Is There Racism in Heaven? Faith in Trump’s America by Quantisha Mason
My dear reader, before we begin, a brief preface: While we do not select the times, still each of us has the choice each day to walk the path of justice and faith. These days, that path may seem exceedingly difficult. We live in an era where inflammatory rhetoric and debased tweets have become the new standard for acceptable governance; when earnest advocates of justice are labeled “snowflakes” and those who defend the rule of law are libeled as “deep state” devotees. We all stand at a crossroads in this life we live together. We, the people, are in desperate need of prayer coupled with liberative action; yet these days it seems that our nation and our elected officials that claim faith stand in the way of God’s justice. Furthermore, some of my sisters and brothers in Christ no longer blush at behaviors they rightly denounced not so long ago. My Trumpian sisters and brothers have opted for political success at the cost of spiritual collapse and silent acceptance. I try to pray for our country in these days where the children of desperate parents who walked miles on sore feet with just the prospect that through their suffering their child’s life would be made better are detained in cages, while law-bending financiers walk free. How good that we are instructed to pray for our enemies, and to forgive not not seven times, but seventy-seven times; yet, still it surprises me to no end at how many of my Christian sisters and brothers are supporting hateful policies that deny the gospel we profess.
On November 8th 2016, what was your faith like? where did you stand with God? For me, my faith finally broke, having been bent and bruised throughout the previous year. I had been traumatized anew each time a Black American was killed at the hands of police for no reason other than being born with sun kissed skin. This past election cycle, we heard faith leaders praise Donald Trump with the same arguments they used to demonize President Obama during his eight-year term. I wonder: how did they find the language to praise Donald Trump while not ever mentioning his openly racist, habitually sexist, persistently ableist, unabashedly hostile actions towards anyone or any group that doesn’t look and act like him? Trump is, without reserve, opposed to the fundamental integrity of the Christian faith professed by not only his supporters but those who are opposed to him. How are we to account for his continuing support by apparently godly people?
I can only come to the perverse rationalization that he is their god’s “Cyrus”, come to make things right. I am not an expert on matters of U.S. faith, but this is my home, if at times named so begrudgingly, and where I was raised by faithful people in faithful congregations where I learned what God’s love was like and what it means to be a neighbor. But it is clear to me now and it might have always been that our Christian faith is susceptible to takeover by various extremist movements that arise in times of fear. When the majority becomes afraid of losing their power, then the majority will impose a regime of fear on others: immigrants, African Americans, foreigners, “elites,” gay and lesbians. In this era when white Christians fear they may lose their cultural dominance, behold the regime of fear they have emboldened. What have we, as in the collective we, become, when so many evils are done in the name of Christ: children are taken from their parents, our friends abroad abandoned while our enemies are embraced, and truth-tellers are called treasonous by a paranoid president? What have we become in this age of white fear? As Christians, can we support voter suppression? As Christians, can we support gerrymandering? As Christians, can we support the willful dismantling of programs designed to protect the poor and most vulnerable? What have we become?
The renewed push for laws that invoke “religious freedom” are now crafted to avoid accountability and to enable regressive and reactionary social policies, as if this country were designed only for a select group of people and one perspective that is normative, rather than to host and hold many perspectives. In the words of Walt Whitman, we “contain multitudes,” including those with whom we disagree. We need to not protect delicate sensibilities by enforcing racist, xenophobic, homophobic policies. As a black, queer, female bodied person living in my country where to be black and queer means to exchange the closet for the grave, I wonder when we stopped seeking “a better land” where everyone and anyone could flourish for a place where being white, straight, and male is the new ideal. When I pray for our country, I fear the justice of God. When I think of death, (which I pray comes naturally), I ask myself, “will there be racism in heaven? Is the God I have been praying to all these years a white supremacist?” When I meditate on the awesome Almighty, I am forced to bring the current madness of this life into my thoughts and to ask, “Is God as racist as these men who speak in His name? What has God to do with this mean-spirited and narrow-minded vision professed by so many of my sisters and brothers?” If God agrees with these people, then our gospel is as broken as my confidence in the religious leadership of these times.
But friends, worry not! For the answer is clear: God is no respecter of persons. God is no racist, and God is not bound to those who receive the fawning and faithless adulation of religious leaders who benefit from the current regime of fear. The prophet Isaiah and John the Baptist speak to our time. Rather than exulting and pointing to the Stock Market and bowing the knee to our president, these “religious leaders” should be showing us how repentance is done, since judgment is coming.
The United States is like a patient with compounding illness and no health insurance and a fear of doctors! Our sick parts are religious zealots that have misappropriated the doctrine of God and twisted their words for their own selfish gains. These are the pastors, preachers, and leaders who care more about appeasing the powers and principalities than carrying their cross and casting out demons. All of the time spent by the liberal left protesting, praying, and calling their political figures can be seen as nothing more than palliative care for a patient dead set on dying stubbornly. There comes a time when the collective WE have to realize that life is more precious than our dignity, and the gospel compels us to act. Otherwise we are complicit with a man who has confused the mighty acts of God with the art of the deal.
May the peace of Christ and the Chesed of the Lord be ever with you.
Quantisha Mason is a recent graduate of McCormick Theological Seminary where they received a Master’s of Divinity degree, as well as an alumni of the Global Ecumenical Theological Institution 2018. They have a deep passion for the Korea peninsula, having served as a Young Adult Volunteer from 2013-2014. They also enjoy writing liturgy in their spare time.