Replacing the Great Replacement Theory

White supremacy must be condemned by every white elected official, every white candidate, every white media pundit and by every white pastor in every church in America.

We are still reeling from Buffalo, where on May 14, a date that will now live in infamy — like June 17, 2005, and October 27, 2018, and August 3, 2019 and May 31, 1921, and too many other deadly days to count — when a white teenager murdered ten African Americans, apparently planning to kill as many as he could.

FBI Director Christopher Wray called the May 14 massacre “a targeted attack, a hate crime, and an act of racially motivated violent extremism." President Joe Biden went to Buffalo this week to console the victims of what he called “domestic terrorism,” and named “white supremacy” as a “toxic poison” that “has no place in America.” It will not have the last word, he pledged.

Consolatory words like “thoughts and prayers” or “just checking on you” hardly suffice. White supremacy and the hate and violence it creates is a sin against God. It is anti-Christ. White supremacy must be named as a sin, condemned as a sin, and repented as a sin. It must also be named as a clear evil by every white elected official, every white candidate for public office, every white media pundit and from every white pulpit in America.

Naming the sin is important. So is naming those responsible for planting the ideological seeds of such hatred. In a long, ranting manifesto posted online, the white murderer in Buffalo directly appealed to the language of “white replacement,” a conspiratorial theory charging that demographic shifts in America threaten white identity, power, and existence. Clearly, these ideas did not originate in the empty mind, heart, and soul of this ignorant and hateful young man. They came from the darkest corners of the Internet where hatred and violence against non-white Americans is spewed into the hearts and minds of white Americans susceptible to racism. 

White grievance politics and the ideology of white supremacy has been taken mainstream by Fox News and a faction of the Republican Party under the control of the former President Donald Trump, who took America’s covert racism and made it overt. The Republican Party uses white supremacy to gain votes, take power, and make money. That is who they are.

Naming names is now morally required. Those who have espoused replacement theory – indirectly or directly – and the fear, hate, and violence it inspires – have blood on their hands. And GOP leaders who won’t name and condemn white supremacy are morally culpable.

Let’s start at the top of Fox News, with its founder and leader Rupert Murdoch, a morally despicable man for whom profits predominate over people, no matter the human cost. When pastors tell me they only have their people for two hours a week, if they’re lucky, but Fox News has them 24/7, it means that Rupert Murdoch is undermining our Christian faith with his profitable lies.

The Fox New anchors who have most directly and repeatedly spread replacement theory include Laura Ingram, Sean Hannity and, especially, Tucker Carlson, who has promoted the racist theory on his nightly program 400 times, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

Now lets look at white politicians. Rep. Elise Stefanik, the third ranking Republican leader, has not only echoed white replacement theory, but used it to raise money on Facebook. J.D. Vance, the Trump endorsed Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, has also used the replacement language for political gain. These are two well-educated people who ought to know better, in contrast to the likes of Reps. Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Green, Paul Gosar, and Senator Ron Johnson who live in a bizarre world propagated by ignorance, fear, lies, and hatred. 

We also must invoke the moral principle that silence is complicity when it comes to such overt evil, and this question must be raised to Republican leaders in the House and Senate, including Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell. Even fellow Republican and former GOP leader Liz Cheney blames her party’s leadership for “enabling white nationalism, white supremacy and anti-Semitism” with their silence.  Why won’t Republicans name white supremacy as evil and the great replacement theory as false and dangerous? Is a wink and a nod to the white supremacist voting block in their base worth their utter moral failure to speak the truth?

Trump is worse than just a racist, but one who uses racism for his personal, political, and financial power. Spiritually, Donald Trump has evoked our nation’s worst demons to prevail over our better angels. After the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, which took the life of a young white woman who was protesting it, the President of the United States said there were “very fine people on both sides,” in what must now be called an historic statement that justified the racist violence that was yet to come.  

As a faith leader, let me be very clear: Those who use the replacement language are responsible for the violence that has erupted. Words matter, and these words are lethal. "History has taught us that what begins with words ends in far worse," Republican Rep. Liz Cheney tweeted,  calling out her own party. “GOP leaders must renounce and reject these views and those who hold them."

Liz Cheney @Liz_Cheney

The House GOP leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and anti-semitism. History has taught us that what begins with words ends in far worse. @GOP leaders must renounce and reject these views and those who hold them.

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So what do we do, everyone always asks after the carnage and suffering like we have just seen in Buffalo?  What does repentance mean? I’ll be specific.

1. Faith communities must show unwavering support and solidarity for the Black church leaders in Buffalo who have been given the overwhelming pastoral responsibility to comfort and care for the families, friends and neighbors of those who were attacked and killed.

2. All the white churches in Buffalo, and all white churches in America, must name and condemn white supremacy and the racist white replacement theory from their Sunday pulpits as an evil and a sin. And clear statements from faith based organizations are more important than ever.

3. White politicians from Buffalo, N.Y. to Washington D.C. must directly name and condemn the white supremacy and racism that led to the Buffalo murders. White candidates for any political office in America, from the federal to the state to the local level, must name and condemn white supremacy as an evil lie that must be removed from American life. And in the 2022 election, every white candidate in the country should be asked to explicitly reject white supremacy – and repeatedly asked until they do.

Repentance, in the Bible, means more than feeling sorry and ashamed. It means to turn around and go in a different direction. So all of us must go deeper, beyond the shootings, to the segregated and discriminatory geography, economy, and society that are behind the racial killings, to the racial inequities underneath that we still accept.

It is time to replace the Great Replacement Theory with things that are greater. There are things Christians say we believe about all humankind being made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26); that the body of Christ means to unite us together, across all of our divisions, in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28); and that only the truth can set us free (John 8:32). It’s time to show whether we believe these things or not. 

And there are things we say we believe as American citizens who are all “created equal” and are “endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Again, do we believe these things or not? 

It is time to show that we do believe in our religious faith and our civic faith, and it is time to sacrifice and risk to prove that we truly believe it.