The following is a guest post written in anticipation of the Revoice conference in St. Louis. It’s time for ALL discrimination to end.

~ Editor

The Atlantic recently wrote a hurtful and cliché article condemning people who experience same-race attraction as lesser humans, deserving moral and social exile. Sadly, this article is not unique. In recent years, a storm of disdain has rained down upon people of white-nationalist orientation. Even Christians have joined the bandwagon of triumphal exclusionary rhetoric against our same-race, white-nationalist (SRWN) brothers and sisters. It is time to repent. We need to learn to love our same-race oriented, white nationalist attracted neighbors as ourselves, as Jesus said. After all, white-nationalist attraction is something deep, innate, authentic. We can’t ask them to deny who they are and cohabitate in a nation with those of the opposite race. It would be like asking same-sex attracted people to deny their innermost desires, forgo true love and fulfillment, and just marry someone of the opposite sex because “that’s God’s design.” It’s not that simple. Life is messy and complex.

We need to begin seeing and treating those of same-race, white-nationalist (SRWN) orientation as fully human, having equal dignity and worth. How else will we maintain our prophetic witness with them? Further, we should make our churches and communities safe, inclusive spaces for the white-nationalist community to express their same-race attracted culture, which has many beautiful treasures such as blood and soil, classical aesthetics, and fashionable haircuts. Since all beauty comes from God himself, who is the Father of us all, this reveals the redeeming qualities within white-nationalist attracted culture. To reject the ethnonationalist minorities among us or their culture is tantamount to denying their status as image-bearers of God. Indeed, the white-nationalist movement is merely the idea that same-race attracted are people too.

I experience same-race orientation and white-nationalist attraction. Even as a child I felt the strong pull, deep within, to members of my same race. It’s not that I hated or avoided opposite-race people. But I found something especially pleasurable and thrilling about fellow white people and white civilization. Once in my youth I visited an antebellum plantation. I gazed upon the beauty of the grounds, the stateliness of the pillars, and the layout of the racially segregated buildings. I felt my heart beat rapidly as I realized I was peering into a world of strong white nationalism: whites lived in the plantation house while the POCs lived in segregated quarters out back. Every race had its space. I wept and sensed God saying, “This is where you belong. You are a Christian white nationalist.” It was such a powerful, profound moment that resonates with me today.

Ever since, I have felt this same-race attraction when hanging out with white people or living in white neighborhoods or seeing images of white symbols of national pride and solidarity. When the recent parades of white-nationalist attracted came out, something inside me leapt for joy with an intensity and profundity and – dare I say – purity which I have never known amidst heteroracial multiculturalism. I felt drawn toward a white ethno-nation as if by the most natural of forces – as though I had found my home.

This inner desire, and inner desires cannot be wrong, leads me and many others like me to see that a monoethnic white nation can be a beautiful thing. To be sure, many colors such as in a rainbow are beautiful. But did not God make each color its own? And wouldn’t mixing all the colors destroy each one of them? Cannot we find true pleasure and goodness in the purity of any one of them? I do, and many others are also coming out about it. And we have found that expressing and identifying with our natural desires and impulses, whatever they or their consequences may be, to be true, good, and beautiful. As Phil Collins said, “I see your true colors, And that’s why I love you. So don’t be afraid to let them show.”

For too long, we of the same-race, white-nationalist (SRWN) oriented community have had to live in fear – “don’t tell” – concealing and hiding who we truly are. We’ve had to hide our whiteness amidst the gray shadows of society, marginalized and oppressed. This has caused much trauma and pain. Surely the church should be a place of honesty, inclusion, and healing. The temptation to marginalize those different from us should be avoided. Having to deny one’s authentic identity and to conform to multicultural power structures is something I wish upon no one. Instead of mocking and condemning, I only ask my opposite-race attracted brothers and sisters to listen to our stories and empathize with our experiences. May God move in your hearts to cause you to use your positions of heteroracial-normative privilege to welcome, support, and empower the same-race, white-nationalist attracted among us so that we can flourish. This is the way of love, the way of Jesus.

This was a guest post by Tulius Aadland. Tulius is a Ph.D. candidate at SEWBTS. His doctoral research focuses on intersectional ethnocentric expression in the Viking golden age. He and his wife and children reside on an ancient family farm.