How white spirituality, religious or not, allows racism to grow

[guillaumeb]

From the article:

I spent years in evangelical Christianity, and though I still consider myself a follower of Jesus, my faith is far more expansive and pluralistic than it once was. As a curious mystic, I have delved into other realms and other religions in search of that sneakiest of things called Truth, and on my journeying I have found something disturbing: White people love to use our spirituality to ignore the very real plight of the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) community.

To be honest, if it wasn’t for my recent forays into the study of race and specifically whiteness, I probably wouldn’t have noticed this subtle gaslighting that both the Christian and the New Age worlds perform against our Black and brown siblings. It’s encased in the lexicon of religiosity, God, and the superiority of all things spiritual.

To read more:

https://religionnews.com/2020/06/15/how-white-spirituality-religious-or-not-allows-racism-to-grow/

[keithbvadu2]

1. Perfect example - Mitt Romney

Mitt is old enough to have believed that blacks were not fit for full membership in the church.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=mormons+black+people+souls

-------------------------------------

https://religionnews.com/2018/06/11/40-years-later-most-mormons-still-believe-the-racist-priesthood-temple-ban-was-gods-will/

“Blacks just weren’t spiritually ready to have the priesthood until 1978.”

This one hit the news as recently as 2012, when a BYU professor was quoted in the Washington Post as claiming that the ban was actually to the benefit of blacks, because they were not prepared for the responsibility until then. He compared the situation to a child asking for car keys before being mature enough to use them. That same month, the LDS Church issued a statement that disavowed this professor’s reasoning. (“Some explanations with respect to this matter were made in the absence of direct revelation and references to these explanations are sometimes cited in publications. These previous personal statements do not represent Church doctrine.”) But that same statement also leaned heavily upon Reason #4, which was . . .

[guillaumeb]

4. True. And now, Romney has marched with a BLM group.

Evolution?

[Karadeniz]

2. One cannot be racist and a Christian. Most people think the Synoptics are biographies of Jesus, but

That's not even half true. They're about Soul, its purpose, place in the God System, how it escapes death. In the synoptic gospels' hidden teachings, Jesus didn't come to save. He came to teach how we save our souls. So, the soul is at the heart of Christianity and, all being created by the same Source, we are a brotherhood. To imagine that skin color separates us is to not understand that, to a Christian, there is no separation except depending upon soul development.

[Major Nikon]

3. ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

[guillaumeb]

5. While I agree with your analysis of the concept of the soul,

and I also agree that the soul is what links us to the Creator, racism, in my view, is a form of xenophobia, and is common in nearly every group. One of the aspects of being in a group is that the group member is not, by definition, an outsider, or non-group member.