Beware the Man in the Blue Suit and the Lady in the Red Dress
by Rodney Kennedy
Rodney Kennedy has his M.Div. from New Orleans Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Louisiana State University. The pastor of 7 Southern Baptist churches over the course of 20 years, he pastored the First Baptist Church of Dayton (OH) – which is an American Baptist Church – for 13 years. He is currently professor of homiletics at Palmer Theological Seminary, and interim pastor of Emmanuel Friedens Federated Church, Schenectady, NY. He is also making final edits on his sixth book – Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy – forthcoming from Wipf and Stock (Cascades).
Sound like a country song? Well, it’s an entire country of trouble. Representative Matt Gaetz is rolling out his “I Didn’t Have Sex with a Minor Tour,” starting with an appearance in The Villages, the large and overwhelmingly Republican retirement community in central Florida.
Following the Trump Defense Playbook, Gaetz denies, denies, and denies. Then he attacks, attacks, attacks. As Gaetz boasts, “they never come for the meek, always for the fighters.”
Having “branded the Republican Party,” Donald Trump has unleashed a particular kind of “macho” male image deeply rooted in our patriarchal past, vividly described by Thomas Connelly in Will Campbell and the Soul of the South:
Dixie has a cult of the physical, is a passionate land which for generations has idolized force and power. In effect, violence takes many forms. It is in the football popularity of a Paul “Bear” Bryant or the adoration showered upon NASCAR race-car drivers on the Southern circuit. It becomes the tan-legged [Golden Girls from LSU’s Tigerland] or the adoration for a local football coach in a Southern hamlet. Violence can be the proverbial Good Ole Boy with his gentle disdain for the law. It is assertive male talk at a roadside tavern, beauty contestants trained since puberty like thoroughbred horses, or the admiration for gusto in political oratory. It is an idolatry of bigness, strength, force, extremism, and a mild disrespect for authority.
This is Matt Gaetz. While he is from Florida, and thus not a Southerner, he acts like the stereotypical Good Ole Boy.
And yet, one chink in his armor is that he does not seem at all confident that he can pull off this macho, hit-em-in-the mouth act. So he has a wing-woman on his tour: Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia GOP representative and promoter of the Jewish space laser conspiracy theory. They make a cute couple: the spoiled frat boy in his blue suit and the hard-core Trump lady in her red dress. I think Matt must have been singing to Marjorie:
Lady with the red dress on
I love to be your man
(I wanna be your man)
And take you into my world, ski dum dum
Hey, I'll show you lots of surprise
And make you hypnotized
And then you will be my girl!
They intend to take Florida by storm, but it is a risky move. Trump pulled it off. Jerry Falwell, Jr. tried and failed. Maybe Gaetz will fail, and thus further damage the macho, blustery, bragging, disgusting male superiority complex that disguises deep insecurity and fear. Maybe Matt will have to go home to his mama.
There’s an even more insidious man loose, and he’s also wearing a blue suit.
Some mornings, 1963 feels like yesterday. Prior to the Voting Rights Act, “Southern states maintained elaborate voter registration procedures deliberately designed to deny the vote to nonwhites,” according to the Civil Rights Movement Archive.
Those literacy tests — some of which were literal, some were more general — were specifically designed to discriminate against Black Americans, the CRMA’s Bruce Hartford writes. The literal tests were intentionally complicated, confusing if not nearly impossible to pass. Whites were rarely required to take the tests, and if they were, they were “passed” by poll administrators. To make matters worse, the literacy tests often consisted of more than 30 questions and had to be taken in 10 minutes. You were not allowed to answer any question incorrectly. The result was that an overwhelming number of African Americans were denied the vote.
One sweat-soaked, foggy night a group of Good Old Boys robbed a grave in a Louisiana cemetery, exhuming the body of old Jim Crow. They dressed him a blue suit and red tie and, like King Saul slinking to the cave of the witch of Endor, they conjured Crow back to life again, pronouncing that he had been in good health at the time of his demise and that he should have never been killed.
The practical result of this grave robbing has been to clear the way for the restoration of voter suppression that had marked Jim’s previous reign of violence. But this time, the Southern strategy has gone national, in keeping with Rodney Clapp’s observation (in Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction) that the whole nation now speaks Southern.
As Alan Jackson sang back in 1994,
He's gone country, look at them boots
He's gone country, back to his roots
He's gone country, a new kind of suit
He's gone country, here he comes.
The whole world gone country.
The new Jim Crow not only dresses better than the old Jim Crow, but he is smarter. He now presents himself as a patriot of the highest order, bestowing upon himself the title of “The Man Who Will Make America Great Again.”
And he has learned a metaphorical language – “free elections,” “stopping fraud,” “standing up for American values.” Every word of these metaphorical extravaganzas speaks a lie, but it is being swallowed whole in Florida, Georgia, Texas, and across the nation. Republicans have decided that since they can’t win a majority of the votes, they will use political power to “rig” the election in their favor.
Make no mistake. Jim Crow is back with a date on his arm – the lady in the red dress. These two are not a joke. Beware the blue suit and red dress. They mask a virulent patriarchal past attempting to make a comeback of anger, resentment, and, as always, violence.
Facing the Apocalypse: The REAP lawsuit and Moderate Evangelical Universities
by William Trollinger
As reported in an earlier post, 33 former and current college and seminary students – under the auspices of the Religious Exemption Accountability Project (REAP) – have filed a class action lawsuit seeking “to put an end to the U.S. Department of Education’s complicity in the abuses and unsafe conditions thousands of LGBTQ+ students endure at hundreds of taxpayer-funded, religious colleges and universities.”
For hardline fundamentalist schools the strategy seems to be pretty clear, and straight (pun intended) from the Christian Right playbook: double down on anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination while simultaneously claiming that this lawsuit is further evidence that they and other true Christians are victims of atheistic persecution and an intolerant “woke culture.”
But as I noted in the earlier post, the REAP lawsuit is a much more difficult moment for moderate evangelical colleges and universities. For years administrators at these schools have been playing to two starkly different audiences at once. Internally, they reassure faculty and LGBTQ+ students that they are very sympathetic, and that change is coming soon, once the older generation of evangelicals has passed. But externally, they repeatedly reassure their conservative constituency (donors and parents) that they are holding and will hold to a firm “biblical line” when it comes to matters pertaining to sexual orientation.
Responding to my post, a faculty member at a moderate evangelical school submitted (anonymously) this comment:
You are spot on with the “two audiences strategy,” which a moderate can moderate in moderate times and even feel that s/he is offering a mediating service and “holding the center.” But when the choice becomes stark, and the center is not on offer by either constituent group, then the true colors must be flown. Well, we are here now . . . and in the context of massive enrollment crises at these moderate institutions (their two audiences are parting ways, and heading to other institutions of higher education). What will the Apocalypse reveal on this one about the true nature of moderate protestant Christian colleges/universities?
Great question. And toward answering that question, we have reports from three schools – all three of which have current and former students who are plaintiffs in the REAP lawsuit — that give hints as to the “true nature” of moderate evangelical schools.
Seattle Pacific University
As reported on the Roys Report, 72% of the faculty at Seattle Pacific University (SPU) voted to approve a motion declaring no confidence in the Board of Trustees after the trustees refused to revise its policy that forbids the hiring of LGBTQ+ individuals while also declining to modify its statement on human sexuality (which establishes that the only allowable expression of sexuality is “in the context of the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman.”)
And it’s not just the faculty. As noted in the Roys Report article, Leah Duff – a senior at Seattle Pacific who understands herself to be queer – has announced that “the students and alumni are planning a campaign to discourage donations to the school, cut its ties to community organizations, and work to decrease enrollment at the school.”
That’s a remarkable response, and absolutely not one that the SPU administration wants to hear. Of course, while (a good portion of) the faculty and students make up one audience, there is that other fundamentalist audience that SPU has been attending to for years and years. To get a feel for that audience, just scroll down to the comments in response to this story. Here are a few lowlights:
- “I am sorry to hear this once Biblical school has hired so many woke Professors.”
- “God hates all things LGBTQ.”
- “I am a Christian and lifelong resident of the Seattle area. I say good for the SPU Board but sad they have so many faculty with debased minds.”
Baylor University
From the Pacific Northwest to the heart of Texas we go. Baylor University has two students – one (Veronica Penales) who defines as queer and the other (Jake Picker) as bisexual — who have joined the REAP lawsuit, arguing that the university treats their “existence like there is something inherently wrong with us” while doing nothing in response to complaints of hate speech directed at LGBTQ+ students. More than this, the university has repeatedly refused to recognize the unofficial LGBTQ+ Gamma Alpha Upsilon club as an official student organization.
Interestingly, earlier this year both the Baylor Faculty and Student Senate passed resolutions supporting the chartering of Gamma Alpha Upsilon. In response, the Board of Regents chair and vice-chairs met with the student body president, the Faculty Senate chair, and the president of Gamma Alpha Upsilon to discuss the faculty and student resolutions, a discussion that the chair of the Faculty Senate described as “unprecedented” and “remarkable.” But as of yet, no action has been taken.
And just last weekend Gamma Alpha Epsilon – with the support of a donor – held its first gay prom at a local park, which attracted approximately 150 people, one of whom “said that this was the first time he ever felt affirmed while at Baylor.”
But as Picker noted, the Gay Prom doesn’t change the fact that LGBTQ+ students still feel as if they are not truly welcome at Baylor: “I shouldn’t have to choose my religion over my sexuality. We [LGBTQ+ students] want to grow in our Christian faith too.”
Messiah University
And now we go to south-central Pennsylvania, and Messiah University (MU). On the evening of April 08 the College Democrats hosted an hour-long Zoom conversation with MU senior and plaintiff Rachel Held about REAP’s lawsuit v. the U.S. Department of Education. Held was charming and self-deprecatory, and the young woman who chaired the session (I did not catch her name) was remarkably poised and supportive. One of the attendees made reference to what a “huge event” this was on campus, with a large group in virtual attendance. The whole session is worth watching, but here are a few highlights:
- (start 3:21) Held was asked to explain what started on the road toward getting involved in this lawsuit: “I was an R.A., and as one of the steps to becoming an R.A. you have to go through something called Carousel Night, where they split you into groups. It’s basically a group interview. One of the rooms at Carousel Night [at least when I went through] is the Values Continuum, where they have a chalkboard in the room, where they go from agree to disagree. They’ll ask you questions, and then you have to place yourself where you fall on that spectrum, and they will ask you why. One of the questions we were asked in this room is whether or not we think that LGBTQ students should be allowed to hold leadership positions. Just the fact that that was something that was up for debate wasn’t something I had ever thought about or anticipated happening at a place that felt so welcoming, like Messiah. And that’s something that stuck with me.”
- (start 19:09): Held was asked what changes she would like to see: “At Messiah, I would really love to see their specific policy changed . . . Currently, any student experiencing same-sex attraction is expected to refrain from acting on that while they’re a student. I think that kind of double standard of people in straight relationships can, you know, make out in the middle of campus, and sure, we might get uncomfortable watching that, but it would be allowed, whereas a couple in a same-sex relationship can’t do the same thing. I feel like I would like to see that policy changed, or removed completely would be even better in my opinion.”
- (start 44:02): Session chair: “I’ve had conversations with plenty of faculty here on campus and even some of the administration who are completely affirming of the LGBTQ+ community. But they are also in a bit of a bind just because of the policies . . . they are a little bit hamstrung. So it’s a difficult place to be . . . That’s why it’s interesting and it’s great that – not great – that this lawsuit is happening because . . . the change is not going to come from within Messiah. It’s almost going to have to come from outside forces putting pressure on them.”
At one moderate evangelical university, a faculty vote of no confidence in the Board because of their anti-LGBTQ+ policies and statements. At a second, faculty/student resolutions for an LGBTQ+ organization to be given official standing. At a third, a student organization pressing the point that LGBTQ+ students have been rendered second-class by institutional policies and practices.
All of this makes clear that different moderate evangelical universities are responding differently. Seattle Pacific and Messiah do not (at least at the moment) seem to be heading down the same path.
And yet, as our anonymous contributor noted, and as the events at all three schools would suggest, the institutional approach of playing to two different audiences at once is not going to hold. The cultural and generational shift when it comes to the acceptance of LGBTQ+-identified individuals, the REAP lawsuit, and serious enrollment challenges: all of this renders the two audience strategy increasingly untenable.
For moderate evangelical universities, riding out the apocalypse does not seem to be an option.
Pat Robertson on Police Brutality, or, Onward Christian Police Marching as to War
by Matthew Merringer
Matthew Merringer is a Master Student at the University of Dayton in the Department of Religious Studies. He studies the history and politics of American Protestantism. His interests include radicals such as Dorothy Day, Jerry Falwell, and nativist preachers in the 19th Century. He finds the unique political imaginations crafted by these leaders help provide rubrics for understanding the daily practices of their followers.
As many watched and listened live via social media, television, radio, and in person outside the Minneapolis courthouse, Judge Peter Cahill read aloud the jury’s verdict in the murder trial of George Floyd. Guilty…Guilty…Guilty. Found guilty on all three charges, Derek Chauvin was led away in handcuffs.
But as Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison poignantly remarked, “I would not call today’s verdict justice, however, because justice implies true restoration. But it is accountability, which is the first step towards justice.” Looking at the country, at least on the surface, one might argue that there is a growing consensus for the need of justice for people of color, not only at the hands of police but perhaps across the entire criminal justice system.
Many were shocked that, just a week before the verdict, Pat Robertson sat behind the desk on his legendary 700 Club broadcast and called attention to the inexcusable killing of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center (just outside Minneapolis). He went on to say of police that “if they don’t stop this onslaught, they cannot do this [sic].” As regards the officer who killed George Floyd, Robertson said that “they ought to put him under the jail.”
The next day, Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough and his guest Jon Meacham gushed over the fact that this cultural and religious icon had called out policing, with the latter comparing him to the Prodigal Son who should be welcomed when he does something correctly. Meacham goes on to say that Robertson is using “God-given intelligence” to see with his eyes that something is wrong. The implication of all this is that there seems to be an emerging common ground between the conservative religious right and progressives when it comes to police reform, perhaps even regarding the justice that Ellison alludes to.
However, this ignores the very essence of the movement which Robertson embodies, as a careful examination of his rhetoric reveals (start at 9:01):
- The voiceover from the introduction frames the issue in a particular way. “More violence overnight in Minnesota”, “over the death of Daunte Wright”, “demonstrators tried to get over the fence added… to protect the [police] department” (italics added for emphasis). Words have power and one does not need to go far to conclude that the voiceover was instructing viewers that a correct reading of the story would be that “violent demonstrators attacked the police over something that happens every day, death.” Contrast that reading with an alternative introduction: “Americans protested in the street against fortified police positions over another police killing of a member of the community they are sworn to protect.”
- Pat then sets the stage of authority. The next 1:26 of the show is dedicated to Pat and his cohost Terry playing with a fake gun and a taser to make a point that anyone in their right mind should not have confused a bright yellow taser and a heavy black gun. This is important for two reasons. First, it establishes that authority is based in common sense empirical observation. Pat and Terry know something is wrong because they (upper-class white evangelicals) can see and touch it. Wrongdoing must be plain and observable to all. Second, it positions them as equal authorities on the matter of police violence as minorities who have experienced it firsthand. In the simple process of playing with a toy gun, Robertson has established a basis of evidence of police wrongdoing and has elevated himself to an authority on the subject. (Those familiar with the Fundamentalist movement will quickly recognize this as their same approach to the authority of the Bible)
- The George Floyd murder trial was in its second week at the time of the taping, and Pat crafted the story of his death into the killing of Daunte Wright to provide a larger narrative.:“Derek Chauvin, they ought to put him under the jail, he has caused so much trouble by kneeling of the death [sic] of George Floyd… on his neck. It’s just terrible what is happening.” Obviously to Robertson, this is pattern that needs attention. Then Robertson went on to ask “why don’t they [police] open their eyes to what the public relations are?” Suddenly the trouble Chauvin has caused comes into light. The murder of George Floyd is not troublesome for the fact that ANOTHER black man has died at the hands of the police, but because it has brought dishonor to and questions about police.
- His co-host Terry offers the comment that perhaps the police need better more consistent training. This is quickly dismissed by the “very pro-police” Robertson. His solution? “We’ve got to pay them more. We don’t have the finest in the police department.” “It is not a question of training; it is hiring a more superior workforce.”
In the 2 minutes and 26 seconds dedicated to the story, not once is race or ethnicity mentioned. What we have then is not an acknowledgement that Black Lives Matter, not surprisingly as Pat has called the movement a “lesbian, anti-family, anti-capitalist, Marxist revolution.” Or even that policing in America is in need of reform, as Joe Scarborough would like to think.
Instead, we have business as usual for Pat and his conservative followers. The religious right establishes the threshold of evidence, as they are the only ones with access to propositional truth. In this privileged position, they are the only ones who understand the difference between true good and evil, and they are the only ones who can determine when a wrong has been committed. And in this case, the ultimate “wrong” in America’s policing is being done to the police! They are not getting paid enough, and so the good people are not becoming and staying police officers.
In Pat’s world, there is no space for the oppressed to speak. There is no reason to practice listening. The solution is already known. Justice is not something we are moving toward in America. It is something we have lost and fallen from in some past glory day of the Republic. If America will simply return to Christ and live in the Christian morality of capitalism, America’s (presumably Christian) finest will return to the police department .They will be able to fix this public relations issue and return America to its status quo. Then, according to Pat, we will have justice for George Floyd.
In the slightly modified words of that favorite old fundamentalist hymn,
Onward Christian police marching as to war…
White Nationalism and Faith: An Interview with Camille Kaminski Lewis
by William Trollinger
Camille Kaminski Lewis is, as of this fall, an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. She holds a Ph.D. from Indiana University in Rhetorical Studies with a minor in American Studies. Her book, Romancing the Difference: Kenneth Burke, Bob Jones University, and the Rhetoric of Religious Fundamentalism, was a scholarly attempt to stretch the boundaries of both Kenneth Burke’s rhetorical theory on tragedy and comedy as well as stretch conservative evangelical’s separatist frames. The story of that publication is available at The KB Journal. And she is currently working on a manuscript titled Klandamentalism: America’s Most Dysfunctional Romance.
And she has just published an edited volume, White Nationalism and Faith: Statements and Counter-Statements on American Identity (Peter Lang, 2020). This anthology makes for both appalling and inspiring reading, and we here at rightingamerica are delighted that Camille was willing to be interviewed about White Nationalism and Faith.
- Could you give a brief overview of what this volume contains, and how you imagine it being used in the classroom?
- I include American texts since the Civil War that both featured white nationalist arguments in religious rhetoric as well as those texts that countered those same arguments. For instance, after James Forman read his “Black Manifesto” at Rockefeller’s Riverside Church in Manhattan, Carl McIntire came back with his own “Christian Manifesto.” McIntire (poorly) imitates Forman’s organization and arguments – an imitation that my students perceived was very similar to current #AllLivesMatter appeals. Thus, each set of artifacts in the book is a conversation that might give us solutions in countering white nationalism and faith.
- Since I just finished using the volume in my classroom this semester, I have a very clear picture on its use. I coupled my volume with Patricia Roberts-Miller’s Demagoguery and Democracy. The students read the secondary source every Monday and these primary sources every Wednesday. And then on Friday they were tasked with facilitating the class discussion. The selections worked both to inform the students about the persistence of demagogic white nationalism in our public conversations as well as to help them imagine democratic solutions to them.
- In introducing this collection of documents you make – drawing from Kenneth Burke – this powerful (and on point) assertion: “Ignoring the rhetoric with the strain of One-Hundred Percenters – or what current conversations dub ‘white nationalists’ – will vandalize our civic sphere. Knocking off a few adverse memes will only gratify ourselves. Our job, then, is to find all the available ways of making the white nationalist distortions of religion apparent, in order that politicians of this kind will be ineffective in performing their swindle.” Can you say more about what constitutes civic vandalism, and what it is that we need to do?
- I have regularly confessed to my students over the last five years that I feel very gratified when I post a meme about our former “Cheeto-in-Chief.” That is what Burke is talking about in his “Rhetoric of Hitler’s Battle.” Calling Hitler in Burke’s time or Trump in our time “a clown” does not take him seriously enough but only makes us feel pious. That self-righteous political piety is how Burke described what we today call “purity politics.” Voltaire is referencing the same thing with his aphorism, “il meglio è l’inimico del bene” or “the best is the enemy of the good.” Piously clinging to the purest of motives or piously spitting on the evilest of actors ruins the political sphere. It’s a kind of vandalism. I remember when I tried to grow a tea rose in this Southern climate. I was constantly pruning and powdering and spraying and plucking, and the plant grew to take over the entire bed. And I never got a bloom. The dumb plant was ruining the looks of that flower bed and grating on my last nerve, and for what? That’s what “knocking off a few adverse attitudizings” does for our public sphere. We need to resist that and get to work solving the rhetorical problems before us.
- In your estimation what is the most appalling document you have included here? (I will nominate Billy James Hargis’ “The Cross and the Sickle.”) What is the most inspiring?
- I didn’t get permission for one text that I wanted to include: Bob Jones, Sr.’s Easter Sunday morning sermon, “Is Segregation Scriptural?” So I would nominate that one especially since its counter-statement is also my most inspiring. At a Springfield, Missouri town hall Pastor Phil Snider took Bob Jones’ text and changed “racial segregation” to “gay rights” to show how similar the arguments against marriage equality were to the arguments against racial integration. Snider’s speech makes me sweat every time I hear it, and my students get enraptured with his creativity.
- But yes, Billy James Hargis is perfectly terrible, isn’t he? It might be that he’s preaching in such a familiar, anti-logical, midwestern, mid-century way.
- In your acknowledgments you make this arresting statement: “I am also grateful to those rhetors who took umbrage at the mere suggestion that I include them in a volume on white nationalism and faith.” Could you elaborate on this?
- Well, three people objected to my even asking for reprint permission. Instead of just saying, “no,” or not responding at all, they took this opportunity to preen and strut. And after several cordial phone conversations with Franklin Graham’s press agent, I received the following boiler-plate refusal: “Franklin has publicly denounced all forms of racism and bigotry. As president of Samaritan’s Purse, he has dedicated his life to serving people of all races and backgrounds. His ministry is currently providing spiritual and physical aid to victims of war, natural disasters, disease, famine, poverty, and persecution in more than 100 countries. Franklin has already made his position on this issue clear, so permission will not be granted to reprint his sermon in this publication.”
- Fair enough. Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch List includes John Weaver, who objected to my using his “The Truth about the Confederate Flag” and stated, “I have learned not to trust people who want to ‘use my materials’ and then take everything out of context or present it in a liberal, leftist, humanistic light.”
- But Bob Jones University’s Chief of Staff, Randy Page, was the most insulting and, frankly, revealing. He stated to my assistant: “We have no interest in providing information for an academically farcical publication.” I wanted to include Page’s statement especially since I was acting as that “Modern Woman” Bob Jones railed against in the now-public-domain sermon I could include. But the editors suggested I be more euphemistic in my mention.
- What is your current scholarly project?
- I am about 75% done with my next project called Klandamentalism: America’s Most Dysfunctional Romance. I have named the rhetoric that supported and perpetuated this intersection of conservative politics, revivalism, and white male supremacy, “Klandamentalism.” Contrary to the academic assumption that the Ku Klux Klan exploited naïve and pious evangelicals for its own gain, a close reading of twentieth-century revival sermons and their media coverage shows that the Klansman and the fundamentalist spokesman were promoting the same ideology, from the same pulpits, and with the same rhetoric. My neologism features this fusion. Through rhetorical analysis, I will map the trajectory of Klandamentalism from the Civil War through the twenty-first century.
- Bob Jones melded an orthodoxish vocabulary with a violent white male supremacy that sets up one strain of the American citizenry to be comfortable with a tyrant. Klandamentalism starts with a forceful, egocentric singular personality and a small but secret cadre of young, white males who alone act upon their neighbors, employees, families, and nation to “bring them to God” in order to earn their own entry into Heaven. Their actions are imprecise and bland. Their antagonists—usually gendered feminine—flamboyantly lure the white male believers’ attention away from their heavenly destination.
- Throughout the twentieth-century, Jones laid his Klandamentalist cards out on the table for us to examine. His hand has been passed to four generations now, and the latest one has picked it up to win the presidency for its own demagogue all with white evangelical support—with Klandamentalist support. This twentieth-century “Klandamentalism” persists past Bob Jones’ prolific public life and continues to goad a particular American subculture into the twenty-first century. The current civic conversation in the United States is caught in a trap of religious arguments masking white supremacy. We as a nation are struggling with how to identify, address, and counter an ideology that can be alternatively too religious to be public or too racist to be admitted. But we have encountered this same rhetorical strategy before. Our great-grandparents addressed white supremacist religious arguments in their civic conversations, and unraveling how they countered those white supremacist strategies will help us solve inequality today.
Thank you Camille!
The REAP lawsuit: An Apocalyptic Moment for Evangelical Colleges
by William Trollinger
In the wake of the 2015 Supreme Court ruling (Obergefell v. Hodges) legalizing same-sex marriage, a good friend of mine predicted this day was coming. This past weekend he sent me a one-sentence email: “And now the other shoe has finally dropped.”
33 current and former college and seminary students have filed a class action lawsuit seeking – to quote from the suit filed by the Religious Exemption Accountability Project (REAP) – “to put an end to the U. S. Department of Education’s complicity in the abuses and unsafe conditions thousands of LGBTQ+ students endure at hundreds of taxpayer-funded, religious colleges and universities.”
The schools that the plaintiffs attend or attended constitute a veritable Who’s Who of evangelical and fundamentalist educational institutions (plus a Mormon and a Seventh-day Adventist school, for good measure) that are not customarily grouped together (just note the first four schools on this list):
- Azusa Pacific University (CA)
- Baylor University (TX)
- Bob Jones University (SC)
- Brigham Young University (UT)
- Cedarville University (OH)
- Note: As discussed here, a group of Cedarville students have created an anonymous online magazine in which they critique the repression and hypocrisy that is Cedarville. Coincidentally (or not), their most recent article – which appeared two days before the lawsuit was filed – deals with the experiences of LGBTQ students at Cedarville.
- Clarks Summit University (PA)
- Colorado Christian College (CO)
- Dordt University (IA)
- Eastern University (PA)
- Fuller Theological Seminary (CA)
- George Fox University (OR)
- Grace University (NE)
- Note: Grace shut its doors in 2018. If you are interested in reading about how this Mennonite school became “fundamentalized,” see here.
- Indiana Wesleyan University (IN)
- La Sierra University (CA)
- Liberty University (VA)
- Lipscomb University (TN)
- Messiah University (PA)
- Moody Bible Institute (IL)
- Nyack College (NY)
- Oklahoma Baptist University (OK)
- Seattle Pacific University (WA)
- Toccoa Falls College (GA)
- Union University (TN)
- Westmont College (CA)
- York College (NE)
According to the lawsuit, the Department of Education’s
inaction leaves students unprotected from the harms of conversion therapy, expulsion, denial of housing and healthcare, sexual and physical abuse and harassment, as well as the less visible, but no less damaging, consequences of institutionalized shame, fear, anxiety, and loneliness . . . The status quo, where the Department leaves such students on their own in this perilous limbo, results in concrete, verifiable, and widespread harms. Each Plaintiff has their own story of oppression to tell, and each Plaintiff represents thousands more whose stories deserve to be heard.
One of the plaintiffs is Lucas Wilson, who attended Liberty University from 2008 to 2012. As Wilson recounts in an NBC News article, “Liberty University is a ‘thoroughly homophobic institution’” that not only administers “conversion therapy in the form of a student club” – then called “Band of Brothers,” but now called “Armor Bearers” – but also devotes many classes to “’the evils of the homosexual lifestyle.’”
In explaining the lawsuit REAP Director Paul Southwick argues that the government is unconstitutionally allowing the “religious exemption to Title IX” to be used by evangelical colleges to target “people based on sex, which includes sexual orientation and gender identity, for inferior treatment.” In this lawsuit REAP is making use of Bob Jones University v. United States (1983), in which the Supreme Court ruled that BJU “did not get to maintain its tax-exempt status due to an interracial dating ban – a policy the university claimed was based in its sincerely held religious beliefs.” According to the Court, the government’s interest in proscribing racial discrimination overrode the religious exemption clause.
Not surprisingly, Christian Right leaders are apoplectic over the REAP lawsuit. This past Saturday Ken Ham posted this on his Facebook page:
As we at Answers in Genesis have warned, gay “marriage” was the door that opened the LGBTQ agenda. It ramps up more each day. And for those who profess Christianity who support such an agenda, “If one turns away his ear from hearing the law [God’s Word], even his prayer is an abomination” (Proverbs 28:9).
This lawsuit, combined with the outrage from Ham and others in the Christian Right, puts evangelical and fundamentalist schools in a very difficult position. I assume that many of these institutions will (implicitly or explicitly) concede that the religious exemption clause should not apply to racial discrimination, but that it should apply as regards sexual orientation and gender identity.
But on what basis? In the 1980s Bob Jones University was simply repeating what millions of white evangelicals said about slavery and what millions of white evangelicals said about racial segregation, that is, slavery and segregation were in keeping with a literal reading of the Bible. If racial discrimination is not allowable – despite the raft of biblical arguments made in its behalf – at institutions benefitting from tax monies, then why is discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation acceptable at such institutions?
What is the argument, Ken? And were the prayers of the millions of white evangelicals who supported slavery and segregation – as well as the prayers of the untold numbers of contemporary Christian white supremacists and Christian neo-Confederates – also an abomination before the Lord?
What makes this lawsuit a very difficult moment for more moderate evangelical schools – and I taught at one of them for eight years, so I know whereof I speak — is that they have been playing to two different audiences at once. Internally, they reassure faculty that they just need to wait until the older generation of evangelicals has passed, and then there will be a blessed tolerance when it comes to sexual orientation and gender identity. But externally, they reassure their conservative constituency that they are holding to a firm biblical line when it comes to issues of sexuality — they are “safe schools” (thanks Adam Laats for this descriptor) that are not bowing to the decadent liberal culture.
But now the issue is being forced. The “two audience” strategy is going to be much more difficult (if impossible) to maintain. No matter how this particular lawsuit turns out, this matter is not going away. The apocalyptic moment is here.
How will evangelical colleges respond?
The Seven Biggest “Devils” in Evangelicalism: Names Given
by Rodney Kennedy
Rodney Kennedy has his M.Div. from New Orleans Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Louisiana State University. The pastor of 7 Southern Baptist churches over the course of 20 years, he pastored the First Baptist Church of Dayton (OH) – which is an American Baptist Church – for 13 years. He is currently professor of homiletics at Palmer Theological Seminary, and interim pastor of Emmanuel Friedens Federated Church, Schenectady, NY. He is also making final edits on his sixth book – Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy – forthcoming from Wipf and Stock (Cascades).
For at least one hundred years, evangelical/fundamentalist preachers have demeaned moderate-to-liberal preachers as children of the devil, as the spawns of hell, as a raving pack of socialists, communists, and atheists. They have fearlessly, loudly, and repeatedly attacked us as the enemies of God who do not believe in the Bible, in God, or in America.
Perhaps the great granddaddy of attack rhetoric was J. Frank Norris, the fire-breathing Texas fundamentalist who has been dubbed “God’s rascal” by historian Barry Hankins. In a sermon series against municipal corruption, Norris preached on “The Ten Biggest Devils in Fort Worth—Names Given.” Most of the men Norris named in the sermon were in attendance on that Sunday night. Enraged community leaders tried to run him out of town, and his life was threatened. A later generation, led by Jerry Falwell, Sr. and Pat Robertson, perfected the art of blasting every person, institution, and entity with accusations like a southern farmer firing his twelve-gauge shotgun at teenage watermelon thieves. Accusations are the evangelical brand.
Turning the tables, I am arguing here that evangelical preachers are a species of “devil.” I am using the word “devil” in the sense of the Hebrew word for “Satan,” the accuser. This name defines the rhetoric of evangelical leaders. Their words imply a form of violence, usually a white hyper-male violence of control, dominance, abuse, and degradation. Their words consummate a series of lies that are cloaked in the language of Christian piety.
To suggest that some evangelical leaders are “devils” will strike many as absurd and harsh, but this is a war of metaphors and meanings. This is the march of the rhetorical tropes. Call it the “war of hyperboles.” While I am not exactly saying that evangelical leaders are devils, I’m just saying they are devils in the Hebrew sense of the word “Satan” – accusers. In other words, I “see” your paralipsis and I raise you a paralipsis. This is a serious condemnation, with evidence and warrants, for a group of people who are telling lies while knowing they are lying. In that spirit, here are the “Seven Biggest Devils in Evangelicalism – Names Given.”
1. Robert Jeffress
Chief among the evangelical devils is Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Jeffress has been called “Trump’s Apostle,” and has been labeled as one of the leading “court evangelicals” (John Fea, Believe Me). Embracing all the false, unbiblical, untrue, and dangerous theology of dispensationalists, Christian nationalists, and young earth creationists is trouble enough.
But Jeffress goes further, calling Democrats “false religious leaders who are wolves in sheep’s clothing.” He says that “when they talk about God, they are not talking about the real God — the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who revealed Himself in the Bible.” Instead, “these liberal Democrats are talking about an imaginary God they have created in their own minds: a god who loves abortion and hates Israel.” In short, Democrats are atheists: “The democrat party has become a godless party and so that’s why you find such animosity against conservative Christians and against the Bible. They hate God and I think the President knows that.” (https://harbingersdaily.com/dr-robert-jeffress-the-radical-democrat-party-has-become-the-godless-party/). “It is no coincidence, that 70 percent of atheists identify as democrats and only 15 percent as Republicans.”
Jeffress routinely mixes fearmongering with his distortions: “And if the left ever gains control of this country again, I predict it’s going to be like the French Revolution. It’s going to be ‘bring out the guillotines,’ [as they] execute every thought they object to, and every person who holds every thought that they object to.” https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/06/13/robert-jeffress-if-democrats-ever-win-they-will-bring-out-the-guillotines/. By his own words, Jeffress is a devil.
2. David Barton
One of major propagators of evangelical falsehoods is the “hobby” historian David Barton. Jeffress and Barton are two Texas peas in a devil’s pod. Barton, a Republican operative, has spent his career debunking the First Amendment and insisting that America was founded as a Christian nation. He has claimed that taking prayer from public schools caused a precipitous drop in ACT scores. He is the pseudo-scholar of the entire Christian nationalist movement. Barton fills his books and videos with inaccurate facts to fuel his imagined “Christian America.” His teachings have been debunked by nearly every American historian, including those who teach at evangelical schools. Barton referred to Trump as “God’s guy,” and has pushed his nativism to the maximum. Barton wrote a book, Jefferson’s Lies, that is so filled with distortions and misstatements and “made-up” quotes that Nelson Publishers, a conservative evangelical publishing house, removed the book from publication. It turns out the only lies in the book were “Barton lies.” As Andre Chouraqui puts it in “The Psalms,” the Devil is the Accuser, so styled by his name in Hebrew, Satan: “His every word consummates a lie.” Lies are the primary tool of a devil, and writing a book full of lies means Barton joins the devil tribe.
3. Tim LaHaye
The most influential teacher of end-time prophecy was the late Tim LaHaye. Followed by more than 100 million believers, his creative, speculative, and literalistic approach to the symbolic language of apocalyptic passages in the Bible read current events into Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation. He attacked those who disagree with him: “These are usually liberal theologians that don’t believe the Bible literally.” Respected evangelical and New Testament scholar N. T. Wright says that LaHaye’s “Left Behind” vision is a “pseudo-theological version of Home Alone” (The Anointed, 18).
Glen Scherer, in “The Godly Must Be Crazy,” argues that a delusional mix of ideology and theology, centered in the rapture, has moved from the wacko fringe of American life to the center of political power. At least half the members of Congress are rapture believers, which endangers environmental policy, and which has dangerous implications for foreign policy. LaHaye’s teachings are untrue, unbiblical, and dangerous. The devil, here, is in the details of how God will allegedly be the supreme perpetrator of genocide. The rapture ideology is the devil’s playground.
4. Ken Ham
The Creation Museum may look like any other tourist-trap theme park, but the dark themes of this ministry, promoted by Ken Ham, tells a different story. The danger here is not so much the naïve assumption that God created the world in six literal days, but in the anti-science movement that Ham and company have enabled across the nation. The anti-science movement, claiming to be about “real science,” has fueled anti-Vaxxers and climate denial. “Climate denial is certainly the most ‘epic’ form of fake-news our culture has ever known,’ according to philosopher Rupert Read. Climate-denial pretends to give the deniers power of nature itself and freedom from truth. While insisting that he is the “answer man,” Ham and his followers are unwilling to be bound by anything, even truth itself.
Ham talks a lot about how much he believes in science and how many young earth creationists scientists are intellectually respectable, but in the words of biologist, Kenneth R. Miller, “there’s no there there.” Ham has claimed that evolution is false, unbiblical, untrue, and dangerous. He has blamed evolution for every known disaster on the planet. The reality is that Ham’s message is false, unbiblical, untrue, and dangerous. His Answers in Genesis ministry is a powerful shaper of popular opinion with simple, comfortable, easy answers. The Creation Museum is a seductive experience, a veritable devil’s den of misstatement, false claims, and dangerous ideology.
5. Franklin Graham
Franklin Graham has a very long track record of anti-Islam bigotry. A month after the 9/11 terror attacks, Graham, speaking at the dedication of a new chapel, told an audience that Islam “is a very evil and wicked religion.” Pressed to clarify his comments by NBC, Graham said, “It wasn’t Methodists flying into those buildings, it wasn’t Lutherans. It was an attack on this country by people of the Islamic faith.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/franklin-graham-islamophobia-trump-inauguration_n_587e3ea5e4b0aaa369429373. He has also accused Islam of being a “religion of war.” In 2014, Graham attacked the National Cathedral for allowing a Muslim prayer in its worship. He said, “It’s sad to see a church open its doors to the worship of anything other than the One True God of the Bible who sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to earth to save us from our sins.” Notice how seamlessly he promotes his Islamophobia with Jesus.
Following the example of Donald Trump, Graham doubled down to imply that Obama was a Muslim. “We’re going to see persecution, I believe, in this country because our president is very sympathetic to Islam and the reason I say that … is because his father was a Muslim, gave him a Muslim name, Barack Hussein Obama.” Graham paints a picture of a holy war, and he promotes an ideology that is xenophobic, patriarchal, idolatrous, bloodthirsty, and elitist. These are the clear earmarks of a Satan, the accuser.
6. Paula White
Perhaps no one has been more of an acolyte of Trump than prosperity gospel preacher, Paula White. This charismatic preacher claims she led Trump to Christ. Serving as Trump’s spiritual advisor, she was a paid employee on Trump’s staff. After the 2020 election, she held a prayer service, which was streamed on Facebook live. During the service White called on “angelic reinforcement” from the continents of Africa and South America. “I hear a sound of victory, the Lord says it is done,” she said. “For angels have even been dispatched from Africa right now… In the name of Jesus from South America, they’re coming here.” White praying for angels to bring Trump the victory has been passed off as harmless prosperity gospel hyperbole, but it is dangerous and heretical. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/11/05/paula-white-trumps-spiritual-adviser-african-south-american-angels/6173576002/.
White told her television audience, “Anyone who tells you to deny yourself is from Satan.” (Shayne Lee and Phillip Luke Sinitiere, Holy Mavericks, 111, 113, 124, 125). White has asked her followers to donate their entire January paycheck to her ministry during the pandemic. She once told her audience to sow the seed of faith in the form of a $1,144 donation to her ministry. White claimed that God specifically instructed her to ask for this $1,144 because it corresponded to her sermon text, John 11:44. The prosperity gospel is the work of the devil.
7. Jerry Falwell, Jr.
Jerry Falwell, Jr. lost his ranking as a top Trump apostle when he was photographed in a compromising picture with a young woman. He still makes the list because he qualifies as a fallen angel. Falwell claimed that seeking to impeach Trump would be the Democrats’ Pearl Harbor, and the 2020 election their Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Defending the right to bear arms, Falwell reached for extra hyperbole: “I’m pretty sure I’m going to call for civil disobedience if the Democrats go through with this. You don’t mess with people’s guns in this part of the state,” Falwell said. He said the Democratic party and its supporters were “no longer liberals — they’ve become fascists, they’re Brownshirts. You believe like them or you’re out.”
https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2018/10/12/jerry-falwell-jr-donald-trumps-a-moral-person-and-democrats-are-fascists/.
Falwell attacked Christianity Today. “With the magazine’s insidious condemnation of the greatest president in American history for people of faith, Christianity Today showed that it stands with the radical progressive left that wants to deny basic Judeo-Christian beliefs throughout our culture and society. A large majority of Americans and the Christian world stands with President Trump and against the radical left because he’s the only thing that stands between us and the escalating attacks on our faith and liberty.” https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/jerry-falwell-jr-christianity-today-is-wrong-about-trump-he-is-a-champion-for-people-of-faith. Unfortunately, Falwell learned there were limits to how much “devilment” the Liberty University board would tolerate, and he was dismissed for falling for the more ordinary, garden-variety temptations of the Evil One.
Conclusion
I have claimed there are devils on the loose speaking in the name of Jesus. You know they are devils because they are speaking lies. They preach that America was founded by right-wing Christians who espoused the same theology as they do. They preach that God created the world in six literal days and that all the answers are in Genesis. They promote an illusory Rapture where Jesus is supposed to show up and snatch all the good people into the clouds before he commits universal genocide. They teach that God hates foreigners, especially Muslims. They know the story of Ruth and Jonah, but still they are deeply prejudiced against foreigners. They know Jesus condemned his own people for being religious elitists, and yet they insist on demeaning persons of other faiths. They make God an agent in making money to support expensive lifestyles. They demean science and create mistrust in climate scientists and pandemic research. They produce false prophets who lead people to destruction.
Accepting the judgment that those who judge will be held to the same standard, I still say, “Call these preachers what they are: devils.”
The Cedarville Interpreter, or, Thomas White Can’t Silence (all) the Students
by William Trollinger
For the past nine years the Cedarville University administration has done everything in its power to eliminate discussion of any ideas mildly at variance with the patriarchal Christian Right ideology propagated by the administration as the Truth. Indoctrination, not education, is Cedarville’s goal. Dissent of any sort is simply not permitted.
And yet, it turns out that – even at Cedarville – there are students who are not willing to turn over their brains to the fundamentalist thought police. And this has to be driving President Thomas White crazy.
First, here’s an extremely abbreviated timeline of how Cedarville became the (almost) hermetically sealed, anti-intellectual right-wing echo chamber that it is today, with the school’s recent scandals included for good measure. (See the end of the blog post for a library of rightingamerica posts on Cedarville, each of which contains numerous links for further information).
- August 2012: Theology professor Michael Pahl is fired for affirming the historical Adam and Eve on theological grounds but not on the basis of biblical exegesis.
- October 2012: President William Brown resigns, pleasing those on the Board of Trustees concerned about “creeping liberalism” at Cedarville.
- January 2013: Vice-President for Student Life Carl Ruby resigns, pleasing those on the Board of Trustees concerned about “creeping liberalism” at Cedarville (especially as regards LGBTQ students).
- January 2013: The Philosophy major is eliminated after two philosophy professors write an anti-Romney-for-president editorial.
- June 2013: The fundamentalist takeover of the Board is complete with addition of the now-disgraced Paige Patterson, who had helped engineer – with the now-disgraced Paul Pressler – the fundamentalist capture of the Southern Baptist Convention.
- July 2013: Patterson protege Thomas White is appointed as Cedarville’s president.
- Spring 2014: Cedarville hardens its commitment to patriarchy by mandating that Bible and Theology classes taught by women cannot include any male students.
- April 2014: President White and other administrators prowl the campus, gathering hard copies of the independent student newspaper, The Ventriloquist, because the paper had permitted students to express opinions at odds with the school’s fundamentalist rulers.
- Summer 2014: The “great purge” of Cedarville administrators, professors, staff members, and trustees is essentially complete (as with totalitarian regimes, purges at fundamentalist institutions are never totally complete).
- Spring 2017: Cedarville puts into place its infamous “Biblically Consistent Curriculum Policy,” with its focus not on social justice (that would indicate “creeping liberalism”), but on extreme sexual purity.
- Summer 2017: Thomas White hires Anthony Moore to serve as multicultural recruiter at Cedarville, knowing full well that Moore had been fired six months earlier by The Village Church (Fort Worth TX) for secretly videotaping a male youth pastor while showering at Moore’s home. Moore rapidly moves up the Cedarville ladder, securing faculty rank in the Biblical and Theological Studies Department while also adding to his list of jobs special advisor to the president and assistant coach of the Cedarville basketball team.
- April 2020: Moore’s past becomes public, and so White fires Moore.
- May 2020: White is placed on administrative leave while also retaining his job, and he participates fully in Cedarville’s graduation ceremonies.
- June 2020: After a seven week investigation (!) White is fully reinstated in his position.
Despite the fact that two trustees resigned in protest of the decision to retain White as president, despite the fact that a survey revealed that 87% of Cedarville stakeholders wanted the trustees to reconsider this decision, Cedarville doubled down. As I noted in a September 04 2020 post, “the school has gone the other direction, shutting down all dissent within the school, to the point – so I am told – of firing a long-term nursing professor for criticizing the president.”
So as of this autumn it seemed that White and company had it all locked down at Cedarville, especially given that the Higher Learning Commission – Cedarville’s accrediting agency – seems determined to turn a blind eye to the school’s various improprieties (which involve much more than the Anthony Moore affair, and which are discussed in the rightingamerica posts listed below). That is to say, as of this fall it seemed that the anti-intellectual fortress that is Cedarville was safely impregnable.
But that assessment fails to take into account the fact that not every single student is content with life in the Cedarville bubble. And in February a few of these students introduced The Cedarville Interpreter, an online and anonymous blog of dissent. As they have eloquently explained the purpose of this blog,
“Cedarville has ignored its student body for too long. Our mission at the Interpreter is to shed light on the issues students of Cedarville University grapple with and to provide information and resources for students who struggle or dare to disagree with Cedarville’s rules or all-encompassing way of life. Articles are published anonymously by students in order to protect their identities and prevent potential dismissal from the University.”
About Us,” The Cedarville Interpreter
Here are a few snippets from the first month of The Cedarville Interpreter. A link to the blog is provided after these snippets. Kudos to these students for their courage, and for their determination to see.
“Picture This: You arrive on campus at Cedarville University as a wide-eyed freshman ready to experience your first taste of freedom. Your first day, yippee! As you walk into your new dorm, your RA informs you of a mandatory meeting that night so you can get to know the girls in the hall a bit better. After gathering all the gals together, your RA starts to go over some basic rules. No problem, we’ve all had a meeting like this before. You notice your RA wearing leggings and a t-shirt while discussing the dress code and think, “Maybe the dress code isn’t as strict as I thought!” But your RA informs you that the reason she is wearing leggings is for a demonstration. You start to wonder what’s going on when marshmallows are being passed out. Then something crazy happens: your RA instructs you to ‘stone’ her with the marshmallows because she deserves it for going against the rules and wearing leggings. This was the actual experience of one CU student and the rest of her hall.”
“’It was the Woman’ – The Blame Game that Started with Eve,” The Cedarville Interpreter, February 20, 2021
“After Cedarville had its fifteen months of fame after shutting down The Ventriloquist and firing a plethora of liberal insurgents, they shifted their approach in order to shy away from the limelight. Nowadays, Cedarville has become much more subtle in their methods of censorship. I cannot tell you how many messages we received saying Cedarville silenced me. They have silenced the conversation on mental health. They have silenced the conversation on the LGBTQ+ community (don’t worry, our little gay rebels, we’ve got a doosie coming for you here soon). They have silenced the conversation on female leadership. They have silenced the conversation on a non-six day creation (which, does it really matter if God created the world in six literal days or created it so perfectly that over a period of many years it formed into the world we know today?) Despite what they said in chapel on Monday, they have silenced the conversation on discrimination and sexual assault and relational violence.”
“The Puppetmaster: Cedarville’s Interminable History of Censorship,” The Cedarville Interpreter, February 23, 2021
“It has come to the point that even kissing your significant other or (even worse) sharing a blanket could earn you a PC (personal caution) from an RA. One time, a guy kissed his girlfriend on the cheek after a chapel message because she had been going through some hard times, and was informed that chapel wasn’t the place for that. . . . Purity culture is filled to the brim with shame. It subtly (or overtly in many cases) forces you to be ashamed of your sexuality, rather than confident in it even within the confines of marriage. The reason that this emphasis exists is because the more ashamed and scared we are, the easier we are to control. Cedarville can easily take a group of uneducated ashamed young adults and determine exactly how they are supposed to live sexually. Professors at Cedarville have gone so far as to even suggest what sexual positions are ‘Godly’ for spouses in their ethics classes.”
“The Blame Game that Started with Eve, Pt. 2: Virginity Rocks,” The Cedarville Interpreter, February 26, 2021
“Many individuals, including myself, feel that the RA’s (lol don’t we love ‘em) disproportionately distribute punishment to students. The first time I noticed this was in a dorm lounge. I was sitting next to my boyfriend, about 3” away, focused on my own laptop as I wrote a paper. He tapped on me to show me a meme. I looked over at his phone right as one of the RA’s was walking past. Within an hour, I had gotten an email stating I’d earned a PC for sitting on my boyfriend. Given the fact that, well… I wasn’t, this was infuriating. It was especially so because at the same time, right behind us, a couple was expressing far more ‘physical affection’ than I was. The RA told them hello, so I know they were noticed. However, the RA and the girl in the relationship were friends, and so they didn’t get in trouble as I did.”
“Student Voices: #001,” The Cedarville Interpreter, March 03, 2021
Cedarville “never allows students to fail or encounter challenging ideas, it never offers alternatives to the self-appointed truth it propagates, and it resists any sort of change or forward-thinking perceived as ‘progressive Christianity.’ Students are frozen in time: permanent residents of the Cedarville bubble whose behaviors are all but predetermined by the fear of judgement instilled by this community. Groupthink is winning the day at Cedarville. At Cedarville, you are expected to fit the mold. You must always be growing in your faith. You must be involved in as many ministries as you can handle. You must incorporate Biblical principles into every assignment even if it has nothing to do with the assignment (yep, I’m calling you out, Humanities). People who dare to break that mold are viewed as ‘struggling with their faith,’ being in pursuit of ‘liberal ideology,’ or ‘not adhering to the Cedarville covenant.’”
“Cohesion or Adhesion?: Groupthink at Cedarville,” The Cedarville Interpreter, March 10, 2021
- “Cedarville University: The Purification Continues!,” rightingamerica, May 02, 2017.
- “Locked and Loaded at Cedarville,” rightingamerica, May 15, 2017.
- “Defending Cedarville, and a Response,” rightingamerica, May 25, 2017.
- “‘Biblically Consistent’ Cedarville University Knowingly Hires and then (Three Years Later) Fires Sexual Abuser,” April 28, 2020.
- “The Scandal Deepens at Cedarville University,” May 05, 2020.
- Julie L. Moore, “No Safeguard, No Whole: Why I Left Cedarville University,” May 12, 2020.
- “Rape, Sexual Harassment, and More: The Cedarville Stories are Multiplying,” May 26, 2020.
- “A ‘Culture of Silencing, Denial, and Psychological Manipulation’: The Stories from Cedarville University Just Keep Piling Up,” June 09, 2020.
- “‘You Are Made to Feel Like an Enemy’: Even More Stories from the Toxic Academic Community that is Cedarville,” June 12, 2020.
- “A Pastor’s Resignation and a Former Student’s Story: More on the Wreckage Wrought by the Fundamentalist Takeover of Cedarville,” June 16, 2020.
- “Cedarville Faculty Compile Resources for New and Incoming Students,” June 23, 2020.
- “A Whitewashing at Cedarville (Even While the Stories Keep Multiplying),” June 30, 2020.
- “Unrest and Status Quo at Cedarville,” July 17, 2020.
- “Thomas White, Jerry Falwell, Jr., and the Breathtaking, Awe-Inspiring Heights of Fundamentalist Hubris,” August 11, 2020.
- “Locking It Down at Cedarville,” September 04, 2020.
- Righting America at the Creation Museum, pp. 210-214.
Individuals with Developmental Disabilities: Poster Children of the Pro-Life Movement
by John Parrett
John Parrett received his M.A. in Theological Studies from the University of Dayton. Before that, he graduated from Wilmington College with a Bachelor’s of Arts with a double major in History and Religion/Philosophy. While pursuing his master’s degree, John began working with adults with developmental disabilities, and is now a Certified Employment Support Professional (CESP). While John does not intend to further his education at this time, he continues to study religion in American culture in his spare time.
On the 48th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Arizona is taking up a new challenge to the ruling. Arizona’s SB 1381 would make any abortion performed on the reason of sex or disability of the fetus a class 2 felony. These kinds of abortion bans are often referred to as “reason bans.”
The Right uses reason bans because such bans make abortion advocates argue the double standard that a pregnant person can take a developing life based on a class protected by anti-discrimination laws, laws that are often championed by the Left. In this debate, the Right’s favorite poster children for reason bans are those with Down Syndrome. Since March is Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month, I thought it would be timely to address why those with cognitive disabilities are the poster children of the Right.
According to Answers in Genesis (AiG), in an article entitled “Are Humans with Disabilities Facing Extinction?,” a study from Iceland reveals that “100% of all those diagnosed with Down Syndrome have been aborted in the past several years.” According to this interpretation, we should believe that those with Down Syndrome are facing extinction. This statement is not accurately referenced from the study. While the quote from the AiG suggests that all those experiencing pregnancy opt for testing, they do not. That is to say, Down Syndrome babies are very much continuing to be born in Iceland.
More generally, AiG’s claim that humans with disabilities are facing extinction is a gross exaggeration. The most accurate testing of the fetus is not possible until 15 or 20 weeks. 80% of pregnancies are terminated before ten weeks, and little more than 5% take place after 16 weeks. These statistics show that a disability diagnosis is not a driving force for abortions, and those with disability diagnoses are not facing a eugenic genocide.
If statistics tell us that cognitive disabilities are not the leading cause of abortion, why has the Right focused on them as their talking point? It is also possible to test for Dwarfism, but no one on the Right is trying to play champion for those with Dwarfism. Why don’t we see the Right unite to protect that protected class?
The answer is because those with cognitive disabilities make good perpetual poster children, precisely because no other group of people with disabilities can more effortlessly be represented as childlike. But as a professional who supports adults with developmental disabilities in community employment, I know full well that no one stays a child forever. While the Right often falls silent on how to care for their poster children once they are born and once they become adults, we live in a capitalistic society where life is always connected to a cost. That is to say, being genuinely pro-life means that we must consider the price, even after birth.
Within their first year of life, a child with Down Syndrome will need a 2-5 times longer stay in the hospital than a typically developing child, depending on their exact diagnoses. This will add up to a child with Down Syndrome costing 2-11 times more than a typically developing child. Luckily, many government and private insurance programs will cover these costs when the child is young. Of course, that is only if the nondisabled are willing to pay the tax bill, or if the parents are lucky enough to have insurance. After the first year, the cost of caring for these children will decrease, but it will never go away entirely, as next comes adult life and employment.
The pandemic has demonstrated to the world just how hard it is to build inclusive employment. In January of 2020, the unemployment rate for those without disabilities was 6.7% and 12.6% for those with a disability. By April, 14.3% of those without a disability were unemployed compared to 18.9% with a disability. In total since March, when the pandemic began, 1 in 5 workers with a disability have lost their job, in comparison to 1 in 7 able-bodied individuals. These numbers show that inclusive community employment for those with disabilities is an ongoing challenge.
Those without a disability have always been seen as the preferred job candidate. That is a shame when we consider that if those with disabilities were included—and not just integrated—into community employment, the GDP would rise by an estimated 25 billion. Is the Right willing to take the next step and absorb the initial tax burden of creating more government funded employment services? Is the Right willing to create programs like Putting Faith to Work from the Collaborative on Faith and Disability so that congregations at the grassroots can build inclusive workspaces?
Some museums and amusement parks are starting to notice the economic power of those with disabilities. Many places now offer free online social stories to help those with developmental disabilities understand and prepare for what they will see, such as this one from the Georgia Aquarium. I often use this kind of tool to help my individuals understand and perform their job tasks. Kings Island also offers this extensive free guide for its visitors. Compared to the resources provided by these certified sites, the alternatives provided by the Creation Museum and Ark are severely lacking. Does being pro-life not mean inclusion in communal spaces?
It seems those with developmental disabilities or any disability are only being used by the Right as a means to an end. In Embrace, a Women’s Conference for Answers in Genesis, a speaker commented that “The reason that we’re saddened and shocked by disability is because we all know deep down that this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be, we live in an abnormal world where disability is now the norm.”
This is another way of articulating the old idea that disability is a result of Adam’s sin. In her work, The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability, Dr. Nancy L. Eiesland explains that if we believe disability is the result of sin, then those with disabilities will be sequestered away from society quickly and easily. And when those with disabilities do enter the abled community, they must be “camouflaged to make it acceptable for public discourse.” More than this, the media often camouflages disability by turning those with disabilities into “supercrips” whose task it is to teach the abled-bodied life lessons.
Disability is also “camouflaged” through systematic housing poverty. In 2017 working-age adults with cognitive disabilities had a 31.5% chance of living in poverty. Many adults with cognitive disabilities must live on Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which only provides, on average, $559 a month for those ages 19-64. More than this, as of 2015 850,000 people with cognitive disabilities were living with family caregivers over the age of 60. Is the Right willing to support a hike in taxes to provide more inclusive housing, especially as individual families can no longer provide support? Is the Right willing to support a tax increase to cover the other costs associated with the long-term support and care of adults with developmental disabilities? That is to say, is the Right willing to be truly pro-life?
While providing my service out in the community, I have seen firsthand the result of misguided theology and how those with disabilities must be “camouflaged.” Just last month, while working with one of my individuals at their community job, one of their able-bodied coworkers asked me, out of my individual’s earshot, if it was fair for God to create someone like that? The coworker then explained that he believed that my individual existed as a test for the nondisabled, to see if they were deserving of heaven. Comments such as these will often come when I am assisting nonverbal individuals or individuals whose physical forms make others uncomfortable. I always brush these comments off because, when I am wearing my badge of a direct service professional, it is not the time to discuss theology. But internally I am taken aback at the ableism born of ignorance and bad theology. The individuals I serve are human. I am not being “patient” with them when I take time to walk slower or wait for them to get their words out. Instead, I am respecting them.
Building respect, equality, equity, and inclusion are uphill battles. No one person or group has the answer. However, we will not get there by using those with developmental disabilities as poster children in the pro-life movement. We will only get there together by building communities that invite and welcome all. We must move beyond asking the “why” of another’s existence, like the Right does. Instead, we must accept their being, and we must learn to support them after birth, in their health care, special education, housing, vocational rehabilitation, and more.
In short, we must do what the Right does not do. We must accept that caring for life does not end with birth.
Empty Churches
by William Trollinger
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of religion in 21st-century America is the rapid growth of those who are not affiliated with any religious tradition. As Jan Stets notes in the introduction to Empty Churches: Non-affiliation in America (Oxford, 2021), survey data reveals that between 1974 and 1991 the percentage of the religiously non-affiliated remained steady at approximately 7 percent. Then it started to rise, reaching 14 percent in 2000, 18 percent in 2010, and 23 percent in 2014. And – in data that has emerged since the writing of Empty Churches – in 2019 26 percent of all Americans described themselves as agnostic, atheist, or nothing in particular.
Unimaginable to scholars of religion three decades ago, the United States seems to be headed in the direction of Europe.
A few years ago Stets (Professor and Director of the Social Psychology Research Laboratory at the University of California, Riverside) and Fr. James Heft, S.M. (just-retired President of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California) embarked on a collaborative project to help us understand this phenomenon. Toward that end they gathered 17 scholars of religion and professionals in the field who would use their expertise to reflect on and produce original research on the rapid rise of religious non-affiliation in America.
The result is the just-published Empty Churches. I am pleased to have a chapter in this volume, which is entitled: “Religious Non-Affiliation: Expelled by the Right.” In this essay I make the case that
the quantitative and qualitative evidence strongly support the argument that the Christian Right has been a primary reason for the remarkable rise of the religious nones in the United States since the 1990s. And while it may be too early to say with certainty, it is very easy to imagine . . . that the post-2016 data will reveal that the Christian Right is driving even greater numbers of Americans to declare that they have no religious preference. Whether or not irony is the right word to apply here, one cannot escape noticing that a movement that so stridently opposes the secularizing of America is helping to accelerate this secularization. (186)
This Thursday night (March 11) at 6.30 pm Pacific Time there will be a webinar on Empty Churches. Participants include sociologist Nancy Ammerman from Boston University (“The Many Meanings of Non-Affiliation”), philosopher Bernard Prusak from King’s College (“Religious Non-Affiliation and Objections of Conscience”), and myself. After our brief presentations there will be time for questions and answers.
Registration is free – here’s the link – and we would love to have you join us!
Thank God This is Lent: Evangelicals and the Irony of Parrhesia
By Rodney Kennedy
Rodney Kennedy has his M.Div. from New Orleans Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Louisiana State University. The pastor of 7 Southern Baptist churches over the course of 20 years, he pastored the First Baptist Church of Dayton (OH) – which is an American Baptist Church – for 13 years. He is currently professor of homiletics at Palmer Theological Seminary, and interim pastor of Emmanuel Friedens Federated Church, Schenectady, NY. He is also making final edits on his sixth book – Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy – forthcoming from Wipf and Stock (Cascades).
Among evangelicals of a certain type, there is no doctrine (and it has become doctrine) that has more importance than “freedom.” In the process, they seem to have been cut loose from truth itself.
That is to say, evangelicals seek the freedom of not being lectured, shamed, and told what to do by a collection of experts. “Who are you to tell me to wear a mask?” “Who do you think you are to tell me that QAnon is a conspiracy theory?” “How dare you and a bunch of elitist experts interfere in my right to pollute this planet?”
Perhaps the reason evangelicals are not put off by Trump’s lies is that they like how it feels to watch him get away with it, in the process proving that he is stronger and more powerful than the “fake” media, the Democrats, the liberals, the scientists, the academic elitists. As philosopher Rupert Read says, “There is an active despising of truth – the practices of truth-seeking and truth-telling. In other words, the evangelical sense of parrhesia has been badly disfigured” (“What Is New in Our Time: the Truth in ‘Post-Truth” A Response to Finlayson,” Nordic Wittgenstein Review, 2019).
The ancient Greeks had a word for free speech – “parrhesia” (Michel Foucault, Fearless Speech, 12). The word was used of people of virtue who spoke the truth. Trump’s followers claim they are being denied parrhesia; Trump claims to be a faithful producer of parrhesia. Both assertions are false and fake.
The supporters of Donald Trump claim they are being denied free speech and their voice has been silenced by political correctness and cancel culture. This claim rings false in the cacophony of their noisy protest from pulpits, conservative talk shows, news conferences, and magazines. What they actually fear is that they are losing the right to oppose the power of the liberal elites. This is 100% pure white pathos. The evangelical mind has devolved into an emotional black hole – “feeling free and feeling good” (Lauren Berlant, “Trump, or Political Emotions,” The New Inquiry, August 5, 2016).
Evangelical feelings of persecution, exclusion, and exile has increased their sense of alienation, of being trapped and surrounded by a horde of vicious enemies, a feeling of being besieged by an invasion of illegal immigrants, Muslims, and other foreigners, a feeling of being ignored, and plain sick and tired of being pushed out, left out, and degraded as the butt of every elitist joke in the nation. Being a Trump supporter has to be exhausting because all of media culture and academic culture and progressive Christian culture rejects everything Trump says. All that emotion: “Emotions felt, emotions expressed, emotions denied” (Roderick P. Hart, Trump and Us: What He Says and Why People Listen, 17).
Hart says that Trump supporters feel ignored, trapped, besieged, and tired. In my estimation, this comes from their sense of exile. No wonder evangelicals looked to Second Isaiah and King Cyrus as a metaphor for “God’s anointed,” Donald Trump, who would lead them home again. The evangelical lament shares much with the Jewish exiles: “By the rivers of Babylon— there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137:1-2).
Parrhesia first enters human vocabulary with Euripides. In his “The Phoenician Women,” he displays the pain of parrhesia denied in exile. The heart of the tragedy is a fight between Oedipus’ two sons: Eteocles and Polyneices. When Eteocles refuses to allow Polyneices to reign according to their agreement of alternating years of rule, Polyneices lives in exile. I contend that this is the exile felt by evangelicals. They believe they have been ejected from the corridors of power in government, in academia, and in the public. A deeply aggrieved sense of persecution dominates their feelings.
When Polyneices returns from exile with any army, Jocasta, the mother of the two sons, persuades the two to seek a truce. She asks Polyneices why exile is so hard.
Jocasta: What chiefly galls an exile’s heart?
Polyneices: The worst is this: right of free speech does not exist.
Jocasta: That’s a slave’s life – to be forbidden to speak one’s mind.
Polyneices: One has to endure the idiocy of those who rule.
Jocasta: To join fools in their foolishness – that makes one sick.
An evangelical bundle of nerves wraps around this bit of dialogue from Euripides: exile, loss of freedom of speech, and the conviction that the nation is being operated by heathens who are stupid idiots and fools. Count them by hundreds the times Trump has called people losers, stupid, idiots, sick, mentally ill. He’s playing the evangelical tune of exile.
Any number of Trump twitter attacks on Democratic leaders may be inserted here, but attempting to avoid overkill, Trump’s favorite attack on Nancy Pelosi is that she is a very sick woman with mental problems. Whether by instinct or luck, Trump sensed the evangelical angst and promised to give them once again the jouissance of parrhesia. Evangelicals flocked to his vicious, violent rhetoric, his relentless attacks on “political correctness,” on the pedagogies of shame employed by liberals against evangelicals. Trump rallies took on the aura of worship where Trump and his devoted enjoyed one another participating in cruelty. Trump took away their shame and replaced it with a sense of pride.
Herein lies the key coherence between Trump and the evangelicals. He promised them liberation from exile, he promised them redemption without repentance. They could be restored as the guardians of the nation’s moral standards and retain their emotionally satisfying themes of resentment, nativism, nationalism, triumphalism. And militarism and its mannerisms of outrageous statements, intolerance, harsh judgments, conspiracy mindedness, and overt display of religious, patriarchal patriotism. The evangelical economic angst, racism, religious bigotry, antifeminism, and hostility toward science could continue unabated, and in some cases, the oppressive rules of the liberals rolled back (among the favorite targets here – abortion, gay rights, immigrants, Muslims, religious liberty).
In other words, Trump knew his target audience. He gave them the facile promise of “Make America Great Again” as he merged his grievances with theirs to offer them redemption without repentance. From the pulpit evangelicals could keep roaring about how much their relationship with Jesus meant – and I am not disputing that their faith means a great deal to them – while living their lives as racists, homophobes, and the entire assortment of cultural maladies that afflict them. Better yet, they don’t have to offer any contrition or reparation. This is what I mean when I say that Donald Trump is the Rev. Dr. Donald Trump who preaches a gospel of redemption with no required repentance. In Trump’s gospel, the rich young ruler is a stand-in for American evangelicals to whom Trump says, “Keep your riches and your ways and come and follow me.” No repentance!
Trump’s preaching sounds as if it just exploded out of a Flannery O’Connor story as a preacher resembling Hazel Motes. Motes, one of O’Connor’s more tortured souls, was a preacher who proclaimed, “I preach a church without Jesus Christ crucified.” And when the fake blind man told Motes, “You still have a chance to save yourself if you repent,” Haze responded, “That’s what I’ve already done. Without the repenting.” Rev. Dr. Donald Trump has given evangelicals a redemption without repentance, and an atonement with the shedding of the blood of others – especially persons of color and immigrants and Muslims.
Trump leads his followers to a state of shamelessness, which is the opposite of true parrhesia. “We live in an increasingly saturated shame panopticon. This has led some of the former masters [evangelicals] to a state of shame-exhaustion, in which it becomes easier to repudiate shame altogether than respond to the moral demands placed on them” (Donovan O. Schaefer, “Whiteness and civilization: shame, race, and the rhetoric of Donald Trump,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 2020). Throwing off the yoke of shame, they are free to be the exact opposite of parrhesia. As Foucault points out, “in parrhesia, the speaker uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of falsehood or silence, the risk of death instead of life and security, criticism instead of flattery, and moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy” (Foucault, 19 – 20).
Trump’s blatant misuse of parrhesia turned the truth-telling trope into the elevation of lies. Trump trumpeted his alleged “free, fearless truth” to his followers, at rally after rally, even after he became president and the evangelicals had come in out of the cold. No one cared that the rhetoric was empty, tasteless, and over-cooked leftovers from previous populist uprisings. Evangelicals, like putting ketchup on a well-done steak, swallowed the “both-sides” logic of moral equivalency particular to Trump’s expressed worldview (Hart, 2).
On December 5, 2020, in Valdosta, Georgia, Trump, like a homeless person dragging a dried-out, browned Christmas tree with a few ornaments still clinging to its broken branches and insisting that it was still Christmas, started his speech with these words:
Let me begin by wishing you all a very Merry Christmas. Remember the word. Remember. We started five years ago, and I said you’re going to be saying Christmas again. And we say it proudly again, although there’ll be trying to take that word again out of the vocabulary. We’re not going to let them do that.”
Here Trump’s famous reputation for telling it like it is, of being the faithful truth-teller crashes head-first into truth. The obvious truth is that “Merry Christmas” has never, at any time, been taken out of the national lexicon, or removed from the dictionary. No law has been passed to stop people from saying, “Merry Christmas.” This chimera of an argument, developed in evangelical circles, was one of the pathetic weapons of the so-called “War on Christmas.”
After the 2020 election, Trump tweeted that his supporters “will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” In his January 6, 2021 speech, Trump said, “these people are not going to take it any longer. They’re not going to take it any longer.” In the same speech he repeated: “Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about.” We will not let them silence your voices. We’re not going to let it happen. Not going to let it happen.”
A gospel of redemption without repentance and a parrhesia that is packed with lies are a dangerous combination, a rhetorical Molotov cocktail thrown at the citadel of democracy, truth, facts, and reality. The fake parrhesia and the fake cry of parrhesia denied merged to produce the Trump Super-Storm. The spell cannot be broken until the “Legion” is sitting there fully clothed and once again, in his “right mind” – aka metanoia.
Only repentance can save us now. Thank God this is Lent.
