BUTLER: I think we make sense of it out of the historical experience of African-Americans here in America.

So how do we make sense of that kind of dual identity: the person who is the man of God and the man of the world? Father Divine is one example of how ambiguous the religious leader has been. So Anthea, you heard our discussion with Professor Raboteau. Reverend STEPHAN EPPS (Religion, Logic and Philosophy professor, Medgar Evers College): Thank you.ĬHIDEYA: I'm doing great.

Professor ANTHEA BUTLER (Religion, University of Rochester): Hi, Farai. He teaches religion, logic and philosophy at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, New York. If people would follow their lead-including adopting their agendas on abortion, education, voting, and nationalism-America would be much better off than it would be in the egalitarian, openly integrationist future being pursued through the civil rights and youth movements of the sixties and seventies.Now, for a broader discussion on the impact black religious leaders have had on American society, we turn to Anthea Butler, associate professor of religion at the University of Rochester in New York. Much like the nineteenth-century admonitions to protect white womanhood and discourage miscegenation, the message from evangelicals, specifically white evangelicals, was that they were poised to save the nation and civilization. Yet the underlying message of these groups was that morality was essential to preserving the nation and that the sexual immorality of America, including race mixing, would be its downfall. The groups were not overtly racist, and all would at times feature African Americans in promotional materials, on radio shows, and as speakers at conferences. They were also important in fostering an evangelical culture that promoted color-blindness and conservatism. All of these seemingly benign organizations had the specific purpose of lobbying government on evangelical concerns about the family, marriage, abortion, and education. Dobson’s other organization, the Family Research Council, would be founded in 1981 and incorporated in 1983. That year, Donald Wildmon created the American Family Association, and James Dobson launched Focus on the Family. “In 1977, two major organizations that would prove powerful in the evangelical lobby were formed. My analysis and prognostications may be dire, but it is never too late to make amends.” Your racism is actively engaged in killing bodies and souls. Your nationalistic evangelicalism is hurting others. That polarization has taken on a resemblance to ideological and theological battles. The polarization we are experiencing in government has stymied progress. All of these things have occurred because evangelicals, through religious lobbying and interference, supported the political structures that curtailed, limited, or struck down truly important issues.

You helped make this carnage we now experience. The president you followed slavishly declared “American carnage” in his inaugural speech. Disdain for science has left America behind during a pandemic, while the rest of the world moves forward. Calls for law and order mean more Black and Brown bodies dead at the hands of the police. More people go hungry today than ever before. While you are clinging to God and guns, mothers are clinging to pictures of children who have been shot dead in classrooms, in streets, in malls, in cars. The bile and hatred of some of the leaders you emulate make it impossible for people to believe whatever witness you have left. The candidates you back want to take us back to a mythical time-apparently the 1950s-that honestly did not exist. “If you are an evangelical reading this book, then I would ask you to look around and see what your witness has wrought. White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America More than that, their embrace tore the covers off the anti-Black racism that had existed since the nineteenth century.” Evangelicals’ embrace of an unrepentant racist solidified the place of racism in the history of American evangelicalism. Their embrace of this thrice-married casino-owning reality TV star would both give them new recognition in the Republican Party and destroy the image of morality and uprightness they had so carefully cultivated. Donald Trump, who won the Republican primary against sixteen opponents and won the presidency in 2016, would become both the savior and the nadir of the evangelical movement in America. This willful blindness would open the door for a man who would be revered by them despite all of his moral failings. They looked to religiosity in symbolism to deflect scrutiny of their own shortcomings and historical failures with regard to the racism in their churches. “Even the massacre of nine Black Christians following a Bible study class was not enough to make American evangelicals face the fact that racism remained a major problem within their ranks.

Anthea butler