If God Still Breathes, Why Can't I?: Black Lives Matter and Biblical Authority

by Angela N. Parker

The problem with many evangelicals and mainline Protestants today stems from their belief that God inspired absolutely everything in the Bible according to these sixteenth-century ideas of inerrancy and infallibility. If that is the case, then every word on every page—every command, every idea, every scenario—is intended for and relevant to every single Christian who is reading the biblical text today. However, every single Christian must embody a particular White Protestant identity that, I argue, is found in most conservative White evangelical Christian circles. Since these White evangelicals bring so much of their own culture and personal lives to the Bible, there is no room for other engagement (such as Black Lives Matter) with the biblical text. In this way of thinking, there is room for only one particular life experience: a White life experience.