“Racist? But We’re Good People!” Resistance to the Racist Label in a Dog Whistle Era by R. Ward Holder
One of the most troubling themes of Trump presidency has, strangely enough, not been the president’s persistent racism. Oh, certainly, any previous presidency would have evoked shock and disgust at the number of racist dog-whistles in which Trump has engaged. He has regularly supported white nationalists, even in the aftermath of white nationalist shootings.[1] He has directed his Attorney General and Director of the Department of Homeland Security to engage in a racist movement to separate children from their parents, and then forced some of those parents to leave the country without their children.[2] He has called Caribbean and African countries “sh-thole countries,” and then had other Republicans go on various right-wing news sites to argue that this was simply a moment of truth-telling. Trump’s racist record would have troubled and possibly even toppled any other administration in the post-war era.
With such a race record, it is stunning that this is not the largest problem with the Trump presidency around race. Instead, the largest problem on this score is the way that the white Christian church, led by the white evangelical church, has accepted this “new normal.” Having pointed out that the white evangelical church leads, I do not mean to excuse the white mainline church. The number of times a pastor in a white church expresses astonishment at the temerity of the President to speak in such clear racist tones is only matched by the number of times that same pastor will turn sorrowfully away, acknowledging that he or she will do nothing. Racism is the church’s special version of the “thoughts and prayers” theology that has worked so well in mass shootings.
Time and time again throughout the Trump presidency, racial, ethnic, and religious episodes have arisen. There was the march of “Unite the Right” in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a white supremacist James Alex Fields, Jr., drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, murdering Heather Heyer.[3] The president’s response, both in 2018 and in 2019, has been to state that there were good people on both sides of the conflict, and no one should judge otherwise. There was the massacre at the Tree of Life Congregation, where a white supremacist killed 11 people. An avowed anti-Semite, the shooter’s account in Gab stated, ““HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.”.[4] The president’s immediate response was sadness, tempered by the advice that the congregation should have been armed, or had armed guards. There was the shooting in a San Diego area synagogue, where one was killed and three were wounded.[5] The president’s response was to decry anti-Semitism, a day after he had defended white nationalists in Charlottesville who had chanted, “Jews will not replace us!” These massacres followed one of the most horrific in Christchurch, New Zealand, where a gunman broadcast his assassination of worshipers at a mosque, eventually killing 51.[6] The Trump administration’s response has been to reject agreeing with the “Christchurch Call,” a voluntary agreement of 18 governments and 5 large tech companies to stamp out online extremism.[7] The reason? Because of the Trump Administration’s support for a free press. The irony rings in the air.
The most significant issue would be the treatment of Mexican, Guatemalan, Honduran, and other Central American immigrants at the southern border. The Trump administration invented a plan to separate children from their parents as a deterrent to migration.[8] The administration’s plans run directly into the face of the commandments of Matthew 25, because even American citizens are being arrested for giving water to migrants.[9] In the most ironic turn of all, immigrant children are dying in CBP and ICE detainment, while Republicans scream about being the party for the protection of children’s lives.
At such a point, it makes sense that the white church, which has the power and the resources to do something, would make a stand. Not something like the impotence of hopes and prayers, but a prophetic call for a rejection of this culture of death for those whose skin does not match our own. Many will argue that this is not our responsibility – that we will pray, and consider the matter in our secret hearts.
But this is not a standard that white majoritarian culture has accepted from Islam. Every time a terrorist incident occurs that involves Muslims, there are calls for every imam to become a political activist, and to denounce these acts of atrocity. If that is the case, then why are white pastors and priests not liable to the same just call for witness? The synagogue shooters in Pittsburgh and San Diego? White Christian men. The claimed faith of the President, the former Attorney General, and the former director of Homeland Security? White Christianity. There is a common theme, should we be willing to see it.
The shooting in the suburb of San Diego, Poway, is particularly significant. The shooter was not some loner who had no friends, no radical jihadist listening to Al-Jazeera late into the night. He was a college student and a conservative Presbyterian, a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.[10] Of the over 300 churches in the relatively small denomination, it is reported that only one is pastored by an African-American pastor. The short step from the certainty of one’s salvation at the heart of evangelicalism to the certainty that white Christianity is God’s intention for the salvation of the world is at the center of our present state – but no one is talking about it!
In 1520, Martin Luther wrote a treatise that has defined Protestantism as much as any short piece can – On Christian Freedom. After setting out the necessity of believing in salvation by faith, Luther took up good works. He had already argued that good works did not save a believer. But he knew that good works were commanded by God as an obedient response to God’s love. He wrote that “True then are these two sayings: Good works do not make a good man, but a good man does good works.” Luther meant that works do not save or make people good – only God can do that. Once God has put faith into believers, the Holy Spirit empowers them and stirs them toward works that benefit their brothers and sisters. White Christianity in America has turned this upside down. It declares itself good, and then states that the works done by white Christians in the US are good, because White Christianity in America is good. The hatred of those who are different is baptized, because it is “good” people who are doing the hating.
Until the white church accepts its role in the sin of racism, and its task of taking on racism in a newly racist age, very little will change. Whether evangelical or mainline, the charge is clear. Christ came to save all humanity, because all were created in God’s image. Until we love as Christ loved, we will fail at our discipleship, and allow racism’s falsehoods to continue.
The Rev. Dr. R. Ward Holder is a historical and political theologian serving as professor of theology at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, Director of the Honors Program at the college, and a minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA). He writes on the Reformation, biblical interpretation, and the manner in which religious convictions shape modern politics and political theory. Among other works, he has authored John Calvin and the Grounding of Interpretation: Calvin’s First Commentaries, Brill, 2006; and has edited A Companion to Paul in the Reformation, Brill, 2009; and John Calvin in Context, Cambridge, 2019. Among his political theological efforts, he has co-authored with Peter B. Josephson The Irony of Barack Obama: Barack Obama, Reinhold Niebuhr, and the Problem of Christian Statecraft, Ashgate, 2012; and their latest is Reinhold Niebuhr in Theory and Practice: Christian Realism and Democracy in America in the Twenty-First Century, Lexington, 2019.
[1]https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2019/04/26/trump-doubles-down-charlottesville-comments-after-bien-criticism/d91jpKyFcjJBGgBOoDIO1J/story.html, accessed 29 May 2019.
[2]https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/deported-parents-demand-return-their-children-u-s-custody-n978571, accessed 29 May 2019.
[3]https://www.npr.org/2018/12/07/674672922/james-alex-fields-unite-the-right-protester-who-killed-heather-heyer-found-guilt, accessed 29 May 2019.
[4]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/us/active-shooter-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting.html, accessed 26 May 2019.
[5]https://www.vox.com/2019/4/27/18520810/trump-poway-synagogue-shooting-response-green-bay, accessed 29 May 2019.
[6]https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/03/15/shootings-reported-mosques-christchurch-new-zealand/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.45f02125857c, accessed 29 May 2019.
[7]https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/15/white-house-will-not-sign-christchurch-pact-stamp-out-online-extremism-amid-free-speech-concerns/?utm_term=.760a4b3070ab, accessed 29 May 2019.
[8]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2018/06/05/sessions-defends-separating-immigrant-parents-and-children-weve-got-to-get-this-message-out/?utm_term=.9f43a3e0f98a, accessed 26 May 2019.
[9]https://abcnews.go.com/US/women-fined-sentenced-probation-leaving-water-migrants-crossing/story?id=61439231, accessed 27 May 2019.
[10]https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/05/01/alleged-synagogue-shooter-was-churchgoer-who-articulated-christian-theology-prompting-tough-questions-evangelical-pastors/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.392d75777270, accessed 30 May 2019.