Introduction
Robert P. Jones is the current president and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), a research enterprise dedicated to investigating the interaction between politics and religion. Jones, an esteemed scholar and pundit, routinely writes about societal issues, politics, and religion. His book White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity serves as a wake-up call for his fellow White Christians. Jones encourages them to break free from what he claims has dominated their faith for far too long: the perceived supremacy of white people, with anti-Black racism as the unavoidable consequence.
The book is based on PRRI research findings and a varied combination of history, theological subjects, sociology, and experiences. Jones argues that preserving racial supremacy has heavily influenced the theological foundation of American Christianity. He urgently calls for white Christians to confront this legacy for the betterment of themselves and their country. This article analyzes Jones’ arguments by critically examining the book, shedding light on the intersections among faith, racism, and power. Recognizing this legacy is essential to promoting genuine racial healing and responsibility within the US Christian community.
Book Summary
White Christianity and Racism
As America deals with demographic shifts and its long history of racism, the Christian religion’s role as a foundation for white supremacy has been mostly ignored. White Christians, such as evangelicals in the South, Catholics in the Northeast, and liberal Christians in the Midwest, have not just been ignorant or complicit. They have come out as the dominating cultural power, having built and sustained a project to protect white supremacy while fighting for black equality, which has shaped the entire American experience.
According to Jones (2020), White Christianity has not been a passive bystander in the creation of this country’s racial caste structure. Instead, it has served as the principal religious and cultural institution responsible for its development, promotion, and preservation. He uses the example of the White Citizens’ Councils and white churches moving quickly to establish private white-only schools known as “segregation academies” (p. 48). This followed the 1954 Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, which ordered the desegregation of all public schools. However, most white families did not wait for reforms to be implemented in public school settings, preferring an alternative strategy.
Critical Race Theory
White Too Long shows how profoundly racist attitudes have gotten ingrained in the DNA of white Christian identity over time, and it begs for an honest confrontation with a convoluted, painful, and sometimes disgusting history. Considering that, aside from intermittent breakouts in American society, the question of race has historically been upsetting as it is perceived as disturbing, unpleasant, and somewhat passive. However, current developments in the US’s public opinion, driven by allegations of police brutality, have made race an intractable, polarizing issue. Critical race theory (CRT), advanced by progressive activists and supported by numerous evangelical intellectuals, has emerged as the driving force behind the Black Lives Matter Movement.
CRT is based on core statements such as acknowledging racism as systematic or the impossibility of being non-racist, both of which constitute critical premises. The notion is based on clear, constructive foundations, with no room for disagreement or doubt. For all its complex rhetoric, CRT depicts life as a mutually exclusive competition in which some people lack power and may fail to thrive despite their best efforts. This occurs when someone else usurps their authority and continues to oppress them, resulting in a self-justifying system.
Even within the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), which passed a motion on CRT and intersectionality, race concerns have emerged prominently. The resolution aimed to bring the two opposing sides together, resulting in the adoption of the theory within the White Supremacist SBC, which has a track record of supporting slavery. Jones (2020) acknowledges the SBC’s contribution by writing about its establishment in 1844 by a group of Evangelical leaders from the South. The individuals decided to form the organization as a way of openly distancing themselves from other Christians who objected to permitting them to enslave people while also serving as missionaries. As a result, White Christians must confront the idea that everything they have learned about how they practice their faith is intended to directly or tacitly perpetuate a racist system. Subsequently, White Too Long appears to put forward a simple choice: to hang onto white Christianity or hold onto Jesus, but not both.
Cultural Aspects of Christianity
Today’s white Christians must understand the cultural aspects of their worship activities and admit that they are not inherent or appropriate for everyone. According to Jones (2020), the cultural toolkit functions like a filter, allowing some items to be sharply focused while hazy or challenging-to-detect matters are kept in the background (p. 97). The cultural toolkit identifies three significant strategies White Evangelicals utilize: relationalism, unrestrained individualism, and anti-structuralism. The tools center on the meeting point between people’s thoughts and institutions’ thoughts, as well as their relationship with Jesus Christ. On anti-structuralism, Jones (2020) observes skepticism about institutions being blamed for societal ills. He asserts that the reason is that the fundamental basis of the fault belongs to wicked characters.
Around the halfway point of the book, Jones draws on his substantial experience with religious polls to lay out a racism index, which he presents as the pinnacle of proof. It comprises 15 survey questions to examine sentiments against white supremacy and Black people. He writes on the findings, claiming that the more racist a person is, the more likely they are to describe themselves as a white Christian (Jones, 2020). The findings are consistent across geographic regions, among both consistent and occasional church members, and among white evangelicals, mainline Protestants, and Roman Catholics. It is not easy to disagree with his finding that white supremacy is fundamentally physiologically embedded in white Christianity in American society.
Influence of White Evangelism on American Politics
The growing power of White Evangelicals infiltrated America’s political system. It is based on the Moral Majority, an evangelical Christian organization led by Southern Baptist preacher and Liberty University’s founding leader, Jerry Falwell, Sr. He intended to rally an alliance of White Evangelicals, especially southerners who were firmly opposed to abortion, to support the Republican Party when they faced their first American presidential nominee, Ronald Reagan, in 1980.
In subsequent decades, the movement grew from just a few clerics to a sizable voting bloc. White Evangelicals were willing to keep themselves out of politics when it came to black preachers and civil rights activism. When the established state of white supremacy came under attack, Falwell and other White Evangelical leaders realized it was time to take a political stand. Donald Trump has recently benefited from this movement after gaining attention in 2011 by implying that Obama might be a Muslim in disguise, as if this were something to be ashamed of (Jones, 2020, p.13). He went on to run for the top seat, aided and abetted by White Evangelicals who were motivated by White Christian Nationalist sentiments, family traditions, and racial resentment.
Historical Responsibility
Jones also raises important questions about whether public confessions could help rectify the church’s history of discriminatory practices. He presses white Christians to be accountable for the past and work for reparation in the present. The SBC has previously condemned its racism and admitted that it could have done more to abolish slavery and assist the civil rights struggle.
According to Jones (2020), Reverend Gary Frost, a Black pastor from Youngstown, Ohio, gave a brief statement in response to the resolution, acknowledging the convention’s apologies on behalf of his Black brothers and sisters. He doubts, however, whether 150 years of white supremacy could be thoroughly cleansed in just fifteen minutes of effort (p.54). The book pushes readers to confront some painful truths about American Christian history. White Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, have never adequately considered the consequences of white supremacy’s legacy, nor have they fully comprehended the harm done to their Black and Brown brothers and sisters.
Jones believes that White Christians have been in severe denial about the harm done to their psychological and religious well-being. There is an unending litany of wicked activities that have been endorsed and validated by white Christians and white Christianity. These include the defense of slavery, the destruction of the rebuilding process, the enactment of Jim Crow laws, the enactment of racial segregation, the establishment of segregated academies, and support for racial profiling, policing practices, and judicial systems that unjustly kill Black people.
For nearly every moment of American history, white Christianity has been the dominating cultural and moral force in the country, and none of these practices would have been enacted or perpetuated if there had been a white Christian voice against them. Jones (2020) wraps up with a chapter titled “Reckoning,” which could be understood as providing a complete verbal explanation of something, an aspect of economic justice, or a fair settlement of accounts. He emphasizes that to move on from the decades of white supremacy that have blighted not only this country but also this religious tradition, white evangelicals must confront their past.
Conclusion
It may be impossible to apologize on behalf of people who have died, but this does not mean that the forefathers’ misdeeds should be perpetuated indefinitely. The events of the previous decade, particularly in recent months, have brought discussions of race to the forefront of national consciousness. It is a historical moment that is pushing white Christians to choose between adopting a religion that maintains white supremacy and one that deconstructs it.
Jones’s book encourages people of faith to forge new paths forward. White Too Long joins a dynamic and rising body of contemporary literature that holds the white church accountable for its failures in terms of racism. Recent publications that connect well alongside this particular title include Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Reconstructing the Gospel by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, and Taking America Back for God by Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry. These books highlight what could be a significant turning point in the history of white Christianity in America.
Reference
Jones, R. P. (2020). White too long: The legacy of white supremacy in American Christianity. Simon & Schuster.