October 28, 2024 #mondaymoment #christiannationalism #racism #whitesupremacy #fear
Happy Monday, friends! At this point I think we can all agree that we’re sick and tired of political ads both from the candidates we support and particularly the candidates we don’t support. We’ve heard the arguments, seen the statements pulled out of their context, heard the blatant lies and fabrications, even seen candidates make claims and promises which can never come true because that’s not how elected positions and governmental bodies function. We’re ready to move beyond the rancor and return to normal life.
Yet this presidential election, perhaps more than any other in recent memory, has stoked fears of what will happen when either major party candidate wins and perhaps even what will happen if one candidate loses. Rather than coming together even as lose ideological groups, we’ve been told, explicitly and implicitly, to fear our neighbors and the people closest to us. Granted fear is nothing new. It is tightly woven into the fabric of our national identity. The fear of the other, the fear of some group coming to take our values, our beliefs, our jobs, our money, and our safety is deeply ingrained in the American psyche. It is the perpetual lie of white supremacy, Christian nationalism, and capitalism. It’s the lie that initiated slavery, used Christian themes to keep Black people in chains and displace native peoples from their land. It’s the lie that continues to keep poor white people from organizing with Black and Brown people, because somehow white billionaires should be trusted more than poor people of other racial and ethnic identities. It’s the lie that twists God’s message of fierce and enduring love to tell Queer people that congregations who want them to be celibate or to “change” their sexual orientations are ones who really “love” them. It’s a lie based completely in fear with the goal of silencing marginalized voices not by any means necessary, but by every mean available.
Where this lie has often laid hidden in the depth of dynamics which only certain scholars have had the leisure to explore, it is now exposed in the light of day, but not by those groups and those people it affects, but by the very voices and forces which continue to perpetrate it. They are emboldened to say the quiet parts online, to shout them in places like Charlottesville and Springfield, and to use them as violent rallying cries on dates like January 6, 2021.
Slavery is the United States’ original sin, but this lie strengthens the omnipresent forces and voices of hate which succeed in dividing us so that we can’t challenge their power, narrative, or control.
Where has this national lie impacted your life? How have you helped perpetuate it or been silent in its face?
In lieu of a closing prayer, I commend to you the song “State of the Nation” by David Ford.
Blessings on your weeks, my friends! Let me know if there is anything I can do for you.
Faithfully,
Ben
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