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Need to unpack two concepts brought together by this question: 1) Decentering 2) Whiteness. #LiberatingEvangelicalism #insession 1/
First, To decenter means to move, slide, lift and clear from the center—the reference point. 2/ #LiberatingEvangelicalism .@FreedomRoadus
Now, #whiteness. Whiteness is a POLITICAL construct, created to order our world in such a way as to bestow full benefits of citizenship and humanity upon people deemed white by the state. 3/ #LiberatingEvangelicalism .@Evang4Justice @FreedomRoadus
Whiteness erases ethnicity. When Europeans cam to America they had to release claim on their ethnic origin in order to claim new “white” status. Case in point: The Census. Since 1790, only one category for all people of European origin—“White”. #LiberatingEvangelicalism 4/ 
“White” is ONLY race on first census. In all the years of the Census since then, many other “races” have been added. Most are actually ethnicies or nationalities. The ONE that has NEVER changed is #White. You’ll never see “Irish American”. #LiberatingEvangelicalism 5/
Why not have categories for different European ethnicities on Census? Power. The Census is our nation’s core organizing document. Decides how and where resources are allocated. Consolidation of European ethnicities into whiteness consolidates #power. 6/ #LiberatingEvangelicalism
In theological terms, America told a spiritual lie when the founders created the construct of whiteness. 7/ #LiberatingEvangelicalism .@Evang4Justice
Through Doctrine of Discovery, 3/5 Compromise, 1st Census, and 1790 Immigration Act they declared that only white men are divinely called and created with the capacity to exercise Genesis 1:26 #dominion on this land. 8/ #LiberatingEvangelicalism
But Genesis 1:26 tells us ALL HUMANITY is created in God’s image and, therefore CALLED by God and created with capacity (all things equal) to exercise dominion in the land—to steward the world, to exercise agency to shape and cultivate the world. 9/ #LiberatingEvangelicalism
Decentering whiteness in the US will require government recognition of the full humanity and divine call of ALL humanity, within our jurisdiction, to care for, steward, cultivate and shape our nation. #imhereforit 10/ #LiberatingEvangelicalism .@Evang4Justice @FreedomRoadus
It will also require a rugged interrogation of the systems, structures and policies crafted in the era of #whitecenteredness. 11/ #LiberatingEvangelicalism #justdoit
Now, for #WhiteEvangelicalism. What does it mean to decenter whiteness in white evangelicalism? 12/ #LiberatingEvangelicalism .@Evang4Justice @FreedomRoadus
#DecenteringWhiteness in #WhiteEvangelicalism would require that white people relinquish control over the center of Evangelical faith and place brown, indigenous, colonized Jesus back in center! #MueveteMuevete 13/ #LiberatingEvangelicalism .@Evang4Justice
#DecenteringWhiteness in #WhiteEvangelicalism would mean moving Luther/Calvin from center of orthodoxy; recognizing they were European men in slaveholding empires, trying to understand text written by colonized people. Not erase just decenter. 14/ #LiberatingEvangelicalism
#DecenteringWhiteness in #WhiteEvangelicalism would require ALL seminaries to require ALL students to soak in the voices of theologians from social locations closest to the writers of the Biblical text, itself—the oppressed. And call that Theology. 15/ #LiberatingEvangelicalism
#DecenteringWhiteness in #WhiteEvangelicalism would require white men to do one of two things with their ownership of the house of Evangelicalism: Add people of color to the deed or #tearitup 16/ #LiberatingEvangelicalism @FreedomRoadus .@Evang4Justice
Finally, #DecenteringWhiteness in #WhiteEvangelicalism would lead to the restoration of the witness of the church and the healing of our world. 17/17 #thatisall #LiberatingEvangelicalism
