There he stood, awkwardly holding up a bible while journalists and photographers took pictures. The “leader of the free world” walked 157 feet from the White House to St. John’s church, reportedly having ordered protestors to be removed using any force necessary.
While the official report denies it, eyewitness accounts and homemade videos record tear gas and batons used to drive back peaceful protestors.
To me, however, it doesn’t really matter what force was used. The message, is what I take issue with. One of the most powerful men in the world silencing the voices crying out for justice and equality with a bible. A bible he himself doesn’t read. A bible that simultaneously condemns injustice while also condemning anyone who rises up against “God appointed authority”.
It’s a tale as old as time itself. From the blood of religious dissenters of the Middle Ages; to the blood of Nat Turner and the early anti slavery fighters; to the blood and tears of the suffragettes; to the blood on the Edmond Pettis bridge, there has always been someone, standing in opposition of the oppressed people, holding a bible. We see them in the pro-slavery sermons of Jonathan Edwards and other preachers of “the great awakening”; in the anti-Semitic writings of Martin Luther; in the religious wordings of the confederate constitution, where sentences like “the god-ordained subjugation of the n——” are frequent; in the conservative Christian opposition to civil rights; in the numerous sermons stating that a woman is created inferior to men; and even in Hitler using religious wording and church leaders to further his twisted agenda.
This silencing of hurting humanity, this promotion of oppression is ingrained in the Christian faith.
And once again, we looked on in unsurprised horror as a powerful man stood, silencing those who would defy abusers, holding a bible for a photo shoot.
I want to find faith. But after so long, one begins to wonder if the problem lies, not with the men holding it, but with the book they use to wield control.
