Dear Evangelicals, You're Racist

Growing up as an evangelical Christian deeply immersed in the world of Bible-believing churches, CCM music, Zondervan publishing and movies like the Buttercream Gang, you told me over and over again that we were not racist.

You introduced me to Rush Limbaugh, who famously mocked the names of civil rights leaders and played a song called “Barack the magic negro” on his show but we weren’t racists for laughing along.

You told me that Black people were poor because they were lazy. If they worked harder and stopped mooching off the government they’d be in a better financial position.

But we weren’t racist.

I heard people in my Church joke about how much Black people loved watermelon and fried chicken.

But we weren’t racist.

After all we loved MLK and we thought that groups like the KKK were bad.

How could we be racist? We judged people based on their character not their skin color.

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Once again, dear evangelicals, I regret to inform you that as a collective, you are racist. I know. I know. You’re offended. How dare I make such an accusation. It is of course so ironic how much you can dish out but can’t take. You can tell the gays they’re going to hell, you can tell the liberals they’re evil. You have built a world where your megaphone of judgement and the call to repentance goes one way. But the second you’re confronted with the skeletons in your closet suddenly…it’s the enemy attacking you.

I realize I’m not writing to you directly. Most of you don’t care what I have to say but in the off chance you decide to read this piece with curiosity I can assure you I have ample receipts both in recent history and our present moment.

I could start in 1845 when the Southern Baptist Convention split with its northern brethren over the right to own slaves. Any foundation built on slavery is inherently corrupt and must be entirely dismantled. How can any solid house be built on a foundation full of cracks?

It can’t.

Today the SBC is the largest conglomerate of evangelical churches in America. That alone would be plenty to demonstrate the racism built into your institutions, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Let’s go back just one generation. In 1954 (72 years ago) the Supreme Court ruled on Brown v. Board of Education ending Jim Crow in this country.

Legally at least.

You see while much of the country was celebrating, there was one group in particular who saw this as a major loss.

White Evangelicals.

Jerry Falwell, the future founder of Liberty University and the moral majority, preached a sermon condemning the ruling. When the government started enforcing integration in public schools, White Evangelical Christians were some of the most irate. In South Carolina evangelicals mobilized to do everything they could to resist and slow integration in schools. They had their Bible verses, slogans, non-profits and fear mongering to convincing fellow Christians that not only was this a major encroachment of the federal government infringing on their religious beliefs (to discriminate) but that this was an attack on their ability as parents to protect their children from Black school children.

Bob Jones, the founder of Bob Jones University, preached a sermon on Easter Sunday in 1960 declaring that to be a Biblical Christian is to support segregation.

He opens his sermon with the following:

”Now, we folks at Bob Jones University believe that whatever the Bible says is so, and we believe it says certain fundamental things that all Bible-believing Christians accept; but when the Bible speaks clearly about any subject, that settles it. Men do not always agree, because some people are dumb—some people are spiritually dumb; but when the Bible is clear, there is not any reason why everybody should not accept it.”

Does that language sound familiar at all? I encourage you to read the whole sermon because the framework is the same that is used today by you to justify your bigotry towards our Queer and immigrant neighbors.

Bob Jones University would eventually refuse to allow interracial dating on their campuses despite the IRS taking away their tax-exempt status. They were so resolute in their conviction to discriminate against Black people they gave up tax-exempt status to do so. They would finally overturn this disgusting ban in 2000.

I already know your objection. “But Tim that was so long ago and of course I disagree with those things.”

My first response is that you still fail to understand the long-lasting ripple effects generations of slavery and Jim Crow.

My second response is that you fail to understand how the institutions that upheld the Biblical mandate to segregate are still operating today and my third response is that we can go right up to the present for more examples.

Doug Wilson, who has made quite a career in evangelicalism, wrote a book with a white supremacist where he declared that slavery was a racially harmonious time. It’s actually so much disturbing than that.

“Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its predominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence. There has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world. The credit for this must go to the predominance of Christianity. The gospel enabled men who were distinct in nearly every way, to live and work together, to be friends and often intimates. This happened to such an extent that moderns indoctrinated on ‘civil rights’ propaganda would be thunderstruck to know the half of it. Slave life was to [the slaves] a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes and good medical care. In spite of the evils contained in the system, we cannot overlook the benefits of slavery for both blacks and whites . . . Slavery produced in the South a genuine affection between the races that we believe we can say has never existed in any nation before the War or since.” - Southern Slavery as it Was

This is the same Doug Wilson who is now discipling Pete Hegseth. Wilson has been allowed to grace the stages of many evangelical events and has reached millions with his writings. Evangelicalism tolerates him at best and promotes him at worst. This is the same evangelicalism that is uniformly opposed to ANY kind of Queer inclusion in the church. While Doug Wilson is allowed to openly espouse blatantly racist ideas, megachurch pastor Andy Stanley was cancelled entirely for holding a conference at his Church that dared to ask if the parents of LGBTQ+ children could accept their kids and still hold on to their faith.

One is thriving in your spaces, the other has been black listed.

Now I’m going to jump over a lot of other examples here to get to the crescendo that is such a damning indictment on the state of evangelicalism I truly can’t believe this stuff goes so unnoticed by the gatekeepers. But then again the fact that this stuff isn’t picked up by the gatekeepers is yet further proof of the racism baked into the entire apparatus.

Jake Lang is an openly racist man. He uses racial slurs without hesitation. Wants to keep America white and regularly does provocative stunts to draw attention.

I will not be sharing many of them here except for this one picture that should tell you all you need to know. I share this with hesitation because I don’t want to platform his racism but given where I'm going next, it’s important for you to be shocked.

He’s not coded. He would wear a white hood if it was still in vogue.

The other day while I was scrolling Facebook I saw this post by Christian Nationalist worship leader Sean Feucht.

Wow, a muslim “stoned” someone? Sean is known to lie so I didn’t really buy it but I clicked on the post and there under it was Sean’s comment where he showed the world who his “Friend” is.

Jake Lang. Also, there’s no blood in sight.

Wait a second, I thought to myself.

Racist Jake Lang?

The same Jake Lang who has use racial slurs to describe muslims. Who throws pork at them? Who burns Quran’s in their faces?

This is who Sean Feucht calls a friend?

For Sean, the left is demonic, LGBTQ+ are possessed but Jake Lang is a friend. Where’s the outrage? I thought you weren’t racists? Why is Sean raking in millions of dollars in donations from white evangelicals while calling Jake Lang a friend? It gets worse.

Charisma Magazine characterized the story with this post.

I’m sorry…Christian Activist Jake Lang? That can’t be real but alas it is.

Friend, I don’t know how much clearer it can get. When you add this to the mountain of evidence both historically and presently it’s clear as day. Evangelicalism is a racist movement. It votes for racist politicians, it supports racist policies, it tolerates AND promotes racist people and it’s influenced by racist media pundits.

I know many white evangelicals will not see it. So I want to speak to the ones who actually got this far in the piece.

Here is what you fail to understand: You might say to yourself that YOU are not racist. But the reality is that you are part of a subculture that regularly allows racists to thrive. Your church would most likely let someone who waved the Confederate flag serve and fellowship without much hesitation but the same would not be true for a person who waved the Pride flag or themselves was Queer.

Look at the fruit white evangelicalism produces. Look at the political outcomes your group produces. Jake Lang, the Proud Boys, Patriot Front, and many other white nationalist groups have been emboldened under the administration 80% of you voted for. Just because you might not think you’re racist doesn’t mean that you don’t hold racist views or vote for racist policies.

I implore you to examine yourselves. Read beyond your Christian bubble. Listen to the voices of people who have a different lived experience than you in this country and for once in your life stop assuming you’re the expert and the final arbiter of things you truly know nothing about and have never experienced.

I’d love to know your thoughts on this piece. Do you have questions, comments, concerns? Leave them below — I read them all. If this work resonates with you, please consider becoming a monthly supporter. My goal is never to have anything I do behind a paywall. Period. Your support makes that possible. - Tim

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