An Identity Crisis

Finding the words to describe how I felt after witnessing the events that unfolded on Wednesday afternoon at our nation’s Capitol have been slow. Finding the words to fully detail my thoughts regarding an assault on our democracy, a true domestic terrorist attack on our own legislative branch, has not been easy. Perhaps finding the best words have been slow because the insurrection that took place has a backdrop of ten months of a pandemic, one in which nearly 385,000 Americans have died. It could be that my words have been slow because it comes on a backdrop of a year of movements stirred up by the unlawful deaths of Black men and women in this country by the very people who are meant to defend them. Or maybe I just have finally begun to run out of words to try and defend this nation.

As I watched Confederate flags, Trump 2020 sweaters, Make America Great Again banners, and Jesus Saves replace our American flag, I was speechless. I was speechless because I was left suffering a crisis of identity. I watched not really knowing if what I believed represented reality any longer, and I was left questioning how my own actions and inactions might have helped to fuel this chaos. It was not just an identity crisis of my own, however, but one that I felt for us all. An identity crisis of America. An identity crisis of democracy. And an identity crisis of the church.

Especially the White Church in America. As much as we want to deny the truth, this is who we are. The events that occurred on Wednesday, January 6, have a direct correlation to our church, because White Christians have overwhelmingly upheld, defended, and applauded the hateful rhetoric that Donald Trump embodies. The White Church in America, which affirms that all are one in Christ Jesus, has stood beside him and rallied for him, and ignored his demonization of others and his intentional divisiveness. It was overwhelmingly White Christians who elected Donald Trump, and then voted again for him in 2020. I know many incredible Christians who are deeply faithful but still chose to ignore Trump’s rage-filled heart, deciding that policies they liked and believed in outweighed the shortcomings of the man himself. By deciding to champion this President, the White Church has communicated to the world that he represents who we are.

In many ways, the White Church in America stormed the nation’s Capitol, waving our Christian flag alongside symbols of racism and hate. In the wake of the events in Washington, The New York Times highlighted the twisted intersections of White Christianity and nationalism in their article “How White Evangelical Christians Fused With Trump Extremism.” The first hand account from Christians that participated in the event last week paints a clear picture of how prayer, preaching, and fear have warped their Christian ideology into one that is rooted in white supremacy and nationalism. Many Christian leaders did not distance themselves from the President and the devastating events at the Capitol until long after the violence had ended. For some pastors, it was the first time they acknowledged the lies about the integrity of the election since November. Even still, some Christian leaders refuse to back down from the fight.

But none of this is new. Throughout our history, the White Church in America has embraced ideologies that look drastically different than the ones found in scripture. It was White Christians who stole land from Indigenous People, and it was White Christians who attempted to colonize the entire world. It was White Christians who stood by their belief that scripture gave us the authority to own and abuse people of different color. White Christians burned crosses in the yards of people of color to incite fear, and then sat in the pews of our churches on Sunday worshipping the same symbol that had been set ablaze. This is who we are.

In 2020 alone, I have witnessed many members of the White Church disregard science and reason, choosing instead to spread a deadly virus for the sake of gathering with friends. The White Church has championed “faith over fear” as if it is a lack of faith that makes people succumb to this pandemic. I assure you that the member of my church who died from COVID-19 was deeply faithful.

It was mostly members of the White Church in America who quickly dismissed the Black Lives Matter movement, instead choosing to remind us that All Lives Matter. It is often White Christians who defend the use of deadly force against innocent people of color. And it is overwhelmingly members of the White Church in America who consume and peddle fear mongering lies and false conspiracy theories, like refusing to accept the will of the people simply because their golden calf idol in office did not win an election. As leaders in the White Church, we have too often stayed silent in directly stating that our truths can never be found in the dark lies of QAnon conspiracies, white supremacy, and anti-Semitism.

We have known who we are for a long time, and we try our best to hide it. Then on January 6, 2021, the whole world saw who we really are as Jesus Saves and the Christian flag marched up the stairs of the U.S. Capitol defending the narrative of our nation that White Christianity upholds. We have an identity crisis.

We desperately want to separate ourselves from those who gathered and raided the Capitol in D.C. but the truth is that we cannot. We cannot distance ourselves from them because they are beloved members of the Body of Christ. They are our family. We can attempt to distance ourselves from the people who attacked our Capitol all we want, but if we do not change our own hearts and our own teachings of the Gospel, the White Church in America will continue to grow and empower the next wave of insurrectionists. The White Church in America played a huge part in bringing us to this precipice. But there is always hope. We can reclaim our identity by rejecting the lies, the anger, the hatred, the racism, and divisiveness that has surrounded this nation.

We have an identity crisis in America. We have an identity crisis in the White Church, but we have the power to rewrite our narrative. We can be better, but first we have to admit that we see who we are in the mirror. We have to be willing to look at ourselves and see how we have been complicit in these events. We have to recognize who we were in the past and who we are today, in order to reclaim our intended identity for the future. One that ensures that the only reflection we see in one another moving forward is the one of Jesus Christ. An identity that strives to boldly choose love for our neighbors above anything else. That is the identity I desire for us. Let’s claim it.

**These ideas and thoughts are my own, and I do not speak on behalf of the beliefs and ideas of the congregation or denomination that I serve.