It came in the form of a letter, a confessional statement from White America that began:  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.  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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

… 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…  The signatories were an Austin, Bass, Evans, Harvey, McLaren, Messina, Scharen, Volf, and Whitmore, all European - Latin, Teutonic, Scot-Irish, British - sounding names.

 

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: 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…

 

Harking at the back of my mind was a female Aussie aboriginal who said:  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.  Auburn’s help was to stand with the helpless ones.

 

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!

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.

 

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.

 

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”.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.