationists, at Mississippi’s Neshoba County Fair, a site just a few miles from where Freedom Riders James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner were killed in 1964.

Q: Are “values” now just a cover story for evangelicals to rationalize support for Trump?

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A: I think the phrases “family values” and “values voters” were one of the most successful, durable — and disingenuous — political branding operations in my lifetime. This identity foregrounded opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage along with an insistence that a candidate’s character was central to their qualifications for office. But it never really held together in the way that the rhetoric implied. When the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion came down, for example, the Southern Baptist Convention supported it, largely considering it a “Catholic issue.” Opposition to same-sex marriage, despite being broadly declared a hill to die on just a decade ago, has largely been dropped as a political wedge issue, as two-thirds of Americans — along with a majority of younger Republicans — have come to support marriage equality. And in more than a decade of doing public opinion research, I’ve never seen a public opinion survey where White conservative Christians ranked abortion or same-sex marriage among their top three voting issues.

Most tellingly, Trump’s ascendancy has snuffed out the White Christian character and virtue industry, at least as these ideals apply to our political leaders. One jaw-dropping statistic: In 2011, only 3 in 10 White evangelicals said that it was possible for a political leader to commit immoral acts in his or her private life and still be able to fulfill their duties in their public life; by 2016, with Trump at the top of the ticket, 72 percent of White evangelicals had decided this was no longer a problem.





More at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...t-4-0_opinion-card-c-right:homepage/story-ans
 
Everything is an opinion piece if that's what your candy-ass needs for your candy-ass avoidance. Hold onto your little ribbons, bud.
Or you know you could actually wait to have facts to talk about instead of posting 4 opinion pieces a day. You do you.
 
Or you know you could actually wait to have facts to talk about instead of posting 4 opinion pieces a day. You do you.
This is an interview piece, bud. The author of the book has an interesting perspective. I realize it serves you to hide from it and summarily dismiss it just because, I suppose, on some level it is unflattering to you.
 
This is an interview piece, bud. The author of the book has an interesting perspective. I realize it serves you to hide from it and summarily dismiss it just because, I suppose, on some level it is unflattering to you.


Its an opinion piece of an opinion piece.

RingedVacantEarthworm-size_restricted.gif
 
White Evangelicals do not represent all Christians
in America. The Roman Catholic Church and
the Lutheran Church do not push white supremacy.
Both of these denominations have operated
religious elementary schools and high schools
which welcome Black, Hispanic, and Asian students.

The Lutheran church wasn't hit as hard as some churches mostly because they didn't have large numbers in the South. Even then most Lutheran churches were only barely able to stay together with the slavery issue and they did it by declaring slavery to be adiaphoria. At least that seems to be the general trend among the confessional "Quia" churches.

The non-confessional "Quatenus" churches actually did experience a split over slavery but merged back together after the civil war.

The RCC was anti-slavery for a long time before the civil war.

If the Lutheran church is doing better on this and I would like to think they are, it likely has a great deal to do with the fact that the conservative Lutheran churches are very doctrinal. Every idea or teaching is either orthodox or heterodox in conservative Lutheran churches.
 
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In Peoria, Illinois, Shaun Livingston donated 1 million
dollars to Concordia Lutheran School to build a gym.
The total cost was about 4 million dollars. Shaun was
baptized and confirmed at Trinity Lutheran Church
in Peoria and attended Concordia Lutheran School.

Shaun is an African American who won 3 NBA
Championships and is now retired.
 
That article is absolutely BS. My church is not at all racist. But then I’m not qualified to speak about his upbringing in the south, so I’ll just let him bash away incorrectly.
 
“The Christian denomination in which I grew up was founded on the proposition that chattel slavery could flourish alongside the gospel of Jesus Christ.” That appalling contradiction, and its legacy all around me growing up, has haunted me my whole adult life.“

^^^ Wow.

Total bull here too with his own opening line. The author loses all credibility leading with this concept. The author demonstrates complete misunderstanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in one sentence.
 
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So because you've witnessed it, you qualified to tell "most" Christian churches engage in this. Please enlighten us.
I was hoping someone would jump on this. The "most" qualifier definitely is worthy of skepticism—but not outright dismissal. True skepticism invites investigation. Pseudoskepticism looks for escape hatches, avoidance of investigation.

My mom is a musician—a pianist and organist. She was always employed in churches. I would go with her, sit there and draw. I've described my childhood before, my unique perspective from regularly being the only white kid in the gym, on the playground, on teams. I've told the story of the Lutheran priest who asked me what it was like being around all those ni**ers (I was 10 years old), and how my eyes and ears were open and pricked to expressions of racism and/or racist/bigoted attitudes ever since and to this day—and same for my mom. It has been a favorite topic of conversation for us throughout our lives. Maybe she's talked about it to some of you! Her whole life has been spent in churches, and as a kid I was there with her, and while of course anecdotal, or anecdotal times two, there has been a constant thread of racism/racist attitudes and sexism/sexist attitudes witnessed/experienced in her life in churches. This spans now almost 60 years for her, and includes quite a few denominations.

I honestly don't think a lot of people can see what others see. The author interviewed above explains how he, himself, came to be able to see what he sees. Now, of course, there's always that counter—you're seeing something that's not there; or, you're seeing what you want to see. Really? Is it that easy to dismiss? Or does it need to be that easy to dismiss?

Americans really have a hard time accepting ugly, unflattering truths about ourselves. It's why we're fat, lazy-minded, entitled, and, yes, even bigoted. Because it's easier. We nearly always opt for the easier path—because, generally speaking, we're afforded it. Well, this applies to this type of shit, too.
 
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In Peoria, Illinois, Shaun Livingston donated 1 million
dollars to Concordia Lutheran School to build a gym.
The total cost was about 4 million dollars. Shaun was
baptized and confirmed at Trinity Lutheran Church
in Peoria and attended Concordia Lutheran School.

Shaun is an African American who won 3 NBA
Championships and is now retired.
Yeah, he's a friend of mine.
 
You're projecting. I'm not triggered at all. I am able to accept realities, both the good and the bad, without feeling personally affronted or persecuted. You, on the other hand, are afraid of truth, of even seeking truth, or challenging your own preconceived notions.
This is so unbelievably inaccurate.
 
^^^ Wow.

Total bull here too with his own opening line. The author loses all credibility leading with this concept. The author demonstrates complete misunderstanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in one sentence.

Are you saying that slavery and the gospel of JC could/should flourish together?

My reading of that sentence is that the author says it did at his denomination, and was an appalling contradiction.
 
^^^ Wow.

Total bull here too with his own opening line. The author loses all credibility leading with this concept. The author demonstrates complete misunderstanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in one sentence.


“I raised as a Southern Baptist in Mississippi and attended a Southern Baptist college and seminary. At the same time, I attended newly integrated public schools in Jackson, where I attended classes and played sports with African American classmates. But our social lives, our neighborhoods and churches were largely still segregated. It wasn’t until I was in seminary that I became aware of the genesis of my denomination, which I capture in the first sentence of the book”

He doesn’t say anything about “the gospel of Jesus Christ.” He’s talking about his Southern Baptist denomination and his experiences in it which include attending seminary. I’ll take the word of the published author over a guy who’s so triggered he doesn’t even know what he’s reading.
 
A: It’s important to note that the Democrat Party has a decades-long history of deploying, in various degrees, what has been dubbed “the Southern Strategy,” a racist dog-whistle politics that fuels white grievances and exploits racial divisions to win elections.

FIFY Sparky. KKK has been a southern Democratic operation for decades!
 
A: It’s important to note that the Democrat Party has a decades-long history of deploying, in various degrees, what has been dubbed “the Southern Strategy,” a racist dog-whistle politics that fuels white grievances and exploits racial divisions to win elections.

FIFY Sparky. KKK has been a southern Democratic operation for decades!

Did your parents have any kids that lived?
 
That article is absolutely BS. My church is not at all racist. But then I’m not qualified to speak about his upbringing in the south, so I’ll just let him bash away incorrectly.
No one thinks they're racist. I mean... aside from people like members of the KKK, or just out-and-out white supremacists. And, even they will say they're not racist... they just want to be white and be respected for their whiteness... never realizing that such a thing is precisely the essence of RACISM!

It's all just a tribal instinct. Human beings are absolutely tribal, at their very core.
 
A: It’s important to note that the Democrat Party has a decades-long history of deploying, in various degrees, what has been dubbed “the Southern Strategy,” a racist dog-whistle politics that fuels white grievances and exploits racial divisions to win elections.

FIFY Sparky. KKK has been a southern Democratic operation for decades!
It hasn’t been for decades. It’s the GOP base now.
 
Really interesting the reflex to fully dismiss stuff like that expressed in the OP's article/interview, and by extension the book it references.

Institutionalized thinking is something to behold. Again, whether it is something like the PSU football program, or recently the Iowa football program, or a faith (like Catholicism with its scandals) or a specific church, or a political party, or a company/corporation, the instinct and reflex to deny and dismiss unflattering allegations is interesting.
 
Really interesting the reflex to fully dismiss stuff like that expressed in the OP's article/interview, and by extension the book it references.

Institutionalized thinking is something to behold. Again, whether it is something like the PSU football program, or recently the Iowa football program, or a faith (like Catholicism with its scandals) or a specific church, or a political party, or a company/corporation, the instinct and reflex to deny and dismiss unflattering allegations is interesting.

I think it's just human nature. You commented on it earlier, it's just easier.
 
A: It’s important to note that the Democrat Party has a decades-long history of deploying, in various degrees, what has been dubbed “the Southern Strategy,” a racist dog-whistle politics that fuels white grievances and exploits racial divisions to win elections.

FIFY Sparky. KKK has been a southern Democratic operation for decades!

Yes, all of this back in the days when the Republicans were the progressive party and the Democrats were the conservatives, as has been pointed out ad nauseum here. In case you hadn't noticed, they switched a number of decades ago.
 
Really interesting the reflex to fully dismiss stuff like that expressed in the OP's article/interview, and by extension the book it references.

Institutionalized thinking is something to behold. Again, whether it is something like the PSU football program, or recently the Iowa football program, or a faith (like Catholicism with its scandals) or a specific church, or a political party, or a company/corporation, the instinct and reflex to deny and dismiss unflattering allegations is interesting.
The entire basis of the "belief system" is completely predicated on "exclusion." That is the perfect soil for prejudice! It's loaded with conditions. You have to do THIS in order to be rewarded with THAT.

I don't mean to dismiss the Bible entirely when I talk about it with close friends who believe it is the infallible "Word of God." I find a lot of wisdom in the Bible. But, the idea that "God" is confined to a collection of stories compiled by certain people over the course of 3000 years... and, NOTHING since then qualifies... and, now it's up to everyone in the present-day to decipher its true meaning, just seems way below anything I would consider Divine! It's so utterly human! I told a one friend: "What if you were stranded somewhere and had no access to The Bible? Is God somehow out of reach now because that manual is unavailable? God was around before that book, and God will be around long after that book is shelved with all the other books." And, the religions that have been created around it, are literally "exclusive" social clubs! You can reinforce racism, or any kind of prejudice with that as your motivation!
 
^^^ Wow.

Total bull here too with his own opening line. The author loses all credibility leading with this concept. The author demonstrates complete misunderstanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in one sentence.
The problem is the complete misunderstanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ by organized Christian churches throughout history.
 
* RULE 10: “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.

AKA - gaslighting
 
^^^ Wow.

Total bull here too with his own opening line. The author loses all credibility leading with this concept. The author demonstrates complete misunderstanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in one sentence.
LOL...the Americans claiming to follow "the Gospel of Jesus Christ" are among the strongest supporters of a man who is antithetical to EVERY SINGLE PRECEPT related to JC.
 
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