Jesus, Me, And the Other: Evangelicalism and White Privilege

I’ve been an evangelical Christian all of my life. Though I’ve drifted away from much of what goes under the flag of evangelicalism certain emphases of the movement will remain dear to me. One of these is the centrality of the person and work of Jesus Christ. For evangelicals, the personal relationship with Christ matters more than anything. It starts with the question whether one has accepted Jesus Christ as savior and lord in one’s life. The direct unmitigated relationship with Christ is at the center of the evangelical experience. I still resonate with what theologians call a Christocentric emphasis. It’s all about Christ; nothing else matters.

In this essay, I will argue from that very Christocentric position, from the Jesus-and-me relationship. I will first trace how, as a European studying in the USA, I became aware of white privilege and racism and the way these two are inscribed in political and economic systems. In this development, I slowly but definitely moved away from what I started to perceive as skewed aspects of evangelical thought and praxis that kept me from seeing the truth. It became clear to me that evangelicalism’s theology in its attempt to gauge the precise will, mind, and ideas of God, came up with claims and concepts that actually facilitated racism and white privilege. In the second part of the essay, my talk about…