WHITE EVANGELICAL VALUES VOTERS IN ONE WORD

 

©Wendell Griffen, 2022

 

The November 2022 midterm elections in the United States provide the latest evidence about the priorities of white voters who call themselves evangelical Christian conservatives. In Georgia, those voters are the primary constituency supporting Herschel Walker’s candidacy to defeat Reverend Raphael Warnock’s bid for reelection to the US Senate.

In Arkansas (where I live), those voters supported Sarah Huckabee Sanders in her successful candidacy to defeat Chris Jones and become the next Governor.

In both states, white evangelical Christian conservatives supported candidates known for dishonesty. Sanders was press secretary during Donald Trump’s presidency of serial lies. Walker, who Trump recruited to run for Senate, has lied about his academic record at the University of Georgia, his marital history, and his views on abortion.

Why?

Because white evangelical Christian conservatives are determined to seize and wield power to maintain white supremacy, pride, and prejudice, not democracy, justice, and peace.

That is why they supported Donald Trump’s candidacy for the Republican nomination in 2016.

That is why they voted for Trump overwhelmingly to become US President in 2016.

That is why they continued to support Trump as he lied about the number of people who attended his 2017 inauguration, the danger people faced from Covid 19, and countless other things.

That is why they supported Trump in 2020, supported Trump-endorsed candidates in 2022, and will continue supporting Trump and candidates he favors.

The principle that motivates white evangelical Christian conservatives is power, not democracy, justice, or peace. White evangelical Christian conservatives worship white supremacist power. White patriarchal power. White capitalist power. White militarist power. White homicidal and genocidal power.

White evangelical Christian conservatives fear democracy. That is why they oppose voting rights for people of color, immigrants, and other marginalized persons.

White evangelical Christian conservatives fear human diversity. That is why they mistreat gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and other persons.

White evangelical Christian conservatives fear truth. That is why they censor educators, defund public schools, and libraries.

White evangelical Christian conservatives fear democracy, equity, and justice. That is why they want to ban women from deciding when and whether to bear children.

White evangelical Christian conservatives are not driven by faith in God, democracy, or justice. They are driven by fear of losing the power of white supremacy, patriarchy, and authoritarianism.

We should not expect white evangelical pastors to teach, preach, or counsel white evangelical conservatives away from those fears. White evangelical pastors have always worshiped at the altar of white supremacy, validated accepted white hypocrisy and lies, and embraced white supremacy, patriarchy, and authoritarianism as necessary for not only their personal and professional success.

White evangelical pastors embrace white supremacy, patriarchy, and authoritarianism to survive.

Hence, the future of democracy in the US depends on the rest of us. The fate of democracy depends on white people who have disavowed white evangelical Christianity and depends on white people who never embraced it in the first place. And the future of democracy depends on whether decolonized Indigenous, Black, Latinx, Asian, and other people of color, decolonized white men, women, and girls, decolonized LGBTQI persons, and decolonized immigrants will resist the fascism of white supremacy, patriarchy, and authoritarianism together.

The future of democracy in the United States does not depend on white evangelical Christian voters. It depends on whether the rest of us are willing to teach, campaign, struggle, play, live, and hope together for democracy, justice, and peace.

Together, we can embrace prophetic dissent and protest in the face of fascist white supremacy, hypocrisy, and authoritarianism. Together, we can reject the lying, fearmongering, and bullying tactics of white evangelical Christian conservatives.

Together, we can determine the future of democracy in the United States. Together, we can save the world from the fascist white supremacy, patriarchy, and authoritarianism of evangelical Christian conservatives.

Let's do it.