White Christianity’s function was protecting white racial innocence

Evidence

Perhaps the most powerful role white Christianity has played in the gruesome drama of slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow, and massive resistance to racial equality is to maintain an unassailable sense of religious purity that protects white racial innocence. Through every chapter, white Christianity has been at the ready to ensure white Christians that they are alternatively—and sometimes simultaneously—the noble protagonists and the blameless victims. — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 69

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: White churches morally legitimized and protected white supremacy through state power — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 125; White Southerners explained away church segregation as benign natural worship-style preference. — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 147; National pro-civil-rights white church bodies concealed congregational white supremacy — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 185 (+23 more)

Broader Connections

• White churches historically functioned as agents upholding racist social structures #exemplifies (0.85) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1055
• Racist theological ideas sanctioned and made American slavery acceptable to Christian churches #exemplifies (0.85) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 20
• Theology justified slavery and genocide by marking whiteness as Christian #corroborates (0.82) — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 145
• American religious freedom has historically been reserved for White Christians #corroborates (0.78) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 482
• Religious identity socially raced legally White groups historically and currently #expands (0.78)
• Early US law linked racial exclusion to a white Christian citizenship ideal #corroborates (0.75) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 208
• White Redeemers used Christian theology to justify reversing Reconstruction with violence #exemplifies (0.75) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1037
• Whiteness was embedded into religious depictions of Jesus without explicit statement #corroborates (0.72) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 672
• Medieval Christianity seeded the modern fusion of whiteness and faith #expands (0.72) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 111