White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America

by Anthea Butler

The American political scene today is poisonously divided, and the vast majority of white evangelicals plays a strikingly unified, powerful role in the disunion. These evangelicals raise a starkly consequential question for electoral politics: Why do they claim morality while supporting politicians who act immorally by most Christian measures? In this clear-eyed, hard-hitting chronicle of American religion and politics, Anthea Butler answers that racism is at the core of conservative evangelical activism and power.

Butler reveals how evangelical racism, propelled by the benefits of whiteness, has since the nation’s founding played a provocative role in severely fracturing the electorate. During the buildup to the Civil War, white evangelicals used scripture to defend slavery and nurture the Confederacy. During Reconstruction, they used it to deny the vote to newly emancipated blacks. In the twentieth century, they sided with segregationists in avidly opposing movements for racial equality and civil rights. Most recently, evangelicals supported the Tea Party, a Muslim ban, and border policies allowing family separation. White evangelicals today, cloaked in a vision of Christian patriarchy and nationhood, form a staunch voting bloc in support of white leadership. Evangelicalism’s racial history festers, splits America, and needs a reckoning now.

Anthea Butler is associate professor of religion at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Women in the Church of God in Christ: Making a Sanctified World. A leading historian and public commentator on religion and politics, Butler has appeared on networks including CNN, BBC, and MSNBC and has published opinion pieces in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and many other media outlets.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Religion, History, Race, Anti Racist, Christianity

176 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 22, 2021

Reviews

[BlackOxford · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Colour-Blind Gospel

Racism is the American Evangelical equivalent of pedophilia in the Catholic Church, only worse because so much more pervasive. Like the scandal of pedophilia, racism has always been a part of institutional Evangelicalism, embedded in their tendentious readings of the Bible and their historical practices. And like pedophilia, racism is considered as an individual sin rather than a systemic evil. And so, like pedophilia, racism can be forgiven rather than corrected. As Anthea Butler says, “Racism is a feature, not a bug, of American evangelicalism.”

Evangelicals want to make race invisible, both existentially and politically. ‘All Lives Matter’ is the code phrase which summarises the strategy of erasure of race as an issue. The strategy allows evangelicals to ignore their own institutional legacy of racism, the continuing large-scale segregation of their own congregations, and the hurt, violence, and even deaths of people of colour. These are civil matters which are not related to the saving of souls.

“[S]in for evangelicals is always personal, not corporate, and God is always available to forgive deserving individuals, especially, it seems, if the sinner is a white man. The sin of racism, too, can be swept away with an event or a confession. Rarely do evangelicals admit to a need for restitution.”

Evangelicalism practices its racism genteelly. In line with the Republican ‘Southern Strategy’, the racial epithets of the past have been replaced by euphemisms. Racial activists are communists, revolutionaries, promoters of civil disorder, un-American, and those who don’t share our Christian values. James Baldwin had it exactly right, white Americans fear their own spiritual impurity and project that fear on to black people as those who embody their own chaotic guilt. They huddle together for comfort under the guise of being an oppressed minority:

“The ubiquitous support demonstrated by white evangelicals for the Republican Party made them not just religiously or culturally white: it made them politically white conservatives in America concerned with keeping the status quo of patriarchy, cultural hegemony, and nationalism.”

The real religious personality behind the cloak of evangelical confidence, respectability, and morality has been self-outed in their support of quite horrible political figures and causes. Their fantasy of Trump as a modern King Cyrus freeing the new Hebrews is only one example. And their persistent resistance to gay and women’s rights, voting rights legislation, voter enrolment programmes, and anti-gerrymandering controls are manifestations of their real objective - not personal sanctity but political power.

The evangelical coalition with fundamentalists, among white Protestant sects, and Catholics, show clearly that their dogmatic differences have conveniently evaporated. They are a racially-motivated political not a religious force, the Republican Party at prayer. Paul Weyrich, a Catholic evangelical and inventor of the phrase Moral Majority, laid out the programme as early as 1980:

“I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

Racism is not an incidental component of evangelicalism, it is the central plank from which all their other policies emanate. According to Butler “Slavery is the foundation of racism and power in American evangelicalism.” It still retains the attitudes of the “Religion of the Lost Cause” that mythical tale of Confederate civilisation in which black people knew their place. Blackness is so obviously inferior it is no longer necessary to debate the point. It is black girls who seek abortions; it is young black males who are the primary danger to law and order; it is black men who suffer from a lack of spiritual manliness; and it is black women who don’t know how to maintain the integrity of family life. Besides, black people in general have an agenda which is politically divisive. Meanwhile, evangelicals claim ‘colour-blindness’:

“[C]olor-blind gospel is how evangelicals used biblical scripture to affirm that everyone, no matter what race, is equal and that race does not matter [just as they had previously used it to justify racial segregation]. The reality of the term ‘color- blind,’ however, was more about making Black and other ethnic evangelicals conform to whiteness and accept white leadership as the norm both religiously and socially. It is the equivalent of today’s oft-quoted phrase ‘I don’t see color.’ Saying that means white is the default color.”

Evangelicals complain of ‘cancel culture’ when it comes to the positive contributions of white folk who, from Thomas Jefferson to Donald Trump, and from George Whitfield to Billy Graham, have tried to minimise the monstrosity of the racism which has lived in the heart of America. That they won’t acknowledge the historical and continuing existence of that monstrosity is the greatest act of such cancellation possible. Even in their own terms recognition of transgression is not sufficient to enable redemption. To use the gospel to promote such an erasure of suffering and injustice is just an additional obscenity added to their large collection.

Postscript o3/03/22: The plague of Christian Faith is of course a worldwide phenomenon: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-o...

Postscript 03/03/22: https://apple.news/A8OIRHZTrRk-nSGIwt...

Postscript 06/03/22: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-o...

[Michael Perkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

The real reason the Christian Right decided to oppose abortion...

https://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...


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23 Percent of Republicans Agree ‘Satan-Worshipping Pedophiles’ Run Government

https://www.thedailybeast.com/23-perc...

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The author has an Evangelical background. She even enrolled in seminary. Mine is similar. I was raised Roman Catholic, but went through an Evangelical phase in my 20’s and completed an M.A. in Biblical Studies and theology at an Evangelical seminary. This insider perspective makes a difference in understanding what this subculture is all about.

The author does a great job of showing the trajectory of Southern Evangelical theology into mainstream Evangelicalism during Reconstruction, the rise of the KKK, the Cold War, and the more recent impact of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party fueled by racist backlash to the election of Obama. In the modern era, Southern Baptist evangelist Billy Graham was a major figure in this process, including the wedding of the faith with GOP politics. (“There is no American that I admire more than Richard Nixon,” Graham proclaimed at one of his crusades).

The GOP dog whistles, including the terms “small towns,” “real America,” and “pro-America,” were a powerful, pungent mix of Christian populist and patriotic racism that delineated who was “one of us”—that is, a God-fearing Christian, white, and pro-America.

The election of America’s first Black president, pushed believers into an open, belligerent racism that culminated in their wholesale embrace of the man they would call “King Cyrus”: Donald Trump.

The ubiquitous support demonstrated by white evangelicals for the Republican Party made them not just religiously or culturally white: it made them politically white conservatives in America concerned with keeping the status quo of patriarchy, cultural hegemony, and nationalism.

Evangelicalism became synonymous with whiteness. It is not only a cultural whiteness, but also a political whiteness. Criticizing government spending on the poor and government entitlements is one of the ways they make racist arguments

In the midst of all of this, I see that many White Evangelicals have fallen for a big con, that not only involves racism, but also the Prosperity Gospel and The Second Coming.

The other half of the racist equation, going back to the American colonial era, was convincing white people that, no matter how poor or uneducated they were, they were always better than any Black person. It was divide and conquer.

We see the political effect of that. But there are economic repercussions for poor whites. In what way have they benefited economically from GOP policies? I can't see any. Meanwhile, opioid addiction and the suicide rate is high in the poor white cohort.

So instead of practical help, they are offered the Prosperity Gospel as a way out. Failing that, the Second Coming will take care of everything, just you wait.

Meanwhile, as Eric Hoffer writes in “The True Believer”….

“Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.”

Often these religious movements are more animated by hatred of the other, than any positive belief.

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I should add this religious racism has triggered a stampede of young people out of the churches....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/202...

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This companion review provides more on the impact of Billy Graham.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

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P.S.

My conclusions from all my years of studying the Bible....

The New Testament is full of contradictions, including amongst the four gospels. The Old Testament is a book of fairy tales, too often used as a basis for doing harm to others in today's world.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: A short history of the evangelical movement in the United States, showing its ties to racism and white supremacy from the time of slavery down to the present.

This was an uncomfortable book for me to read and review. In our racialized society, I would be identified as white. By conviction, I would identify as evangelical. What troubles me about this account is that it makes a good case that the evangelicalism in America with which I am identified is inextricably bound up with the history of racism, America’s original sin, as Jim Wallis has called it.

Anthea Butler offers in this book a concise historical account of white evangelicalism’s complicity in racism. She traces that history from the support of slavery in white, mostly southern churches. She follows this through post-Civil War Jim Crow laws and the support of white churches for segregation, and the participation of churches in lynchings. While some mainline denominations gave support to the civil rights movement, evangelicals remained on the sideline, calling this a “social gospel.”

Butler is not the first to note that the coalescing of evangelical political engagement in the Seventies and Eighties came as much around the denial of tax exemption for segregated schools like Bob Jones University as it did around opposition to abortion, which was originally not an evangelical cause. She traces the rise of organizations like Focus on the Family, the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition that led to an increasing alliance of evangelicalism with the Republican party, culminating in the support of 81 percent of self-identifying evangelicals with Donald Trump in 2016 despite race-baiting language, anti-immigration stances, and support of white nationalistic aims.

Perhaps no one person has defined American evangelicalism more than Billy Graham and so Butler devotes a chapter to him. While he desegregated his meetings, and hosted black speakers on his platform, and even include a black evangelist on his team, he took care to distance himself from the civil rights movement as it embraced nonviolent civil disobedience. King may have shared his platform once, but no more. Graham also preached against communism, associated by many in the South with the civil rights movement. His record was ambiguous at best and in the end, the focus remained on winning people to Christ rather than unequivocal stands for racial justice.

Parts of me wanted to protest against this sweeping indictment by citing the abolitionist efforts of northern evangelicals, and other socially engaged efforts in the nineteenth century. Butler does mention this as well as other forays like that of the Promise Keepers into racial reconciliation. The sad fact is none of these movements prevailed over the long haul in standing against white supremacism. The first decade and a half of the twenty-first century saw some promising evangelical initiatives around racial reconciliation and immigration reform, only for these to wither over the last five years.

I also wanted to protest that evangelicalism is not inherently white. Black and Latino churches in this country share the same theology. And people globally identify with the same theological convictions that form the core of American evangelical belief. I’ve been in a meeting with representatives of over 150 countries where this was the case, where those of my skin color were a minority. But in the ways American evangelicalism has separated itself from its Black and Latino kindred, the judgment stands. The typical first response of many white evangelicals to a Christian person of color trying to talk about racial injustice is to defend and argue rather than listen to a fellow Christian. We seem remarkably untroubled that divisions by race in our churches mirror our political divisions.

Butler, a former evangelical who still cares about this movement, reaches this sobering conclusion:

“Evangelicalism is at a precipice. It is no longer a movement to which Americans look for a moral center. American evangelicalism lacks social, political, and spiritual effectiveness in the twentyfirst century. It has become a religion lodged within political party. It is a religion that promotes issues important almost exclusively to white conservatives. Evangelicalism embraces racists and says that evangelicals’ interests, and only theirs, are the most important for all American citizens.”

I have no defense against this. I fear evangelicalism in the United States may be like the church in Ephesus described in Revelation 2:1-7. The church was marked by its orthodoxy and yet Jesus has this to say: “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place” (Revelation 2:4-5, NIV). I fear we are at imminent risk of losing our lampstand, that is, our witness within the culture. In fact, I find most churches are more concerned about political interests than even their historical distinction of seeing lost people come to Christ. Butler’s message mirrors that of Jesus in Revelation. This book is a call to repentance. The trajectory of history is not inevitable. We can turn away from the precipice. But I fear the time is short.

________________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

[Donald Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful analysis of the role racism plays in the Christian Evangelical phenomenon. This book is a well constructed and historically supported call the "Emperor Wears No Clothes." The author is direct and minces no words in her conclusion. The theme of this book needs to be yelled from the rooftops.

[Jen Juenke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was nodding my head as I was reading this book. I wanted to SCREAM YES! YES! This is what I have been saying for years. My Christian, White friends all voted for Trump because they wanted a return to family values. Not realizing that what they were referencing is a fairy tale.
Two even told me that by electing Donal Trump they were hoping a race war would happen and they confided in me that they were stockpiling guns and food for the war.
I shook my head in disbelief and wondered if I lived in a different country then them...turns out they were being "led" by pastors who preached these beliefs.
Ms. Butler hit the nail on the head with this book. I greedily read every word and agreed with all of her premises.
Too much focus has been on white evangelical voters, too much attention has been paid to the moral majority, when I hear the Focus on the Family segment on the radio, I cringe inside...I wonder, how will they try to control people different then them today?
I thought that the author really did a great job researching and presenting the history of the Evangelical movement and its racism from the start.
This is a book that EVERYONE should read.

Thank you to Netgalley and to the publisher for allowing me to read this ARC for this honest review.

[Brian Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Butler gives a brief, pointed history of racist morality in the USA's evangelical churches, from the religious defense of slavery to the rise of modern white ethno-nationalist revivalism. She shows how white evangelicals rallied against the Black civil rights movement, launching their own counter-movement to "protect the American family" from sexual and social depravity. After Martin Luther King's march for civil rights in Selma, Jerry Falwell objected that "Preachers are not called to be politicians but soul winners." Then Falwell joined with other white evangelical leaders to build his "Moral Majority" political movement.

The author traces how white evangelicals shifted from presuming their centrality in American culture to waging an increasingly bitter, divisive culture war, fighting like persecuted victims to defend their status. As Sarah Palin said of Obama in 2008, "I'm afraid if he wins, the Blacks will take over. He's not Christian! This is a Christian nation! What is our country gonna end up like?"

Having been an Evangelical leader herself, Butler is sad to conclude that "They are the Pharisees." ... "Jesus said, 'By their fruits you shall know them.' Evangelical fruit -- the results of evangelicals' actions in civic life -- today is rotten. Racism rotted it."

[Caren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a measured, clear exposition of the connections between evangelicalism and racism, with a side note of the persistent power of white males in fundamentalist denominations. Professor Butler, who teaches religious and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania, earlier in her life traveled through the evangelical community and experienced subtle racism first hand. Her accounts of what she experienced add to the accessibility of her research. As others have said, I was struck from the start of Trump's candidacy and then presidency that he was a strange hero for the religious right. As time went on and cringe-worthy incidents accumulated, I couldn't imagine how they could continue to support him. This book will give you the answers, and show that Trump is only a current symptom of a festering problem that goes back decades.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a prepublication version of this book.

[Kimba Tichenor · Rating 4 out of 5]

In White Evangelical Racism, historian and former evangelical Anthea Butler shows how racist ideology and practices are embedded in evangelicalism in the United States. This deep-rooted racism, she contends, explains why white evangelicals overwhelmingly supported the 2016 presidential bid of Donald Trump despite all his moral failings. In taking aim at the structural racism that underpins US evangelicalism, Butler also offers a sharp critique of historians who have underplayed or ignored the “racism at the core of evangelical beliefs, practices and political allegiances” and thus have been at a loss to explain why so-called committed white Christians would support a candidate promoting decidedly un-Christian beliefs. Yet, for Butler, evangelical embrace of Trump, is unsurprising given evangelicalism’s long history of defending first slavery and later Jim Crow laws, homophobia, and Islamophobia—all in the name of defending traditional family values and Christian civilization.

Although Butler acknowledges in the Introduction that a growing number of young contemporary evangelicals today are rejecting racist religious and political beliefs and that even in the nineteenth century some evangelicals were also abolitionist and progressive reformers, neither of these groups represents the dominant trend within evangelicalism. Instead, the defense of slavery and white racial superiority divided churches and became an internal boundary through which evangelical defined themselves. In 1844, the Methodist Episcopal Church split over slavery, followed by the Baptist Church in 1845, and in 1861, slavery played a major role in the third split within Presbyterianism. Congregations and their pastors, especially in the South, relied heavily on two biblical verses to justify slavery: Genesis 9: 18–27 in which Noah’s son Ham was cursed for upon his father’s drunkenness and banished to Canaan (Theologians argued that Canaan was a reference to Africa, and thus Africans were cursed) and Ephesians 6: 5–7 which calls on servants to obey their masters. More moderate pastors acknowledged that in principle slavery was wrong, but since God had not prohibited the Israelites from possessing slaves, it was an acceptable, if not moral, practice.

After the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the Southern evangelical emphasis on white supremacist patriarchy did not disappear; instead, ministers in the South argued that their former way and their former society was the key to Christian Civilization. In short, they supported the ideology of the noble Lost Cause, that downplayed the brutality of slavery and emphasized the chivalry of white slave-holding families. According to this ideology, the Confederacy was not about defending slavery, but rather about of Southern traditions which were described as morally superior to Northern ones. That said, this romanticized narrative of the South maintained the idea of white racial superiority by contrasting white women’s alleged sexual purity with black women’s sexual promiscuity and by defining black men as dangerous brutes, intent on raping white women. This racist ideology was used not only to support white superiority but also to justify a campaign of violence against African Americans—a campaign that sadly was supported by many white evangelical churches.

In the wake of World War II and the growing civil rights movement, blatant racism largely disappeared within the evangelical community, as a growing number of ministers began pushing a “color-blind” gospel. This “color-blind” gospel allowed for the integration of black congregants into white churches, so long as they accepted the dominance of “white” culture. The mission of the Christian Churches, evangelical ministers now proclaimed, was to win souls for Christ, not to get involved in politics. This attitude and the problematic nature of this approach is best summed up by Billy Graham’s response to Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream Speech”: “Only when Christ comes again will little white children in Alabama hold hands with little Black children.” Put simply, African Americans and other persecuted groups should not protest social injustice; rather they should wait patiently and docilely for their turn to have the same freedoms as their white neighbors. Other evangelical ministers took a much harder line against the civil rights movement, associating it with a Godless communism against which God-fearing white Christians must unite. If they did not, the American way of life would collapse. This formulation clearly equated “whiteness” with Christianity and with nationalism. By the late 1960s, the issue of race, particularly mixed-race marriage and school busing, had some evangelical ministers rethinking their earlier admonition against political involvement. The decision to enter the political arena in the 1970s, Althea Butler argues, was not prompted by the abortion issue and Roe v. Wade. It was the result of a new Internal Revenue Service policy in 1971 that denied tax exempt status to private schools and charitable organizations that had racially discriminatory policies. The Bob Jones University refused to admit African Americans because according to officials “unmarried black men” inevitably would violate the university’s policy against interracial dating. When the IRS rescinded the university’s tax-exempt status, evangelicals were outraged and began organizing politically.

By the early 1980s, religious political organizations, such as the Moral Majority, had become a force with which politicians seeking election had to reckon. However, in the 1980s, it was still considered ill-advised for politicians campaigning at the national level to support racist ideas openly. Thus, candidates, such as Ronald Reagan, used coded language to court the white evangelical vote. Reagan, for example, in a speech noted that evangelical churches could not endorse him, but he endorsed them. Moreover, he professed his support for “state’s rights.” By the late 1980s, this prohibition against political candidates openly endorsing racist ideas was beginning to erode, as evidence by the race-baiting Willie Horton ad campaign used in 1988 against Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis.

By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the structural racism of evangelicalism was clearly visible for all to see. Like his father before him, George W. Bush used a racist ad campaign in South Carolina to discredit his opponent; this time, it was a Republican—John McCain—who was outperforming him in the primaries. The Bush campaign distributed flyers suggested that McCain’s adopted daughter from Bangladesh was a black child that McCain had fathered out of wedlock. Such racist smear tactics by the Republican Party and their white evangelical supporters became the norm following the nomination and election of the first African American president, Barack Obama. In looking at the 2008 presidential campaign, Butler pays particular attention to the race-baiting antics of Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin—a strategy that Donald Trump would use 8 years later to win the presidency.

Butler’s indictment of white evangelicalism is convincing and deserving of a widespread readership. However, the shortness of the book (only 149 pages) means that as many questions go unanswered as answered; it also means that much nuance is lost which sadly may result in many being unconvinced by her argument. For example, in focusing exclusively on the racist lineage of evangelicalism, rather than situating it in dialogue with those who rejected slavery and supported abolition, the author misses an opportunity to explain why the former gained prominence over the latter nationwide (not just in the South) despite the South’s defeat. Similarly, the author briefly touches on the alliance that formed between evangelical protestants and conservative Catholics in the 1980s, but never explains how protestants overcame their previous hostility towards Catholicism, which in the 1950s and early 1960s was only second to Communism as the enemy of Christian civilization in the eyes of white Evangelicals. More problematic is the author’s oversimplification of contributing factors to election losses and victories in the service of her larger argument about systemic racism in evangelicalism. For example, she seemingly attributes Michael Dukakis’s 1988 election loss solely to the race-baiting Willie Horton ad campaign. The ad campaign undoubtedly played on white racist fears, but as political scientist John Sides notes the ad was only on TV for a short time in a limited market. Moreover, at the time that the ad was aired (October 1988), Dukakis was already far behind in the polls. Butler only briefly touches upon how issues of class and gender (long-simmering economic resentments and misogyny) played into Trump’s electoral success and how the evangelicalism’s initial lower status vis-à-vis the rich steepled churches may have contributed to its adherents’ vulnerability to racist arguments.

[Chanequa Walker-Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to the audio version of this book. Before I’d finished the first chapter, I knew I needed (not wanted…needed) it in hard copy as well. Dr. Butler distills, in the briefest but most insightful way possible, how “racism is a feature, not a bug, of evangelicalism.” This is a must-read for Christians committed to racial justice, for evangelicals (and ex-vangelicals) of color who are trying to make sense of their experiences, and for anyone who’s trying to “save” evangelicalism from itself. I will be adding this to the required reading list of the seminary course that I teach on race, racisms, and reconciliation.

[Ian Beardsell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps I am being overly harsh with just 3 stars.

I agree with Anthea Butler's points. The United States evangelical movement has been riddled with racism for a long time. That seems apparent on the face of things. To me, it seems to have become especially evident in the Trump years in which so many "evangelical Christians" in the US wrapped themselves in the American flag and Republican/Tea Party political ideals. And how on earth do Christians turn a blind eye towards the former president's numerous marital infidelities, his dog-whistle racism and misogyny? Oh?! He conveniently says he is pro life, so everything else he does is OK then??

However, I often was unsure how Butler came to some of her conclusions. She seemed to skip a few steps or made assumptions of the reader's understanding, mostly about American politics and cultural norms, which may be missed by a wider international audience. Even as a Canadian, I felt that some of the names and events to which she referred to as common knowledge and not needing further contextual explanation were obscure, but perhaps I am not as conversant in US history and politics as I thought. This is a pity because I believe her message and warnings are important. I think that the book evolved out of an original editorial piece, and I wonder, given it is only 148 pages, if it could have used more supporting evidence and analysis.

On the whole, her conclusions make sense on the surface, but for such a highly rated book, it seemed like a slightly enlarged magazine article that skips the hard evidence and analysis I would have liked.

[Holly Hillard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book immediately after reading Jesus and John Wayne. This one focuses solely on racism whereas Jesus and John Wayne is a more robust analysis of all the issues that evangelicalism had embraced in search of power. I think I preferred Jesus and John Wayne more, but both books are important reads.

The conclusion in this book is excellent. The author speaks directly to current evangelicals and asks them tough questions. I would like to hear the answers to those questions from people I know.

[Kelly Parker · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not one who needs to be convinced that the evangelical church is full of racist hypocrites; I’ve spent countless Sundays sitting right next to them.
That being said, this book was a disappointment. The author couldn’t seem to decide if she was writing a factual account or an editorial. She also wrote, often, about the feelings and motivations of people and institutions, stated as fact, without citing proof to back up her claims. I thought about jotting down some examples of this as I read, but then decided that I didn’t care enough. I just kept thinking that she would be skewered for this in an English 101 class. Lastly, and perhaps most sadly, she had nothing new to offer on the subject.
Thanks to #netgalley and #universityofnorthcarolinapress for this ARC of #whiteevangelicalracism in exchange for an honest review.

[Heather Ferguson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went in to this thinking it was along the lines of Jemar Tisby's The Color of Compromise or Kristen DuMez's Jesus and John Wayne, however Anthea Butler's contribution to this ever important conversation is more along the lines of an Op-ed. With that in mind, it more makes sense as I was disappointed that some of the claims made were not backed up by documentation. But having read much of the same information in the other two books mentioned-which were backed up by notations and footnotes, I was able to finish it with the posture of continuing to listen to Black voices and their experiences within Evangelicalism as well as the continuing influence of racism in the White American church. Her conclusion was a no holds barred call to account, even speaking to the point that if Conservative Christians got everything they wanted from the political realm(i.e over-turning Roe V. Wade, no gay marriage, etc,)there would still be racism because simply they don't care enough (or don't believe there is a problem) to want things to be any different on that issue. Pointed, emotional - this is her voice. For a more historically documented approach to the interwovenness of racism within white Evangelicalism, I heartily recommend Jemar Tisby's The Color Of Compromise.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I agreed with the ideas expressed in this book, especially

… evangelicalism is not a simply religious group at all. Rather, it is a nationalistic political movement whose purpose is to support the hegemony of white Christian men over and against the flourishing of others (Kindle location 1289).

If you don't agree with this view or others like it, I suggest that this book is still worth reading, because it is short and clearly written. If you wish to build up an argument against people you disagree with, the best place to start with is the writer who has confidence in her argument and does not bury her views under a mountain of blather.

At Kindle location 602, the author references this 2014 article by Randall Balmer in Politico Magazine which, Butler writes,

debunked one of the most durable myths in recent history, the conceit that the religious right, fundamentalism, and conservative evangelicals emerged as a political movement in response to the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973.

This is an important argument in this book. I think it would be worth it to read this article before or while you read this book. The real reason that conservative evangelicals emerged as a political force, Balmer says (and Butler agrees), is that evangelicals wished to exact revenge on the federal government, because the feds forced segregated schools to integrate by threatening to revoke religious schools' tax-exempt status. Again, I found this convincing.

(Digression: Thinking about the facts in the previous paragraph led me to wonder: Who first said “When somebody says 'It's not the money, it's the principle of the thing', …. it's the money.”? Find the answer here.)

At Kindle location 1234, the author briefly mentions the Supreme Court case of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd., v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which was decided in favor of a cake shop that refused to provide a wedding cake to a gay couple. It's an interesting case, and again I agree with the conclusion that Butler drew from the facts. To know more about the facts of this case, read two good articles about it on the site Scotusblog. One was written before the decision, the other after.

Thank you to Netgalley and University of North Carolina Press for making a free electronic galley copy of this book available to me for review.

[Morgan Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read that I hope sparks conversations in many circles, especially evangelical ones. I wish this book was a little longer and had more background on evangelicalism. I feel like laying out the foundational concepts before getting into the history and intricacies would have helped because the word "evangelical" is thrown around in many different contexts.

Key takeaways:

-"Color-blind conservatism rested on the idea that since the government was "taking care" of race reform, there was no need for conservatives to discuss racial issues in depth, detail, or sincerity" (59).
-Framing evangelicals as a "persecuted minority" & how this narrative remains today
-Intersection of racism and capitalism: "Capitalism and Christianity in America melded with free enterprise in the twentieth century. This affinity created an interesting synergy in the twenty-first century, supplanting the values of caring for the poor and the indigent with the values of free markets, individual responsibility, and a sense that the government should not provide assistance to those who Teavangelicals viewed as unable to manage in the marketplace, whatever the reason may be" (123).
-Inherent racism in evangelicalism: "Even when Black Christians were killed, evangelicals' responses did not address racial injustice" (133). (Dylann Roof and murder of Black parishioners in South Carolina)

[J Percell Lakin · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important book that takes the reader through the evangelical movement starting in the nineteenth century to show that racism has always been imbedded in white evangelicalism. The book goes a long way to ensure that we understand that what many have seen as a radial change in the movement over the last several years has actually been the movement being true to its history and roots. As Professor Butler points out at this point in our historical moment, “evangelicals are not being persecuted in America. They are being called to account.”

[Susan Tunis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this concise text packs a wallop! Ms. Butler, black and a former Evangelical herself, qualifies and quantifies things that I have felt intuitively with compelling history and facts. She makes clear links that result in unavoidable conclusions.

And this book isn't merely about a religious group (that makes up a huge chunk of our citizenry). This gets to the bedrock of our culture and our politics. A quick and very enlightening read!

[Taneka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Also read: The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

[Adam Shields · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: An exploration of White Evangelicals and Racism, primarily focusing on recent history.

Anthea Butler is a professor of religion and history at the University of Pennsylvania. This is a book that I keep seeing advanced readers recommend. (White Evangelical Racism does not come out until March 22). In many ways, it feels like a good follow-up to Jemar Tisby's Color of Compromise because while both have some overlap, Color of Compromise primarily focuses on the complicity in racism by the church before the civil rights era with some content after that point. In contrast, White Evangelical Racism primarily focuses on Evangelicalism from the Moral Majority rise and after. Reading them together is complimentary.

One of the complaints that Butler is clearly trying to avoid is the 'but not all White people' complaint. Repeatedly Butler affirms that she is talking about those White Evangelicals that she is talking about, not all of them. But she has strong words throughout the book because there is a willingness for many to be complicit.

"...when evangelical writers claim to they not understand the overwhelming nature of evangelical support for right wing and sometimes downright scurrilous Republican canidates and politicos, they fail to reckon with evangelical history." (p9)

Like many other historians, Butler suggests that the story of Evangelicalism in the US can't be told without discussing racism and that many evangelical historians do not want to tell that more complicated story. (p 12) With the recent analysis of President Biden's inauguration speech, there has been a discussion about the difference in the rhetoric of Christian Nationalism and what some see as potential positives of a type of civil religion.

Butler lays out a case that the use of civil religious language in opposition to communism is related to the type of civil religious language used to oppose the civil rights movement. Quoting Billy Graham in his 1949 LA revival when Graham connected Christianity, the love of American and nationalism, and anti-communism. "...you will never find a true born again Christian who is a communist or fellow traveler. You get a man born again, and he will turn from communism." (p42)  The result is that when the civil rights movement was labeled as communist, instead of white Christians seeing Graham's rhetorical example as proof that fellow Christians should not be overly labeled as communists, many white Christians saw the label of communist as proof that the civil rights movement could not be Christian. (A move that is similarly being used today concerning Critical Race Theory.)

Butler notes that Graham simultaneously thought that the Evangelical church was behind on racial issues (in a speech to NAE in 1952) and that Graham was not in favor of much of the civil rights movement's methods even as he theoretically approved of the rough concept of integration. "[Graham] recognized the problem of racial injustice and evoked the pain caused by unjust social norms, but he was unwilling to break ranks with the white status quo." (p 44). This extended to the point where Graham refused a direct request by MLK to not appear on stage with a segregationist advocate in 1957 and spoke against the March on Washington and King's speech in 1963. Graham never went as far as Billy Hargis who argued that desegregation violated biblical principles or the John Birch Society. Still, one of the issues that Bulter is noting is that it is rare for any white Evangelical to disfellowship another white Evangelical over racism. So while some white Evangelicals were supportive of the civil rights movement, and some like Graham were supportive of the goals. Still, not the means, and some actively opposed the civil rights movement (like Jerry Fallwell Sr), all were still within a group that still broadly self-identified as Evangelical.

There is a group that objects to the very notion of white Evangelicals. Evangelical has a theological definition, and if you meet the theological definition, then you are an evangelical, regardless of racial background. The problem with this approach is apparent in the fact that many theologically affirm the ideas that make one evangelical theologically, but most racial minorities do self-identifying as evangelical. But many that are white and do not theologically agree with the theological definition of evangelical do self identify as evangelical. Many, but not all, self-identified Evangelicals who are racial minorities have in some level 'emulated whiteness.' (p60)  Bill Pannell said in his 1968 book, My Friend, The Enemy:

"I have no trouble believing you want me in your church to sing on Sunday. I have very little faith that you want me in your living room for serious discussion. Yet here is where the breakthrough may take place." (p62)

There is a longer discussion about how that adoption of white norms, or how Black and other minorities were brought into white evangelical spaces under terms acceptable to maintaining racial hierarchies. For instance, Billy Graham's use of Black singers or athletes at his crusades or Ben Kinchlow acting as Pat Robertson's sidekick on the 700 Club gave cover against racism charges. Still, it did not subvert concepts of white superiority. As there has been some recognition that racial reconciliation efforts are necessary, those efforts often do not extend toward organizations or church leadership. And they do not extend changes in political activities outside of the church.

Overall I think that White Evangelical Racism is a helpful addition to the general literature, even as it is one of the shorter books in this area. But I wanted more discussion about why some white evangelicals were more engaged over racial issues than others and why some evangelicals are actively opposed to recognizing racial realities. I think at least part of this explanation is Christian Nationalism. But that is not a clear enough idea at this point for this to be the only answer.

I think that Butler over-identifies Evangelicalism as the problem instead of directly implicating white superiority or Christian Nationalism within Christianity more broadly. Because of that, I think there is a bit of misidentification of the problem. I do not debate with Butler's main point that white Evangelicals have largely been either actively complicit in racism or at least tolerant in identifying with those that are complicit with racism. But while white Evangelicals are more likely to be Christian Nationalists or adjacent to Christian Nationalism or poll higher than average as xenophobic or racist or sexist, they are not the only white Christians to have issues here. White Catholics and mainline protestants and to some extent Eastern Orthodox also have similar tendencies in this direction, albeit lesser than white Evangelicals.

[Miles Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

A completely cartoonish book. Read it, just to enjoy it, like sucking in helium from a balloon. Its stupid right, but its kinda fun.

[Arline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short and worthy read. Would be an excellent book to read in white Christian small group or Book club.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the things that confuses secular Americans the most is how the evangelical crowd can vote for Donald Trump when he is the antithesis of everything the Christian religion supposedly stands for. How can someone who believes in the teachings of Christ first and foremost, vote for a thrice married adulterer, alleged child rapist, liar, etc., etc.. I know it certainly has been a dichotomy that has been turning over in my head for the past four years. Enter Anthea Butler who has succinctly explained how this came to be and, while many presume the reason is simply abortion, there are actually more layers and quite a history that has lead to where we are now. The underlying reason evangelicals are this way? Racism.

It's so easy for modern evangelicals to balk when being accused of racism, but how many of them accurately know where their movement has come from? I would wager not many. Thankfully for those of us who have been hung up on this issue for awhile, Butler lays out for us in a very succinct manner how evangelicalism adopted racism for its benefit since slavery and how it grew after the second reiteration of the Klan in 1915.

Many people know that when Trump and other Republicans talk about "law and order" they are using a dog whistle for anti-blackness. It seemed evident to me when this phrase first hit my radar during the protests this past summer, but how did that phrase become such a dog whistle? This was one of the most eye opening parts of the book to me, along with the rise of Billy Graham and how he ties in with anticommunist sentiments which then morphed into racist sentiments. Graham, Hoover, the Red Scare, an evangelical fear of end times... it seems they all combined to create this everlasting racism.

Butler also demonstrates how evangelicals became politically entwined with the Republican party, to the point today where, in my mind, it is impossible to separate the two. I would urge you to read this book even if it were just for this section because it shows how a minority of Americans have been able to leverage their vote and win presidential elections as a result. Butler argues that George W. Bush was the first to benefit from this and how it has grown. A look at almost any evangelical/fundamentalist Instagram or Facebook account shows they are falling for the conspiracy theories spouted by Trump, who they seem to think is second to Christ but indeed act as if he is first. Even knowing how they arrived there, it still blows my mind.

On a side note, this section reminded me of something important. In the age of Trumpism, it's easy to look back at George W.'s administration and think, "Well, maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought," but if you take the time (for a two minute Google search, even) you can easily find examples of disgusting, racist behavior on the behalf of the former president. We have to insist that the bar has not moved. We cannot dismiss the awful behavior of other Republicans because "at least they're not as bad as Trump." Trump should be the extreme, not the bar between okay and not okay.

I want to thank Butler for taking the time and putting in the work to write this book because it answers several questions many of us have had about the religious voting bloc. I would encourage you to read this succinct and timely book, it won't take more than a few hours, and in the end you'll have at least some of the answers you may have been looking for. If you are evangelical, Butler also writes directly to you at the end of the book. While it's unlikely evangelicals will read the book, they ought to. They know they are accused of racism and it's time for them to learn why and grow from it. Well, one can dream.

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America by Anthea Butler is a clear and concise history of how contemporary Evangelicalism is not a sudden phenomenon but the result of the racism built into its early strands and maintained as a foundational element throughout.

There is a faux educator on Netgalley (unless maybe he works (mis)educating people for Breitbart) who can be counted on to spew nonsense whenever he stumbles across any book that supports anything other than white pseudo-Christian patriarchal society, and this is no exception. He pretends that Butler does not acknowledge that some early Evangelicals did lead the fight against slavery (she does acknowledge it). He cites an economist (though by the wrong first name, William is his middle name and not the one he publishes under) who won a Nobel prize for a theory on slavery, though that is not what Fogel is mentioned for. The book mentioned is questionable at best and, even giving some of it the benefit of the doubt, does not refute Butler's points at all. This bigoted faux-educator hopes that no one has read or is familiar with any previous scholarship or, for that matter, historical events and will not notice the stench coming from his mouth. And, since he is really just preaching to others like himself, they are probably as unfamiliar with the books and events as he is, he is clearly cribbing his racism from someone else, but he still spreads his filth on far too many good books that could help bring people together, except he has a narrow view of who qualifies as people.

Okay, I feel better now, cowards like that just irk me. This book disrupts what Evangelicals have been doing for generations not so much by uncovering new information but by bringing all of these things together so we can see the big picture. And the big picture is that racism is at the heart of white Evangelicalism in the United States and has been for many years. Once they finally left any Christianity behind and became a full-fledged cult intent on gaining power, they were no longer able, in a rational person's mind, to hide behind any form of morality.

Yes, this book fired me up because it makes very clear, in well argued and supported points, the things many of us have known and/or sensed for some time. Maybe someone who doesn't live in stupidity central (Lynchburg, VA, home of the faux university Liberty run by the cult Falwell) will be able to stand back and have their understanding improved by this book. I see this hatred and inbreeding daily and get fired up.

If I have offended anyone, too bad. Considering the people in cages, dead or dying, going hungry and/or homeless because of what these people do, I don't care if I hurt someone's little feelings. I am not worried since you're all cowards anyway.

So, highly recommended for those who want to learn. For those who don't, well, you probably wouldn't be able to read it anyway, there are polysyllabic words in the book.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A less than celebratory exploration of white Evangelicalism, primarily covering the past seventy-five years.

The author was raised and nurtured in the Evangelical context. Some time is spent arriving at the postwar era, but the focus is on how (white) Evangelicalism stood in terms of race from the postwar era until today. The author brings out all the skeletons from the closet: Graham's waffling on race and his belief that white and black children would only associate after the return of Jesus; the condemnation of the Civil Rights Movement as godless Communism and a distraction from spiritual witness; the willingness to use those same methods to develop the "Moral Majority," and the development of that organization first on account of the threat of segregation academies losing their tax-exempt status, not abortion; the willingness to look as if they were about to become inclusive, but then the turn toward dressed up racism in white grievance politics and hegemony with Bush II, the reaction to Obama, and reaching its apotheosis with Trump.

The judgment is sharp and bracing; if the work were presented as if it were *the* history of Evangelicalism, it would surely be a warped and unbalanced distortion. Yet the author herself, in conclusion, recognizes the good that many Evangelicals have done, and recognizes this is not the only dimension to the story of Evangelicalism in America. Yet it surely represents *a* dimension of what conservative Christendom in America has been and now is. It's the story left untold, that which was passed over in silence, or attempted to be swept under the carpet. But now it's out in full force and sadly proving to be a powerful motivator for affiliation.

A very ugly and distressing truth indeed, but a necessary counterweight to the celebratory works of history often made of the Evangelicals and their influence on American politics.

**--galley received as part of early review program

[Hannah Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Why do people who identify as evangelicals vote over and over again for political figures who in speech and deed do not evince the Christian qualities that evangelicalism espouses? My answer is that evangelicalism is not a simply religious group at all. Rather, it is a nationalistic political movement whose purpose is to support the hegemony of white Christian men over and against the flourishing of others. To put it more baldly, evangelicalism is an Americanized Christianity born in the context of Christian slaveholders."

Every person who considers themself an evangelical or was raised in evangelical culture needs to read this book. Dr. Butler methodically and comprehensively outlines in detail the ways that evangelicalism serves to uphold white supremacy in the United States and how this has always been the implicit purpose of evangelicalism as a culture and an institution. Racism didn't show up in megachurches in 2016; it's baked into the very framework of what it means to be an evangelical, what it means to be pro-life, and what it means to hold "family values."

A clean 176 pages—you can read it over a weekend—and if you're waiting for a sign that you need to read this, here is your sign. Get reading.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
I wanted to love this, because I agree with its thesis that racism is a feature rather than a bug of American Evangelicalism and that Christianity needs to confront its racism much more head-on than it has hitherto. Maybe that's part of why the book did not impress me as much as I hoped: I already knew about some of this history and agreed with the book's claims, so I didn't find much new in the book. While it gestures at the theological and philosophical underpinnings of American racism, it's primarily a whirlwind tour through American history rather than an analysis. I would have liked more depth of analysis, especially in places where Butler mentions African American Evangelicals and their varied responses to Evangelical ideology. Overall, I think this is a good introduction to Evangelical racism and a fairly succinct answer to those who still ask why Evangelicals embrace and worship a blatantly racist con man. Perhaps it is ultimately in the book's favor that I wanted more analysis amd more detailed history; this is a vitally important topic that deserves many explorations and this book provides a fairly short and not-over-foot-noted way in.

[Carol Kearns · Rating 5 out of 5]

As stated in another review—this book will make your mind explode. I grew up in an evangelical family and graduated from an evangelical college. When candidate Trump was supported by white evangelicals I had a “Come to Jesus” moment and realized I no longer placed myself in the same group as these white nationalist leaders (Dobson, F. Graham, Falwell, etc) and their followers. I didn’t believe what they believed. The author also had an evangelical background with the difference being that she is Black. She also had a realization moment that took her out of this group. If you are on the fence about the prospect of racism being the backbone of the white evangelical movement I urge you to listen to (or read) this book.

[Kylie Q. Rada · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one has been on my radar since my mom sent me a review written by a family member in a major Christian magazine. I have been very interested in the intersections between whiteness, Christianity, and racism in America for a while now so I was glad to see the audiobook pop up as new on my Libby app. And since it was only 4 hours, I was able to finish this today at work. In short, this book does what it sets out to do: Chronicles the history of white evangelical racism from slavery to Trump. It's eye-opening, gut-wrenching, and allegiance-challenging. I'm so glad to have read it. I need to get my hands on a physical copy so I can annotate the hell out of it.

[Stephen Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is excellent. Every fundamentalist and evangelical church and school with which I have been associated was and is deeply and persistently White supremacist and I have been all too comfortably acclimated and participating.

[Steve Dustcircle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A group-by-group examination of different far-right extremist groups in American history leading up to modern times with the cult of Trump, suicide cults, Oathkeepers ,Proud Boys, and the III-percenters. Important read. A quick read also.