Skip to main content

Christendom IS White Supremacy

I read a lot of books about how Christian churches should radically change, embrace the postmodern reality, get back to biblical principles, abandon old models. A lot of these books will criticise the old models under the label of "Christendom" - that European and colonial idea where power, culture, and religion are all aligned. In Christendom everyone is assumed to be Christian by virtue of being in a "Christian country" and the church is in the centre of power, resulting in, in some cases, state churches such as the Church of England. 

I agree with these criticism, but I feel like the whiteness of so many of these writers blinds them to the true sins of Christendom. It is not simply that Christendom is an old model, and we need to move on to something more relevant. I feel like sometimes that's what these writers are saying. Sometimes it feels like the criticism doesn't add up to anything more than "this isn't fashionable anymore". 

But it's much worse than that. When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire it became corrupted to such an extent that its values were effectively reversed: from nonviolence to violence, from power-from-below, to power-from-above, from good news to the poor to good news to the rich. As the Empire crumbled but Imperial Christianity remained holding together European society these values were further embedded. Christianity, instead of following the humble way of Jesus became an expression of superiority and supremacy. "Christian" became a label for a race, a people, defined over and against others. 

The Crusades were the first violent expression of this Christian-as-race ideology. But then came European colonialism, a project that depended on a belief in the Christian-race superiority over other races. So what later evolved into white supremacy, was first Christian supremacy, and depended on that theological backing to justify the enslavement and subjugation of other peoples. 

White supremacy is the child of Christian supremacy, which is a fundamental expression of Christendom.

So when white writers today talk about moving beyond Christendom I want to say to them: yes, but this isn't just about church in a cafe being cool and church in a big old stone building being uncool. It's much more foundational than that. It's about recognising that Christendom fundamentally reversed the very nature of Christian faith from a decolonising movement to a colonising movement, and in doing so laid the groundwork for white supremacy in all its forms. Rejecting Christendom isn't just about what form the church takes, it's about repenting of the Christian-white-supremacy ideology and identifying Christian faith once again as a decolonising movement, led by a radical prophet resisting occupation in his homeland. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Radical?

When I started this blog nearly 4 years and nearly 300 posts ago one of the labels I used for it/me was "radical." Perhaps I used it a little unreflectively. Recently I've been pondering what radical means. A couple of things have made me think of this. Firstly this blog series from my friend Jeremy, which explores a distinction between "radical progressives" and "rational progressives." There is also this definition of radical, liberal and conservative from Terry Eagleton quoted at Young Anabaptist Radicals : “Radicals are those who believe that things are extremely bad with us, but they could feasibly be much improved. Conservatives believe that things are pretty bad, but that’s just the way the human animal is. And liberals believe that there’s a little bit of good and bad in all of us.” What interests me is finding a way to express the tension I feel sometimes between myself and the wider Unitarian movement. One way to express this is to say I tend

What does it mean to be non-creedal?

Steve Caldwell says "The problem here isn't humanism vs. theism for theist Unitarian Universalists -- it's the non-creedal nature of Unitarian Universalism" This is a good point. We need to think much more deeply about what it means to be a non-creedal religion. The first thing I want to say is that there is more than one possible understanding of non-creedalism. The Disciples of Christ are a non-creedal church, they say here : " Freedom of belief. Disciples are called together around one essential of faith: belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Persons are free to follow their consciences guided by the Bible, the Holy Spirit study and prayer, and are expected to extend that freedom to others." Quakers are also non-creedal and say here : Quakers have no set creed or dogma - that means we do not have any declared statements which you have to believe to be a Quaker. There are, however, some commonly held views which unite us. One accepted view is that th

What is Radical Christianity?

Radical Christianity is about encountering the God of love . It is first and foremost rooted in the discovery of a universal and unconditional source of love at the heart of reality and within each person. God is the name we give to this source of love. It is possible to have a direct and real personal encounter with this God through spiritual practice. We encounter God, and are nourished by God, through the regular practice of prayer, or contemplation.  Radical Christianity is about following a man called Jesus . It is rooted in the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish prophet living under occupation of the Roman Empire two thousand years ago. It understands that's Jesus' message was the message of liberation. His message was that when we truly encounter God, and let God's love flow through us, we begin to be liberated from the powers of empire and violence and encounter the  "realm of God" - an alternative spiritual and social reality rooted in love rather th