The Syncretism of American Mythologies and White Evangelicalism

by John Ellis

Several years ago, while living in Arlington, VA, a church member approached me with a concern about my use of the title king for Jesus. It wasn’t so much the title as my near constant use of it. Whenever I prayed publicly, preached, taught Sunday school, etc., I made it a point to almost always refer to Jesus as king. To be clear, the woman wasn’t argumentative but pressed me on why I felt the need to call Jesus a king so much when there are so many other titles and/or descriptions I could us. Below is my answer. Or rather, below is what I was trying to communicate to her via my answer. I can’t remember our conversation verbatim, not to mention that my own understanding of what I was trying to say has since deepened.

I began my answer by asserting that her very question spoke to my reason. I added, as respectfully and humbly as I could, that I doubted that if I used the phrase – correct phrase, to be clear – “our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” almost exclusively that we’d be having this conversation. I explained that her resistance to my constant use of “King Jesus” spoke to the semiotic structures in America, both linguistic and cultural, that have shaped her. By calling Jesus a king, which he is, I was attempting to help my fellow church members take deconstructive steps in dismantling America’s Barthian mythologies from our theology.[1]  

There are many examples but pointing to Thomas Paine’s best-selling piece of propaganda titled Common Sense is as good an example of this mythology as I can point to. With Common Sense, and using colloquial language, Paine played a huge role in defining monarchy as anathema for both America and God.[2] Disdain for kings is wrapped up in the meta-myth of American exceptionalism. That disdain is the negative side of the positive belief that our form of government – a constitutional republic (a type of democracy) – is the most biblical.

Now, I’m happy to have conversations/debates about whether a constitutional republic is the least bad form of government available to us in a fallen/cursed world. I mean, I don’t necessarily disagree with Churchill’s quip that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others. The problem is that the myth of American exceptionalism is a Tower of Babel. And like the Tower of Babel, it includes semiotic structures that have negative effects on our theology.[3] So while I’m happy to have those conversations/debates, I’m really only willing to do so after some deconstructive work has been done. I fear, because I know, that for most white evangelicals, their view of theology is shaped way more by cultural mythologies than by the Spirit. As Wittgenstein pointed out, the limits of our world are the limits of our language. Shamefully, the language of white evangelicalism is largely the language of God and country and not of Christianity.

The lady in Arlington listened to what I had to say but left the conversation more troubled than she had entered it. Our conversation had made explicit for her my deconstructive efforts. I was pointing out one of her golden calves: American exceptionalism and God’s believed blessings on this country via her discomfort at my use of the title king for Jesus. While she, like most white evangelicals I presume, intellectually assents to Jesus as a king, being tangibly confronted with that reality over and over created conflicts in her worldview.

So, my question/point with this article is this: if you’re a white evangelical (or even if you’re not), are you aware of how cultural mythologies are shaping your theology? While I can’t necessarily speak for you, I do know that many, if not most, white evangelicals have been deeply catechized by contra-biblical cultural mythologies. While my anecdote about the lady in Arlington’s response to my frequent use of “King Jesus” may seem trivial and earn me the scornful charge that I’m making a mountain out of mole hill, I contend that it’s reflective of how what we say and don’t say when talking to ourselves and others, especially from the pulpit, can serve rebellion or challenge it. I’m afraid that far too many white evangelicals are content with the definition of flourishing held out by American cultural mythologies to see the connection between language and rebellion. The syncretism of American mythologies and white evangelicalism is so welded together as to raise the question of whether or not they’re not synonyms. Sadly, my interaction with that lady in Arlington speaks to that reality. God and country is never far removed from white evangelicalism and it needs to be rooted out.

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[1] Roland Barthes not Karl Barth, to be clear.

[2] It’s been well over a decade now, but after Glenn Beck began praising Common Sense on his FOX News show, my dad became a huge Thomas Paine fan and began touting the book as proof that America was founded as a Christian nation. I told my dad that he should also read Paine’s The Age of Reason, but I don’t think he ever did. At the risk of being disrespectful, I’m not sure that he’d have recognized the irony I was pointing to even if he had read it.

[3] If I were ever to work towards a PhD in theology, I think a cool dissertation would be looking at the confusing of languages at the Tower of Babel as a semiotic means of grace to curb the full flowering of humans’ rebellion. I think one of the positive consequences of the confusion of languages has been the dilution, to varying degrees, of cultural myths. Unfortunately, and bolstering my long-standing claim that the United States is Serpent-Satan’s best Babylon yet, America’s cultural myths have negative global impacts in ways that, off the top of my head, no other cultural myths have had.