Christianity And The Insurrection

Robert P. Jones (click here for a bio)  has recently wrote an article on the role of Christians in the insurrection. Seeing that the time he wrote the article was just before the 1 year anniversary of that horrific event, it seemed most appropriate. The article appeared in Baptist News Global and it not only linked evangelicalism with the insurrection, it made constant references to varying levels of racism of the different participants (click here for the article).

To support his case, Jones cites the number of Christian symbols, flags, and signs seen at the insurrection. In addition, he cites the percentage of different groups of white Christians who voted for Trump. Then using his own racist measuring tool, which Jones calls the Racial Index, he cites the level each one of those subgroups were measured as being racist. He then compared those numbers with the Racial Index measurement of those different groups of white Christians with the Racial Index of white religiously unaffiliated people and found a significant disparity where those from the Christian groups were found to have a much higher score in Jones's Racial Index measurement than the unaffiliated (click here for a somewhat description of the Racial Index measurement). Jones also points out the desire for Christian Nationalism among the protesters at the Capitol Building. 

At the end of the article is an appeal made by Jones that we must do better in terms of eliminating racism. I will give a focused review of the article based on my own experiences with protesting and struggle with being racist.

I have been an activist since 2005 when I participated in my first protest. There were hundreds of thousands of us protesting against the Iraq War then and we were in DC where we eventually protested in front of the White House where George W. Bush was taking up residence. I've been to a number of other protests over different issues from other war protests to protesting Israel's Occupation against the Palestinians to protesting against our immigration polices to protesting against racism to protesting over economic injustice. And though it wasn't apparent to me while first protesting, it became clear later on that not all participating in a given protest are the same. That is that we can't describe all of the protesters at a given protest as being a monolithic group. There is a variety of people at a given protest not counting those who are there to sabotage the protests.

There are a variety of people at the protests I have participated in. And yet, that is not recognized by Jones in his article about the January 6 Insurrection. Knowing some people who were at the protest, a protest I would never attend, there were people who were dead set on preventing Biden from confirmed as the winner of the election and some who were merely there to protest what they believed to be a rigged election. In fact, without minimizing the invasion of the Capitol Building,  not all who invaded it had the same intent.

In other words, not all who were on the grounds of the Capitol Building were the same. Not all who were there were in favor of stopping the Electoral College vote count as stipulated by The Constitution. And yet, Jones was not interested in citing the different kinds of people who were at the Capitol Building on the day of the insurrection.

A similar point could be made about the links of white Christian nationalists to racism. While Jones uses his Racial Index measurement to appear to give some kind of objective score, we should note that there are different causes of racism that Jones does not distinguish between. 

As I look back at my life, it wasn't until I reviewed my college days that I became aware of being racist. Back then, I wouldn't have described myself as being racist because I held no animosity against non-Whites nor did I speak despairingly about people from other races. And yet, as I look back, I held to some racist views. The holding to those racist views were simply due to a lack of exposure to Blacks and a lack of education as to the life experiences of Blacks in America. That lack of exposure and education was due to attending what was basically an all-white public school system from grades K to 11 and then knowing about one Black student in school when I was a senior. All of that led to what I would call passive racist views in that I made assumptions about Blacks when they did not act or speak in ways that I considered to be normal. And right there was the racism.

I have known people whose racism was not passive, but active. Their racism involved fear and/or hatred of Blacks or people of other races. And the difference between those two different kinds of racism was never mentioned in Jones's article. Rather, a single label was used on those who had a significant measurement on Jones's Racial Index measurement.

These monolithic views of the participants in the invasion of the Capitol Building both as protesters and racists are the problem with Jones's article. Such a criticism might appear to be insignificantly small to some, but, IMO, distinguishing the different groups at the protest as well as understanding the different kinds of racism people might hold to are prerequisites to understanding those whose beliefs, and sometimes actions, go beyond the pale for us and to possible helpful dialogues that could curb the views and behaviors we find objectionable. 

It's not that white supremacy among White, American Christians is not a significant problem. It is that if we view and treat all White American Christians as being the same, then we are practicing what we protest against when we oppose racism and other kinds of bigotry. We also handicap our own abilities to help people escape their prejudices and indiscretions.  Jones's failures in making those important distinctions is the major flaw in his article.