21AR26-22

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AR 26:22 - White evangelicals: An existential threat to humankind?

In this issue:

RACISM - "Jesus has broken down the dividing wall of hostility"

+ "evangelical Christians are white racists who 'may end up killing us all'"

Apologia Report 26:22 (1,527)

June 2, 2021

RACISM

More Than Equals: Racial Healing for the Sake of the Gospel, by Spencer Perkins and Chris Rice [1] -- "how racial reconciliation is possible - and also critical to Christian discipleship."

IVP continues: "'The first step in the reconciliation process,' Spencer Perkins writes, 'is admitting that the race problem exists and that our inability to deal with race has weakened the credibility of our gospel.'" The authors come from "very different backgrounds embarking on the complex, costly journey of healing across racial divides."

Perkins saw "repeated hypocrisy from white Christians and witnessed his bloodied pastor-activist father after a brutal police beating...." Meanwhile, Rice "was surprised by the tensions he encountered as a volunteer at a majority-black church - and by his own blind spots. As they served together in an intentionally multiracial ministry, both gained insight into why this work is so challenging and how Christians can do it well, in dependence on God ... for ... the deep ongoing surgery of racial healing."

"Perkins and Rice exhibit a relationship that in itself proves the chasm between white and black Christians need not remain. . . . Many works have dealt with the reality of racial disunity in the church, but this [book] offers proven solutions." Christianity Today, 1993 <www.bit.ly/34EbkcM>

"Living into the reality that Jesus has broken down the dividing wall of hostility is not easy.... Perkins and Rice offer honest, painful, and courageous stories in the hard work of dismantling racism," writes Mennonite minister Sue Park-Hur, and codirector of ReconciliAsian.

In 1957 as a boy, Spencer asked his daddy to go to a church with him - and John M. Perkins met Jesus. The rest is history, church history. Can you think of anyone with well over a dozen honorary doctorate degrees? It's a beautiful story. <www.bit.ly/3papzQ1>

"Spencer Perkins, until his death <www.bit.ly/3p7ltIA> in 1998, worked with the John M. Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation and Development and was editor-in-chief of the magazine Urban Family. For twelve years he, Chris Rice and their families lived together in the Antioch Community and served as elders of Voice of Calvary Fellowship Church in Jackson, Mississippi.

"Chris Rice (DMin, Duke Divinity School) is director of the Mennonite Central Committee United Nations Office in New York City....

"For ten years, Chris served as co-founder and Director of the Duke Divinity School Center for Reconciliation. ... His current work engages social division in the U.S., East Africa, and China, Korea, and Japan. He also serves as Senior Associate for Reconciliation for the Lausanne Movement."

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In contrast to the above message of hope, consider: "Religion professors argue evangelical Christians are white racists who 'may end up killing us all'" by Sarah Imgrund (The College Fix, May 27 '21) -- "Racism and the lost cause of the Confederacy is alive and thriving among today's white evangelical Christians, argued three religion professors featured on an [April 6th online] panel <www.bit.ly/2TxEhoG> hosted by the University of Virginia titled 'White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America.'" Their inflammatory conclusion: "If evangelicals don't change, they pose an existential crisis to us all … their racism, their sexism, their homophobia, their lack of belief in science, lack of belief and common sense may end up killing us all."

According to one participant: "I lived in Chicago for 10 years and I came away telling my friends, upon reflection [that] the Midwest is Confederate. In fact, America is Confederate," Larycia Hawkins, assistant professor of politics and religious studies UVA

"When people say to you, 'I don't see color, I see what Jesus sees in you,' that really actually means that they just see white," alleged Anthea Butler, associate professor of religious and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania. "Butler added that it's not about theology, it's about a position evangelical Christians have taken 'that is taking us all over the brink.'"

What's more, because white evangelicals "are being selfish and because they don't care, their racism, their sexism, their homophobia, their lack of belief in science, lack of belief and common sense may end up killing us all...."

"Hawkins argued during the webinar that it's wrong to be entrepreneurial and patriotic [stating that] 'American entrepreneurialism is woven through white evangelicalism, which is Americanism, which is patriotism. To be American is to be white, is to be Christian....'"

In 2015, when she worked as a professor at the Christian Wheaton College, Hawkins "famously wore a Muslim headscarf during Advent and argued Muslims and Christians worship the same God." (For more on this see <www.bit.ly/3yRWUUn> from past issues of AR.)

"Butler is also often in the headlines, most notably when she called God a 'white racist' in 2013."

Imgrund mentions a concerned alumnus who argued that statements by Hawkins and the other panelists during the April 6 webinar constituted "school-sponsored hate speech" against evangelical Christians and noted that he would file "formal hate speech complaints against Hawkins and [co-panelist Charles] Mathewes as well as the Religion, Race and Democracy Lab at UVA, which hosted the event."

In the webinar, Butler described how she wrote White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America [2]....

"'Why does morality mean so much for evangelicals?' is [a] question Butler said she originally grappled with and believes her book answers.

"'I think that the book does a good job of showing you why they are using these moral issues as a shield. They use moral issues to really hide the fact that they want to be politically powerful, that they want certain things out of the government....'

"In her book, Butler argues that 'evangelicalism is synonymous with whiteness.'

"'[T]he whiteness of evangelicalism has come to define evangelicalism, and it is the definition that the media, the general public and the politicians agree on.'"

Butler seems to have pulled out all the stops, at the very end of the webinar, claiming that evangelicals "represent an existential threat to humanity itself," and warning darkly that "If evangelicals don't change, they pose an existential crisis to us all. They have divided the nation politically. They don't want to believe in climate change. They don't want to get vaccines as we've seen in The New York Times." <www.bit.ly/2TwfP77>

In a critical May 11 review <www.bit.ly/3yXOATk> for Juicy Ecumenism (Institute on Religion & Democracy), Derryck Green concludes that Butler's White Evangelical Racism "is a book-length tantrum that reinforces a certain racial hatred for white people who self-identify with the evangelical tradition."

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - More Than Equals: Racial Healing for the Sake of the Gospel, by Spencer Perkins and Chris Rice (IVP, 2021, paperback, 296 pages) <www.bit.ly/3fBLw7y>

2 - White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America, by Anthea Butler (Univ of NC Prs, 2nd ed. 2021, hardcover, 176 pages) <www.bit.ly/34wIXNK>

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