The Allegiance of White American Evangelicals to Donald Trump

Bieber, Kenneth R.; Beyers, Jaco

doi:10.1163/1572543x-12341559

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Discussions about a genuine confrontation with the truth and constructions of white identity highlight a further layer of scholarly conversation regarding religion and politics in the United States, with one especially pertinent thread of research that warrants at least brief comment. The emergence of what has come to be known as "Trumpism," white evangelical support of it, and the connection to constructions of racial identity has garnered a significant amount of scholarly attention in the last few years (Gorski 2017;Nichols 2018;Thomas 2019;Smith 2019;Bieber and Beyers 2020;Holder and Josephson 2020;Margolis 2020). While this topic is broadly germane to the theme of this essay, it is not its main focus; in fact, a closer look reveals that it has potential to distort what I read as a central message of Baldwin's writings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

James Baldwin and the “Lie of Whiteness”: Toward an Ethic of Culpability, Complicity, and Confession

Oliver

2021

Religions

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This article is an attempt to draw on James Baldwin’s depiction of white identity as the “the lie of whiteness” to tease out a nascent ethics that centers the role of genuine, honest confrontation with this so-called “lie.” In order to connect the dots between excavation of Baldwin’s lie of whiteness and the provinces of religious ethics, we will explore the role that truth-telling plays in the form of something like a religious notion of confession, limiting our engagement with confession to an honest and genuine encounter with culpability and responsibility through truth-telling. The analysis will be guided by several questions: how might a genuine reckoning with the reality and prevalence of what Baldwin intimately describes about whiteness and its connection to anti-black racism be understood morally? How might this confrontation with the truth be understood in relation to a religious concept like confession, as defined above? Finally, how might this process of confrontation further expose the machinations of Baldwin’s “lie of whiteness” and, in so doing, offer an ethical response that includes culpability and complicity? In so doing, this article seeks to begin sketching out an ethics of the role of confession in the struggle against the evils of anti-black racism, through direct engagement with Baldwin’s description of the “lie of whiteness.”

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%