Christian Supremacy Is Real
“Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?” That’s Joni Mitchell with an essential question that lands helpfully in a wide variety of contexts. I invite you to apply it to your own wherever it lands most helpfully.
There are a few efforts underway in Tennessee to persuade our ruling party, led by Governor Bill Lee, to stop terrorizing us and knowingly cutting many of us off from what we need to live. I want to highlight a couple of those efforts here.
The first involves my friend Jenny Dyer and the 2030 Collaborative who are urging Governor Lee and Dr. Ralph Alvarado to reverse course in their decision to reject funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing, prevention, and treatment of HIV in the state of Tennessee. Please read the letter signed by Dr. Morgan Wills, Reverend Becca Stevens, Andrew Peterson, Big Kenny of Big & Rich, Amy Grant, Charlie Peacock, Ellie and Drew Holcomb, Steve Taylor, Ian Cron, Charlie Lowell, Dan Haseltine, Andy Peterson, Sarah, and myself. I’m still hopeful Bill Frist, Bill Haslam, Michael W. Smith, and others who once expressed an interest in the kind of work undertaken by the 2030 Collaborative will step forward. If they do, I believe it might move the needle. If you know anyone who’d like to see their name on the letter or partner with Jenny Dyer to urge Governor Lee and Dr. Alvarado to rethink their abusive postures, please contact Jenny and her team.
I’d also like to call attention to this very straightforward, public observation from Michelle Knotts Gill of Goodlettsville, Tennessee. It’s exceedingly thorough and a lovely reminder of what direct, morally serious communication looks like when it comes to demanding better behavior of men who’ve sought and received public trust. I’m inspired by the Michelle’s candor and courage. Please consider following her lead with your own words in your own context.
It is strange to speak of the need to provide a millionaire elected official with incentives to not target friends and family. But this is where we are. This is also what Michelle and Jenny and others are doing. This is group courage. We need more of it desperately.
“Christian supremacy” is the descriptor I’ve arrived at for naming the threat, because it seems to be the ideology to which my beautiful state’s ruling party has, for now, succumbed entirely. Yes, their hearts might not be in it. They might all be LARPing in one way or another, but the threat is real and upon us. It’s time to speak up.
If not now, when?