“How Am I Responsible?”: Evangelical White Rage and Moral Injury in the Interpassive Perpetration of White-Body Supremacy

ABSTRACT

Using the language of white rage as a term for the defensive reaction of white Americans to having one’s insular and central social location exposed and threatened, this paper explores the manifestation of white rage in American Evangelical Christian culture. Utilizing a focused psychoanalytic reflection and analysis, the authors explore the seeming unintelligible dissonance between the stated personal & communal morals of the white American Evangelical Church and the actions of its leaders and members regarding social and political responses to racism. Discussing how four interlocking theological particularities mask and sustain in-group identity at the expense of an other, the authors introduce and explore the concepts of perpetration-induced trauma and interpassivity and their intersection with whiteness, Linking identification to perpetration through the interpassive participation of inhabiting whiteness, the authors then articulate how the intolerable affective states of guilt and helplessness are defended against and theologically justified through the experience of white rage.

KEYWORDS:

• evangeli
• interpassivity
• moral injury
• perpetration
• whiteness

This article is referred to by:

Finding Ourselves “Inside” the White Evangelical Christian Story: Response to Bland and Hoard

Holier Than Thou: Discussion of Hoard and Bland’s “How Am I Responsible?”: Evangelical White Rage and the Interpassive Perpetration of White-Body Supremacy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Formal statements denouncing racism, easily accessed online, have been adopted by, among others, the Assemblies of God, Southern Baptist Convention, Salvation Army, Vineyard USA, Churches of Christ, and the Evangelical Lutheran Churches in America, and The Church of God.

² Numerous evidentiary sources for this statement exist: The Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel (2018), Johnson (2021), Lee (2021), and Trueman (2021).

³ I am grateful to the Rev. Dr. Jordan Senner, Rector of Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Costa Mesa, CA for this sentiment which he shared in a sermon following the January 6th insurrection at the US Capital.

⁴ Evangelical culture has a long and entrenched belief that the establishment and structure of American democracy is essentially Christian.

⁵ Philosophical debates regarding the racialized nature of Hegel’s view of history are ongoing.

⁶ For instance, the recent statement by noted evangelical leader Josh McDowell that the idea of critical race theory “negates all the biblical teaching” (Smietana, 2021) or James Dobson’s remark that critical race theory is “godless” (Dobson, 2021).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul Hoard

Paul Hoard, Ph.D., is a licensed counselor with a doctoral degree in counselor education and supervision from Regent University. He is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, having graduated from the Greater Kansas City Psychoanalytic Institute, and has received specialized training and credentialing in working with adolescents with sexual behavior problems. An approved clinical supervisor, he has provided mental health counseling as well as clinical supervision in the USA, Ukraine, and Turkey. He served on the State of Kansas Multi-Disciplinary Team responsible for evaluating potential sexually violent predators. Currently, he holds a position as an assistant professor in counseling psychology at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. His research and scholarly work primarily focus on the intersection of perpetration trauma, sexuality, eucontamination, white-body supremacy, and adolescent mental health. Dr. Hoard alsoprovides outpatient mental health counseling and clinical supervision services.

Earl D. Bland

Earl Bland, Psy.D., Psy.D., is a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, and professor of psychology at the Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University in La Mirada California. He primarily teaches clinical courses in the area of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, clinical theory, and the integration of psychology and religion. Earl is also on the faculty of the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles. He is the co-author/editor of Christianity and Psychoanalysis: A New Conversation as well as numerous other publications in the areas of psychoanalytic treatment and the intersection of psychology/psychoanalysis & religious faith. He maintains a private practice where he treats individuals and couples.