Grayson Gilbert, a regular blogger at Patheos, has written another white evangelical “analysis” of the protests sparked by the death of George Floyd. He repeats the shallow message of evangelical individualism that I recently criticized here.
As I read more and more examples of this gospel of American individualism (and become increasingly aggravated by their frequency and continuity) posted on Facebook, blogs, and chat boards, I decided to offer a more detailed critique of this white, evangelical gospel, using Mr. Gilbert’s piece to illustrate my points.
Below is an excerpt from his Patheos post to give you an idea of what he says. Or you can read the entire post here, but please come back to digest my criticisms and reflect on what the church needs to do differently.
Unfortunately, Mr. Gilbert expresses many of the theological and practical failures endemic to white evangelicalism in this country.
As a result, he also sadly illustrates why white evangelicalism has so little to offer in the way of practical solutions to many of America’s deepest problems.
A good deal of my thinking on these subjects is also explained in my book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America. I wish Mr. Gilbert and others would read it. I certainly encourage you to do so, if you haven’t already.
Here is the excerpt:
“…This leads me to perhaps the most important point that I can make: if you want to see what needs to change, take a look in the mirror. It is not a system that needs to repent or be overthrown by human hands. It is not a single people group. It is not a minority or a majority ethnicity that needs to repent. It’s everyone. Every tongue, tribe, and nation is called to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Every individual on the face of the planet needs to bow before their Maker in repentance and call upon Christ as Lord for the forgiveness of their sins and the simple reason for this is that every man is a sinner.
“Until sin is seen for what it truly is and actually dealt with at the cross; until repentance and sanctification ensues, nothing will change in the heart of men at large. They will do what they do best: sin. Yet on that Final Day, God will do what no man can do: bring about complete and utter justice that is consistent with His covenant. If you’re not in Christ, you don’t want that kind of justice because it’s not good news for you. You want the gospel. And yet many professing Christians seem to think the gospel is incapable of doing anything at all to solve the issue, mainly, because they want results now…”
- Do more research. Mr. Gilbert appears to limit his news exposure to watching the Fox network. He needs to think more deeply about how he is being manipulated by the corporate media, as I mention here.
Yes, looting, property destruction, and violence have occurred in many places. But Gilbert doesn’t seem to be aware of the many protest leaders who have condemned the looting, condemned the instigators exploiting their demonstrations, and turned out with volunteers to clean up and repair the damage done.
Like so many others, Gilbert paints with a crude, broad brush when he condemns the whole for the sins of a few. This is a standard tactic used by demagogues whose knee-jerk reaction is to defend the status quo rather than to honestly confront the social sickness that needs to be cut out of America’s body politic. I also recently wrote about this issue here.
Over the past several days, I have watched many videos showing (a) the police assaulting peaceful, unarmed demonstrators without provocation, sometimes causing serious injury; and (b) massive, peaceful demonstrations with no apparent mayhem anywhere.
To speak only about the looting while ignoring the core message animating the thousands upon thousands of black, brown, and white citizens marching peacefully through our streets, demanding social justice, is reprehensible.
In this way, Mr. Gilbert displays an obtuse disregard for the black experience in America.
Such willful ignorance typifies the majority of white evangelicals that I know. (Check out John Fea’s survey of Twitter comments from leading, evangelical Trump supporters for more examples of this ignorance parading itself as leadership).
- Become self-critical. Gilbert is utterly unaware of his personal investment in defending the political powers-that-be. In effect, he writes as a stooge for the establishment status quo. But this is not surprising. It is what a majority of white evangelicals normally do.
The first step in healing this particular blindness requires grasping what it means to be a Christian disciple who lives as a citizen of God’s kingdom first, last, and always. (Again, check out my book!) No Christian’s primary allegiance is ever to American law and order.
Our allegiance is to Jesus Christ. And he does NOT teach us to obey the laws of wickedness.
The second step in overcoming such blindness requires an honest reappraisal of oneself. Mr. Gilbert talks about the need to confess our sins if we want society to change. I agree. Let’s all “look in the mirror,” as he suggests, and confess our need for Jesus and his salvation each and every day.
But that is where Mr. Gilbert abandons us, implying that once you’ve come to Christ, your problems with sin are over. Here is where his theological individualism becomes a trap.
As Mr. Gilbert elaborates his interest in sin and confession, he quickly shifts the responsibility for such confession onto the protesters. When, in fact – in this historical moment – confessing our collective failure to confront systemic racism and the habitual police brutality suffered by our African-American brothers and sisters is what white evangelicals ought to be doing.
Pointing fingers at the looters is an immoral, arrogant evasion of the real issue. As Jesus says, “Take the log out of your own eye before picking at the splinter in your neighbor’s.”
Remember, it was the slave masters who condemned slave revolts. It was the white, evangelical elders and deacons who accused their slaves of ingratitude for failing to appreciate the benefits of the white, Christian slave-owner’s “benevolence.”
How is Mr. Gilbert any different?
- Confusing the world with the church and the church with the world. Gilbert’s very confused discussion of Micah 6:8 slyly insinuates the common evangelical shibboleth of imagining that America is God’s covenant nation.
But there is one covenant now – the New Covenant — established by Christ with his church. Applying covenant language to anyone else (like the crowds of demonstrators) is not only bad theology, it allows Gilbert to deflect attention away from the real problems of racism and police violence.
Gilbert’s cultural misappropriation of God’s covenant with Israel is the unspoken presumption at the root of white American privilege, not only at home but throughout the world. America habitually abuses, exploits, bombs, invades, occupies, and kills people of color without compunction on an international scale.
Slaughtering illiterate brown people around the world is an American right. Or so we are told.
That is the operative assumption underlying US foreign policy. We shouldn’t be surprised, then, to see increasingly militarized police departments executing similar, draconian values at home.
Gilbert illustrates how bad theology, combined with a lack of critical thinking (I cannot help but notice that he received his master’s degree from Moody Seminary, a Mecca for American fundamentalism), leads to bad public practice and anemic discipleship.
Such tunnel vision can only see “unruly” protesters in need of reproach, blinding the evangelical critic to the all-pervasive American violence unleashed at home and abroad through our infamous military-police-industrial complex.
Yes, I realize that this is too large a mouth-full for any one instance of protest to address, but Gilbert’s narrow individualism, together with his failure to engage the world as a citizen of God’s kingdom, blinds him to the cultural and political issues at stake.
Don’t follow in his footsteps.
- You can’t tell God’s people to endorse their government’s injustices. Gilbert trots out the predictable evangelical calls for “law and order” by telling his Christian readers that they must “obey the authorities instituted by God.” (Cue the national anthem and America the Beautiful).
Here Gilbert uses another classic, demagogic argument slung about like a blunt ax by unthoughtful people making religious arguments in defense of deeply entrenched injustice.
Such demagogic rationales – based in flawed interpretation, by the way – are intended to demonize the anti-establishment “enemy” while pacifying God’s “law abiding” church-folk into a drowsy acceptance of the unacceptable. THIS is the true opiate of the masses, as Karl Marx would say.
But, of course, in this instance of obedience to the powers-that-be, what Gilbert and his Christian cronies judge to be acceptable and unacceptable has more to do with the color of one’s skin than it does with whether or not anyone is obeying the law.
It is the classic argument drawn from white privilege. Think about it. When was the last time we saw a video of an unarmed white person being choked to death by the police on a public street in broad daylight while politely pleading for relief?
This is the point being raised by the popular upheaval we are witnessing in our streets. Unjust actors, whether they are cops, lawyers, judges, criminal justice systems, or entire governments, are unjust because they do NOT “protect the innocent while punishing the guilty.”
THAT is the problem my evangelical friends fail to grasp.
[By the way, I exegete these New Testament passages in my book, I Pledge Allegiance, and show (conclusively, in my mind) that allegiance to God’s kingdom requires that Christians not obey governments that impose injustice on its citizens.]
I struggle to understand how people like Mr. Gilbert can continually fail to apprehend this dynamic. When citizens protest against unjust policing and systemic injustice in high places, God’s kingdom citizens should be leading the way as the most vocal critics of the status quo and most vehement defenders of the oppressed.
Misapplying scripture, as Mr. Gilbert does, in order to condemn demonstrations against injustice and oppression is merely a continuation of the scriptural arguments deployed by Christian slave- owners defending their ownership and abuse of other human beings.
- A failure of empathy and critical thinking. Historically, evangelical foreign missions have been in the forefront of finding creative ways to meet human needs. While I don’t entirely agree with the old saying, “You can’t share the gospel with a starving person,” (personally, I think that this way of thinking was a major shortcoming of Mother Teresa’s), it does contain a kernel of truth.
Western missionaries have made major contributions to developing countries everywhere. Often, the earliest literacy programs, schools, health-care initiatives, hospitals, irrigation systems, and more have been developed by evangelical missionaries whose compassion and empathy inspired them to do much, much more than simply “preach the gospel” to the lost.
So, why does Christian compassion and creativity wither and die on the vine when discussing social disruption at home?
No, I am NOT suggesting that evangelicals need to suit up and put on a colonial savior-complex by resurrecting a domestic version of “the white man’s burden.” But I am struck by the absence of both empathy and critical thinking among my white, evangelical brothers and sisters.
Frankly, we need to sit down, shut up, and listen.
We need to hear the stories of our black brothers and sisters. We need to believe them and take them seriously. We need to ask ourselves, “How would I feel if I were in their shoes?” Then, before offering our thoughts on solutions, we need to ask what they think should be done. And we need to listen some more.
We need to ask the Lord Jesus to forgive us for our persistent indifference to the pain and struggle of African-Americans in this country – pain and struggle often inflicted by a system that criminalizes black people for the color of their skin.
I have never been nervous about the threat of being arresting for the crime of “driving while black.” And neither has Mr. Gilbert. Neither of us knows what that is like.
My mother always told me that the policeman was my friend; that he was there to help me.
African-American mothers must educate their children in how to avoid antagonizing a policeman so they won’t get shot.
That is the American reality, a reality that white evangelicals like Mr. Gilbert appear to know nothing about. And they don’t seem to want to know. But if they really don’t know anything about this version of our racial reality, it can only be because they have plugged their ears and closed their eyes to the plight of their fellow human beings.
Such inexcusable ignorance is testament to the strangulation of sympathy within America’s white evangelical churches. And it is inexcusable.
As I have said before, citizenship in God’s kingdom not only requires that we share the gospel of Jesus Christ as widely as possible, it also requires us to think as deeply as possible about how we can contribute to making this world a better place for everyone, equally.
If our missionaries can build schools for boys and girls in countries that frown on educating little girls, then why can’t we also think, plan, and act in ways that will make our society more just, more fair, and less dangerous for its non-white citizens?
Yes, racism is a sin. And sin is rooted in the human heart. Sin can only be uprooted through the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. But suggesting, as Mr. Gilbert does, that mass evangelism is the only solution to racial injustice is the lazy pietist’s way of shirking responsibility.
Sure, people may come to Jesus one at a time, and Christian individuals certainly ought to work for truth and justice wherever they find themselves, but changing systemic evil demands systemic solutions. On this front, too many white evangelicals appear to take pride in their ineptitude.
God’s people are called to be “salt and light” to the surrounding society, to exemplify the righteousness, mercy, justice, and equality of God’s kingdom come. We do this, first, among ourselves, as living, breathing examples of God’s new, multi-racial creation here and now.
Then we simultaneously engage our society, working practically to create a reflection, the semblance, an approximation of God’s kingdom in the broken society we now live in.
But that, my friends, is the cross-cultural component of Christian discipleship that white, individualistic, American evangelicalism rarely seems to grasp.
