A Supremacy Problem

I’m four episodes into the new Christianity Today podcast The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. As I’m flooded with memories from early 2000s Evangelical culture, I’m appreciating the honest intramural critique. It seems like a healthy exposé. It is good to see white Evangelicals grappling with some of the destructive impulses within their movement. I am also wanting more from the reporting. Too often, the problems of Evangelical Christianity are boiled down to individual assholes and hypocrites, a “toxic culture” or Trump. I believe that it needs a more systemic diagnosis, digging up the patriarchy, profit motive and white supremacy that soak Evangelical perspectives and practice. These principalities counterfeit the radical mutuality displayed in the Gospels.

Jesus cultivated intimacy, vulnerability, presence, playfulness, tenderness, trust, transparency, nurture, mutuality, mystery, wonder, awe, accountability, awareness, appreciation, curiosity, compassion, humility, open-heartedness and emotional expressiveness. I am absolutely convinced that to be like Jesus, Evangelicals will need to start centering women, queer folk and people of color. Because Evangelical Christianity does not just have a celebrity pastor problem. It has a supremacy problem that incessantly centers white men—and it goes way beyond Mars Hill specifically and megachurches generally. If white men with very little accountability are running the show, then mediocrity is about as good as it’s going to get—and as this podcast chronicles, it can get a lot worse.