Still image of Lisa Sharon Harper from YouTube.
Pastors and lay leaders who represent minority and multiethnic communities and are appalled by the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency have a blunt message for the white evangelical majority that helped elect him: we’re disappointed in you, but not surprised.
For these evangelicals of color, Trump’s use of racially-charged language, his anti-immigrant rhetoric, negative remarks targeting Mexicans and Muslims, as well as the emergence of the “Access Hollywood” tape and his other divisive comments about women, were simply disqualifying.
While some prominent white evangelical leaders made their opposition to then-candidate Trump widely known (many signing a letter protesting his candidacy), the majority of white self-identified evangelicals (estimated to run as high as 81 percent), lined up behind him.
“Many of [Trump’s] critics fell silent or fell into line, while the group known as the ‘religious right’ continued to support him’ says Kathy Khang, a Christian writer and speaker based in the Chicago area.
For the past eight years, people of color, the LGBT community, and women have been given license to flourish, says Lisa Sharon Harper, author of The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right and chief church engagement officer at Sojourners. “The white church demonstrated on November 8th that it is more white than Christian, and has a [greater] commitment to white supremacy than it does to Christ,” says Harper.
The fact that so many evangelicals didn’t see Trump’s controversial rhetoric as derogatory underlined the presence of a persistent and troubling racial divide in American Christianity that these leaders say is deeply rooted in American history.
Some are questioning the value of continued association with the white evangelical majority.
Despite their dismay over the prospect of a Trump presidency, those I spoke to appear to be more motivated and energized than daunted by the challenges that lie ahead.
“This has been a wakeup call to the progressive, moderate community that we have to stand up for what we believe in and communicate it in the public square,” DuBois concludes.
And Lisa Sharon Harper tells me that “a new Civil Rights movement is happening, and its locus is in people of color.” She sees evidence of it already in the “movement for black lives,” the witness of the so-called “Dreamers” (undocumented immigrants who arrived here as children), and the rising call for solidarity with the poor that mirrors the words of Jesus in Matthew 25. “Every word of Scripture was written by oppressed people,” she says.
Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans is a Pennsylvania-based freelance writer, and a religion columnist for LNP Media, Inc in Lancaster, PA. Her work has appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the National Catholic Reporter, the Global Sisters Report, Religion News Service and other media outlets.