top of page
Search

Spiritual Abuse and White Supremacy



The murder of George Floyd (and Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, Tony McDade, and others) has sent shock waves through America. However, these are only the most recent acts of violence in a long history of anti-black violence in America. In the wake of Floyd's murder, hundreds (thousands?) of opinions have been put forward: about how to protest or not to protest, about reforming, defunding, or abolishing the institution of policing, about how to deal with systemic racism and white supremacy, etc. Many have decried the actions of looters and rioters, while others have called them the "language of the unheard," quoting Martin Luther King, Jr.


My personal response over the last couple weeks has been to take a break from my usual patterns, including writing the spiritual abuse series. This time allowed me to go to a nonviolent rally in Trenton, NJ, in support of black lives. It allowed me to re-examine and begin to repent of my own complicity in, inaction toward, and silence over racism. I was able to read, listen, and to think through what is demanded of me as a Christian, as an American citizen, and as a white person. Like many of you, I'm still thinking through these things, but I am also convinced that thinking is not enough.


In April 2017, I worked my way through James Cone's book The Cross and the Lynching Tree. Though a plain and painful reality to many black Americans, I wept as Cone's prophetic words about the cross and the lynching tree hit me. I could not believe I had never noticed the commonality between the lynching of black people in America and the crucifixion of Jesus on the cross.


"Although lynching is difficult to talk about, we blacks, whites, and other Americans need to talk about it if we expect to heal our deep racial wounds. I wrote The Cross and the Lynching Tree in order to start this difficult conversation. If we cannot talk together about this painful legacy, what we say about the Christian Gospel is a fraud - no matter how many books we write or sermons we preach, claiming that God was in Christ reconciling human beings to each other and to God." - James Cone


Over the past couple years, as anti-black violence inevitably made its way into headlines, I have had the habit of listening to "Rose Petals" by Dee Wilson. Listen to this powerful song here:



The plea from Dee Wilson, over and over again in "Rose Petals," is to look. This is important because many of us often look away or we look with eyes that see a criminal instead of a human being. Many have portrayed Floyd and others as criminals for this very reason - to dehumanize them and to suggest that they deserved to die. Many of us don't "grieve with those who grieve" (Matthew 5), but instead justify the deaths and harassment of black people.


Look at all these roses with petals on the ground

They call this one Mike Brown

I'm asking you to look at all these roses with petals on the ground

They call this one Trayvon Martin


Because of recent events, many of us are looking now with a little clearer vision. We saw what happened to George Floyd and we are beginning to look at what happens and has happened to black and brown people in our nation. Though I realize how woefully inadequate my response has been in the past, I have been listening more, sharing more, signing petitions, and supporting an organization called the Poor People's Campaign, which I first heard about through Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove in a podcast interview about his book Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion.





Wilson-Hartgrove's book traces a disturbing form of spiritual abuse in America: the development of theology that consecrates racism, slavery, and systems of subjugation. This theology was first used by slaveholders to attempt to control the minds and bodies of enslaved people and, as Wilson-Hartgrove argues, remains present in many churches today.


Cone says something similar:

"One must suppose that in order to feel comfortable in the Christian faith, whites needed theologians to interpret the gospel in a way that would not require them to acknowledge white supremacy as America's great sin...whites could claim a Christian identity without feeling the need to oppose slavery, segregation, and lynching as a contradiction of the gospel for America."


Christian counselor and theologian Kyle Howard has written and spoken about racial trauma and spiritual abuse, most notably in his recent article, "Dear Evangelicals, You Must Know What You've Done to Be Healed."


I encourage you to read it to see how spiritual abuse is often intertwined with white supremacy and racism. As a Christian who is deeply tied to the Evangelical tradition, I am gripped with conviction and shame over my relative silence in the face of so much black death. And, having grown up in the church, I cannot recall a sermon about white supremacy or racism in over 20 years of weekly Sunday services in America. White Evangelicalism has been all too comfortable with not addressing it at all. Perhaps, it has often been quietly against racism or simply "not racist," but as I have been learning, this is not enough. Being "not racist" oftentimes means complicity with racism. Being "not racist," often means quietly letting racism continue. I have been a part of that problem.



Kyle Howard, a black man, was silenced and excused by his pastors, and shunned and bullied at his seminary when he spoke up about Eric Garner being choked to death in 2014. Now that many Evangelical churches have denounced the murder of George Floyd, Howard has responded:


"My soul cries as I ask the question. Why did ANOTHER black person have to be slaughtered on the altar of white supremacy in order for my beloved white brothers and sisters to finally wake up? This has cost your black and brown Christian 'Family' so much. We have been vilified for years over this, why now?


So many black people have died, and so many of you have remained silent. We have been publicly slander[ed], maligned, threatened, rebuked, and villainized by many leaders within your evangelical tradition and have been met with silence over the course of years. Why now? Will it last?


I’m not trying to guilt or shame any of you, but it hurts. It hurts too much to act like it doesn’t, and holding in the hurt may grant you peace, but it destroys our health."



Instead of rushing back to "normal," Rev. Barber says to “hear the screams. Feel the tears. The very people rejected over and over again are the ones who have shown us the possibility of a more perfect nation. They are telling us these wounds are too much. This death is too much. If we listen to America, if we listen, then now is the time for us not to stop mourning, but to mourn and refuse to be comforted, to unite our collective moral power and demand transformative change right now.”



I will continue with the next planned segment ("Lifestyle and Experiences") in the spiritual abuse series soon. In the meantime, let us not be quick to "put the hurt back in the bottle." Let us instead "mourn with those who mourn" and take action to make America, our spiritual communities, and our churches equitable. As author and activist Ibram X. Kendi says, it is not enough to be "not racist." We must be antiracist if we are to resist the many forms white supremacy takes in our nation, churches, and spiritual communities.

What resources, organizations, and voices have helped you discern what to do during this time?


Here are a few that have been helpful to me:


To read more about the Poor People's Campaign, go here.

To donate, go here.

To get involved with a local committee, go here.

Comments

  • facebook
  • linkedin

©2020 by Matthew Heisler. Proudly created with Wix.com

bottom of page