betrayal trauma.

sacred symbols include most centrally representations of a white, blue-eyed Jesus, the merging of the American flag and the cross, and, increasingly, firearms.8 For some clans of the tribe, the Confederate flag is also a sacred symbol.

He thus arrived at his now famous definition of religion as “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things . . . beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called the Church, all those who adhere to them.”

We are saying the worship of whiteness is a religion of millions of people, complete with developed beliefs, practices, and social organization.

In Proverbs 13:4 it says that “But those who work hard will prosper,” and Proverbs 22:9 “He who has a generous eye will be blessed if he gives of his bread to the poor.”

what about the group is being worshipped? It is the power, the uplift, the energy, and the transcendence one experiences when engaged in a common activity with other people, something that cannot exist or be created alone.

While white Americans fetishize the idea of living in racial harmony, they don’t think about the millions of instances of antiblack sentiment—overt and subtle—we encounter on a daily basis from the white world that has opened its doors to us but has done little remodeling.

we argue that most white Christians in the United States—our best estimate based on empirical data is two-thirds—are faithfully following what amounts to, in effect, a competing religion, or sect, or creed. This religion—the Religion of Whiteness—distorts people’s Christian commitments and raises race to creedal status over other aspects of

the source of collective effervescence for believers in the Religion of Whiteness—is whiteness itself.