False Gods Up Close
Hey!
It’s been a while since I’ve published any of my own writing. But I’m happy to share that I’ve published a personal essay this week, The False Gods That Changed My Mind, over at The Revealer. In this essay, I go back to my freshman year in college and to questions that have long haunted me regarding the Bible, white supremacy, and ancestral gods/goddesses.
Some of you may be thinking: But Daniel, you’re always writing about the Bible and Christianity and white supremacy! Well, that’s essentially correct haha. I keep returning to similar themes, attacking them from different angles. Sometimes it’s intentional, but oftentimes I can’t help it. It’s the thing stuck in my head and my heart. In this essay, I share some personal experiences that shed more light on why I became obsessed with these sorts of questions. At the same time, I think I also explore some new territory.
One of the gods I write about is El, who was worshipped by the Canaanites described in the Bible. When I used to be a more conservative Christian, I saw these gods as false gods worthy of condemnation. After all, many of the prophets in the Hebrew Bible spoke out against the worship of these idols. For people to turn away from the one true God to worship idols was nothing else but “syncretism,” or the mixing of false religion with true/pure religion.
Interestingly, and perhaps ironically, many “anti-racist Christians™” today use the language of idolatry and syncretism to oppose white nationalist Christianity. In their view, a white supremacist Christian is mixing the pure goodness of Christianity with an aberrational and external bigotry.
I used to think that way too. As I explain in my essay,
In my early 20s, I still wanted to rescue a pure and pristine Christianity from the clutches of white supremacist malpractice. As a person of color, my initial protestations against racist Christians were about being included in Christian supremacy, not about fundamentally altering it. I wanted to believe that the problem with the fruits had never infected the roots. I wanted to redeem the master’s untainted tools.
The more that I read, the more I grew frustrated. It’s hard to protect Christianity’s purity because such purity is an illusion. What would this religion be without the influence of Jews, Babylonians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans? If you want peace, there are verses for that. “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.” If you want war, there are verses for that. “Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears.”
The charge of idolatry that I relished using against others like the worshippers of Ba’al, I later realized, is one that can easily be turned against me and against people of color. Historically, white Christians have demonized the spiritualities of people around the world as idolatrous. You want to smuggle in some Platonism, thinly veiled white barbarian solar holiday, or the Easter Bunny? No problem. Something revered by a non-European or melanin-endowed ancestor? Heretic!
Read the full essay here.