Actually an Artist

It’s just White Supremacy.

This post began with a local church organist writing an opinion piece to the local newspaper. In it, the author claims that churches are being overrun with distractions to their original mission by displaying Black Lives Matter signs and LGBTQ+ flags. Rather than explain how these things are a distraction to the preaching and living of the gospel, he lauds the Southern Baptist Convention as an example of conservatism in a mainline denomination. I have two problems with this, firstly, and unimportantly, that the SBC is considered a mainline denomination, and secondly, that pursuing a church that reflects the entirety of human diversity is somehow counter the mission of the church.

What kinds of places don’t declare that Black Lives Matter? Well, our justice system, for one. That’s why it began, and that’s why it continues. There is layer upon layer of racism baked into the system, from cash-bail programs, to the ways communities are policed, to the immunity granted officers of the law. Then there’s the extreme income inequality from decades of redlining and many other economic attacks on Black communities in the name of ‘urban development’. What the ‘antiwoke’ crowd doesn’t understand is that there is no way to contend with the sins of history without pulling on the threads of interconnectedness, and this interconnectedness is just systems. They think racism isn’t systemic, but instead of contending with these issues they stoke the culture wars fires and claim that competence isn’t rewarded anymore (yes it is) and lean in to a worldview that’s individualist in hopes that if we claim we’re for ‘meritocracy’ that will automatically make it so. If we reward competence, why is there so little in our government? Why have the qualified generals been fired, and folks who haven’t risen all the way in the bureaucracy getting promoted?

To the second assertion, that pride flags shouldn’t be flown by a church, I ask why not? What is it you’re actually against? Are you against visible support for a group of people that has faced violent and brutal oppression? Like saying Black Lives Matter shouldn’t be displayed, being against a Pride flag is a dog whistle saying that you don’t support safety and inclusion.

I am well aware of the differences between a movement and individuals. The individuals in the BLM movements and LGBTQ movements are not perfect people, sure, you might be upset by some of the things that have happened in association with these movements. I am sick and tired of the things associated with Christianity because of individuals acting hatefully towards others. But when a church wants to stand against the racism and homophobia in our culture, they’re called woke and the culture wars come for them. Unfortunately, our symbols to stand against hate are just as imperfect as any of us, but that doesn’t mean we should throw them out. We need to show up to counter homophobia and racism. And frankly, your opinion on how that should be done doesn’t matter to me unless you’re deeply and actively grappling with the systemic and multilayered issues at play. It’s all interconnected, and until ANYONE in the ‘antiwoke’ camp actually proves they’re not just rehashing the old, tired, culture wars hot-button issues, and comes up with a REAL and debateable issue to content with, it is simply going to collapse itself as yet another manifestation of the whinings of white supremacy. Anything to deflect from genuine introspection about why the church is dying out and where we could go instead. It’s the pride flags! It’s the BLM! This author claims. It couldn’t possibly be the hypocrisy of self-proclaimed Christ Followers taking away SNAP benefits, health insurance, and sexually abusing generations of women and children.¹² The church in the 21st century hasn’t contended with even a fraction of its historical abuses and reasonable, compassionate people everywhere look around and say, I’m not sure what instead, but I don’t want that. From the sins of slavery, colonialism, and spiritual/religious abuse, there are myriad other problems we could be naming. DEI/CRT/wokeism is a convenient distraction because no one railing against it actually knows what it is, and because racism has always been the go-to distraction for power in the United States. When the real issues are so big, a powerless scapegoat is just what is needed to maintain deeply unpopular power.³ It’s sad that the church has been a part of this, it’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last time. Like animals cornered, white American Christians are afraid because they’re losing ground. But unlike animals, we are not really cornered and we don’t have to act in fear: the answers are available if we will but submit to the messy process of self examination and deconstruction. But you cannot control where the Spirit takes you in this process, so it’s better to just lean into the way things have always been done, and that means jumping back in bed with the racism, homophobia, and power that white American Christians have loved instead of their neighbors.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_abuse_cases_in_Southern_Baptist_churches ↩︎
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_cases ↩︎
3. Important background can be found throughout Richardson’s work, but fresh in my mind is this article from this past week. She says “This bill [The “Big Beautiful Bill”] highlights a truism: In the United States, racism has always gone hand in hand with the concentration of wealth among the very richest people.
   By driving white fear of a darker-skinned other, elite southern enslavers convinced the poor white farmers who lost their land in the cotton boom of the 1850s to vote for politicians who insisted that the primary responsibility of the federal government was to protect human enslavement.” ↩︎