<font color='black' size='4' face='Times New Roman, Times, serif'><span style="font-size: large;">The final copy of White Christians</span><br>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:OpenSans-Semibold;color:#313131">Auburn Seminary to White Christians</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:OpenSans-Semibold;color:#313131"> </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">It came in the form of a letter, a confessional
statement from White America that began:
<i>Fifty four
years ago this coming April, Dr. Martin Luther King wrote a letter from the
Birmingham jail to white Christian leaders on issues of racial justice and the
future of our nation. </i>Then Auburn
Seminary penned a letter to white Christians whose votes elected Donald J.
Trump, who disparage(s) and disrespect(s) people of color, women, and a few
others.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">The letter
lives off the reputation of MLK Jr. whose mark on White America heavily laced
with guilt put Barack Obama’s family to the White House. Now threatened by its insecurity and
uncertainty, Whitey chose Trump to pacify its fears. Not a smart choice, but not too hard to
understand, though difficult to justify.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">The Auburn missive
was not intended as a letter for window-dressing. With Georgian Congressman John Lewis in a
tiff with The Donald, the issues raised are very relevant. While it skewed the existential angst of
those who echoed Moltman’s theology of hope 50-years ago, or the theistic
thoughts of Bultmann, Bonheoffer, Niebuhr, and Tillich, it invited White
Christians to examine whereof they cast their votes. We shall not venture into the metaphorical death-of-god
expressions of Gabriel Vahanian, Thomas JJ Altizer, et al, whose movement since
Time Magazine focused on it, changed Whitey’s Church life big time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i>… let’s prepare ourselves for action.
Let’s stop hiding the ugly and racist dimensions of our past. Instead, we can tell the truth about it
openly, with repentance and humility… </i>The signatories were an Austin, Bass, Evans,
Harvey, McLaren, Messina, Scharen, Volf, and Whitmore, all European - Latin,
Teutonic, Scot-Irish, British - sounding names.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">In the midst
of the assault on the nebulous status of Hispanic immigration, a Denver Iliff
Seminary Professor penned the theology of hopelessness that is stealthily walking
the silent halls of medieval theology schools. The Auburn letter was typically White America
of the helping kind:<i> Let’s get ready to
protect vulnerable people who are threatened by hate and injustice. Let’s take to the streets in protest whenever
necessary. If people are being harmed or
threatened, we should have the courage to stand with them…</i> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Harking at the
back of my mind was a female Aussie aboriginal who said: <i>If you
have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation
is bound with mine, then let us work together. </i> Auburn’s help was to stand with the helpless
ones.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">A West Texas
dentist and his cowboy friends drove to Washington to join Trump’s inauguration,
had a meal where the waitress was a smiling black girl who Marched, was
surprised by her $450 tip on a $72.60 receipt.
A note said: “We come from different cultures, and we may disagree on
certain issues, but if everyone would share their smile and kindness like your
beautiful smile, our country will come together as one people, not race, not
gender, just American. God bless.” The
dentist must have admired the waitresses’ gleaming white teeth!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i> </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Whitey seeks
no protection from the Donald. Instead,
it seeks liberation from its pet racial prejudice, the illusion that America is
White. “In White America” is a desperate
holding-on to New England’s heritage, still in Whitey’s overcoats.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Trump cannot
liberate Whitey, unless by a miracle, Trump acknowledges that he needs
liberating from the limits of his relationships to women and minorities. When Whitey realizes that the source of its
strength in race relations in the triumph of the Union vs. the Confederacy, and
the Emancipation Declaration of Abraham Lincoln, are also its Achilles heel,
they would be like the dentist and the waitress that needed liberating to be real
America.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">A Chinese
Hotel Intern in a NMC English Language Development Course I facilitated,
stumbled on the transcendent perspective on humanity couched in the language of
GOD, and did not know what to do with her “belief” structure since the sociological
“salvific-redemptive” nature of being part of a congregation is foreign to her.
I walked out of such orientation more
than a decade ago; “Church” remains an imperial force. But there it was, the human experience
hungered for form to maintain “spirituality”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Trump, viewed
as a liberator, is a dictator. Whitey
seeks liberation by forsaking any dependency on any external force other than
its own devoid of the comforting arms of an Uncle Sam, or the dependence on a
deity that assures certitude.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">MLK’s letter
from the Birmingham jail was of one refused entry into Whitey’s world. King liberated himself from the illusions of a
kind “America”. The Auburn letter is of
White Christians’ struggle with a faith that shakes its imperial orientation; liberating
themselves is at stake.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Reality rears
its authentic head devastating comfort.
I hold no hope for the immediate liberation of White Trump, but it is a delight
to be proven wrong. Thanks, Auburn.</div>
<br>
<div style="clear:both"><i><b>j'aime la vie</b></i>
<div>earthrise consciousness, a gift; earthbound commitment, my choice</div>
<div><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#B22222">All that was, thanks; all that will be, yes; all that is, let it be!</font></span><br>
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