If more Christians today summon the courage to take seriously the dark sides of our history, we will wake up to the degree to which our religion still interprets the Bible exactly as our misguided ancestors did. No, we don’t draw exactly the same conclusions, but we have neither acknowledged nor rejected the method of reading the Bible that made those unacceptable interpretations acceptable. If we face our past, we will see how many power centers within the Christian community still carry white Christian supremacy and white Christian privilege cards in their back pockets, often without even knowing they do so, and as a result can be found consistently allying themselves with oppressors rather than the oppressed. We will see behind the curtain, so to speak, exposing how many Christians still drink the old cocktails: of God and gold (including the “black gold” of fossil fuels), of Christianity and white supremacy, of Christianity and privilege, of Christianity and colonialism, of Christianity and exceptionalism, of Christianity and violence.
