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PORTSIDE CULTURE
DEPICTIONS OF A WHITE JESUS UPHOLD VIOLENT CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM,
WHITE SUPREMACY
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Eleanor J. Bader
April 17, 2025
The Indypendent
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_ This book, writes reviewer Bader, "probes the ways Christian
nationalism is marketed" to boys, "and exposes the misogyny, racism,
homophobia, transphobia and xenophobia that are its stock and trade."
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_Disciples of White Jesus
The Radicalization of American Boyhood_
Angela Denker
Broadleaf Books
ISBN: 9798889830757
Journalist and Lutheran pastor Angela Denker, herself the mother of
sons, knows that boys can be affectionate, caring and sweet, but she
also knows that they can be drawn to hate and violence. _Disciples of
White Jesus: The Radicalization of American Boyhood,_ Denker’s
second book, probes the ways Christian nationalism is marketed to them
and exposes the misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia and
xenophobia that are its stock and trade.
Denker offers a masterful critique of the ways Christianity has helped
foment right-wing religious movements, zeroing in on the blonde,
blue-eyed Christ that is seen in most U.S. and European churches. She
then juxtaposes this image with a more realistic portrait of the
“historical, brown-skinned, Middle Eastern, and Jewish Jesus.” The
result of this literal whitewashing, she writes, is a “progenitor of
the Christian industrial complex that brought us megachurches and
celebrity preachers and _New York Times _bestsellers and the
prosperity gospel and Donald Trump.”
Denker finds this appalling and effectively parses how these
institutions manipulate language to appeal to young men; her depiction
of the way hate is spread by well-dressed preachers, both in person
and online, is chilling.
Denker found racism to be a linchpin that was reinforced by pervasive
depictions of white Jesus, imagery that she believes leads believers
to a reverential distortion.
Moreover, her findings reinforce the conclusions of other researchers:
Many young white males gravitate to the right because they feel
disempowered by feminism, movements for racial equity, and the
changing demographics that will make the United States a less white
and less Christian nation within the next few decades.
Dylann Storm Roof,
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the 21-year-old white man who entered Mother Emmanuel African
Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and prayed
with congregants at Bible study before taking out a gun and killing
eight Black parishioners and their pastor in 2015, is a case in point.
Roof, of course, is neither anomalous nor unique. As Denker reports,
white men are responsible for the lion’s share of mass murders
against Black people throughout the United States.
“Roof was radicalized online,” Denker writes, “and he was an
active reader of and visitor to sites like the Council of Conservative
Citizens … Roof mentioned the Council as part of his awakening in an
unsigned 2,444-word manifesto on his website, which also included
photos of himself taken with a self-timer at slavery-related sites
across South Carolina.”
Roof’s evolution is fascinating, and Denker reveals that he not only
lacked a “positive rooted identity” but struggled academically and
socially. “He found his identity,” she writes, ”in hatred of
others, and that identity of hatred festered and grew in social
circles where people may have mentioned racism or prejudice but
didn’t confront it … preferring to avoid uncomfortable topics or
introspection.”
This sidestepping allowed Roof to cling to resentment and his presumed
entitlement to an elevated place in a white, male-dominated Christian
hierarchy. That this idea was supported by the right-wing Christian
and white supremacist forums and websites he visited and videos he
watched goes without saying. What’s more, Roof saw this messaging as
gospel truth and was elated by the sense of belonging he found in a
host of online communities.
These communities also fed him a hefty helping of toxic masculinity;
Denker notes that Christian nationalist speakers and written materials
hammer visible shows of emotion as unmanly, as if vulnerability is a
surefire “recipe for disaster, a potential upheaval in a society
that has placed white Christian men at the top of a teetering house of
cards.”
For teetering men like Roof, it was far easier, and likely more
pleasant, to turn his fury toward people he felt were getting more
than they deserved than it would have been to probe his disquiet and
pain. It’s a sad revelation and one that was repeatedly replayed in
sites all over the country, from the Citadel Military College to the
far-flung churches and youth ministries that Denker visited.
Throughout, she found racism to be a linchpin that was reinforced by
pervasive depictions of white Jesus, imagery that she believes leads
believers to a reverential distortion. But there is an antidote:
“Reminding young, white Christian boys and men that Jesus is not a
white man forces them to take Jesus and put him into a seat often
occupied by people who are oppressed and marginalized,” she writes,
“and whose strength and power are seen more often as a deviant
threat than as something to be emulated and admired.”
Despite many strengths, the book falters by not offering more than
individualistic responses to the false depiction of the man Christians
claim to revere. While one-to-one counseling and making a personal
connection to boys who feel cast aside is essential, so too is
confronting, opposing and organizing to stop the promotion of white
male gender grievance, rivalry and white supremacy.
Denker wants all men and boys to learn to love and be open and
respectful to both peers and strangers. It’s a laudable goal, and
while there are no ready-made strategies to get us there, it will
clearly take all of us to make Christian nationalist messaging
unappealing to viewers, listeners and readers.
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* Racism
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