I’ve always been a student of human nature. I was that kid always engaged in people watching, trying desperately to figure out what it meant to be human. I sought answers through relationships, books, and screen media. I sometimes concluded that people were inherently good only to be later convinced of the opposite. I learned the hard way that not everyone can be trusted, even those who claim to care about you. I learned that given the right circumstances, otherwise good people could do terribly bad things, including me. My lifelong observations of human nature have been a source of both fascination and frustration, admiration and disgust, and hopefulness followed by utter disappointment.
I’ve discovered that central to our humanity is the need to be part of a tribe. A tribe is simply a group of people who share common values, worldviews, and aspirations. Under adverse circumstances, a tribe is created because of a common skin color, heritage, or experience that binds folks together. Tribes are created by humans as a means to survive in a world filled with threats and challenges. Unfortunately, some tribes seek to dominate or even eliminate other tribes in their quest for security, survival or greed. What disappointments me the most is that tribal warfare appears to be a deadly fixture among humans that we just can’t escape.
Each of us is born into a particular tribe, but as we mature, we may choose to join a different tribe. Our tribal memberships may change multiple times throughout our lives. I know mine have. I was born into a black Christian tribe in the 1950’s in Detroit, Michigan to parents who were on the verge of changing their tribal affiliation by moving to Southern California, away from church, family, and friends. My earliest recollection of this new tribe was the variety of skin colors, foods, and languages sharing the same spaces. Aside from annual visits to Detroit to see family, black faces like mine were rare except on the Sundays when we made it to church. I was eleven when my mother once again joined a new tribe. She left the Missionary Baptist Church of her youth to join the more restrictive Pentecostals.
And boy were they strict! First, they believed that they were the only true Christians. The salvation that had been freely given as a Baptist, now had behavioral strings attached. I could no longer dance, wear pants, listen to secular music, or go to the movies. Cussing was strictly forbitten. Women were to be submissive to men and children obedient. Secular education was viewed with suspicion. We were in church all day on Sundays and most of the evening on Wednesdays. I soon learned that humans aren’t cut out for living under such strict rules and that folks who put on a good show of piety were secretly “sinning” all over the place. Some of the worse were gossips, thieves, adulterers, child abusers, and child molesters. I was happy when we finally left that tribe after a few years. My mother and I ended up joining a less restrictive white Pentecostal church where I spent my teenage years. However, because the previous experience was so bad, my brothers refused to attend any church for many years afterward. My eldest brother never did. They found tribal membership in athletics.
From high school, throughout college, and while raising my children, I maintained an evangelical Christian tribal membership. This was a comfortable tribe where skin color didn’t matter and where a wholesome lifestyle that included education, hard work, fairness, and compassion for others was central. In that tribe, American history didn’t matter much and society’s discrimination against women, black and brown skinned people, and LGBTQ issues were dealt with outside the church doors as aspects of a fallen world.
We saw ourselves as living in the world but not really being of the world. We worked to make enough money to take care of ourselves and to support the church and the needy. We weren’t greedy for the temporary riches of the world such as money, power, or fame. Humility was a virtue and God deserved the glory for our successes in this life. Our creativity, work, and moral ethics often lead to recognition from others which we used to point to our faith. We concerned ourselves with following Jesus’ teachings about how to treat each other and how to treat people outside the church so that they too would be receptive to the Good News of how God gave His only Son, Jesus, for our freedom from bondage in this life and for eternal life with Him.
I loved being a part of that tribe. The fellowship was entertaining, wholesome, and fulfilling. It was a wonderful mindset (which I mostly maintain) and a great tribe in which to raise children. There were plenty of moral failings over the years of epic proportions, but those involved simply disappeared from the tribe and no one talked about it because gossip was frowned upon. In some cases, it was the pastor who was caught up in adultery or theft and had to be replaced. Forgiveness was always extended but the actors always seemed to leave, perhaps from shame or embarrassment. At its core, the tribe was about loving God and loving others with compassion.
But the tribe slowly began to change in response to a rapidly changing society that was difficult to ignore and impossible to compete with. As we became overwhelmed by the temptations presented in the media, the music, and at schools, intolerance slowly crept in, gradually replacing compassion and the gospel itself. I would eventually join a new tribe that was more tolerant.
As I mentioned in previous posts, I recall when the church was first infiltrated by political actors. The tribe I belonged to that loved God, each other, and cared about saving souls from the bondage of sin and eternal damnation was now concerning itself with gaining political power in order to save a country from the wrath of a vengeful angry God because of the sinners running the show. The hot button issues that the politicians used were feminism, abortion, and homosexuality. They were able to convince the tribe that already felt vulnerable to temptations that feminists were destroying the natural order, abortion was murder, and that homosexuals were all pedophiles intent on recruiting our children. In short, we were in danger and political power was the only way to protect our country and ourselves.
The warmth, compassion, and teachings of Jesus were soon replaced by a paranoia and a fear of anything that wasn’t produced by Christian conservatives. Offering alternatives, like Christian schools and homeschooling, and then seeking shelter from the many temptations by turning off the television and radios was the start, but it soon wasn’t enough. They tried offering their own versions of contemporary Christian music and movies as alternatives. But it wasn’t enough either. They soon decided to eliminate the temptations altogether. And the politicians convinced the tribe that they could do it through legislation by gaining political power.
The political evangelicals today are no different from the Taliban in Afghanistan. They are pursuing political power in order to create a theocracy where they can be comfortable role playing a version of Christianity that they themselves abandoned years ago. Look at the person they embraced as their leader: Donald Trump, the most hateful, un-Christ-like human being. They have joined hands with white supremacists to boost their power. They are a tribe that is ready and willing to wage warfare with actual guns, not prayer, to gain supremacy over everyone in the nation even if it means throwing out the Constitution and starting over.
Standing against them are the actual teachings of Christ, but that no longer has sway with them. It is not surprising that they are now attacking the secular moral authority that embraces diversity, equity, and inclusion. To say that I am disappointed in what that tribe has become is an understatement. They call themselves “Christian”, but they are not following the teachings of Christ, but the allure of power.
In my next post, I address how the political aspiration of Christian nationalism is in fact a backlash to the strides made in diversity, equity, and inclusion.