Woke up thinking about the question @namenzie asked yesterday about the plan for rescuing Christians stuck in MAGAland. Honestly, my first thought was along the lines of “F*@% them! Let them rot.”
Then I went straight OT. Literally. I pulled up Deut 21:18-21. It’s my favorite text of terror to hurl at “bad” Christians.
I think there’s a version that uses the term “He’s a profligate and a drunkard.” So when I use this passage as a weapon against someone, I tend to use the SOA translation, “Die in your ignorance, you profligate and unrepentant muthaf^cka!” #StraightOuttaAtlanta #TrapTheology
I mean 81% of evangelicals AGAIN?! Early data shows that the majority every Christian group across the board - Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, etc. - voted for Trump.
They didn’t care about the 230,000 US lives (and counting) lost to the coronavirus. They didn’t care about children being separated from their parents in a way eerily reminiscent of US chattel slavery. They didn’t care about the fact that the man lies as easily as he breathes.
As a psychologist, I tend to look at scenarios in terms of prognosis. And y’all, the prognostic indicators aren’t good.
Trump’s supporters are ensconced in a delusional worldview in which they are the faithful remnant and everyone else is out to get them. They accept any viewpoint - no matter how illogical and easily disproven - that confirms their bias. And they reject anything that disproves it.
If I were in clinical practice, this is the type of client that I’d have to refer to some type of special therapy that I might have a hard time finding a local therapist skilled enough to do. It’s bad. So yep, hands washed. #NotMySheep
But y’all...I couldn’t leave it there. I wanted to find a NT parallel. Isn’t there something in there about handing unrepentant people over to the evil one? Yeah, that’ll work. I went to Matthew 18, pretty sure it was in that passage where Jesus talks about handling disputes.
Yep, there it is. “Treat them as a Gentile and a tax collector.” Wait, that doesn’t work. Jesus shared table fellowship with Gentiles and tax collectors. He invited them into his kingdom. What’s worse, the next passage is about the unforgiving servant. Literally. Damn.
Fortunately, I believe that forgiveness is a process so I’m in no rush to be granting it. I mean, some things just have to be worked out eschatologically. Sometimes you need to claim your power of binding some things on earth so that they’ll also be bound in heaven.
I’m not struggling with forgiveness. Or even the idea of rescue. But Angela Davis’ words are strong with me this morning, “Freedom is a constant struggle.” Even as I am celebrating, I know this ain’t over. I need y’all to know that too.
See, I know this group isn’t going anywhere. Trump will be their leader, White House or not. He’s going to keep holding rallies, keep stirring them up, keep trying to undermine the cause of justice and equality.
And if it weren’t him, it’d be someone else. Because Trump was never the cause of their ideology, just a manifestation of f it. They aren’t going anywhere. They never do. They occasionally retreat, but that’s only to regroup, to find a new strategy.
And they aren’t dying out either. It wasn’t just older people. And his support was actually stronger among the middle class, not poor Whites, so it’s not just a matter of education and income. This group adapts strategy to fit the times.
When media started heralding the “browning of America,” they ramped up the Quiverfull movement to try to repopulate the country with ultra conservative kids. And they used popular culture to mainstream their movement via the Duggars tv show.
Their “intolerance” (to put it mildly) is not an accident. It is intentional and calculated and aimed at maintaining a White supremacist patriarchal Christian world. They see nothing wrong with that. So yeah, profligate and unrepentant.
But does someone have to treat these profligate and unrepentant muthas as Gentiles and tax collectors? As people who must be converted to the way of Jesus? If so, that’s White people’s unique antiracist work.
More specifically, it is the work of White people who know that worldview because they have at some point been connected to it. It’s the work of White people who’ve managed to escape. #exvangelical
I know. Many of you have tried to do just that for four years. But four years isn’t that long. And frankly, your strategy was not...strategic. You’ve approached it as an individual issue. And maybe that made a little difference, enough to flip a few places.
It’s time to be as intentional and strategic and conniving as the opposition. It’s time to be wise as serpents.
White progressive Christians - even White moderate Christians - need a collective strategy for evangelizing their conservative kinfolk. You need to study their ways and develop an antidote to the virus that is White supremacist patriarchal Christianity. That’s your job.
What was that? What about me? Oh nah, my people been tried. They wouldn’t even listen to us when we told them we were human. I’m shaking the dust off my feet. #Matthew10 #NotMySheep
And if y’all try and try and try and it still doesn’t work, you need to shake the dust off your feet too. Cease fellowship. Yes, even with your kinfolk. Their racism needs to cost them something. And your commitment to antiracism needs to cost you something too.
Enough people were unrolling this that I decided to put it on my blog: drchanequa.wordpress.com/2020/11/08/a-p…

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More from @drchanequa

28 Jul
This is what we mean when we say that White supremacy has infected US & Western Christianity. It’s important for ppl to understand that this is not ignorance; it’s intentional.
People are actually arguing with Metaxas as if he’s simply uninformed. That’s not the case. He has chosen to frame Jesus as White despite all evidence because that is critical to the project of White supremacist Christianity.
It’s a perfectly circular argument that defies logic: “Jesus was White therefore Whiteness is superior. And Whiteness is superior therefore Jesus must have been White.”
Read 6 tweets
2 Jul
This is finna be a thread on the pushback against White Fragility.
As books on racism take over the bestseller lists, there’s inevitable debate about which books make it there & whether they deserve it. I commented on the critique re: “How to Be Antiracist” a few days ago. Now let’s talk about White Fragility.
I am a clinical psychologist, as is Robin DiAngelo. Never met her but admired her work for a good 15+ years. She’s been doing it since before it was profitable or popular.
Read 20 tweets
16 Jun
My peeps who know @lecrae, send that brother a copy of #IBringtheVoices and tell him not to talk to another white evangelical about race until he reads it.
I'm listening to the entire convo now and the whole thing is a setup from the beginning.
That part where Giglio says the difficulty White people have w/ understanding racism is that they can never experience it directly. That's such a standard White copout. Why do you need to experience injustice to know that it exists and that it's wrong?!
Read 13 tweets
12 Oct 19
I haven’t talked about my #breastcancer journey much on the twitters but since it’s #breastcancerawareness month, let’s do this.

Warning: Don’t follow me on the basis of this thread w/o checking the profile. I’m liberal AF & I mainly tweet about racism & sexism.
I was 1st diagnosed w #breastcancer in Jul 2014. Went thru dbl mastectomy, chemo, & reconstruction. Was rediagnosed w a local recurrence in Oct 2018.
The 1st dx was hard but not unexpected. My mom was dx 20yrs earlier w a more advanced #breastcancer. For 20 yrs I’d tell drs that and they’d look at me like I had an expiration date stamped on my forehead.
Read 19 tweets
12 Feb 19
I am so giddy about my forthcoming book on racial reconciliation. I feel like a kid in a candy shop every time the publisher contacts me about the next step on the publication process. There’s a long backstory behind this book
I spent 10 years immersed in the Christian racial reconciliation movement, from 2006-2016. From the beginning, I was plagued by “Yes, but” moments, but that didn’t stop me from being all in.
I loved being in spaces where diverse Christians had honest convo about race and racism. I had only experienced that previously in Black church spaces.
Read 19 tweets
23 Mar 18
In response to my critique of multiracial churches, many people have asked me what these spaces should look like and how to make that happen. Those are the wrong questions. The question is “Who must I become and how do I do that?”
1. Educate yourself on structural racism and POC theologies. Notice the “educate yourself” part. You should do this in partnership with POC but not by asking them to educate you.
2. Immerse yourself in worship spaces led by and catering to PoC until you feel at home in them.
Read 9 tweets

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