White Christian Nationalism

UnFlagging Jesus

~ philipamerson

UnFLAGging Jesus

I once was joined for lunch by two friends. One was head of a theological school. Our conversation was amicable enough. Although the seminary president took up much of our visit promoting a wide array of initiatives focused on leadership. Future pastors, chaplains, counselors and social service providers were being trained to be leaders! It appeared an effort to impress the other friend at the table — John McKnight. 

John is one of the founders of the Asset Based Community Development approach to community organizing, (often abbreviated as ABCD).  A primary assumption of ABCD is that good leaders start by listening to others and discovering gifts, passions, assumptions and assets. After lunch as we were saying our “good-byes,” John took the hand of the seminary president and kindly offered, “Maybe we should focus a little more on connector-ship and a little less on leadership.” 

Connector-ship! That’s a missing ingredient in so much of human exchange. Universities, businesses, denominations and governments spend tens of millions of dollars and valuable personnel time training for leadership. This is not without merit and benefit. Still if one begins with a belief that energy and initiatives all flow from a top-down direction, a needed element for change is missing. Too often, there is the assumption that if the leader just has the right idea, program, language, skill set or practices, success will inevitably follow. McKnight, understands and teaches that human connection is a critical initial step in developing effective institutions and civil communities.

Don’t start identifying the needs of others you plan to fix without listening. First, listen to find the gifts, the capacities, the assets that folks already possess. Secondly, find that inner moral compass that must continually be developed throughout life by study, seeking fact-based reality, and interacting responsibly with others. This is a more enduring pathway forward.  

I know a remarkable corporate leader who upon arriving at a troubled firm, went to folks on the picket line, the hourly workers, not just upper management and he listened. A follower of Jesus, he continued in prayer, study and worship. Leadership meant connector-ship, listening, learning and finding a moral compass. Shortly thereafter, he gathered the employees in the parking lot. Taking a copy of the company’s unfair policies and procedures manual, he dropped it into the flames of a barrel used those standing in the cold. It was not a concession; it was a modeling of connection. Hard work followed.  He was saying, “We are listening, let’s talk.”

Recently I wrote a piece titled “Jesus Wrapped in a Flag.” Today’s Christian Nationalism promotes a fraudulent version of Christianity, and profoundly flawed revision of American History.  Lovett Weems offered a set of counter recommendations titled Leading Amidst Christian Nationalism.  While helpful, these are overly cautious words and appeared to assume there is only one paradigm for congregational life. It is a soft version of the very American Civil Religion that the author critiques. It is more of a starting point than a guide.

I thought of all the congregations and courageous religious leaders who are doing much more. They listen and share the hard truths discovered in their study and prayers about our responsibilities as Christians. They offer a more robust response to the profound dangers and misinformation widely dispensed by White Christian Nationalism and American Catholic Integralism.

The American church, Protestant and Catholic, needs to remove the American Flag from the shoulders of Jesus. It doesn’t belong there; never has. If U.S. policies and practices aren’t held under the judgement of the Gospel, why be a Christian at all?  Why not just pledge primary allegiance to anything our nation does and forget Jesus?  Just diminish our discipleship. 

Some U.S. “leaders” have done just that. Congresswoman Laureen Boebert said, “Jesus didn’t have enough AR-15 rifles to keep the government from killing him.”  What? Jesus is remolded into a grievance filled, revenge seeking and bully. What does the congresswoman do with the Sermon on the Mount, the words, “Love your enemies” or in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Nevertheless, thy will be done”?  The paradox, of course, as Reinhold Niebuhr argued, while international ethics are messy, they begin with morality in human expression.

The witness of Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ, isn’t limited to the foolish, mean-spirited and ill-informed theologies of some in congress these days. Jesus of scripture says “Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.[iv]” 

The witness of Jesus is UnFlagging!  It is persistent – enduring. It calls leaders to leave their C-Suite offices and learn from the folks in the parking lot.  It calls on congregations to speak with and learn from folks not in the pews on Sunday.

In the mid-1980s my family lived in a low-wealth neighborhood in Evansville, Indiana. One fall, fear gripped neighbors as vicious rapes were reported. The assailant was said to be African American in our multiracial community. Soon we learned the Ku Klux Klan was sending patrols to protect our white citizens, especially the women.  What should our small core-city ministry do? How might we offer a safe alternative to this violation and the hate-based response?

Someone suggested we talk with Will Campbell. Mississippi born, Baptist minister, graduate of Yale Divinity School, author, and Civil Rights advocate, Will was known for friendships with a wide range of people, including members of the Ku Klux Klan. Will took this dwelling together stuff seriously!

I called and left phone messages for Will. It took a few days, and he returned my call. Hearing of our situation, he said, “First thing you need to say to the Klan is “no, your activities are not welcome.'” That sounded good to me — We had already done that. Then, Will, stumped me, surprised me. He asked, “What are their names?” 

NAMES?  “What do you mean?” I responded, “Whose names? Our neighbors?”  “No.” Will said, thinking I would already know the Klansmen. Their names.  I confessed that I didn’t know any of those folks.  He said, “Well, then, what the hell you been doing?  Who are they?”  Interesting, our need to limit where repentance, reconciliation and renewal might occur. Perhaps some changes, some weaving of new relationships could happen in my own life, not only in the lives of Klan members. Might there be a bridging to new relationship, even there? A renewal larger than my imagining?

South African Methodist Bishop Peter Story noted that “America’s preachers have a task more difficult, perhaps, than those faced byus under apartheid. We had obvious evils to engage; you [on the other hand] have to unwrap your culture from years of red, white and blue myth, You have to expose and confront the great disconnect between the kindness, compassion and caring of most Americans and the ruthless way American power is experienced, directly and indirectly, by the poor of the earth. You have to help people see how they have let their institutions do their sinning for them.“
























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[i] Weems, Lovett H. Jr. Leading Amidst Christian Nationalism, LEADING IDEAS, Lewis Center for Church Leadership, June 25, 2024).

[ii] Matthew 5:43-48.

[iii] Luke 22:42

[iv] Matthew 11:28-30.

[v] Storey, Peter, Sojourners Magazine, Oct. 18, 2006.

Avoiding Deep Change: Racism and the Ineffectual Church, Chapter 2

~ philipamerson

Racism and the Ineffectual Church, Chapter 2

Racism and the Ineffectual Church, Chapter 2

“Preaching leads to changed lives,” I recall one of my seminary homiletics professor’s assertation. Another professor, a diminutive Scot, with a marvelous Scottish brogue (involving the trilling of ‘r’s in his speech), offered instead that “Ser-r-mons are r-r-eminder-rs of where God is al-r-r-eady active in the lives of the people.”

In my experience, sermons typically aren’t life-changing events for the hearer — or the preacher. Like workshops they can be helpful, but not often transformative.  Now, after more than five decades, I have much appreciation for my Scottish professor’s understandings. A sermon may assist others in taking a step along faith’s journey.  I don’t recall anyone greeting me after worship and saying, “that sermon was transformative.” On the other hand, years later a few have said, “You didn’t know it but that word came at a time in my life when I was ready to hear.” Amazingly, years or decades later, some have said, “I remember that sermon back in 19??.  It came at a time when I was seeking another path, another vocation, or a new partner. Thanks.”

Recently, I wrote about well-intentioned but ineffectual Diversity, Equity and Inclusion workshops. Like sermons, such events rarely lead to substantial change in racialism and discrimination. But this is not written as a screed against workshops or sermons. Instead, it is the proposition that when these activities are accompanied by a clear invitation to join with others in witnessing and addressing racial discrimination, remarkable transformation is possible.

So, why this focus on preaching and racism? Well, put simply, addressing racism is about more than words or ideas. Racism is often distilled into the belief that it is only about personal attitudes or prejudice. For Whites — for all people – sermons are effective as they are joined to changes in the ways we live. Parker Palmer suggests “Changed thinking doesn’t lead to changed actions so much as changed actions lead to changes in the ways one thinks.”  Sermons and workshops are insufficient, helpful perhaps, but in isolation they may serve as an inoculation avoiding fundamental change.

Several Open Housing campaigns in the 1960s carried the slogan: Your heart may be in the right place, but are you? As hundreds of thousands were moving to the suburbs avoiding racially integrated schools and neighborhoods, the church was… well, preaching a lot about racial justice.  Meanwhile in only a few cities were churches at the center of racial justice and integration efforts.  In 1961 Gibson Winter, theologian and social scientist, documented this in the book “The Suburban Captivity of the Churches.”

Dr. William Pannell

A cherished friend of mine, Professor William Pannell of Fuller Seminary, is now in his nineties. We met in the late 1960s when as a young seminarian his book “My Friend, the Enemy” spoke powerfully about racism being more than personal prejudice. As friends, he taught me that it was not enough to have a “changed heart.”  I needed to acknowledge the enemy we both faced of white privilege, culture and discrimination. 

Sermons, workshops, and conferences can be mechanisms of avoidance. Bill speaks of the 1966 World Congress on Evangelism. The theme for the 1966 gathering was One Race, One Gospel, One Task.  Evangelical leaders invited more than 1,200 delegates from 100 countries to Berlin for this World Congress on Evangelism (an important precursor to the historic 1974 Lausanne Congress). Pannell speaks of a small group of African American Christians who discover that even though the theme was One Race, One Gospel, One Task, there was a silence about racial injustice.  Imagine this in the middle of the Civil Rights struggles of those years. As Pannell tells it, (see:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkpYIg8tpOI) those concerned about this omission confronted the conference leadership and, as is often the case, they were asked to write a document on racism to be approved by the Congress.  Pannell then reports, these more than fifty years later, that document must be “sitting on a shelf somewhere.”  You see, the passing of a nicely worded document, was not connected to concrete institutional and cultural change.  Or as Pannell would have it, “Vital and Biblical evangelization.”

All around we have the opportunity to join in activities to address racial injustice and do more than attend workshop or preach sermons.  However, those of us who are now, or have been, a part of Mainline Christian leadership need to learn to listen to and support others.  There are some remarkable young persons ready to teach and lead us. Persons who come from different racial experiences.  I will share more in future chapters. Urgently now, look for places where persons are addressing the evil of White Christian Nationalism. Check out the upcoming event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/how-white-christian-nationalism-threatens-our-democracy-tickets-439763242697#search.  Then do more.  A true addressing of racism involves deep change in the ways our institutions understand, and act differently based on the structural, financial and cultural options pursued.

One of my other heroes was Thomas Broden on the faculty of Notre Dame Law School. Tom joined a team working on an initiative called Project Understanding, back in the early 1970s. It focused on city congregations across the country (Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Indianapolis, Bay Area, South Bend). My work was to carry out research on ways racial attitudes might be changed and how racism in many forms might be addressed.

I recall the day we recommended to Broden that lay persons from many denominations be gathered to study and consider ways to address racial injustice. Tom’s response was “That’s okay as far as it goes.” He had my attention! He went on, “We will want to get them involved in some activity with persons who differ racially and in situations where discrimination can be clearly seen.”  In South Bend, one of the activities he suggested was to have lay people sit in welfare offices and observe the cheating going on there.  I was appalled – Tom laughed – “Oh, he said, cheaters will be found, but few of them will be those seeking assistance!”  He was right, so very right.  Today, in Indiana every welfare office must post “the rights of those who seek assistance.”  That came directly from the work of lay people in Project Understanding.  In Chicago and Dallas, change came from teams who sought to rent an apartment (some teams were White only, some Black only, some mixed racially). After visiting the same apartment and seeking to rent it, the teams would gather and learn about the ways discrimination was seen in the prospect of renting the same apartment. In California, there were engagements with persons seeking immigration or work documents.  Sermons helped, workshops were okay, but the research showed that true and lasting changes in racial attitudes were rooted in real and concrete efforts to address discrimination and unjust institutions.

Or, as my seminary preaching professor would put It, “Serr-r-mons are r-r-eminder-rs of where God is al-r-r-eady active in the lives of the people.”