Twelve Lies, by Jonathan Walton

 According to Jonathan Walton, what is White American Folk Religion [WAFR]? 

“By white I mean the system created to claim that those of darker skin color are inherently inferior.  Over time, white included components of family, national background, or class.  At its core, whiteness was created solely to subjugate one group of people and elevate the other.  In Europe and the Americas, it is the subjugation of indigenous people, those descended from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, as well as women, the materially poor, and social outcasts.  America is the context where this ideology reigns most strongly.  And folk religion is the common set of popular beliefs and practices under the guise of true religion but outside of the faith’s official doctrines and practices.  WAFR claims to be biblical Christianity.”

I agree 100 percent with the quotation from Jonathan Walton’s book, Twelve Lies. 

Martin Luther King called White American Folk Religion the American triplet composed of racism, capitalism, and militarism; in the 1980’s, I coined a similar trinity, which stood in start contrast with the Christian trinity, which I call individualism, materialism, and racism.  Where King and I both erred is that neither one of us included sexism or male supremacy in our understanding of social evil.

I would add these additional comments to Walton’s fine description of White American Folk Religion.  America’s two leading founding fathers were George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.  They, along with the other founding fathers, were rich white males.  In addition, they owned hundreds of slaves.  It’s hard to imagine anything more evil than a rich, white, male, Anglo-Saxon, slave owner in 1776.  They epitomized the social evils that Jesus severely criticized—economic oppression and religious ethnocentrism.

Neither Washington nor Jefferson deserved a monument or memorial in their name.  If we do leave the two monuments standing, we should use them as a teaching technique.  At the bottom of each monument a plaque should mention that Washington was a rich, white male who together with his wife, Martha, owned around 300 slaves, that Jefferson was a rich white male who owned 260 slaves.  They both should have  freed their slaves when they took the oath of presidency.  Neither one did. 

The same should be done with the St. Louis Arch in St. Louis, which is celebrated as the site of the expansion of American civilization.  The plaque should also mention that St. Louis is the site of unparalleled white American ethnocentrism and oppression against Native Americans.  

For approximately the past six years I have posted over 500 blogs on similar items.  This includes an in-depth look at the 555 Old Testament references to oppression, which are almost totally ignored by all white American theologians. 

Another book I would recommend reading along with Twelve Lies, is a book written by professional Christian historians titled The Wars of America: Christian Views.  Each chapter in the book is on specific a war and written by a Christian historian who was an expert in that war.  Most of our wars do not even come close to meeting the standard of a just war.  They would fall into the category of an unjust religious crusade. 

For example, George Marsden, who analyzed the American Revolution, concluded that, contrary to popular opinion, the British violence was not bad enough to justify a violent revolution.  The Mexican War, written by Ronald Wells, is described as an unjust land grab of half of Mexico’s land. 

If there should be a wall built on our border with Mexico, it should be built on the north border of Texas, the north border of Arizona, and the north border of California to keep American armies from ever invading Mexico again.

Another quotation from Walton’s Twelve Lies:

“Jefferson’s reservation was to be the country west of the Mississippi; and he issued instructions to those controlling Indian matters to get the Indians there, and let the Great River be the line between them and the whites.  Any method of securing removal—persuasion, purchase, or force—was authorized.  Jefferson’s plan became the permanent policy.  The removals have generally been accomplished by purchase, and the evils of this are greater than those of all the others combined.”