Expanding The Space Of The Talkaboutable

“We believe when Christ comes the Jews will be converted, and become the world’s greatest evangelists…Why kill them off if they are to be the world’s greatest evangelists?”

This isn’t Carl Fuentes or Ye or Eric Metaxas. It’s J. Frank Norris (pictured above). I beheld these words when I read and reviewed Barry Hankins’ God’s Rascal: J. Frank Norris and the Beginnings of Southern Fundamentalism. It struck me as helpful reminder that the hate speech our pundits and high-profile hall monitors tell us just might be entering the American mainstream was mainstreamed among us by bigots and grifters long ago. I’ve heard people adopt a similar tone toward Jewish people my entire life. It’s sometimes subtle and sometimes not so subtle. Norris’ position concerning the role our Jewish sisters and brothers are somehow theologically fated to play appears to be reflected in the Christian worldview of Mike Pence, Marsha Blackburn, Bill Lee, Mike Pompeo, and myriad high rollers in the Prayer Trade. Needless to say, that worldview forms the foreign policy positions of moneyed interests playing games with our lives right this minute. Have you noticed?

"If you don't believe in Jesus Christ, you are wrong. And anyone that doesn't believe in Jesus Christ should not be in control or any influence to anything that America produces."

This, in fact, is the Dove-award-winning artist Ye (formerly known as Kanye West). It’s awful to hear him speak this way, but again, he’s giving voice to the standard view of millions of white evangelicals still at large among us. Believe me, I know. I was an English teacher at a school that assigned the Left Behind series to fourteen and fifteen-year-olds. It’s a Christian supremacist position. I speak as someone who was once something of a Christian supremacist myself. I am now busily changing my tune with more than a little help from my friends. Here’s me adjusting my posture in the Afterword of the revised, reframed, and repentant version of Life’s Too Short To Pretend You’re Not Religious (out now).

I feel relief having set the words down in print. Now that they’re there, I have a place to point interlocutors to if/when we differ over where we imagine the lines are or ought to be in our talk of one another and God and who’s on our team or isn’t.

Too often, the move among those of us who presume to speak publicly is to call on people to condemn and denounce other people. That form of heat doubtless generates ad revenue, but it’s a heat without light. It illuminates nothing. It’s a reactivity that garners clicks but sews confusion. Actions, words, behaviors, positions, and postures can be, I think, helpfully condemned. But escalating a situation into a dramatic story about who will or won’t condemn someone else reduces an otherwise human exchange into a crazy cartoon. Sure, there appears to be political capital to be accrued by publicly calling on Public Servant 45 to condemn Ye. But this is the quick and easy currency of kayfabe. Why play that way when you don’t have to? Nobody has to. Let me say it again with firmness: Nobody has to.

What we can do (if we want to) is examine positions and put questions to the people who hold them. We can ask Ye and Public Servant 45 to offer clarifying words concerning their stated positions. We can ask their supporters (the Gospel Music Association and Senator Ben Sasse, for instance) when, where, and how they differ with the public positions of the individuals they promote and/or protect. We can take it slow. As ever, these questions aren’t attacks or condemnations. They’re questions. In a free society, we’re free to ask them.

Have you ever heard of Dominion theology? There’s an amply footnoted entry on the subject here. But I also have a handy graphic. You don’t have to know the names Cornelius Van Till and R.J. Rushdoony and Gary North ("We must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people...constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.") and Tim Keller to sense a familiar posture.

Have you heard of the “Christian Mind Project?” Here’s David Brooks describing the effort.

I don’t want to conflate one effort with another unhelpfully, but I do want to acknowledge patterns and pressure points among high rollers in the Prayer Trade who have big ideas about “what needs to happen” in our common spaces, our institutions, our neighborhoods, and our homes. Noting and asking questions about patterns and pressure points serves to expand the space of the talkaboutable. This is the work of education. bell hooks told us education is the practice of freedom. I believe this is the case.

On that note, the institution (or robot) within which I attempt education recently made the news. Belmont University is now hiring faculty “of Jewish faith.” I think this is great. I’m also very pleased and moved by these words from President L. Gregory Jones: “The stronger your center, the more inclusive your edges can be.” Isn’t that something?

Two more items.

I was a guest on WPLN’s This Is Nashville today. I made a number of new friends, and I’d like to encourage you to listen to and research all of them. I am so moved and inspired by Khalil Ekulona’s way of juggling stories, voices, and interests most righteously. It’s a wonder to behold.

And also, my new friend Xander Taylor took a picture of me after I asked him to which got the ball rolling on a thing occurring tomorrow at the Filling Station on Halcyon. It might just be me reading my book aloud to one or two people and then moseying on somewhere else. But it might be a larger number of people. I can assure you of this. Barring the unforeseen I will be there at 4pm to discuss the book with anyone who shows up and wants to. I only ask that you purchase at least one beverage. We owe them that.

Note the reigning patterns. Consider the pressure points. Don’t coddle bigots. Ask questions. Love specifically. Play human.

Be the book club you want to see in the world.

Use your voice.