Progressive Christian Writer: The "White American Church" Is Destroying America [View all]

[NeoGreen]

https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/02/08/progressive-christian-writer-the-white-american-church-is-destroying-america/

Progressive Christian Writer: The “White American Church” Is Destroying America
By Sarahbeth Caplin, February 8, 2019

No matter what Donald Trump or the GOP tells you, white nationalism — not secularism, and certainly not immigrants — is destroying America. That’s according to Stephen Mattson, writing for the progressive Christian group Sojourners.

This is the state of our “Christian” nation: Our government isn’t working, and when it does it’s on behalf of behemoth corporations and influential lobbyists. Elected officials are openly racist, sexist, and xenophobic — without consequence. Police continue to kill people of color and jails have become a modernized form of slavery. The military is mired in endless violence throughout the world, participating in wars far beyond the interests of our citizenry, and defense contractors reap the profits. Teachers are underpaid, schools underfunded, and students underfed, but our president wants to spend billions on a wall he promised our country would never have to pay for.
…
American Christianity brought us to this point. It preached nationalism and sanctified American imperialism — promoting Manifest Destiny as ordained by God. The prosperity gospel baptized capitalistic greed, its preachers vilified the poor, and its theologians manipulated scripture to rationalize global colonialism. Salvation was no longer personified through Jesus, but was redesigned to be a political machine, fueled by its ability to control branches of government. This methodology was packaged as “Christianity,” and the gospel became a message of gaining social power and control rather than a call to follow Jesus’ life of selfless service and sacrifice.

I would take Mattson’s criticism a step further and address something else I’ve noticed about American Christians: Many of them lack a vital sense of self-awareness when it comes to addressing their flaws. Too many of them refuse to learn from their own history, especially since it’s easier to dismiss it with a wave of No True Scotsman — our slave-owning, land-stealing ancestors obviously weren’t True Christians™.

Instead, any attempt to open their eyes and look around — or even open up a history book — is met with unjustified accusations of persecution and intolerance.

Worth repeating:

Instead, any attempt to open their eyes and look around — or even open up a history book — is met with unjustified accusations of persecution and intolerance.

We've never seen that happen here, have we?
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