The Op-Ed piece piece belowed was authored by Brite President Rev. Dr. Stephen Cady and appeared in the July 10, 2024 edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
When I learned recently that my new home of Fort Worth would soon play host to the 15th “birthday party” for a group promoting white Christian Nationalism fashioning itself as the “True Texas Project,” I wondered what truth the group’s members were projecting.
The event’s workshops stoke fears of an anti-white campaign to “rid the earth of the white race,” advocate for the idea that white citizens are being replaced by a foreign-born population, known as the “Great Replacement Theory.” These ideas have already led to racialized violence in El Paso, Atlanta, and Buffalo, among other places. They traffic in the bald-faced anti-immigration rhetoric which ignores that almost none of us are native to this land.
As if these white supremacist claims were not bad enough, this group seems to have cloaked its bigotry in Christian language.
I’m new to Texas, but not to white fragility. As a straight, middle-aged, cis-gender white guy, I recognize how uncomfortable it is to acknowledge that I, however unwittingly, participate in systems and structures that keep my neighbors of color from thriving. I nevertheless face that hard truth because I am Christian and I know that only the truth will set me free.
To be clear, white nationalism is not Christian. It may borrow Christian language, but it misses the entire point of the gospel. The beauty and scandal of the Christian faith, properly (if too rarely) understood, is that it was always meant for all. The heart of the Christian faith is love of God and love of neighbor, which always and explicitly includes the stranger.
White Christian nationalists must stop using the Christian label unless proponents are willing to open their arms beyond the people who look like them or love like them or vote like them.
Until they are willing to address the systemic injustices that keep too many people from thriving, they must stop proclaiming the name of Christ. Until the brown-skinned Middle Eastern man they so freely proclaim as messiah would be welcomed at their “party,” they must reconsider their use of Christian to describe their goals.
If they are looking for a little help understanding their Bibles, just two miles down the road from their event at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden is a helpful institution. Brite Divinity School has spent more than a century unpacking the gospel in the hope of a world transformed by God’s love, mercy, and justice.
We expect every student to treat one another with respect and dignity in and out of the classroom. As the new president of Brite, I can ensure that we would welcome any earnest student with open arms. After all, that is what it means to be Christian.
The Rev. Dr. Stephen Cady is president of Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth.
The article can also be viewed at https://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/other-voices/article289902849.html