Thread by @natesparks130

I've often seen evangelicals argue that their movement is not inherently political.

The only way this could be true is if one honestly believes white cisheteropatriarchy to be THE neutral, natural, and entirely objective position.

Which, FTR, is a deeply political view.

Recently saw someone claim it was only the "talking heads" who were actually political, the average person in the pews at an evangelical church is just a good person doing a bunch of good behind the scenes.

I want to explore that for a moment.

1st, I want to be 100% clear. There are evangelicals who fight for justice causes and do good in many, many ways.

But there is a flipside to that too, and we need to recognize this.

1. When World Vision decided to allow their employees to be openly gay, over 2000 people dropped their sponsored child.

The fallout was so bad that WV backtracked it's position just to get all that money (hundreds of thousands) back.

deseretnews.com/article/865599…

These werent talking heads, these were people in the pews mobilizing in hatred against the LGBTQ+ community.

They saw their sponsorships as feeding and educating underprivileged children, yet they thought denying basic human rights to queer persons more important.

2. Hobby Lobby and the Green family are major players in certain evangelical circles.

They also fought tooth and nail to inflict their misogynist, anti-birth control views onto their employees.

Rather than note how utterly disgusting that was, evangelicals decided this was a key fight in the cause of "religious liberty."

They backed HL's denial of basic health care to employees because their "religious liberty" was more important than the health of those women.

And again, anyone attending an evangelical church at the time can tell you that this wasnt just talking heads.

It was your friends, random people in the pews, pastors, the works.

3. It seems an obvious point, bit 81% of all white evangelicals who voted in the 2016 presidential election voted for Donald Trump.

Trump was a racist, a bigot, and openly admitted to sex assault. He openly courted Neo-Nazis...

This did not even remotely deter white Trump voters.

Leaders like Wayne Grudem, James Dobson, Jack Graham, Falwell Jr and so many others paved the way, but they made their decision.

The religious freedoms Trump promised then were more important than anything else.

In fact, Trump support in the SBC was so strong, that Russell Moore nearly lost his job for critiquing Trump.

To claim that was only people in the pews is absurd.

Even if you cite more "progressive" church - Willow Creek being a common one - have noted anti-queer, anti-woman ideologues like Tim Keller speak at their leadershop conferences.

Literally, a church that supports ordination of women allowed a pastor who has built his entire ministry on saying women's ordination compromises the Gospel to use their church as a platform to teach about "leadership"

Whoops, that was supposed to be #4 forgot to number^^^^

I could go on, and on, and on.

The reality is that evangelicals - conservative and progressive (and everything in between) routinely and intentionally exclude their neighbor in the name of personal privilege.

The only way any of the examples above (and any of the hundreds more that could be cited) are not political acts is if one's faith is entirely ethnocentric.

White evangelicals assume issues like abortion or gay marriage aren't political, they are just "biblical" & thus neutral in their eyes.

The need for white people to teach black communities about Jesus requires gentrification b/c white Xian culture is a neutral/biblical position

White Xian theology is based not in concern for neighbor, but in some fabricated concept of being "biblical".

Impact on neighbor doesnt matter if the position you are advocating can be defended by some half-assed appeal to Scripture.

As a former evangelical, I can say confidently that evangelicalism and western white imperialism are inseparable ideologically.

They condemn those who disagree with them for engaging in subjective "identity politics" regularly.

Anything that doesn't conform to their cultural paradigm is treated as inferior.

This might be as blatant as churches banning drums in worship because of "African influence" or it may be as subtle as promoting white flight disguised as concern over your kids learning evolution.

But however evangelicalism chooses to mask it, the basic premise is an assumption that white evangelical culture represents a superior ideology which must be bestowed upon the world in order to see the Gospel truly flourish and the will of God done.

And this ideology consistently gives platforms to authoritarian pastors who espouse views such as racism, anti-queer bigotry, misogyny, islamaphobia, and so many other forms of hate.

Rather than continue to claim neutrality, if evangelicals wish to move forward and reform the corruptions within their church, they have to be willing to both admit and deconstruct their political views.

There is nothing wrong with being political - the Gospel is politics - and striving for neutrality and objectivity leads evangelicals to ignore the narratives of their neighbors in search if a single, all-powerful metanarrative.

Any good to come in the future of evangelicalism will require a full and unabashed deconstruction of the supremacist ideology on which it is predicated.

Unless it decenters white cos/hetero masculinity as its neutral ideal, it will always produce hate.

And those who attempt to deny or mask this only serve to continue to perpetuate these systems of oppression.

#NotAllEvangelicals is, like all its NotAll predecessors, an ideology designed to preserve one's personal privileges by making it someone else's problem.

It is nothing but a No True Scotsman fallacy, a rhetorical deflection designed to leave oppression unchecked while simultaneously denying any culpability in dismantling oppressive ideologies or promoting justice.

In conclusion, I remind the reader of Jesus clearing the temple.

There were plenty of neutral positions he couldve taken.

He couldve simply gone about worshiping.

He could have engaged the money changers in debates about the political legitimacy of their work.

He could've given a sermon in why the money changers didn't actually represent the temple, and we shouldnt be so quick to lump the temple leaders in with the exploitation they were perpetrating.

But Jesus didn't choose "neutrality" because he recognized that these positions perpetuated the corrupt system and prolonged the oppression of the people.

So, when Jesus entered Jerusalem and the people cried "liberate us (hosanna)" Jesus proceeded to the temple.

When he got there, he declared himself on the side of the oppressed.

He recognized that sometimes justice requires disruption of sacred space.

Rather than pursue some feigned neutrality, white Xians need to accept our own subjectivity, reject ethnocentric ideologies, and be willing to forsake our sacred privileges and disrupt those spaces we think sacred in order to pursue justice for our neighbor.