A white pastor publicly objected to Japanese-American internment during wartime.

Evidence

While white Christian theology evolved in response to the changing environment, it responded primarily by shifting from more overt to more subtle expressions of white supremacy rather than a wholesale reexamination of its racist roots. A close examination of key theological doctrines such as the Christian worldview of slaveholders, sin, and salvation, the centrality of a personal relationship with Jesus, and the use of the Bible reveals how each was tailored to resist black equality and protect white superiority, and how this legacy dramatically limits the moral and religious vision of white Christians today. — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 234 (#complicates, via linked claim)

While it may seem obvious to mainstream white Christians today that slavery, segregation, and overt declarations of white supremacy are antithetical to the teachings of Jesus, such a conviction is, in fact, recent and only partially conscious for most white American Christians and churches. The unsettling truth is that, for nearly all of American history, the Jesus conjured by most white congregations was not merely indifferent to the status quo of racial inequality; he demanded its defense and preservation as part of the natural, divinely ordained order of things. — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 31 (#complicates, via linked claim)

That the Japanese practiced the purported pagan religions of Buddhism and Shintoism was further evidence of their disloyalty. In the decades preceding World War II, for instance, Shintoism put many Japanese Americans under suspicion of treason because of the Shinto belief that the emperor of Japan was divine. Consequently, some Japanese stopped practicing their religions from fear of being labeled anti-American. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 344 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Religious practice was treated as evidence of wartime disloyalty against Japanese Americans. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 344; White Christian theology adapted to changing times only by shifting to subtler racism — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 234; A pastor can decline patriotic ritual on religious principle — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 120 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• White Christian theology adapted to changing times only by shifting to subtler racism #complicates (0.80) — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 234
• White American churches historically worshipped a Jesus who demanded racial hierarchy. #complicates (0.78) — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 31
• Religious practice was treated as evidence of wartime disloyalty against Japanese Americans. #complicates (0.72) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 344