,
9 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
In my experience, one of the challenges to understanding how often "white nationalism" & "Christianity" intersect is that evangelicals often lack a category for religion as part of cultural.
We're taught to think about "Christianity" primarily in terms of personal conversion. This sets up 2 categories: true believers & non-believers.
Add to this the belief that church is comprised of regenerate membership & it's easy to lose the category of religious non-believers or uncoverted "Christians" altogether.
The result is kind of a "no true Scotsman" effect. We can embrace all the cultural good that comes from white Christian church & reject any cultural evil that may have been incubated there.
But religion & religious institutions play a role in creation of culture, including the culture of white supremacy/white nationalism. Even if it was only to turn a blind eye & not call out evil.
All that to say there are plenty of white nationalists who learned it from & w/in their Christian subculture. Or at the very least find no conflict between their religious practices & their belief in white supremacy/nationalism.
As white evangelicals, we must understand that *our* religious culture functions like any other religious culture. We imagine ourselves individuals, gathered side-by-side, individually worshiping God. But that's an impossibility.
This frame also causes us to place the weight of a sin like white supremacy entirely on the individual. If we can acknowledge its existence, we look for it to take form in grotesque, overt ways. When it doesn't, we're comforted that it doesn't exist among us.
Because we lack a category for religious life as part of larger cultural system, we also lack ability to recognize systemic sin & how often Christian forms are used to promote it--even as it is at odds w/ the gospel itself.
