Thread by @JemarTisby

This is an important point. Recent books about evangelical history (including my work) elicit strong and pointed opposition from a certain (fundamentalist, far-right) faction of Christians. Here’s what seems to irk them the most…
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https://twitter.com/daviddzimianski/status/1506321948288159756

They don’t seem to have a problem with the veracity of historical facts prior to 20th century. The issue is questioning the role of slavery and white supremacy in the U.S. founding. They hate disrupting the narrative of inevitable racial and human rights progress.

Some very far-right folks still argue that slavery wasn’t that bad because benevolent/Christian slaveholders and/or the “at least they got the gospel” trope. Trash, but you hear it sometimes.

They also still love their proslavery theologians: Dabney, Thornwell, et al. These were “men of their time” who just had a few “blind spots.” But if you have the gall to suggest a Christian of color who dares emphasize social justice…”heretic!”

Moving into the 20th century, they will agree lynching was atrocious but seldom look into their own family, community, or church histories to see how their forebears may have been complicit or directly involved.

The Jim Crow era, with its racial violence and segregation was a blemish in our nation’s past, they say, but thank goodness we’re past that! As if the progress happened all by itself.

That gets us into the Civil Rights era. They only choose to remember one line of one of MLK’s speeches. They love the *idea* of nonviolence. Seems less militant. But have no idea how violent nonviolence was toward activists. It got them jailed, fired, brutalized and killed.

What the reactionaries also refuse to acknowledge is their forebears called civil rights activists “Communists” and today they use the “CRT” label. The effect is the same— marginalization, suspicion and dismissal of most justice advocates.

The Black Power era, for the reactionaries, was an irredeemably anti-American and criminal movement. That’s why we need “law and order”, more prisons, more police, longer sentences, and the death penalty. They characterize Black Lives Matter the same way today.

The part the far-right fundamentalists REALLY hate is when historians talk about the rise of the Religious Right and that it had more to do with power and enforcing a certain vision of “Christian America” on a pluralistic society than upholding the ethics of Jesus.

The far-right becomes apoplectic at any suggestion that the almost 1:1 identification of Christian or evangelical with the Republican Party is anything less than God’s clear (to them) revealed plan for all political involvement.

They use abortion, Supreme Court picks, and supposed “fiscal conservatism” (not for corporations or military spending, but definitely for the poor) as their “trump” cards.

With all of these issues, broad legal, policy, or systemic changes are almost never the solution. One person critiquing my work actually said “blacks…have unlimited opportunities and protection” today. Success or hardship is almost purely due to individual actions.

Other than the items above and a few more, far-right, fundamentalist reactionaries have NO PROBLEM with learning and acknowledging history!

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