Malcolm x sounded the alarm about Christian Nationalism many years ago. Some of our experts are only now discussing it, but at what cost? They narrow the scope of what it means to the point that there is no point.
If christian Nationalists are such a small group, why even talk about them? How can they ascend the 7 mountaintops of their mandate if they’re so few in number and easy to distinguish from the majority of American Christians?
Malcolm Made it Plain
“The whole church structure in this country is white nationalism,” claimed the Muslim minister at the 48-minute mark of his 1964 speech, “The Ballot or the Bullet.”
Malcolm further explained, “You go inside of white church, that’s what they’re preaching, white nationalism. They’ve got Jesus white, Mary white, God white, everybody white. That’s white nationalism!”
Don’t worry, his critique was inclusive, for just a moment later he said: “you can go to a Negro church and be exposed the white nationalism.”
Why? You’ll find yourself surrounded by the same racially biased artwork that preaches a message before the pastor’s lips move.
Images matter – especially in a largely illiterate or aliterate world. That’s why popes spent so much money on large scale art projects, like the paintings in the Sistine Chapel. They wanted people to visualize the Church’s teachings – especially when Renaissance artists and philosophers were raising questions that made the Roman church uncomfortable. Since they were European artists, it made sense that their art resembled themselves. However, when church leaders “blessed” European monarchs to “discover” other people’s property, they took their art with them. They had written catechisms, but they also had portraits to show non-white people what God, Jesus, angels, prophets, and saints look like.
The Sophistry of Artistry
Indigenous people of color around the globe started internalizing color-coded belief systems, since the pictures looked like the people who brought them the books. Soon, technological advances in weapons, travel, and mass production of print materials all combined with newfound wealth from stolen land and stolen labor. This combination of artistry and weaponry enabled both mercenaries and missionaries to export their version of a “Christ” who ordained a hierarchy of humanity with white people at the top, black people at the bottom, and other shades in between. What started as christian Imperialism under popes and kings grew into christian Colonialism, then morphed into christian Nationalism under enlightened Protestants and their democratic ideals.
This artistry helped the founders to visualize a world in which they could declare “all men are created equal,” while they branded Native Americans as “merciless Indian savages,” and enslaved Africans as chattel. As William Augustus Jones observed on page 13 of “God in the Ghetto,” this system “reveals a sick sociology based on a faulty anthropology, which emanates from a false theology.”
The Shiny, Bloody Hill of christian Colonialism
John Winthrop was the Puritan Preacher and Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor who delivered the famous “City on a Hill” sermon in 1630.
“The eyes of all people are upon us,” Winthrop told his congregation. He prayed “that the Lord our God may bless us in the land whither we go to possess it.”
In order to possess the land, they had to dispossess the ‘heathen’ Natives. This made way for the Pequot Massacre of 1637, in which about 700 Pequots were shot, hacked, or burned to death during a night raid. Many of them were women, children, and elders.
Captain John Mason celebrated the slaughter with the following words:
“GOD was above them, who laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven… Thus did the LORD judge among the Heathen, filling the Place with dead Bodies!”
Governor William Bradford of Plymouth Colony further delighted in the destruction: “The victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave praise to God Who had wrought so wonderfully for them.”
Governor John Winthrop wrote in his journal that “There was a day of thanksgiving kept in all the churches for the victory obtained against the Pequots, and for other mercies.”
To add erasure to injury, the 1638 Treaty of Hartford outlawed the name “Pequot” and forbad their language from being spoken. The English demanded the survivors be assimilated into other tribal nations or become slaves of the English. Pequots were expelled from their land, which now belonged to the colony by right of conquest. Even the other indigenous groups who allied themselves with the colonists needed special permission to enter that territory.
A Short Timeline of The Legal Enshrinement of christian Nationalism
- 1823: the US Supreme Court ruling on Johnson v. McIntosh reinforced the legality of colonial conquest resulting from the Doctrine of Discovery. Chief Justice John Marshall wrote: “On the discovery of this immense continent, the great nations of Europe were eager to appropriate to themselves… The potentates of the old world found no difficulty in convincing themselves that they made ample compensation to the inhabitants of the new, by bestowing on them civilization and Christianity.”
- 1878: US Senator Aaron A. Sargent’s Chinese immigration speech shows the christian Nationalist ideology behind the Chinese Exclusion Act: “Let the missionary go to China and convert these men from their heathenish practices, wash their robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb, and then, being fit for American citizenship. . . let them come as immigrants.” “Learning from All the Faithful: A Contemporary Theology of the Sensus Fidei,” edited by Bradford E. Hinze, Peter C. Phan, p. 59.
- 1898: The white supremacist “Redemption” movement staged a coup against duly elected Black and Progressive White civic leaders of Wilmington, North Carolina. After their November campaign of burning, looting, murder, and banishment, Redeemers took control of the state government in the name of Jesus. Similar violence throughout the South renewed Black taxation without representation that lasted until the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964-65.
- 1903: US President William McKinley gave this explanation for colonizing the Philippines: “I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way… they were unfit for self-government—and… that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them.”
- 1955: US President Dwight Eisenhower signed HR 619, requiring “In God we trust” appear on all currency. Senator Charles E. Bennett pushed this bill to combat “materialistic communism” (because capitalism isn’t materialistic, right?).
A big problem for non-white Christians is that Senator Bennett only trusted a white god with his green, since the senator was a champion of the Southern Manifesto. This document was drafted by Southern politicians to resist desegregation efforts after Brown v Board of Education.
The Color of Self-Esteem
One of the ironies is that most of the Civil Rights leadership was Christian, but slandered by racists like Bennett as communists (with the implication that they weren’t true Christians or Americans). Why? Because Christianity and Americanness have been largely defined by color for centuries. The stigma of blackness that has been entrenched in society often becomes embedded in the psyche as well.
Drs. Kenneth and Mamie Clark were psychologists who proved that dolls, not just pictures, are worth a thousand words. Their famous “doll test” was part of the line of evidence used during the Supreme Court’s consideration of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. To summarize, the Clarks surveyed black children in different parts of the country, from ages 3 – 7, to see whether they favored white or black dolls. Which ones were more attractive? What character traits did they ascribe to them? Which ones did they identify with and why? The Clarks conducted their research several years prior to the monumental case, and it wasn’t originally for legal purposes.
“We did it to communicate to our colleagues in psychology the influence of race and color and status on the self-esteem of children,” said Kenneth Clark.
While this experiment on the impact of imagery upon child psychology didn’t single-handedly win the all-white Supreme Court’s unanimous decision, it was the Court’s condemnation of segregated education that made the doll test famous.
Spiritually Confusing
When I was around 12 years old, a pastor was giving me Bible studies and asked what I thought Jesus looked like. I described him as having long hair, a long beard, and a robe. I didn’t even mention skin tone, because I thought that was automatic.
“So you think Jesus looked like a hippie?” the pastor had chuckled. Without any other discussion about the Savior’s appearance, we moved onto whatever the next scripture lesson was in my baptismal preparation.
Why did this white pastor ask that question of the only black boy in his congregation? Why did he find my reply so humorous when the same answer was taught by all the wall art and Bible story books in that church? I never learned the answers to those questions before he died, but I remain thankful for that curious moment. This short exchange taught me to look beyond people’s portrayal of truth, whether it’s about the physical appearance of Jesus or about interpretation of his teachings. Although the aesthetics of the church led me to see Jesus as a “hippie,” the pastor subtly led me to question that assumption.
Revival
Putting my childhood experiences aside, it was America’s response to its first black President that destroyed my hope in the nation’s progress. Where was the spiritual rebuke to birtherism? Why wasn’t there formidable Christian pushback against the duplicitous conspiracy that Barak Obama was a Muslim, while the same critics demanded he cut ties with his longtime United Church of Christ pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright?
In 2015, we witnessed the golden escalator announcement on June 16; then the Mother Emanuel shooting on June 17; then rebel flag rallies across the South to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the end to the ‘War of Southern Independence”; along with KKK rallies at Stone Mountain to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Klan’s “second coming.” All of this occurred in America’s alleged post-racial society as it recoiled at the presence of a black President in the White House.
Some of the activists for and against the Civil Rights Movement are still alive – and still fighting the same fight, with Jesus on their side. Representatives James Clyburn and Bennie Thompson are both Christians who were active in Civil Rights during the era that people were beaten, jailed, water-hosed, cattle-prodded, and murdered because they demanded voting rights and basic dignity.
Their black majority districts are in danger of being gerrymandered out of existence to reinstate black taxation without representation, in this 250th year of the Declaration of Independence. Who is instigating this tyranny, atheists? No, christian Nationalists.
Hidden Hope
I hoped by now that all Christians could unite as coequal members of the family of God, but the majority of white Christians embrace politicians who are antagonistic to Black history, Black female journalists, Black voting rights, Black scholarship, and Black employment – and this is increasingly done in Jesus’ name.
I had hoped that by now we could live without the “double-consciousness” DuBois wrote about. I had hoped that by now they wouldn’t have to “wear the mask” the Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote about. The past 11+ years has nearly hidden that hope under a bush – oh no!
It was Malcolm’s use of “shock-effect statements” that led award-winning actor Ossie Davis to admire him for his “refreshing excitement.” Davis also admitted that “he scared the hell out of the rest of us, bred as we are to caution, to hypocrisy in the presence of white folks, to the smile that never fades.”
For me, it was Malcolm X’s short exposés on white christian Nationalism that helps keep my hope alight as a Christian. Malcolm pointed out the double-standard imposed by White Nationalists who tell black people to peacefully protest, yet respond to brutality by saying “praise the Lord but pass the ammunition.” Far from abandoning my faith, that taught me to reexamine my faith – which is a biblical thing to do (Acts 17:11; 1 Peter 3:15).
*A lower case “c” is used for Christian when connected to imperialism, colonialism, and nationalism in this article, because those “isms” become the dominant traits when you try to serve them and Jesus. See Matthew 6:24 & 22:21.
