Selective Biblical Literalism

It’s destroying American evangelical Christianity.

Photorealistic image, created by Art Breeder Software, of what a Jewish of Jesus’ could have looked like.

The idea of imposing certain parts of the scripture with literal certitude has done more to drive people from the church than any imagined slights or religious oppression. Indeed, the American evangelical community has become itself the oppressors. It has become a haven for white superiority to such an extent that the non-white, non-European origins of Christ Himself have been all but erased. American evangelical Jesus is not Jewish and not a man of peace. He has been made over in the image of white privilege — fearful of the other; blaming the poor and marginalized for being poor or marginalized; blaming victims as somehow causing the crimes perpetrated against them; taking up arms and denying the civil rights of anyone who does not think, act, and look like themselves.

American white evangelicalism has come to mean denying the right of the other to exist in any space they call their own. And, these cis-gendered, white evangelicals see every space as their own, even to the extent of weaponizing the police and state against the other. We’ve seen it in the murder of black and brown bodies by police. It’s evident in the anti-choice legislation which disproportionally impacts women of color and the poor. We’ve watched it unfold in the anti-trans and anti-LGTBQ legislation put forward and…