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.

Reviewing The Year 2021

 Here it is necessary to repeat something that was said in one of last week's articles: 2021 is like, in part, the saying about the month of March where March comes in like a lion, but unlike the saying about March, 2021 is leaving like a bear in restless hibernation rather than like a lamb.

2021 came in like a lion as exhibited by the January 6 insurrection. At that time, some of Trump's allies tried to stop the Constitutional process of counting the electoral votes. The motivation for the insurrection was a feeling of betrayal by the system. For many of those allies honestly believed that the election had been stolen. They believed that in part because their esteemed leader told them during the Presidential campaign that the only way he could lose was if there was significant election fraud. Added to that were the right-wing news sources that were spreading conspiracy theories. And though even Trump appointed judges could not see the evidence for such claims, many of Trump's allies believed they did and thus they protested the election results with various levels of resistance and rage.

The January 6 insurrection has not only been like a large scar on our democracy, it also currently seems to be a festering wound which could lead to an infection that kills our democracy over the next few elections. There is no doubt that a portion of the Republican Party has trained its people to see the same degree of wrongs in the Democratic Party that currently exist in the Republican Party. And from what I can tell, Trump's allies are not only falling for the lies of their leader and some of his aides, they are being manipulated by one or more foreign powers.

After the January 6 insurrection, our attention turned to vaccines. Again, there was a sharp disagreement over the necessity of taking the vaccine with allies of Trump again rabidly consuming conspiracy theories about either the vaccine, the Covid virus, or both. And thus, there has been significant resistance to efforts made by the Biden Administration to curb the spread of the Covid virus. 

Again, one could almost see the hand of at least one foreign government in the beliefs and statements of those who refused to acknowledge the reality of the pandemic and the necessity for mask and vaccine mandates. One could almost see that because the emotions exhibited by the anti-maskers and anti-vaxers seemed to have surpassed way beyond the strength of and evidence in their arguments. For their arguments were based on simple reductionism: personal freedom. They have yet to balance that freedom with responsibility and the recognition of the reality of the pandemic and efficacy of some of the vaccines.

In the meantime, Biden's infrastructure bills were being contested not only by Republicans, but by some Democrats as well. Biden relied too heavily on the razor slim margin in the Senate to try to push his infrastructure bill through foregoing a compromise with 10 non-Trump Republicans who could have provided for a margin of error regarding the support from Democratic elected officials in the Senate. But even outside of that slimmest of margins of error for the Dems, ethics alone should require us to try harder to build a partial consensus rather than to exert one-party rule.

Unlike 2020 when we saw massive and coordinated protests against systemic racism in this nation, 2021 saw an American racist version of the Empire Strikes Back with conservative states writing new election laws that, putting its best color-blind foot forward, targeted the voting opportunities of significant segments of the Black population. And well-meaning but naive conservative supporters thought that these new voting measures were racially kosher because none of those new election laws even mentioned Blacks.

Another backlash against the wokeness of 2020 could be seen in the states that have been writing laws that prohibit the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) or anything that sounds remotely like it. Again, it is the Empire striking back.

Of course, how could we talk about the year 2021 without mentioning the encircling reality of climate change. It is very clear now that some of the predicted consequences of climate change that were once resting on our horizons have escaped and have made their presence felt up close and in person. From expanded wildfire seasons to extreme droughts to extreme weather events happening at an ever increasing rate, these consequences of climate change are making their presence felt.

However, because the implications of accepting what the vast majority of climate scientists have been saying about climate change are unacceptable, many of the same people who have denied the pandemic and/or the vaccines are even more adamantly opposed to appropriately responding to or even acknowledging the reality of man-caused climate change.

And now that the year is ending, we see Russia and China emerging from being lesser powers, though Russia has always maintained its WMD superpower status, Russia is making threats that are not being responded to militarily. On one hand it is good that we are not responding militarily, but at the same time that shows the intentions of Russian foreign policy and how they might be looking to sow some wild oats. At the same time, China is floating to the world the possibility of retaking Taiwan and/or Hong Kong.

So we saw the lion on January 6th. But there are problems, some of which are looming and others not so looming on the horizon. The full force of those problems is not yet being felt, but those problems are closing in on us. That is why we need to describe the close of the year 2021 as a bear that is in restless hibernation. So far it seems like the 2020s are determined to be highly disruptive and even dangerous. Is there any way we can skip the rest of this decade and advance to 2030?