A Rhythm of Hate
Anthony Costello on a Prayer for Hatred & the Final Solution
In a recently published collection of devotional prayers, A Rhythm of Prayer (Convergent Books, 2021), composed mainly by progressive Christian women, there appears a prayer by psychologist and "public theologian" Chanequa Walker-Barnes that calls out to God for help in becoming more hateful toward white people. Walker-Barnes's prayer, like many postmodern expressions of personal sentiment, has stirred controversy. But what makes her prayer different from other controversial expressive acts (for example, Lil Nas X's song "Montero") is that this one, titled "Prayer of a Weary Black Woman," is apparently directed to the God of the Bible, whom Walker-Barnes asks to place hatred inside her. Her prayer begins:
Dear God,
Please help me to hate White people. Or at least to want to hate them. At least, I want to stop caring about them, individually and collectively. I want to stop caring about their misguided, racist souls, to stop believing that they can be better, that they can stop being racist.
It is important to note that Walker-Barnes seems to be praying against her desire to show mercy and forgiveness. She is not merely asking for help in actualizing an already-present hatred; she is asking for the very desire of hatred. She wants her desires for mercy, love, and forgiveness to lessen so that her desire for hate can increase. She goes on:
My prayer is that you would help me to hate the other White people—you know, the nice ones. The Fox News–loving, Trump-supporting voters who "don't see color" but who make thinly veiled racist comments about "those people." The people who are happy to have me over for dinner but alert the neighborhood watch anytime an unrecognized person of color passes their house. The people who welcome Black people in their churches and small groups but brand us as heretics if we suggest that Christianity is concerned with the poor and the oppressed. The people who politely tell us that we can leave when we call out the racial microaggressions we experience in their ministries.
While some might claim that this prayer is akin to an imprecatory psalm, one that asks God for the destruction of one's enemies, and is acceptable on those grounds, I would argue that no part of any psalm, imprecatory or otherwise, asks God to harden one's own heart or to make one more hateful of one's enemies. There is certainly a call for God to "pay back" evildoers, but not to become like them! So, in spite of containing some truth about racism, Walker-Barnes's prayer seems to go far beyond the petitions of an imprecatory psalm, as well as to fall quite short of Christ's command to love one's enemies.
Further, it is ironic that the very sentiment of imprecation is one that many liberal Christians over the years have found so distasteful that it finally caused them to repudiate the authority of Scripture. The idea of asking a supposedly "all-loving" and merciful God to smite one's enemies has not set well in the hearts and minds of many modern people. Indeed, this desire for vengeance, this "harsh" biblical language, is what turned off so many progressive Christians of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s—or at least, so they claimed.
But if Walker-Barnes's prayer is any indication, I think we can safely say that this is not the case any longer. No longer do progressive Christians seem to be calling for the nonjudgmental, non-wrathful, therapeutic god of love, who forgives everyone, always, for everything. No indeed! Now it seems that not only is vengeance on the table, but that the desire to become God's tool for vengeance is actively being sought. Truly, we are far removed from the days of "kumbaya, my Lord."
After all, what is the end goal of a hateful heart if not to do positive damage to one's enemy? The staggering nature and language of Walker-Barnes's prayer compels comparison with one of history's greatest monsters.
Echoes of Himmler
Anthony Costello holds a BA in German from the University of Notre Dame, and two master’s degrees from the Talbot School of Theology/Biola University (MA Christian Apologetics, MA Theology). An Evangelical, he also served five and a half years in the U.S. Army, with one deployment to Afghanistan. He is the founder and president of the Kirkwood Center for Theology & Ethics (kirkwoodcenter.org).
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