“It is the relationship between the center and the margins that demands scrutiny. Those who occupy what center there is have largely failed to define themselves against the more extreme expressions of ‘biblical patriarchy’ and there are reasons for this.”
The above couple of sentences make for one of my favorite moments in Dr. Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. These sentences and the book as a whole are something of a personal challenge to me. Saying how and why did not fit the assignment (or the word count) for my review of the book, so I figgle I’ll set some thoughts down here. Please read the review before proceeding.
Christ Presbyterian Church of Nashville celebrated forty years of existence as a church organization yesterday. I was employed there as a high school English teacher (in the Christ Presbyterian Academy part of CPC) for about ten years and remain in relationship with colleagues and hundreds of amazing folks with whom I once shared a classroom. Even then, I wasn’t exactly an ideological soulmate with some of the administrators, coaches, and parents of the students, but I was affirmed and loved and looked after despite occasional differences. I will always be grateful for the people within the organization who were determined to think well of me despite these differences.
Then and now, I’ve tried to do good work while also getting paid. I’ve also had friends and family who’ve loved me enough to occasionally let me know when they think I might be guilty of equivocation in regard to doctrines and creeds and other forms of politics. Meanwhile, Dr. Du Mez’s work (like the work of Dr. Anthea Butler & Dr. Beth Alison Barr & Dr. Chrissy Stroop) has me wondering over the ways I may have positioned myself (or been positioned) as a centrist and thereby contributed to someone else’s marginalization. I am all about (or want to be all about) what Renata Adler once referred to as “the radical middle.” But I’m beginning to see, like never before, that the alleged center deserves and demands scrutiny. That’s where abusive behavior gets normalized and where people who dare to tell the truth about their own experience are often subjected to gaslighting. The unclouded eye is better, Frank Herbert tells us, no matter what it sees.
Association is currency. Where and how we spend it matters. Once I assert that an abusive or unsafe person is “a good man” or “a wonderful man” or in possession of “a good heart,” I’ve claimed a rhetorical high ground from which I can decree all sharing of data that indicates otherwise as “unhelpful,” “unprofessional,” “hostile,” or “hysterical.” I can well imagine finding the name of someone who’s arguably done me a favor in the index of Jesus and John Wayne. This fact helps me have more compassion for those who are rethinking their associations in light of the evidence set forth within it. Nevertheless, I hope the book continues to move past the defenses of those who want to dismiss it as needlessly divisive. Unity, after all, is not a virtue in itself. And a call for unity with unaccountable people is a call for more abuse.
I’ll have to save more for another occasion, but I want to add that the Netflix series, Midnight Mass, has contributed to this reflection. One of the themes I spy within it is the idea that our honesty is all we have. Please read Diana Butler Bass’s reflection here and subscribe to her newsletter.
"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."
Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
— Martin Luther King Jr.
“Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
I have no idea why the conversation surrounding centrists/moderates/enablers/fauxgressives inspired me to post these (in)famous MLK quotes where he called them out.
I am bewildered. Bewildered I tell you. ;-)
Related. If you haven’t already, have a gander:
https://mhmatters.com/the-case-for-donald-trump/