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“White Jesus comes upon boys and men in their living rooms, on their iPads and in blaring font and catchy music, he says: ‘Follow me.’ He leads them toward empty self-aggrandizement, toward anger and violence and grievance.”

“Racism and violence persist in America often because white Americans convince ourselves we have a certain distance from such ugliness.”

~ Ibid., pp. pp. xii-xiii, 5

#Christianity #race #masculinity #gender #whitechristiannationalism #AngelaDenker
/2

“’My ancestors didn't own slaves.’
‘They were too poor.’
‘They hadn't come from Europe yet.’

It is so much more convenient to locate the problem outside ourselves, to point to those who are increasingly radical and loud and other.”

~ Ibid., p. 16

#Christianity #race #masculinity #gender #whitechristiannationalism #AngelaDenker
/3

“There is profit to be made, online, in white supremacist forums and groups, and in right-wing movements that teeter close to the edge of racist language, couching it as ‘anit-immigration’ or ‘pro-Christian.’ Many more young white men and boys besides Dylan [Roof] had found identity there, are finding identity there.”

~ Ibid., p. 23

#Christianity #race #masculinity #gender #whitechristiannationalism #AngelaDenker
/4

“Many white American Christians are pretty sure they know what God looks like. Most of us won't really say it explicitly, of course: that would invite critique and the possibility that one of our most closely held but unexamined truths could be exposed as false. But most of us heard growing up that we were created in God's image."

~ Ibid., p 43

#Christianity #race #masculinity #gender #whitechristiannationalism #AngelaDenker #bible #scripture
/5

(continued from /5):

"On first read, maybe you'd think that means we're taught that we look like God. But ‘no one has ever seen God,’ so when you learn that you're created in God's image—as most young, white Christian boys and men have learned—then it makes sense that you think, ‘God must look like me.’”

~ Ibid., quoting John 1:18

#Christianity #race #masculinity #gender #whitechristiannationalism #AngelaDenker #bible #scripture
/6

“The late twentieth century was rife with white, male Christian leaders who wanted to capitalize (and make money) off of the idea that men, in the image of a manly God, were created to be angry, violent and in control."

~ Ibid., pp. 44-5

#Christianity #race #masculinity #gender #whitechristiannationalism #AngelaDenker #bible #scripture
/7

“Told again and again that they are the dominant sex, created to rule over and have dominion over not just women but the earth, the land, its animals, and all things on earth—it's often a rude awakening for young, white Christian men when they enter the world and find that most created things are not interested in being ruled over by them.”

~ Ibid., p. 48

#Christianity #race #masculinity #gender #whitechristiannationalism #AngelaDenker #bible #scripture
/8

“Absent those tools [for building mutual relationships that are bound together not by control, authority, or obligation but instead by love and respect], young, white Christian men and boys instead often cast about for role models who fit the image of God they've been taught about: a strong and violent masculine man who rules over everything in his presence."

~ Ibid.

#Christianity #race #masculinity #gender #whitechristiannationalism #AngelaDenker #Trump
/9

“Trump's boorish comments [about grabbing women ‘by the pussy’] may not have been what [John] Piper, the proper theologian, had in mind [as he wrote that God made women to be subordinate to men], but they follow naturally from a theological model that privileges a gender hierarchy above all else and creates an image of God as power-hungry and dominating, particularly when it comes to women.”

~ Ibid., p. 48

#Christianity #masculinity #gender #AngelaDenker #Trump
/11

“Young, white Christian boys and men have been sold an image of God, the Creator, that is wholly false and rooted not in heaven but on earth, in the hands of desperate and insecure Christian male leaders who are grasping at power, influence, and wealth.”

~ Ibid., p. 51

#Christianity #race #masculinity #gender #whitechristiannationalism #AngelaDenker #Trump
/12

“For all of their claims to be ‘Bible-based’ in a fallen, secular world, most of the influential male pastors trying to influence young, white Christian men and boys spend a lot more time convincing people to read their own books than they do convincing people to actually read the Bible itself.”

~ Ibid., p. 61

#Christianity #race #masculinity #gender #whitechristiannationalism #AngelaDenker #Trump
/13

“Reminding young, white Christian boys and men that Jesus is not a white man forces them to take Jesus and put him into a seat often occupied by people who are oppressed and marginalized, and whose strength and power are seen more often as a deviant threat than as something to be emulated and admired."

~ Ibid., p. 77

#Christianity #race #masculinity #gender #whitechristiannationalism #AngelaDenker #Trump
/14

"By offering young boys and men a window into a nonmilitant, peaceful, loving, caring, friendly, hopeful, vulnerable, needy, well-adjusted, occasionally tearful Jesus—we can offer young, white Christian boys and men a much fuller, healthier, and more accessible vision of masculinity: one that's more reflective of the wide spectrum of masculinity and femininity occupied by both boys and girls.”

~ Ibid., p. 78

#Christianity #race #masculinity #gender #whitechristiannationalism #AngelaDenker
/15

“The misleading depiction of Jesus as warrior, man's man—as unsympathetic, lonely, and harsh was always a caricature. That White Jesus is always eventually exposed as a straw man, an Oz shouting behind the curtain, a president reliant on spray tan and tax fraud. Jesus as he was and is offers something much more powerful and relatable."

~ Ibid., p. 78

#Christianity #race #masculinity #gender #whitechristiannationalism #AngelaDenker #Trump
/16

@wdlindsy Impossible that Jesus wasn’t white for many.

@stevewfolds Yes, so it seems. The lure of myth and fantasy over facts and actual history….

@praetor I suspect the obsession with masculinity is deeply encoded in many cultural patterns, such that it becomes like the air we breathe, for many of us.