The Unbearable White Supremacy of Evangelical Christian Beings

As we all know, this is the worst Presidential election cycle ever. I’m not being hyperbolic. It is the worst. Very terrible. Awful. Horrendous. It’s like voting for Fidel Castro, Adolf Hitler, Elizabeth Bathory, Joseph McCarthy, and J. Edgar Hoover all in one election.

Aside from Rubio (yuck), Cruz (somehow worse than Trump), Clinton (“Feh”), and Sanders (“Ehhh”), we have Donald Trump, who is exploiting the anger of a whole bunch of (mostly white, working-class, fear-based) people to the joy of rich racist white people everywhere. Why are rich racists joyful? Wouldn’t you be joyful if you’re stinking rich and have plentiful minions to do your bidding at the low levels of society while you work the system at the upper end to make it more comfortable for you? To put it another way – while you’re living well on the top of the mountain, how much do you really care about the people in the valley as long as they keep working for you without complaint?

To prove my point – this past Friday in Chicago, Donald Trump was scheduled to attend a rally. There were protestors embedded in the Trump supporters and before the night was over, multiple fights broke out between the protestors and Trump supporters, with most outlets reporting that Trump supporters started most of the fights because they felt both scared of the protestors and let down significantly because their guy chose to stay away out of fear of being harmed – but he apparently had no qualms about his supporters being harmed. This is who a lot of people are supporting. It’s sad, shocking, horrifying, disturbing, and not at all good news for the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

Often, in times of crisis, people turn to God for hope and comfort. This election cycle counts as a crisis for many people. Sometimes, people will listen to what God says through His ministers. Sometimes his ministers provide the right words, striking a balance between giving hope and admitting reality. This is a proper role for ministers.

What is not proper, in my opinion, is shilling for a presidential candidate, especially one as reprehensible as Donald Trump. Trump has maligned Muslims, Mexicans, Black people, and women. He has no plan to tackle anything and just enjoys making speeches and inciting violence with hate speech, yet he says he’s a unifier.

Often, pastors are called upon to serve in churches where the congregations are diverse with differing needs. Pastors should do this gladly as it opens their hearts to people who may not look and think like them. Far too often, though, churches grow so big that they become a successful small business with millions of dollars in the bank. They then start preaching either prosperity gospel or some other off-the-wall stuff that doesn’t hold Biblical weight.

Sometimes, they go all the way overboard and do things that risk ruining their ministries and credibility, and reaching anyone else in the name of Jesus. Sometimes they put their patriotism and fears first and publicly support candidates who preach hatred of others who don’t look like you and other things that are fiercely anti-Biblical. Sometimes they vocally defend and support candidates, like Donald Trump, who speak against people in their large congregation and contributors to their ministries who look exactly like who Donald Trump says we should fear – basically anyone not white (or anyone, if they aren’t white, who doesn’t think the white race is supreme).

I’ve heard this kind of “patriotism” preached from conservative pulpits and it always comes back to “We’re Americans. Everyone should assimilate into our culture and try their best to look and act like Americans.” The problem with this is that Americans are of many different races and ethnic backgrounds, and anything that’s deemed “American” is often white by default – music, food, activities, and even Christianity. In these churches, there may be a minority of people attending weekly from other races, but they get shot down whenever they want to do things like start a step team or a gospel choir, or have a cultural celebration one afternoon where they can show off food and clothing from their heritage. Some of these churches have rules against certain music in their bylaws because it would “set a tone and atmosphere” that goes against what they stand for. Gospel music is antithetical to your church’s mission? And that doesn’t strike you as the least bit possibly based in racism?

Jesus ain’t enough? Oh ok.

It’s like the only things that are deemed proper for Americans are activities that mostly white Americans enjoy (baseball, apple pie, NASCAR) or activities they started while ignoring other cultures back in the day (which subsequently led to other cultural things being developed, deemed sub-cultural, and appropriated today by the majority because they did not care to hold these cultures equally with their own, and thus only use them to mock and denigrate the culture and people associated with them).

Many an American evangelical Christian of every race doesn’t even realize they look down on anyone who isn’t white or anyone who doesn’t hold white culture as the ideal culture and identity. If they did, they would be way more compassionate toward others who don’t look or act like them. They would not support a candidate like Donald Trump who is in this for his own vainglorious validation. They would not support someone who only has rhetoric with no actionable plans in place to move the country forward. They would be angry, sure, and there’s a lot to be angry over, but in their anger Paula White, Joel Osteen, and Mark Burns wouldn’t sin and shill openly for Trump and his money (he’s given money to their ministries. This makes me ask, “Who are you really serving, preachers, God or mammon?”).

I mean, Trump looks like demons are vomiting all up and through his soul from the mentioning of the name Jesus when preachers lay hands on him to pray. That doesn’t strike you as odd, guys? You can’t sense something off about Donald Trump? I’ll be honest. I saw a video of him on YouTube years ago when he was walking down the street with two bodyguards and he got into a car to be taken somewhere. Even back then I felt darkness all around that man through my computer screen. Really. No, really. And if I have the Holy Spirit and felt it, I know at least one of y’all shameful preachers felt it in his presence.

That is, unless his darkness married with your own darkness. There’s a song that goes, “Whose side are you leaning on? I’m leaning on the Lord’s side!” So, Paula, Joel, and Mark, whose side are you leaning on? Right now, it’s definitely not the Lord’s side.

Tags: 2016, 2016 Presidential Elections, Christianity, Donald Trump, Evangelical Christian, Evangelical Christians, featured, Politics, White Supremacy

Category: Christianity, Politics