A word about . . . White Christian nationalism and one Womanist’s invitation into a deeper story

Abstract

The political climate in the United States leading up to the 2016 election and beyond has shone a spotlight on White Christian nationalism and its deep hold on US Christianity. White Christian nationalism assumes a narrative that God founded America through White people. White people were here first, and everyone else is a threat. White Christian nationalism only wants some of its members to make it home (i.e., White Christians). White Christian nationalism reaches beyond this political structure and is foundational to Eurocentric approaches to biblical studies and Christianity in general. The story of Jesus’s own encounter with an “other” in Matt 15:21-28 invites us into a deeper story of Jesus that can help amend the narratives that keep us separate and divided. Part of the job of contemporary Jesus followers is to ensure the livelihood of the entire body of Christ and not only one segment of it.

White Christian nationalism’s “deep story” goes something like this: America was founded as a Christian nation by (White) men who were “traditional” Christians, who based the nation’s founding documents on “Christian principles.” The United States is blessed by God, which is why it has been so successful, and the nation has a special role to play in God’s plan for humanity. But these blessings are threatened by cultural degradation from “un-American” influences both inside and outside our borders. ¹

Introduction

I think it is interesting that many of my academic positions post-PhD have been positions in which I have been invited to enter into various institutional stories. For example, when I first moved to Seattle to teach at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, I entered an institution that understood itself as a progressive evangelical space different from a “Mars Hill Church” type organization that was headed by the disgraced megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll (who still currently pastors a church in Arizona). Upon leaving Seattle, I now find myself in an institution birthed during the split of the Southern Baptist Convention that left many Southern Baptist affiliated seminaries dismissing their women professors in the 1990s. The point of my introductory reflections is that many of us, individuals and collectives, engage with the idea of the “deep story.” Indeed, many of us, both individually and institutionally, still wrestle with the deep stories in which we have been formed and shaped.

Introducing White Christian nationalism

In the description above, writers Gorski and Perry borrow the “deep story” idea from sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild’s 2016 book titled Strangers in Their Own Land. In this book, Hoschchild recounts lessons learned as she interviewed White working-class Americans in rural Louisiana. ² For these Americans, their “deep story” entailed the idea that they had been waiting patiently for the American dream to show up in their lives but they saw immigrants and minorities cutting the line. Only someone like Donald Trump would stop the line-cutters who had been helped by elites like Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton. Their assumptions mirror White Christian nationalism’s deep story that God founded America through White people. White people were here first, and everyone else is a threat.

It appears to me that many people need an invitation into a deeper story of Jesus that can help amend the deep stories that keep us separate and divided. With that being said, the balance of this essay is one Womanist ³ New Testament scholar’s invitation into a deeper story of Jesus that trumps the deep story of White Christian nationalism. Truthfully, I would argue the deep story of White Nationalism does not have any resemblance to Christianity, but in today’s parlance “Christian” has become synonymous with “White.”

In my own work, If God Still Breathes, Why Can’t I? Black Lives Matter & Biblical Authority, I argue that part of the narrative of biblical studies has been steeped in Eurocentric thinking. For example, I highlight the work of G. W. F. Hegel who understood the history of the world through the lens of progress. For Hegel, a pure, authentic culture is a culture that progresses toward consciousness of freedom. He believed the “Spirit” directed history through phases, beginning with “the Oriental World,” then moving into the Greek and Roman worlds, and finally culminating in the “Germanic” age with Christianity. ⁴ Biblical scholars such as David Horrell and Shawn Kelly have stressed that Hegel’s philosophy of history and progress is a racialized one that promotes a narrative of Western European (specifically German) cultural, religious, and racial superiority. ⁵ Therefore, purity and superiority exist only within Western European culture and thus to Americans who identify as White. ⁶ This narrative (i.e., deep story) has infiltrated biblical scholarship.

Not only did the narrative of Whiteness infiltrate biblical scholarship, but nationalism also arose in European academic thinking alongside biblical scholarship. Again, Hegel espoused an idea of consciousness that developed geographically and racially, thus assigning levels of consciousness to particular races and peoples. For Hegel, lower levels of consciousness belong to lesser, backward cultures. On the contrary, Europeans, particularly Germans, are capable of higher levels of consciousness. Germanic Europeans possess the potential for authentic culture and real freedom. Hegel developed a narrative of history that denied humanity to Africans and denied the consciousness of freedom to Jews and “Orientals.”

The beginning of nationalism has culminated in what Pamela Cooper-White defines as “unwavering and uncritical loyalty to a particular ethnic, cultural, and often religious group, identified with the nation as a sacred ‘homeland’ (over and above other groups’ claims to the same geography).” ⁷ Cooper-White further states that nationalism “becomes indistinguishable over time from xenophobia (literally, ‘fear of the stranger,’ ‘the foreigner, ‘the other,’ or simply, ‘fear of the strange’).” ⁸ I would argue that a deeper dive into one particular story of Jesus may, in fact, be the antidote to the particular nationalism that Pamela Cooper-White defines.

Turning to the genealogy of Matthew 1

Matthew’s Gospel was written by an unknown Jewish author during the first century CE. Convention calls him Matthew, although he is technically anonymous. The setting for this gospel is possibly Antioch in Syria. The gospel opens with the book of lineage (biblios geneseōs), which sets the reader up for understanding Jesus’s encounter with the Canaanite woman. In the book of lineage, the author names five women in Jesus’s genealogy. First, naming women in a genealogy was an uncommon practice in the ancient Near East. Second, the author did not name the supposed matriarchs of Israelite history (e.g., Sarah, Rachel, Leah) but instead named women who were foreign and sexually suspect (Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, wife of Uriah, and Mary the mother of Jesus). The audience apparently knows Jesus’s lineage is populated by women, a representative of whom, I argue, he will have contact with later on in Matthew’s Gospel.

The women in Jesus’s lineage demonstrate that Jesus is of mixed-race or mixed-identity. For example, Tamar, a Canaanite woman, “played the role of a prostitute” (Gen 38), while Rahab, either an actual Canaanite prostitute or a brothel owner (Jos 2:1-21; 6:22-25), is explicitly named as Boaz’s mother. Furthermore, Ruth, a Moabite woman (also a Canaanite), was compelled by Naomi to seduce Naomi’s kinfolk to ensure Naomi’s lineage (Ruth 2-4). Bathsheba, named as the “wife of Uriah,” is raped by David and bears Solomon. These women’s presence in Jesus’s lineage disrupts the normal all-male lineup of popular genealogies. Finally, Jesus is conceived by a woman and by God’s Holy Spirit. I normally ask students if they think people in Mary’s neighborhood actually believed her when she identified God’s Spirit as the father of her child. Probably not. Already, the gospel writer invites readers into a deeper story of Jesus.

Jesus encounters “other” in Matthew 15:21-28

The story of the Canaanite woman in Matthew’s Gospel is the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman in Mark 7:24-30. Matthew has changed her identifying markers, however, from Syro-Phoenician to Canaanite. I believe that this is a description of the woman’s ethnic identity, thus ensuring that Matthean readers know the woman is Gentile and not Israelite.

Furthermore, Matthean readers would understand that depicting her as “Canaanite” would remind them of inherent hostilities between Jewish people and their surrounding neighbors. Scholars have rightly argued that Matthew’s language would bring to mind “otherness” and “foreignness.” Marla J. Selvidge adds, “By using the word ‘Canaan’ Matthew stirs up . . . ancient fear and perhaps hatred of the foreigner, the unknown one—the one that became the enemy of Abraham.” ⁹ A deep story of alienation appears to exist within the Matthean gospel. Is that, however, the end of the story? Of course not! In addition, the Matthean writer, in his redaction of the Mark passage, states that the Canaanite woman comes “forth from those regions” (the regions of Tyre and Sidon; Matt 15:22), which, according to Daniel J. Harrington, suggests she is crossing the borderlines to come out and meet Jesus. ¹⁰ Often when I teach this passage, I highlight foreign people crossing borders to attain healing and wholeness from their own oppressive home situations. Such conversations should be central to Christians who may have access to southern border policy-making.

After the Canaanite woman has crossed a border to get to Jesus, another interesting tidbit in the story is how she addresses Jesus. Her language connects to the opening verse of Matt 1:1. As she cries after Jesus, the Canaanite woman reiterates the identity of Jesus as “son of David” by crying out, “Have mercy on me, Son of David.” Not only has a woman on the border of society crossed a boundary to Jesus, but she has also acknowledged and recognized Jesus’s Jewish identity and his royal lineage. Even if she is “other,” she recognizes Jesus’s identity and his connection to Israelite royal lineage.

As previously stated, Matthew’s Gospel narrates a story also found in Mark’s Gospel. Jesus’s callousness, however, is made much clearer in the Matthean narrative. Matthew adds the phrase, “Jesus did not answer her a word” (Matt 15:23). It seems to me that Jesus’s current “word” was Jewish ethno-nationalism. Jesus furthers that thought when he states that he has only come to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” (15:24; a phrase found only in Matthew’s narrative). The differences between Mark’s and Matthew’s narrative point to deeper attention regarding ethno-nationalism in the Matthean narrative.

Even with the Canaanite woman’s recognition of Jesus’s identity, interpreters of Matthew’s gospel are often divided on the indifference and callousness both the disciples and Jesus show to her. Why did Jesus not answer her a word? In his commentary on Matthew, John Nolland notes there is “no real parallel to this nonresponse by Jesus.” ¹¹ Indeed, Jesus’s nonresponse is very different from his response to the Roman Centurion in 8:8, in which Jesus is ready to follow the Centurion to his house. Furthermore, Jesus seemingly insults the woman by stating it is unfit to give the food of the children to the kuvariois (i.e., the Greek word for “dogs”). Such harsh language has stumped many interpreters over the years. Some suggest Jesus is harsh in order to test the woman’s faith capacity. ¹² Other interpreters argue for an understanding of the epithet “dog” to be understood as “puppy,” in an endearing way. ¹³ Finally, others try to rid the “dog” metaphor of any insulting associations. Thus, Jesus is not showing any ethno-nationalist tendencies so as not to appear misogynistic or racist. ¹⁴ I fear such an interpretation is a stretch.

While scholars agree the modern concept of race does not appear in the ancient world, a general consensus exists among classical historians that a type of proto-racism existed. Proto-racism in the ancient world may not have been understood as equivalent to the modern concept of race and racism, but competing ideologies make some issues similar. ¹⁵ Classical historian Isaac Benjamin argues a certain type of determinism existed in the ancient world similar to how we understand racism today. Specifically, the members of the ancient world associated negative characteristics with particular people groups that deterministically linked the people’s character to a particular group’s place of origin. Benjamin argues this type of deterministic thinking is analogous with the way moderns have defined races by making associations with intellect and physical characteristics such as gender and skin color. Jesus calling the Canaanite woman a dog is similar. Moreover, the woman submits to Jesus’s harsh words by stating that even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table. She has internalized Jesus’s racism by embracing the racialized epithet. ¹⁶ Noticing all these issues and differences between the non-Jewish Roman Centurion and the non-Jewish Canaanite woman begs the question: Why does Jesus act differently in each scenario?

Before pondering an answer to the above question, let me provide an anecdotal teaching story. While teaching this passage in the context of my New Testament class, I had a male student say that, if he were Jesus, he would not answer a screaming woman either. The student was insinuating a gendered difference between the calm and rational way the Roman Centurion may have asked as opposed to the hysterical nature of the woman. I had to remind students that, although falling into dismissiveness of “loud women” is easy, Jesus was often assailed by people crying after him. Indeed, in Matt 20:30, two blind men were crying out with the exact same words the Canaanite woman proclaims in the current pericope. My point is that we often fashion Jesus in our own image based on our own gendered and nationalistic biases. These biases keep us from delving into the deeper story.

Moving back to the question of the difference between Jesus’s response to the Roman Centurion versus the Canaanite woman, my best answer is that Jesus has realized something different within himself. By the story’s conclusion, not only does the Canaanite woman come away with a healed daughter, but Jesus comes away with a healed understanding of his own identity and a push to provide a more inclusive mission and ministry. After his encounter with the Canaanite woman, Jesus moves from an ethno-nationalistic focus on the house of Israel to a more inclusive ministry because, unlike the Roman Centurion, the Canaanite woman is similar to the women in Jesus’s own lineage because she is foreign, other, and what Ben Quash might refer to as a “stray.” ¹⁷ Jesus has recognized the foreign other in his own lineage while also tapping into and recognizing his own “stray” status.

As scholars and preachers engage this deep story of Jesus, I am taken by Ben Quash’s language around the text. In Found Theology, Quash writes about stray cats and likens the Canaanite woman to such an idea. ¹⁸ Because the pericope uses the language of cur’s meaning “dog,” Quash discusses how a stray animal (specifically a cat) may arrive at a person’s doorstep and adopt the person without them realizing the animal is adopting them. Essentially, we can ignore the millions of strays until one actually walks in and will not leave. For Quash, the Canaanite woman represents such a stray. And while “stray” language may be apropos for Quash’s constructive theology on the Spirit, Quash is being generous because he does not highlight the racist nature of Jesus’s language. Nonetheless, one must ask: Does Jesus show a bit of “stray” mentality?

Nadine Ellsworth-Moran believes so. Citing Quash, Ellsworth-Moran argues that Jesus has alluded to his own stray status when he states, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matt 8:20). ¹⁹ Does recognizing his own “stray” status push Jesus a step closer in understanding the status of the Canaanite woman? As Jesus looks into the face of the Canaanite woman, is he now forced to see the faces of the women listed in his genealogy? Although readers may never know the answer for certain, I do believe the gospel writer is making a rhetorical argument for a more inclusive message that crosses boundaries, blurs identities, and expands mission. Furthermore, I do believe this passage is the linchpin passage to demonstrate Jesus’s move from an ethno-nationalistic focus to a more inclusive ministry.

The Gospel of Matthew in its entirety shows much tension in the ways it talks about mission to the nations. Specifically, Matt 10:5-6 prohibits the disciples from entering into Gentile land while Matt 15:24 explicitly states that Jesus is only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The words of the Canaanite woman, however, change Jesus’s mind and mission so that by the time readers get to Matt 28:19, they know that all nations are part of Jesus’s inclusive ministry.

The invitation

A dive into the deeper story of Jesus and his conversation with the Canaanite woman sets all readers on a precipice that makes them ask different questions of the text and of their lives. These questions may include some of the following. How can I enter into the deeper story of Jesus? Where do I situate myself in the story? Am I the Jesus figure who feels as though I have the right to withhold blessings, wholeness, and healing from particular groups of people? Am I the arbiter of a particular ethno-nationalist identity that only I can dispense to other people? Am I a gatekeeping disciple who wants to tell folks to “go back where they came from!”? Or am I the person who suffers from my own internalized racism by allowing others to call me a host of names (i.e., dog, thug, whore, Welfare-queen, etc.)? Finally, how does this pericope combat White Christian nationalism?

The invitation to explore such questions is certainly not easy. No one ever stated, however, that the walk of Jesus would be easy for contemporary followers. Our current time is one in which a certain type of Christianity (White Christian nationalism) is growing at a rapid pace. Indeed, Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Green has called herself a proud Christian nationalist and is seemingly making the term more acceptable. ²⁰ Remember, the deep story of White Christian nationalism asserts that America was founded as a Christian nation by (White) men who were “traditional” Christians. Furthermore, the founders based the nation’s founding documents on “Christian principles.” Finally, the United States is blessed by God and has a special role to play in God’s plan for humanity. I am stumped as to where we find such idyllic language about the United States in the biblical text or in our Constitution.

I would argue that an invitation into the deeper story of Jesus prompts each one of us to exhibit a multitude of postures in the fight against White Christian nationalism. The first posture is an invitation to take a deep look at US history, not a White-washed view of history, but a view of history that takes note of all the injustices therein. For example, in the genealogy of Jesus, Tamar, Judah’s daughter-in-law, is named. According to the narrative of Genesis 38, Tamar tricks Judah into impregnating her after he withholds his other sons from her. In today’s society, people may classify Tamar as a whore or sexually promiscuous woman. The Genesis narrative acknowledges, however, that she is more righteous than Judah (v. 26). Looking into the collective history within the United States, where do we see righteousness? Do we see righteousness only in the forefathers of the United States of America who are known slaveholders? Or do we see righteousness in the masses of enslaved people who fought for freedom, while their descendants continue to fight for equal rights in the United States of America?

The second posture is an invitation to interrogate our own biases. In my teaching anecdote, I discussed students who classified the Canaanite woman as a loud woman. Indeed, as an African American woman, I have been called both loud and angry. Both of these characterizations are stereotypes against Black women. The invitation to interrogate our own biases is not simply in how we engage people today but is also an invitation to read the biblical text differently. In my own work, I characterized some of my training as steeped in Eurocentric identity, assumptions, and questions. I was not permitted to ask questions that pertained to my lived experiences as a Black woman in the United States of America. Today, I read the Bible differently. As I assert that most of the Bible was written under imperial rule, engaging the biblical text from the positionality of oppressed and colonized people would behoove contemporary readers. Such a reading position is one way to address and interrogate our own biases as we read the biblical text.

The third posture is an invitation to interrogate feelings of being a “stray” within our individual identities. Just as Jesus recognized a certain type of disconnect in his ministry and mission as he was face-to-face with the Canaanite woman, we are invited to look into the face of the other and interrogate our own feelings of being a stray, even as that feeling may be coupled with superiority. For example, in Working Towards Whiteness, David B. Roediger argues that certain immigrants to the United States prior to World War II were shunned from elite White society, as they were considered “less than” elite White society. ²¹ They were deemed “White trash” because they mixed with Blacks prior to World War II. After WWII, however, those same White immigrants, Roediger shows, were able to enter into the “White House” of society under “working-class Americanism.” ²² The downside of entering into the White House of society was the loss of particular cultural and ethnic identities from European homelands. They lost some ethnic traditions in the quest to become “White.” These working-class Americans are the precursors of the White Christian nationalism movement who feel as though others are cutting in line before them.

The problem with this story is that just as certain immigrants became White after WWII, Black men, though fighting in the war, never became White. Indeed, Blacks, Japanese, and Mexicans, according to Roediger, were never afforded the opportunity to be White. So even in serving their country during WWII, Blacks were never seen as patriotic or part of the nation. When thinking about today’s context of White Christian nationalism, I would argue this disconnect stems from a lack of looking at counter narratives and other stories pertaining to nationalism. Black Americans also have a story of nationalism. The work of Frantz Fanon is helpful in thinking through the story of Black nationalism within the United States.

In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon theorizes that a “national consciousness” must function in such a way that it includes the “all-embracing crystallization of the innermost hopes of the whole people” and not just an elite few. ²³ In essence, Fanon forces theorists to think about how a national consciousness should function in societies that have groups of people who have experienced colonization, racism, classism, and gender discrimination in their everyday lives. ²⁴

The Black Panther Party took these ideals, married them with Islamic faith, and then argued for a specific type of Black nationalism that demanded a Black man’s right to bear arms and protect his community. ²⁵ While I appreciate both Fanon and the Black Panther Party’s push for an inclusive nationalism, I would argue that a deeper story of Jesus, while paying attention to nationalism, invites the Canaanite woman into the story in order to allow her own identity and innermost hopes to function as well. Nationalism is not simply the purview of men but also the purview of women and their innermost hopes and desires. As we read the deeper story of Jesus, can we develop a posture that allows us to hear the deeper stories of other members of our nationalistic community? My hope is twofold. First, I hope that hearing the stories of others and their own nationalism will take away the stray feeling of those who believe only one type of nationalism exists. Second, I hope that White Christian nationalists would understand and believe everyone belongs and no one should “go back to where they came from.” Instead, we must ask how every idea of nationalism can live peaceably and democratically within the United States of America.

Concluding thoughts

As a Womanist biblical scholar, ordained minister, and follower of Jesus, the biblical text is an authority in my life. I must recognize, however, that everyone (including women and minoritized identities) must benefit from the wholeness and liberation found within the text. The text is not for one group of people alone (i.e., White Christian nationalists). I agree with Lisa Sharon Harper’s argument that, if the gospel is not good news for all people, then how can the deeper story of Jesus be good news for everyone? ²⁶

Accordingly, there has to be a path for all of us to enter into the deeper story of Jesus. Entering into such a story is not just for salvation in the hereafter but for wholeness, healing, and salvation in our contemporary times. An invitation into the deeper story means that we not only walk with faith in Christ but we are invited to walk with the faith of Christ. As I have argued in If God Still Breathes, Why Can’t I?, the faith of Christ means we walk in such a way that we “bear one another’s burdens” so we all “make it home.” White Christian nationalism only wants some of its members to make it home (i.e., White Christians). Part of our job as contemporary Jesus followers is to ensure the livelihood of the entire body of Christ and not just one segment of it.