If you want Peace, work for Justice.
—Pope Paul VI
January 1, 1972
FOREWORD: THE LOVE BATTLE TO SAVE THE SOUL OF AMERICA
We are in a battle for the soul of America. But it is not, and has never been, simply a political battle. Ours is a moral struggle over who we take ourselves to be and what kind of country we want to live in. The moral question sits at the heart of our troubles today. It has been a central question since the founding of the Republic and the moment of crisis when it felt as if the entire experiment would fall apart. On the eve of the Civil War, in his first inaugural address, President Lincoln understood the moral gravity of the moment. “I am loath to close,” he said: We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.* Lincoln’s words were a hopeful and desperate gesture: an appeal to those preparing for war that they would, instead, reach for their better angels and not secede from the union. But at the heart of the American experiment, and Lincoln understood this intimately, rested a distorting and disfiguring view: that some people, because of the color of their skin, ought to be (dare I say must be) valued more than others. This view took shape in the context of a country committed, at once, to the ideals of democracy and to the evil of slavery. And that contradiction threatened to rend the soul of the nation. But the break had already happened. Before one cannon was fired at Fort Sumter, American Christendom had split over the issue of slavery. The Civil War had already begun over the moral question of holding another human being as chattel. Some Christians found religious justification for their greed and prejudices. Others condemned the practice. Those held in bondage and who bore the brunt of the cruelty of slavery dared, as the theologian Howard Thurman said, to redeem the religion profaned in their midst. This dramatic split would come to characterize the nation’s religious landscape as race segregated the idea of the beloved community and many were willing to die and kill to maintain it all. Frederick Douglass would put the point more poignantly: “The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter crises of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master.” The historian David Wills has insisted that one way to tell the story of American religious history is through this “encounter of black and white,” an encounter that “occurred within the context of a slave system”† and the world it created that colors how we see each other and how we imagine being together. And here we are over 160 years after Lincoln’s first inaugural address still grappling with the moral question of who we take ourselves to be and how a certain distorted view of Christianity sanctifies our hatreds and fears. Will we reach for our better angels? Jim Wallis has spent a lifetime bearing witness in the face of injustice. He has worked diligently to organize faith communities and leaders to cast away the idolatry of race and to live the gospel. In this powerful book, The False White Gospel, he takes on the latest American expression of white Christianity. Without mincing his words, he understands that white Christian nationalists have clothed their hatreds in the garments of their faith. They sacralize power and worship at the altar of autocrats who all too often profane the message of Jesus. These are the descendants of those who so easily reconciled Christianity with slavery and Jim Crow. But Jim Wallis, as he has always done, refuses to sit by silently as these forces hijack his tradition. He understands that this moment is a moral crisis that cries out for courage and conviction and, especially, for Christians to defend their faith by finally leaving behind the idea that some people ought to be valued more than others. And he provides the tools for the fight with Scriptures and commentary that guide our hearts, our minds, and our actions. His is an invitation to us all to engage in the moral battle. In February 1960, James Baldwin spoke at Kalamazoo College in Michigan. The talk would be published the next year in his book, Nobody Knows My Name. It is a fascinating meditation on the idea of America and the so-called problem of minorities. With typical insight and power, Baldwin insisted that “what we really have to do is to create a country in which there are no minorities—for the first time in the history of the world.” But, for me, it is how he arrives at this piercing insight—through an interrogation of the role and place of Black people in American life and our view of God—that speaks to the power of The False White God. He wrote: [T]he role of the Negro in American life has something to with our concept of what God is, and from my point of view, this concept is not big enough. It has got to be made much bigger because God is, after all, not anybody’s toy. To be with God is really to be involved with some enormous, overwhelming desire, and joy, and power which you cannot control, which controls you. I conceived of my own life as a journey toward something I do not understand, which in the going toward, makes me better. I conceive of God, in fact as a means of liberation and not a means to control others. Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is growing up.‡ God cannot be shackled to the evils of white supremacy nor imprisoned in communities that claim Him as their possession. Baldwin insists that to be with God involves something more expansive and evolving—that it is in “the going towards” that we grow and are made better. Jim Wallis preaches this every day and, in this book, he calls the nation to grow up and he calls us all to fight the love battle to save the soul of America.
—Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.
From His (Jim Wallis) Introduction:
...I suggested that, perhaps, this was a “Bonhoeffer moment” for the American church. They all knew who Dietrich Bonhoeffer was. A young pastor like themselves, he led the “confessing church” movement in opposition to the rise of Nazism in Germany during the 1930s. These were a small minority of churches who dissented from the acquiescence and loyalty of most German churches to Hitler’s rise to power. In particular, the confessing church was marked by a younger generation of seminarians whom Bonhoeffer taught and some even lived in community, and whose life together became central to the Christian resistance to the Third Reich. I told them that history doesn’t repeat but it often does rhyme, in the words of Mark Twain, and the rise of another racialized authoritarian movement in America—right now—also calls us to a faithful response. Reflecting on Bonhoeffer and asking together what a confessing church might look like in America now turned into an amazing and insightful conversation—one that I hope to see happening across the country. Where is that Christian resistance emerging now, and where is the true gospel being recovered and reclaimed in response to the false white gospel of Christian nationalism now on the rise? I reminded them that Bonhoeffer failed in his attempt to stop Hitler and was executed in the end—hanged by the Nazis, along with many of his seminarians, in a concentration camp only days before the Allies arrived. But, I asked, how many of the German church pastors who supported Hitler do they remember now? None, of course. The witness of Bonhoeffer later inspired the South African churches as they helped bring down the apartheid regime; and now we were talking about him again. The truth-telling about racial justice and reconciliation that we now need will, indeed, cost some pastors their jobs and pensions and parsonages; and it will lead to other pastors and leaders of predominantly white churches losing significant numbers of their congregants. A yet unknown number of white Christian leaders will find the courage to stand up while others submit to the “cheap grace” that Bonhoeffer warned against. There will be churches that stay open and faithful to the inclusive and reconciling gospel, despite the loss of some of their members, and new members—especially young people—may join them because of their authenticity and courage. The suffering that comes with the courage to stand against the rise of authoritarian racism cost Bonhoeffer and other resistors to Hitler their very lives. Indeed, one of the pastors in the room that morning recalled a quote by Bonhoeffer, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” But what it might mean to die to self and live for the gospel truth of Christ is yet to be known in our time, and these young pastors were all wrestling with that. While we can and must work against such violent outcomes, it is increasingly clear that voting rights, racial equality, civic justice, and democracy itself are now at serious risk in America—and that is becoming an understatement. This is a time of testing—both for the future of our democracy and for the integrity of our faith communities. We are literally in a battle now between false religion and true faith and between racial fascism and multicultural democracy. That fight stems from fear, the motivator of hate, and the threat of violence. Helping to set us free from that fear, hate, racism, and violence is the purpose of this book. I had said in my talk the previous evening that “crossing the color line” is the pilgrimage that has, and continues to change my life. I believe that crossing the color line to a genuine multiracial democracy will be the path that finally fulfills America’s promise. And where the congregations of all faith traditions stand in this battle for the soul of America will define the authenticity of our faith at this critical historical moment. It will also determine whether a new generation will have any interest in embracing any of our faith communities. Like growing numbers of young people around the country, many of my students at Georgetown are not currently practicing any religion and are in the “none of the above” religious affiliation category. But most of these “nones” still believe in God or something beyond themselves, and are looking for authenticity and courage in both leaders and institutions. Democracy, faith, and the generational future of our faith communities are all at stake...
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Hear the words of those speaking...
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