He took on the role of ruler not as a god but rather as a high-priest and king. Despite attempts to ban the vendetta, it persisted and gradually even took root in America. When President Trump said that we want more immigrants from Norway, not from “s-hole countries,” how are people of color supposed to feel hearing that other than that it reflects the president and many white Americans’ belief – and more than belief, the all-too-prevalent reality, usually implicit but now explicitly trumpeted – that America has a preference for white people. Until we who are white see our own salvation at stake, and stop thinking this is for other people who we want to help, we can’t credibly claim to be followers of Jesus Christ. Given these tough realities, where is a white person who wants to follow Jesus and honor the image of God in all people supposed to start in the monumental undertaking of dismantling white supremacy?

The mind of the common person understands religious symbols in a literal way, whereas the philosopher interprets them allegorically. This more even population distribution has led to more religious conflicts in the eastern regions, including Poso and Maluku, since the resignation of President Suharto. Jim Wallis is the founder and former president of Sojourners. The world is essentially dependent on God, and this dependence implies (1) that God is the Creator of the world — the producer of its whole substance; and (2) that its continuance in being at every moment is due to His sustaining power. If we seek to be followers of Jesus, as well as faithful bearers of God’s image, anywhere in the world but particularly in the United States today, we must confront, repudiate, and repent of the evil of racism that is woven throughout almost every aspect of our society. Structural racism is so deeply embedded in American society that it presents itself as an implicit promise made to white people in this country that, no matter their circumstance, they will always at least be treated better than people of color. And together they combine to make people who have been here their whole lives feel like this country isn’t for them.

The Harry Potter book series and film adaptations have attracted a massive global following with an equally extensive catalog of fan lore. His latest book is The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy. I strongly believe that unless we are willing to hear each other’s hearts and deepest feelings, we can never make true progress in dismantling systems of oppression like white supremacy. And as I’ve said before, to benefit from oppression is to be responsible for ending it. The illusion and idol of whiteness and the unearned privileges it confers is the core problem, and it’s an idol that is principally up to white people to tear down, as the ones who erected it and benefit from it. It’s not even about saying the right thing. They could interfere with any living creature – gods, mortals, and even insects! The instrument has been saved from a fire and even hidden away when the IRS came a-calling. “It’s like you don’t even have to say ‘send her back.’ I can feel ‘send her back.’ I can feel that in my chest. For instance, if we say that we will accept the Bible as our ultimate authority only if %100 of literary scholars say it is true, then those scholars become our ultimate authority, not the Bible.

Keep showing up. If you don’t say the right thing, that’s all right. And that’s what they feel on every level. That’s how most people of color genuinely feel, but it’s very difficult to feel safe speaking with that level of honesty in white spaces. As Allison Trowbridge put in in our conversation, “Repentance needs to happen on a systemic level. Whether public policy, urban housing, or, or the economy conversation, or the healthcare conversation, or the all of it … From 2022 to 2023, there was a 92% increase in books targeted for censorship at public libraries. He is the inaugural holder of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Chair in Faith and Justice at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy and director of its new Center on Faith and Justice. Now you’re just trying to figure out a way to discard us,” Matthews said. “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. In a recent analysis of ongoing armed conflicts worldwide, out of 16 major armed conflicts ongoing in 2009, about half were attributable, at least partially, to a religious cause.1 Crucially, since 2001 the con­flict with al-Qaeda could be added to this list.