“We Need Oil”: Reclaiming My Faith In A World of Commodified and Toxic Christianity
I remember the quote coming across my social media timeline back in the fall of last year.
“Cerebral Christianity won’t sustain us in the days ahead. We need oil.”
If my memory is correct, it was posted in the week leading up to the 2020 Presidential Election. I had long been aware of the nature of this kind of Christianity — this rejection of intellectualism in favor of what many in that sphere would call “a discerning spirit.” This particular post was support of conservative politics under the guise of a call-to-faith. If you grew up in a Christian home or Christian culture, you know exactly what I am talking about. In fact, I’d argue that it’s exactly this kind of “Christian” response to events of mass tragedy or societal strife that allowed “Thoughts and Prayers” to become the undeniable meme that it now is. I am sure that the friend who posted this quote meant it as a final commentary on what she had been posting about all year — what many conservative, Republican Christians had been posting about all year on social media and participating in as a group.
Throughout the year, I had seen quite a few things posted by Christian friends and acquaintances that filled me with frustration (and if I am being totally honest — anger). It was the same feeling that I had whenever I drove past “Jesus 2020” yard signs or saw Christian friends and acquaintances post about “praying” for the Black men and women who were murdered by police and racist white vigilantes this past summer while at the same time questioning the need and effectiveness of the Movement for Black Lives. I continued to feel similar frustration at the absolute recklessness of Bethel Church-associated Sean Feucht and his absolute unabashed grift, channeled through his maskless concerts, held in cities across the U.S. dealing with hospital room shortages and significant spikes in COVID-19. These rallies were marketed by Feucht and his supporters as “freedom of religion” worship services, even though virtual church worship had always been an option and no other major religious groups in the U.S. had “protested” this apparent “persecution.”
Yes, I assume when I saw that quote about “oil,” it felt like the perfect summation of this version of Christianity I was not only becoming annoyed with but scared by. More importantly, I began to see (particularly with Christian friends and acquaintances reposting QAnon-related propaganda) that this version of the Church was more toxic than I had remembered and growing progressively more dangerous. I knew that spheres of the white Church had historically been and were connected to truly awful things — segregation and white-flight, lynchings, exploitation of lower-income populations, misogyny, and controversial (and dangerous) politics.
But what undoubtedly got under my skin was the way much of their conduct and beliefs felt incongruous to the Christian faith I espouse. I was so uncomfortable by how loud their voices seemed to be and how intense their collective power was and is. The few times I took to my own social media presence to denounce the white church’s silence on the murder of Black citizens or Feucht’s display of impertinence and danger to Christian witness, my direct messages were flooded with friends, close and peripheral, who agreed and thanked me for speaking up. There were also messages from Christian acquaintances of absolute disagreement with the points I was making. For those who disagreed with me, a similar pattern followed:
There was a clear rejection of facts at the core of their arguments.
For example, when I posted about the issues with Sean Feucht’s actions, I was met with emotion-based arguments revolving around the need for communal, in-person worship and the rejection of scientific reports that link mask-wearing and no social gatherings to decreased viral spread. When posting about the need and importance of the BLM movement, white Christian acquaintances who disagreed with me wanted to support their admonishment of the movement with long-debunked arguments about “black-on-black crime” and “a few bad apples” while patently ignoring any sources I would provide dismissing these for the crack-pot takes they are. There were even some who wanted to claim that BLM and academic approaches to explaining systemic racism (like Critical Race Theory) were “Marxist propaganda” and “un-Christian.” I pointed to the leadership and witness of the Black Christian church, who has, for years, decried the violence against Black citizens at the hands of the State and underscored ways in which systemic change is vitally needed. I thought, “Surely these Christians would listen to their fellow Christians” (who are not innumerous in size). Surely, this many people mobilizing would signal truth in the movement and certainly those who purport to support “the least of these” would recognize the power in listening to the lived-exerience of historically oppressed minority groups.
They did not. Not within my own sphere of influence and not nationally, it seems. Very few Christian thought-leaders spoke out against the toxicity of the white church this past year. Beth Moore, famous American evangelicst and author, was one of these few. She was met by absolutely digusting and vitriolic online hate from people who identified as “Christians”. Jen Hatmaker, who denounced Trump in 2016, received death threats. Lifeway, a monolithic Christian retailer, completely removed her books from their inventory after her condemnation of him. These women were viewed as heretical in many Christian circles — a common theme of both of their stories was that their rejection of the idea that being a Christian meant supporting conservative, Republican candidates and calling out white supremacy’s hold on current Christian culture in the United States meant that they were no longer trusted or respected cultural religious thought-leaders. Sadly, these examples pale (pun not intended) in comparison to the way the white church (and those politicans who claim to be members of it) have treated Black faith leaders. Look no further than the racist political ads run against now Senator-elect Reverend Raphael Warnock, deriding his faith and congregation, or the culture war Christian-identifying conservatives have long waged against Black churches and activists.
The faith I have and the Bible I read and the Jesus I love feels lightyears away from the faith these Christians are embracing, championing and weaponizing.
But nothing quite gave me nausea the way the seizing of the Capitol Building by the violent mob of Trump supporters did this past week. I can’t forget the video footage of the mob reciting the “Lord’s Prayer,” — the ominous way they stood, chanting Jesus’ words, in red, white and blue warpaint faces while draped in American flags, many holding Q-inspired signs or merchandise. This was not “Christianity.” This was something altogether different.
But that didn’t mean that Christians didn’t help us get here.
When I thought about this upcoming year and my own resolutory thoughts, I knew that I wanted to be a voice in that space saying something different. I can no longer stand by while groups of people (and sadly, friends and family of mine) proclaiming Christ continue to weaponize their faith in dangerous ways. White supremacy, anti-intellectualism and misogyny have held on to the church for far too long because good, anti-racist people leave. We have to reclaim this space and this faith.
Doing that to me means publicly investigating and exploring how we got here. I am taking this year to read and write about all of the corners of toxic white Christianity, from its roots in white supremacy to the harms of purity culture to the role Christian Evangelicism plays in politics. Each month, I plan to tackle something different and utilize current religious commentary as well as older religious texts to deconstruct how this was built, seek Biblical truth about what we are actually called to in faith, and hopefully give space to those people of faith who agree that *Houston* we have a problem.
This is our come-to-Jesus meeting, y’all.
As Christians, we are called to first, love God. And then, to love our neighbor. We can do neither well or honestly if we pretend there is nothing wrong in the way we have corporatized our faith and allowed racism, white-supremacy and patriarchal influence to seep into our religious spaces and our lives. We have to call it out for what it is, listen to those groups we have collectively sidelined and oppressed and then, we have to do something to make sure this does not happen again.
David Dark, a Belmont Univeristy religion professor I have long-admired, had a recent rumination that has stuck with me with regard to combatting the desire to be silent in the face of conflict and shame:
If the price of admission within my peer group is the frequent suppression of my own conscience, I would like to argue that the price is too high. One hard-won, ongoing lesson of the last four years, especially among those of us who are coming to see our own deep complicity in white supremacist thinking, is the realization that silence is complicity. How do I honor and heed the prophet within me when my fear compels me to keep it all hid? Slowly, creatively and, I imagine, sometimes suddenly, together with others, one brave and risky conversation at a time. In this, Thomas Merton offers a sanity-restoring word: “It is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything.” To believe this is to hold a sacred conception of culture within which the evasion of conscience and the avoidance of conflict are never acceptable means to some other end. The end is in the means.
Silence is complicity and while I don’t believe every single person needs to write publicly about something for twelve months to meaninfully engage in understanding the white supremacist roots of the American Christian church, we would all do well to not forgo “cerebral” Christianity because oil burns out, y’all and it’s pretty dangerous to have around when you’re trying to put out a fire.
I will be writing monthly about various topics and will publish my reading list as well. I welcome you to follow along as I dig in to these issues and seek community with like-minded believers. See you at the end of this month.