[Dialogue] 2/03/2022, Progressing Spirit: The Rev. Mark Sandlin: American Christianity as a Cover for Racism; Spong revisited

Thu Feb 3 07:00:30 PST 2022

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American Christianity as a Cover for Racism
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|  Essay by Rev. Mark Sandlin
February 3, 2022

Race plays a profound role in all aspects of life in the United States. When you stop to think about it, that is absolutely astounding considering that race, at least biologically speaking, doesn't actually exist.

You see, for hundreds of years scientists assumed race was a biological reality because people look different to the naked eye: different skin color, different hair texture, different facial structure. “There must be different races!” But literally hundreds of scientific studies in the last forty some years have demonstrated there is no significant genetic difference between human beings regardless of differences in skin color, hair, and facial structure.

Yet, we live in a nation, in a world, where we not only use slight cosmetic differences to marginalize, abuse, and take advantage of people. In extreme cases, we use it as a reason to kill them. It is imbecilic behavior that should be thwarted by the scientific facts of it. But, it is not. It makes me wonder if evolution quit working at some point. I mean, we certainly haven't evolved much on the issue of racism.

What it really makes me wonder is how is there so much support for this kind of thing? What piece of our society continues to push and support such backwards way of thinking?

Well, this may not be THE answer, but I think it's one of them. About 10 years ago, an analysis led by Wendy Wood, Provost Professor of Psychology and Business at USC College and the USC Marshall School of Business, found a positive correlation between religiosity and racial bias. But is religion really the problem here or is it something else?

The analysis looked at data from 55 studies on religion and racism in America dating back to the Civil Rights Act. Combined, the studies include more than 22,000 participants, mostly white and Protestant. (And that's important, Protestant. Much of the current support for our racially biased government comes from the more conservative Evangelical Christian movement, not the Protestant).

As the study reports: “A meta-analytic review of past research evaluated the link between religiosity and racism in the United States since the Civil Rights Act. Religious racism partly reflects intergroup dynamics. That is, a strong religious in-group identity was associated with derogation of racial out-groups. Other races might be treated as out-groups because religion is practiced largely within race, because training in a religious in-group identity promotes general ethnocentrism, and because different others appear to be in competition for resources. In addition, religious racism is tied to basic life values of social conformity and respect for tradition... The authors failed to find that racial tolerance arises from humanitarian values, consistent with the idea that religious humanitarianism is largely expressed to in-group members. Only religious agnostics were racially tolerant.”

The analysis did not focus on how the racism/religion connection plays out in churches and religions predominantly populated by people of color, nor how non-Judeo-Christian religions affects adherents' racial attitudes. But the authors of the study hypothesized that their analysis would hold across world religions.

Recognize here that the study did not find that religion causes racism. It's finding says that it is fertile soil for those who have tendencies toward racism. Progressive, Christian, author Anne Lamott puts it this way, “You can safely say that you've created God in your own image when it turns out God hates all the same people you do.”

Or as I once put it, "If your religion doesn’t challenge you to care for people you might otherwise be dismissive of and, instead, reinforces your negative feeling about them, you don’t have a religion – you have a formalized structure for institutionalizing your biases."

Basically, when religion isn't practiced with intelligence and compassion, it can easily be used as an authoritative confirmation of our biases. In churches that eschew the humanist perspectives of critical thinking and the innate value of individuals, perverting information to suit personal prejudices is far too easy. Add to it the dogmatic environment of most churches and it can be the perfect petri dish for growing cultures of racism.

Putting racism into the hands of God also makes life easier when you are confronted with social injustices. If you can blame a group's oppression on the retribution of an angry god or some inherent deficiency, then you not only have no responsibility in it, but you'd be foolish to go against God. Not only that, you don't have to feel bad about the privileges that are given to you when you choose to not  extend those same privileges to people who've already been judged by God (at least in your eyes).

The harsh reality of race and religion in America is that religion has become a cover for racism.

We all like to think that the idea "separate but equal" is something from a bygone era. That segregated lunch counters, race-divided bathrooms, signs reading "whites only" are concepts that died out in America decades ago. Except, well, they are not.

A Public Religion Research Institute survey found that 10 percent of Americans believe business owners should be able to refuse to serve black people if they see that as a violation of their religious beliefs. Men were slightly more likely to agree than women, and Catholics slightly more likely than Protestants.

Ten percent of the population may not seem like a lot, but it calculates out to about 32 million people. It also points to how racism and the concept of segregation are sadly still alive and well some 50 years after the end of Jim Crow.

Yes, in the past five decades since the peak of the civil-rights movement, some racial policies have changed. For example, workplace discrimination has been outlawed. But, let's never forget that that doesn't mean prejudice has disappeared. It turns out that it is quite the opposite. The reality is that racial discrimination is now being touted as "religious freedom." Just as bad, the Trump era made many racists feel all too comfortable with publicly expressing their racism without feeling the need for anonymity as they may have in the past.

Like I said, if your religion doesn’t challenge you to care for people you might otherwise be dismissive of and, instead, reinforces your negative feeling about them, you don’t have a religion – you have a formalized structure for institutionalizing your biases.

You can wrap the law around it any way you want. You can call it religious freedom, freedom of speech, whatever you want. No matter what you call it, it remains morally repugnant and devoid of any god that I ever care to acknowledge. There is no space in a healthy spiritual community or life for racism, or for that matter anything that pits one group of people over another.

That kind of thinking, that kind of acting, stands over and against everything that can grow a person or a community spiritually. That kind of thinking plays to the lowest forms of human pettiness and uses religion as a weapon rather than as a balm. It is a bastardization of spirituality and must be actively resisted at every turn and cast out like the demon that it is. 

It does not mean that we stop seeking to care for those who practice it. That would put us in a similar place of denying people for being different than us, but it does mean not sitting silently by as it is being practiced. It does mean actively resisting it in our churches and communities.

We must call it out when we see it being done in the name of God. We must insist that our representatives stop supporting it with discriminating “religious freedom” laws and racially divided voting maps. We must persist in standing up to hate at every turn and in extending grace, acceptance, and love.

Not just for the sake of our nation and for the sake of those who are the target of it, but for the health of our spiritual life as well.

It is time for racism's religious cover to end.

~ Rev. Mark Sandlin

Read online here

About the Author
Rev. Mark Sandlin is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) from the South. He currently serves at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant. Mark also serves as the President and Co-executive Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org. He is a co-founder of The Christian Left. His blog, has been named as one of the “Top Ten Christian Blogs.”  Mark received The Associated Church Press’ Award of Excellence in 2012. His Podcast The Moonshine Jesus Show is on Mondays at 4:30pm ET. Follow Mark on Facebook and Twitter @marksandlin.  |

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Question & Answer

Q: By A Reader

For the past two decades, you and your wife have traveled North America evangelizing evolution and big history. But recently your focus seems to have taken a more eco-theological and pastoral turn. What brought about this shift, and what would you say is the heart of your message and ministry now?

A: By Rev. Michael Dowd
 Dear Reader,The shift culminated in 2018, just after Living the Questions published my video course, “Pro-Future Faith: The Prodigal Species Comes Home,” but was actually decades in the making. Here’s how it unfolded:I developed a passion for “evidential revelation” when I began my pastoral career in 1986, while attending Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now Palmer Seminary). The following were especially significant. John A.T. Robinson’s book, Honest to God, and Gene Marshall’s essay, “What Reality Are We Pointing to with the Word ‘God’?”, helped me integrate the thinking of Paul Tillich, Rudolf Bultmann, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Gaian microbiologist Lynn Margulis, deep ecologists Joanna Macy and Dolores LaChapelle, and eco-feminist Sallie McFague were especially significant mentors. I discuss their influence in my video, “Honest to G🌎D: Reality 101”.In 1988 cultural historian Thomas Berry, cosmologist Brian Swimme, and bioregional educator Sr. Miriam MacGillis inspired a passion for big picture storytelling. Henceforth, interpreting the epic of evolution in spiritually nourishing ways would be my calling.My ministry took a practical, community organizing, sustainability turn in the late 1990s, and then expanded again soon after I remarried. Connie Barlow was a science writer and also a Thomas Berry enthusiast. From April 2002 until September 2020 she and I lived on the road, addressing some 3,000 religious and secular groups across North America on a range of subjects at the intersection of science, meaning, and "right relationship to reality.” (I see “reality” as God’s secular name, and “G🌎D” as reality’s mythic name.)In December 2012 I had a profound worldview shift. Watching David Roberts’ TEDx talk, “Climate Change is Simple (Remix)," woke me up to the looming climate consequences already unstoppable. Climate learning, advocacy, and activism took center stage, grounded in a passion to also learn the essentials of "ecological overshoot" (as presented by environmental sociologist William R. Catton, Jr.). I also dove deeply into the study abrupt climate change (10,000 years of change in half a human lifetime) and the rise and fall of civilizations. Key differences between unsustainable societies and Indigenous cultures are a current topic for learning and reflection. I find it helpful to regard the latter as having never been expelled from the Garden. Quite simply, Indigenous peoples did not violate what I now consider to be G🌎D’s first law: “Limits are sacred; violate them and your society will perish in a hell of your own making.”To freely share what I was learning in all these fields, I began audio recording and posting to Soundcloud classic books and articles that were only available in text format — a “sustainability canon” of sorts.I also began to create both educational and pastoral videos about how to cope and even thrive in existentially painful circumstances, including the ongoing collapse of both the biosphere and business as usual. “Post-doom” was the term I began using in 2019 to signify that becoming aware of the unstoppability of social and ecological downturns need not end in "doom." There are still opportunities for “finding the gift” and applying "love in action."As I see it, the shift from anthropocentrism (human-centeredness), to ecocentrism, (G🌎D-centeredness) points to a distinctly prophetic role for progressive religious and secular folk alike. Progressive faith leaders now have a once-in-a-millennium opportunity to speak on behalf of G🌎D (Life/Reality) in prophetic, inclusive, and universal (i.e., non human-centered) ways.This prophetic message is not grounded in old men or old books. Rather, evidential revelation (including the findings of science) is our "scripture", ecology is the heart of our theology, and our inspiration flows from the wisdom of women and indigenous leaders’ calls for environmental and intergenerational justice.What a time to be alive!~ Rev. Michael Dowd

Read and share online here

About the AuthorThe Reverend Michael Dowd is a bestselling eco-theologian, TEDx speaker, and pro-future advocate whose work has been featured in The New York Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, Discover, and on television throughout the United States and Canada. His book, Thank God for Evolution, was endorsed by 6 Nobel Prize-winning scientists, noted skeptics, and religious leaders across the spectrum. Michael and his science writer, evolutionary educator, and fellow climate activist wife, Connie Barlow, have spoken to some 3,000 groups throughout North America since April 2002. Michael and Connie live permanently in Ypsilanti, Michigan, from where Michael delivers Zoom homilies and longer programs. Sample sermons can be found here and here 
and here. This video: “Serenity Prayer for the 21st Century: Pro-Future Love-in-Action” is especially recommended as a introduction to his current body of work. Rev. Dowd’s websites: MichaelDowd.org  /  TheGreatStory.org  / PostDoom.com  |

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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited

What Do Christian Symbols Mean in a Land Where Christianity is No Longer Practiced?

Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
December 1, 2022This church was built in 1866 by John J. Harris to be used as an Episcopal summer chapel serving vacationers in the Lake George, New York area.  In 1869 it was deeded to the vestry of the Episcopal Church of the Messiah in Glen Falls, New York.  It was closed in 1883.  It re-opened in 1918 as an inter-denominational summer chapel and closed again in the mid 1920’s. In 1930 it became Presbyterian and was part of a five point rural congregation of the parish of the Glenn Falls Presbyterian Church, served by a circuit-riding preacher. It became independent once more in 1947, calling itself Harrisena Community Church in honor of its original founder.  Its first full time pastor was called in 1952 and the congregation grew to a membership of 98 people.  In 1969 the congregation called its third pastor, a newly-ordained American Baptist clergyman just graduated from the Colgate-Rochester Divinity School, the seminary that produced Martin Luther King, Jr.  His name was Lamont Robinson and he arrived with his wife Dodi, who had also attended Colgate-Rochester, but trained to be a church musician.  They were in their mid-twenties.  This couple has now been at this church for 42 years.  Today it has about 300 members; a newly-expanded building to house church and community activities, and a well-trained and talented choir of about 20 people.  Its congregation, deeply dedicated to serving this basically rural community is made up of two distinct groups:  retirees, drawn by the Lake, and long-time local and thus permanent residents.  The blend is magnificent.  It is one of the most exciting churches I have ever visited and Monty and Dodi Robinson have created in this place a spectacular gathering of people, who are self-defined as open, questing, questioning, stretching and progressive Christians.  I am compelled to share with my readers the story of this church and of this remarkable couple.Harrisena Church is the focal point of community life around Lake George.  Monty Robinson is a part of everyone’s family.  Dodi Robinson has made it a place of exceptional music.  To keep themselves up to date with contemporary biblical scholarship and theology, they have just instituted an annual Public Lectureship to enable their congregation and extended community to embrace new ways of thinking.  I was privileged to be the inaugural lecturer in this series.  It was for them a big venture, even a scary venture.  Could they entice nationally known speakers to this remote and rural area?  Would the community support or even appreciate this emphasis?They publicized the lectures widely through mailings, billboards and the media available to them, in this case a local newspaper called the Post-Star.  In one published article a retired Methodist minister, who is not a member of the congregation, expressed the excitement that was building in the community with a bit of obvious hyperbole.  Referring to my arrival he said, “It’s like having Bill Clinton come on Sunday morning!  It’s that monumental!”  Only my mother would have agreed with that assessment and not all people would regard that comparison as flattering, but it did reveal the expectations that are not untypical of this church.To take the pulse of this congregation, we have only to look at the liturgy and worship of their Church. They have turned the stated goals of the progressive Christian Movement in the United States into a statement printed on the back of the Sunday bulletin:We believe in the profound message brought to humankind by Jesus of Nazareth. We believe that it is in this message rather than the institutions conveying it that forms the most enduring foundation for a positive life. We believe that Christ’s message is at least as germane to the world today as it was two thousand years ago. We believe that this message better enables each of us to see and worship God in our own way. We believe that Christianity is enriched by human reason not in conflict with it. We believe that as a church family, we are responsible to one another and our community.Inside the bulletin they state that while Christianity is their pathway into the mystery of God, they are aware that there are other pathways that they must also honor.  Their commitment is to be open to all people including, but not limited to: Conventional Christians and questioning skeptics-believers and agnostics-women and men-all sexual orientations-all classes and abilities.In this congregation, I met a woman who said that she was not only “out of the traditional religious box, but had never been in it;” others who were in various stages of their faith journey and even one just convicted of a felony and awaiting sentencing.  Indeed, all were welcome.How has it been possible for this gem of a church to be born and to thrive in this relatively rural area of upstate New York?  The answer is surely found in the leadership of its pastor and his wife.  For forty-two years they have lived at the heart of this community, raising their family here and identifying with the people.  As soon as they arrived, Monty joined the volunteer firemen and took training to be an Emergency Medical Technician working with the Rescue Squad.  Dodi took the ten anthems that the church simply rotated every ten Sundays and stretched them into a music library that much larger churches would be proud to possess.  To volunteer in activities that benefitted the whole community, regardless of creed or lack of creed, became the mark of the congregation.  The Youth Group tended to be made up of non-church going teenagers and Monty made it a focus of his ministry from his first days as pastor until today.   Alumni of that youth group have become significant leaders in the congregation.The current anxiety in the congregation is the contemplation of a future without Monty and Dodi.  He is now 68.  The time of his retirement cannot be many years away.  Monty is such a fixture, indeed a lynchpin in the lives of so many that they cannot imagine life without his being part of it.  He is also sensitive enough to wonder about the effect either he or his presence might have on his successor.  Should he move away when the day of his retirement comes?  To do so would be to ask him to move from all his roots, from all his friends and from the community that he has in large measure created.  Retirement would thus be almost a prison sentence that would “send him away” for the balance of his life. If his moving away was a prerequisite for the new pastor to succeed, it would inevitably doom that new pastor, for he or she would always be thought of symbolically as the one who caused their friend, guide and spiritual leader to be lost to them.  That is an emotional load that few can carry successfully.  The future pastor will never replace this man and if that is the future pastor’s agenda, then he or she will fail.  The new pastor must rather supplement Monty, build on his genius and appreciate his counsel.How did these two people accomplish all that they have accomplished?  To quote a familiar commercial, they “did it the old fashioned way.”  They earned the trust of the people in the community.  They became an additional set of parents to every teenager.  They did it life by life. No one’s needs were dismissed and no one’s confidentiality was compromised. There are few pastoral careers in the United States that continue in the same church for forty-two years, and fewer still that remain creative, exciting and life giving for themselves and for their congregations.  Monty and Dodi Robinson are rare indeed in their accomplishments. There are few churches left in our society that are still the center of the life of the community they serve. Harrisena Church is exactly that. Unusual things like these do not happen accidentally.  This pastor and his wife invested their entire careers in this single community.  They constantly upgraded their skills, reinvented themselves and re-focused their ministries so as to be creative over long periods of time, not growing stale with familiarity. Monty and Dodi Robinson are rare specimens of a unique and unusual pastoral couple, each possessing quite independent talents. Colgate-Rochester Divinity School should honor them both with honorary doctorates. It was my privilege to meet them both; to enter into this congregation ‘s life for a single weekend; to be inspired by what I saw, and to embrace a picture of what I think the Church was intended to be.In 1993 this congregation decided to expand its buildings by erecting on its ten acre lot an assembly and educational facility to supplement its small stone sanctuary.  The new structure would include an auditorium that would seat 250 people, a place in which they could house church dinners, public lectures, wedding receptions and even community functions.  It was an enormous undertaking for this small congregation, but they believed it was a necessary one.  When this building was nearing completion, the church trustees conducted a contest on what the new facility should be named.  While these trustees were said to have received numerous suggestions, they kept the final decision secret until the day of the building’s dedication in 1994.  There was a large plaque on the wall that when unveiled announced the winning name to the world. The plaque read “Robinson Hall,” erected “in thanksgiving for the lives, the presence and the ministries of Dodi and Monty Robinson.”  That had been the only name submitted, they said, a fitting tribute to an incredible couple, whose names are not only on this plaque, but are written across the hearts of literally hundreds, perhaps thousands of people in the Lake George area.In our society, most of us are normally remembered for no more than three generations.  Dodi and Monty Robinson will transcend that limit.  Theirs is a ministry for the ages and people in that community generations from today will repeat the familiar stories and recall this unusual clergyman and his equally unusual and dedicated wife. 

~ Bishop John Shelby Spong  |

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Monday, February 7: In the Heat of the Night with Rev. Darrell Hamilton
Monday, February 14: Lillies of the Field with Rev. Darrell Hamilton
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Monday, February 28: A Raisin in the Sun with Rev. Dr. Jacqui LewisRead On...  |

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