MADELINE- White Christians desperately want to be oppressed.
Over and over again, the Bible esteems the poor, sick, and tormented. In 1 Samuel, God picks David, a poor shepherd boy, to be the king of Israel. In Luke, it is Mary, a humble woman from Nazareth, that is chosen to be the mother of Jesus. In the gospels, Jesus regularly heals, befriends and eats with people of low social ranking while condemning the rich and admired. It is clear that Christianity is a religion for the oppressed.
This scares us. We read the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus talks endlessly about how heaven belongs to the poor and the persecuted. Then we look up, see our white skin, our nice neighborhoods and our big houses that rest in our Christianity-promoting country, and we become afraid. We’re afraid that we are the Pharisees that Jesus so vehemently criticizes. We’re afraid that we are the privileged people that the book of James says will “weep and howl” in the afterlife. We’re afraid that we are the huge Goliath that David slays. We’re terrified.
And so to soothe ourselves, we try to convince ourselves that the opposite is true, that we are the meek and the poor in spirit that Jesus talks about. We claim that any law that doesn’t exactly line up with Christianity, such as the law that permits abortion, is oppressing Christians. We’ll see the Kim Davis situation as an example of how Christians are a tormented demographic, not as an example of how Christians can get away with breaking the law for months if they do it in the name of Christianity.We believe that anyone who challenges the homophobia, Islamophobia or sexism that runs rampant through Christian culture is persecuting Christians.
Worst of all, we actively negate and ignore the cries from groups that are actually oppressed. The idea that people of color and non-Christians are disadvantaged while Christians and white people are not does not fit into the picture of white Christian victimhood that we have painted ourselves, and so we feel threatened. To eliminate this threat and strengthen our belief that we are the ones being oppressed and not people of color or non-Christians, we invalidate and mock movements like the “Black Lives Matter” movement. This perpetuates the racist and “anti-any-religion-besides-Christianity” sentiments in America that severely afflict people of color and non-Christians.
This is exactly what Jesus wants, right?
Over and over again, the Bible esteems the poor, sick, and tormented. In 1 Samuel, God picks David, a poor shepherd boy, to be the king of Israel. In Luke, it is Mary, a humble woman from Nazareth, that is chosen to be the mother of Jesus. In the gospels, Jesus regularly heals, befriends and eats with people of low social ranking while condemning the rich and admired. It is clear that Christianity is a religion for the oppressed.
This scares us. We read the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus talks endlessly about how heaven belongs to the poor and the persecuted. Then we look up, see our white skin, our nice neighborhoods and our big houses that rest in our Christianity-promoting country, and we become afraid. We’re afraid that we are the Pharisees that Jesus so vehemently criticizes. We’re afraid that we are the privileged people that the book of James says will “weep and howl” in the afterlife. We’re afraid that we are the huge Goliath that David slays. We’re terrified.
And so to soothe ourselves, we try to convince ourselves that the opposite is true, that we are the meek and the poor in spirit that Jesus talks about. We claim that any law that doesn’t exactly line up with Christianity, such as the law that permits abortion, is oppressing Christians. We’ll see the Kim Davis situation as an example of how Christians are a tormented demographic, not as an example of how Christians can get away with breaking the law for months if they do it in the name of Christianity.We believe that anyone who challenges the homophobia, Islamophobia or sexism that runs rampant through Christian culture is persecuting Christians.
Worst of all, we actively negate and ignore the cries from groups that are actually oppressed. The idea that people of color and non-Christians are disadvantaged while Christians and white people are not does not fit into the picture of white Christian victimhood that we have painted ourselves, and so we feel threatened. To eliminate this threat and strengthen our belief that we are the ones being oppressed and not people of color or non-Christians, we invalidate and mock movements like the “Black Lives Matter” movement. This perpetuates the racist and “anti-any-religion-besides-Christianity” sentiments in America that severely afflict people of color and non-Christians.
This is exactly what Jesus wants, right?
