Ex-Evangelical Apologetics: "Racism is a Heart Issue" + "Not of This World"
Brad addresses two common refrains about racism and social issues--the "racism is a heart issue" response and the "not of this world" response. He shows how when Evangelicals hold power, they turn to individualist responses to issues like race and guns. They don't want the systems changed, so the response is to turn it into a changing hearts for God issue. When they have lost the power, they do everything possible to elect their candidates, change laws, and get the power back. It's an offense-defense strategy.
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Axis Mundi You're listening to an irreverent podcast.
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Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi.
Our show is hosted in partnership with the Kapp Center.
Before we jump into another round of ex-evangelical apologetics, I want to just remind everybody we do have our first ever Straight White American Jesus seminar coming up in September.
Dan Miller will be leading it.
I will be in the mix and part of it as well.
And I know some of you out there might be thinking, hey, that sounds cool, but I'm just not sure that I would fit in.
You know, I'm not a religion scholar.
I'm not a sociologist.
I'm not a whatever.
And my response to that is that's exactly why we're doing it.
We are doing this because we want to provide a context where folks who want to dig a little deeper, read a little more seriously, have wide and nuanced discussions about important things can do that with other adults and do that in ways that are beneficial to everybody, that create community.
And just allow us all to learn together.
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And so think about signing up as soon as you can.
All right, today we are talking about ex-evangelical apologetics, and I want to address two things at the same time, and those are this.
There's a saying going around in the last couple of years on the part of evangelicals, but also on the part of some others, you know, conservative Christians of all kinds, Catholics, some members of the Latter-day Saints, and so on and so forth, that sin is a heart problem.
And by that folks mean it's an individual problem and that the saying goes, if you can change hearts and individuals, then you will change the world.
And so what we need to do when we talk about racism is change people's hearts for God and that will fix the problem.
Okay.
So there's this sort of individualist approach to racism.
And I'm sure some of you have heard your family members say this or seen them pass around memes on Facebook or wherever.
Okay.
The other one is, not of this world.
That, hey, we should not address social problems, or that's not our focus as Christians, whether that's homelessness, or hunger, or climate change, because we are not of this world.
We are of another world, and so we need to put our efforts into focusing on spreading the gospel and anticipating what is to come in the next life.
Okay.
These are related.
Before I go on, let me just say, you can see how these are related.
In one instance, you have somebody saying this is an individual issue.
Racism and other issues are individualist.
In the next sense, they're saying social issues are unimportant because what's really important is the individual's relationship with God and whether or not they have salvation through Jesus Christ and so on, right?
So you can see that there's a relationship here between these two kind of sayings and that they're not separate.
I kind of think that one envelops the other in many ways.
If we had two circles, I think the bigger circle would be the idea that we're not of this world, and then a smaller circle would be placed in it that had the idea that sin is an individual heart problem, right?
You can kind of see how that specific response to racism It fits into a broader theme of not being of this world.
So I want to give you a handy way to think about this.
I want to give you a handy way to kind of think about what people are doing when they spout this kind of rhetoric.
And I want to talk about why it's really unconvincing and uncompelling.
And, you know, this may or may not help you.
With Uncle Ron or anyone else who you talk to that holds these viewpoints, but at least you'll sort of see the mechanics of it.
You know, some of you who listen to the show often will know that my response to people when they articulate positions like this is, yes, we can take what they're saying at face value and we can debunk it, okay?
But I think we also need to ask, what is this doing for them?
If you think about these sayings and these responses as strategies, you can ask yourself, what does this do for them strategically?
What does this accomplish in terms of their goals politically or socially or theologically?
Let's think about the idea that sin is an individual problem.
It's a heart problem, okay?
And that it can only be changed by God and by God's people converting others to the gospel.
All right.
What happens for me with folks who spout this kind of rhetoric is I notice a pattern, okay?
When they are talking about things that threaten their power, that threaten the power they continue to hold, the power they have right now, They want to talk about individualism, okay?
So, you can see a white Christian being threatened by the movement for black lives and just the overall zeitgeist that is calling for examinations of our institutions and our structures and our systems when it comes to race.
You can see them being threatened, right?
Because as we talk about on our show all the time, many white Christians in this country especially believe that they have a God-given right to be at the top of the political and social and economic hierarchies.
Now, whether or not they have worked these things out for themselves, whether or not they're conscious of it, okay, when somebody starts talking about racism, when they say, well, that's an individual problem, the strategy for me is, okay, as a white Christian, I continue to hold a privileged place in the country, and I want to hold on to that, okay?
I want to stay in a place where just White folks have immense privileges where they're not afraid of the police, like others are, where they are represented in overwhelming and overrepresented ways in Congress and other places, right, where they hold the levers of power when it comes to state governments or local governments or any number of places.
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