Can we say...(shh)...genocide?
Vocabulary for the Present Moment, No. 3
[Note: This reflection centers around practicing Christian and Christian-lineage people, but the issues at hand affect all of us, no matter faith or background.]
I was blessed a couple days ago to hear Rev. Canon Stephanie Spellers deliver the Fontaine Lecture Series at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral. Rev. Spellers shared research and findings from her upcoming book, Church Tomorrow? What the “Nones” and “Dones” teach us about the future of faith.
Rev. Spellers asked a diverse group of people ages 18-42 four questions about their attitudes toward religion and spirituality, including, “What would you tell the church today if you knew they were listening?” And she characterized one of the consistent themes in their answers was,
“Will the real Christians please stand up?”
As our small group reflected on this question, I shared about how, when the grassroots group Minnesota Christians for a Free Palestine took on its title, our Jewish and Muslim activist siblings expressed a deep gratitude for us actually using the name of the faith:
Finally, Christians talking about and acting around Palestine that aren’t Christian Zionists!
And it’s true - the white Christian nationalist movements have intentionally monopolized the title of “Christian” and “Christian values” to a point where people who actually practice the values Jesus Christ taught don’t even want to use his name for fear of being associated with racism and hate. “That kind of Christian” has taken up all the airspace.
Everything about last weekend’s political assassination of Minnesotan lawmakers and their spouses was terrible, but I felt an even deeper horror when I learned that the killer claimed to be an pastor in the New Apostolic Reformation church, a quickly-growing right-wing evangelical group that believes it is waging spiritual warfare at a global scale.
Unsurprisingly, not every news outlet is carrying that aspect of Vance Boulter’s biography, nor delving into the fact that it was likely a motivator of his attack on lawmakers and targeting of abortion-rights advocates. I say unsurprising, because of course if he was an extremist Muslim, that would be part of every headline. The Associated Press posted a story on Monday in which neighbors and friends characterized Boulter as a “devout Christian.”
In response to that news…will the real Christians please stand up?
After the lecture, I was chatting with a young person who was new to the church. As we discussed this question of owning our Christianity in the sphere of social justice, they said,
“Yeah, I saw your keffiyeh and your collar, and I was like, okay, this person knows what’s up.”
Now, I am not suggesting that we virtue-signal with our wardrobes. But their statement made me remember that symbols - when they are connected with our convictions and our actions - have significant power. Wearing my collar and keffiyeh at the same time has the power to proclaim to a young person investigating the church a faith that is centered on love and liberation as opposed to hate and violence.
Churches as institutions are flailing, and many are grasping at straws to be the next best coolest thing. But the next generation isn’t looking for new branding; they are looking for Christians to live up to their name, loud, proud, and loving.
The “Christian” label has incredible political and cultural capital because of its intertwining with western colonialism - that’s just a fact. But one of the ways to break through the shame of the co-optation of Christianity is to embrace the power afforded to the Christian label by shifting the narrative of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
Will the real Christians please stand up?
I’ve struggled these past couple years when progressive churches that I love and respect still refuse to name publicly that what’s happening in Gaza is genocide (or to talk about it much at all). At a Minnesota Christians for a Free Palestine meeting a couple weeks ago, a friend and fellow pastor pointed out that a big reason that churches struggle to call Israel’s obliteration of Gaza a genocide is because then we’d also have to name how the church was a significant perpetrator of the genocide of Indigenous peoples in this land, and if we owned that, then we’d have to do something about repair, and, well…
There’s a lot of reckoning to do. There’s a lot of sin to repent and repair to begin.
We would also have to acknowledge the way that Christian nationalism influenced Hitler, and how many churches stood silent amidst the slaughter of six million Jews and other marginalized people. Holocaust guilt is a big silencer of Christians when it comes to confronting the reality of apartheid Israel.
Will the real Christians please stand up?
Now, this isn’t a post about distinguishing who’s a “real Christian” (or the real slim shady, you are welcome for that going through your head now). But it is about practicing what we preach, and preaching what we practice, especially in the face of the imminent threat white Christian nationalism brings to people’s individual lives and our collective democracy.
Extremist and fundamentalist cults aren’t new, and they aren’t limited to Christianity. Christianity itself has been wrapped up as a tool of empire for over a millennium, and its legacy of boarding schools and forced conversion in this country continue to perpetuate historical trauma to this day. But we still have to name this current perversion of Christianity for the danger that it is, and we have to be vocal about what “Christian” values and practices can and should be.
Will the real Christians please stand up?
Can we apologize for and begin to repair the harms done in the name of Jesus, both in the past and the present?
Can we actually tell the truth about what has happened so we can tell the truth about what’s happening right now?
I am in church spaces where this truth-telling has been happening for a while around sexuality and the church’s role in homophobia. There’s still a lot of work to do, but it’s clear that this kind of truth-telling can be done.
It’s time to talk about the church and genocide, especially when we are dealing with a “Christian” cult that is spouting rhetoric straight from 1930s Germany.
Yes, it might be risky, scary, different, and uncomfortable for a while. It’s a word that brings up a lot of feelings and opinions.
But people’s lives are at stake. The life of our planet is at stake. Our own integrity as Christ-followers is at stake.
Can we say genocide?
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Read: The Violent Take It By Force: The Christian Movement that is Threatening Our Democracy by Matthew D. Taylor (I haven’t read this yet, but it’s on my list, and highly recommended by Kristin Kobes Du Mez, the author of the powerful book Jesus and John Wayne easily available on audiobook!)
Listen: This recent Straight White American Jesus podcast about the New Apostolic Reformation, this Unsettled podcast from four years ago on Christian Zionism, and the Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery podcast series for much on faith, repentance, and repair.