“Fire in the Whole”: An Interview with Robert G. Callahan, II— Part 2

Robert G. Callahan, II is the author of “Fire in the Whole: Embracing Our Righteous Anger with White Christianity and Reclaiming Our Wholeness.” In part two of our interview, we discuss the role of righteous anger, why it remains difficult to talk about race and what the presidential elections taught him about the North American church. 

Starlette Thomas: What is the role of righteous anger in the work of healing from religious trauma and the reclamation of wholeness? Why is it useful?

Robert G. Callahan, II: In reclaiming my wholeness, I have decided that any time anger leads us to freedom, to protect the marginalized, or to build wider tables, it is righteous. I note that in First Samuel 11, anger plays an important role in Saul’s first test as king of God’s people. When Saul receives word that members of his community have been taken siege, the bible says that the holy spirit came upon him and that he burned with anger (First Sam. 11:6). This prompted him to rally troops to come to their defense.

There are times when anger is warranted. 

Going back to the five stages of grief, anger is one of the necessary emotions we have to deal with in order to get to acceptance and healing. It can’t be skipped over. For survivors of spiritual abuse, anger is a catalyst that can propel us from the gravity well of depression, denial, and bargaining in order to get free. 

It’s one thing to be hurt by the church accidentally. But when we realize that the way we have been treated in these environments is intentional–a reflection of a mission that they have prioritized over the welfare of their people–or that they should have known but consciously disregarded the risk of harm to us, there is fault that we can rightly ascribe to our offenders.

That recognition of mental culpability gives us permission to be angry and to protect ourselves by leaving. 

ST: In the chapter titled “We Break the Silence,” you wrote, “It feels like most white Americans would rather have a root canal than have an honest conversation about race. Based on your appraisal of the subject matter, what is so painful about straightforwardly talking about race? What is the harm? Where is the injury?

RC: Breaking through white fragility, or even internalized racism as a racial minority, requires challenging the assumptions upon which we understand most of the world around us. Now, add questions of faith to that. 

Those are questions that go to the root of who we are, why we’re here, and the meaning of life. And you want to disturb my understanding of that?

It’s one thing to deconstruct our faith, but what this book really demands of us is that we also decolonize our faith. That’s a much harder thing to do because it’s not as tidy as remodeling a home with solid bones. It’s more akin to demolition, soil decontamination, repouring the foundation and building something new. 

When we realize that so much of what we’ve been handed by white Christianity is built upon the normalization of one political, theological, and societal view, we have to break through the veil to find the real thing–something we’ve never seen before. If we truly believe that the gospel is the authoritative guide to how we live in the world, the application of that gospel upsets our understanding of which people, and what perspectives, should be centered in our society.

That feels a lot like getting unplugged from the Matrix and discovering the real world for the first time. 

ST: What do you make of the inaction of the North American church to root out white supremacy?

RC: Ignorance is no longer an excuse for inaction.

I think it’s important that we realize white supremacy is not a bug within North American Christianity; it’s a feature. For the longest time, I thought that if I just pointed out the fact that racism had infiltrated the church, then we would all agree that it didn’t belong there and work to remove it.

I never considered the possibility that the church’s complicity with racism signified that it was a welcomed guest. This revelation is the thing that radicalized me. 

In 2016, 81% of white, born-again evangelicals voted for Donald Trump. Those numbers barely waned among the same demographic in this most recent election. 

These were people who, ostensibly, were motivated by the same gospel that equates love of neighbor to the first commandment – to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and mind (Matthew 22:34-40). Yet, they consistently disregard the antithetical character of the candidate they elect to help facilitate that mission. 

The reason that this disconnect threatens to tear the fabric of reality in our minds as we attempt to wrap our heads around it is precisely because it is so illogical. It makes no sense. The two things are mutually exclusive. 

The human brain is not designed to process such dissonance. Therefore, we have to reckon with the fact that white supremacy persists in the church because the church wants it to be there. To quote Chenelle A. Jones’ insight into American criminal jurisprudence, “This system isn’t broken, it was designed this way.”