We are in the dreary doldrums of winter, the continuing protests are small and mostly beneath the media's radar, and the collective weariness of the American public is palpable. It is time to move on, isn't it? Haven't we made our point? And haven't the majority of Americans just as strongly pushed back, making clear they are not interested? Haven't we had our moment of catharsis? Isn't it time for regularly scheduled programming to resume?
Of course not.
Nothing of any substance has changed yet. We are still living in a country where Black life is devalued every day. Many Americans claim not to see it, but they see it clearly enough to know which neighborhoods to avoid. Funny how that works.
I grow weary of the debates about why things are the way they are. People will continue to debate the role of culture, discrimination, government programs, globalization and more. Most White Americans are likely to continue to place an overwhelming emphasis on culture. As a historian, I think that is terribly mistaken, and much of what passes for reasonable points in these discussions is often racist or irrelevant. But the debate is important, and it's one that I'm sure I will continue to engage in at the appropriate time.
But I grow tired of it, and here's why:
The Christian's responsibility is much the same regardless of what side you take in that debate. If we want to join our life to God's Kingdom work, we don't stand on the sidelines debating the causes of marginalized peoples' suffering. We go join them. Any attempt to grapple with the problems of the poor and the oppressed apart from our own personal engagement with them at the level of our spiritual poverty--recognizing the upside-down way God has ordered the world--is bound to be paternalistic at best, downright destructive at worst. God has chosen those who are poor to be rich in faith (James 2). I and most of my readers are winners in one of the most materialistic and prosperous societies in global history. As such, our impoverishment in the things that matter is profound.
Even more upsetting to the tiring debate about Black disadvantage is the fact that we serve a God who takes sides. Over and over again in scripture we see God identifying with the poor, the oppressed, the needy, the marginalized. It's not hard to figure out who these people are in our society. It's African Americans. It's Native Americans. It's illegal immigrants. It's poor Whites left behind in nowhereville Kentucky, with no jobs and no hope. These groups are not "those people" from whom we keep our distance. These groups are where God's attention is drawn in this society. They live in the places Jesus would be born if he came today instead of 2,000 years ago. They are loved by God. Not only that, they are identified with by God in an astonishing way. Their powerlessness is embodied in the powerlessness of Christ as a baby and their suffering is given its ultimate advocate in the figure of Christ on a cross.
Who do we identify with? The respectable. The educated. Business owners. Law enforcement. Celebrities. Religious leaders. People who look like us. People of our social class. And then, with this pattern firmly set in place, we claim to follow Jesus. Can't we see the contradiction? Amid our recent racial controversies, I've seen Christians firmly identify with White police officers while failing to muster even an expression of sympathy for the families of Black victims.
A consistent pattern of identification with our group at the expense of a marginalized group is evidence of a spiritual sickness. It is dangerous. God does not overlook it.
The poor are shunned even by their neighbors,
but the rich have many friends.
Proverbs 14:20
Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor
will also cry out and not be answered.
Proverbs 21:13
Adonai brings vindication and justice
to all who are oppressed.
Psalm 103:6
Showing posts with label following Jesus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label following Jesus. Show all posts
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Monday, October 27, 2014
Thoughts For Monday
(Because sometimes you need it more on Monday than on Sunday.)
I imagine these questions are part of an old tradition, but I'm not sure where they come from. They're in our church bulletin every week:
I imagine these questions are part of an old tradition, but I'm not sure where they come from. They're in our church bulletin every week:
Where am I with the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the cross for my sins?
1. Am I more aware of others faults than I am of my own?
2. How do I speak of others, with contempt or with mercy?
3. When I am in conflict with someone, do I quickly separate myself from them, or do I stick with them through difficult times?
4. Am I overconfident about my being "right" and do I hate to be contradicted or am I flexible and easy to be around?
5. Do I confront all the time or not at all?
6. Do I complain a lot, and am unhappy and filed with self-pity? Do I make myself the center of attention?
1 John 1.9 -- "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."Makes you think.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Is Segregation in the Church A Serious Problem?
The American church is segregated by race. We have White churches and Black churches, Korean churches and Hispanic churches. In almost all churches, groups of other races are welcome, but a single group dominates the church, gives it its character, and makes it recognizably racialized.
There is no law requiring it. There is no church enforcing it. This has nothing to do with Jim Crow.
In fact, most churches are downright eager to become more diverse.
But the goal remains elusive.
Consider: even if we use a really broad definition of what constitutes a diverse church, only around 3% of American churches are racially mixed over the long term.* A slightly larger number are mixed for a short time as they transition from one group to another. But most of our churches have a single racial group that makes up the vast majority of the congregation.
I suspect that one of the reasons diversity in our churches is so elusive is because it is something that most people support in the abstract, but few churches and church leaders make it an urgent priority.
Is this a problem? Is it sin? Or is it, in fact, just the way things are? Is it an innocuous fact -- no harm, no foul? Is it God's design?
Does it depend where you live?
If you live in rural Maine, you can hardly be expected to attend a diverse church. It simply isn't possible.
But most of us don't live there. Most of us live in metro areas that are, on the whole, much more diverse than the churches we attend. (Despite the vast rural regions of our country, four out of five Americans actually live in cities or suburbs, where diversity is almost always close at hand). What is our responsibility when diversity is in reach, as it is for most of us? Is racial integration something our church leaders should make a top priority? Is it a nice idea and something we hope for but one that should not get in the way of more important church functions? Or is it not really important at all?
I have a simple premise: Christianity teaches that the racial segregation of the American church is sinful. As such, racial segregation in the church is necessarily harmful, and fixing it is an appropriate concern of every believer. Just as every believer is called to abstain from sins such as lust, pride, anger, and so on, every believer is called to abstain from the sin of worldly divisions. There is a lot more to be said, but that simple premise is more than enough to keep us occupied for now.
Jesus prayed that everyone who would ever believe in him in the future would be united, would be "one" just as he and the father are one. The fascinating thing about this prayer in John 17 is that the purpose of this unity is entirely outward focused: "so that the world may know that you sent me." In a broken world that has always been riven with strife and divisions of all kinds, Jesus intended Christians to come together across those lines of division. This is an act of evangelism. The unity of the church is one of only a handful of ways Jesus said we can practically attest to the truth of the Gospel.
Now, many Christians have spiritualized this prayer into nothingness, in two different ways. First, the prayer is often thought of in the context of doctrinal ecumenism. Christians should agree on a few fundamentals and be willing to cross doctrinal lines in order to maintain the unity of the church. This is fine as far as it goes, but it is not the primary sort of unity about which Jesus prayed. Remember, this is an outward-focused unity. Its purpose is to show the world that the Gospel is true. But internal doctrinal differences are often invisible to those on the outside, if not confusing and irrelevant. Coming together across lines of disagreement that the world does not even recognize has little potential to provoke and amaze the world. We must cross lines of division that the world counts as meaningful. This is where the second means of spiritualizing this prayer into nothingness enters in. Many Christians say, we might worship in different places but the true church is united in spirit. The problem with this second perspective is much the same as the first. This spiritual unity is essentially invisible to those on the outside. As such, how can it be an evangelistic, outward-focused unity? How can it amaze? How can it show the world that Jesus is who he says he is?
The New Testament church came to understand this, though we have forgotten it almost completely. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul urged them to "put to death" their old selves and "put on" the new self given by Jesus. In this new self, Paul admonished, "there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all" (Chapter 3). We can spiritualize this under the rug too, but at grave risk to our souls. We must wrap our minds around the fact that Paul's readers could not have turned this into a vague spiritual point, because he had just named all the starkest divisions in their society. He named groups they disliked. He named ethnic, sectarian, and economic divisions. He told them to stop identifying with one group against another. He told them to be united across the most bitter divisions of their society.
This was not an isolated commandment. A key subtext of the entire book of Romans is Paul's knowledge that Jewish and Gentile believers are in conflict with one another. He does not simply tell them to get along. He laboriously provides a deep theological grounding for why and how they can be unified. Because if they are not unified, Rome will not be amazed. Because if they are not unified, will the Gospel appear to be true?
In his letter to the Galatians, Paul recounted the story of Peter and other church leaders giving in to worldly divisions and allowing those divisions to rupture the church. What was Paul's response to church leaders who let society's values guide them rather than Jesus's prayer for unity? He did not think it was merely unfortunate. He did not think it was a distraction from preaching the Gospel. He did not excuse it as just the way things are. He publicly rebuked them for "not acting in line with the truth of the gospel" (Chapter 2).
God calls the church in a given society to make a theological statement (singular). But wait, we must be more specific. Many churches seem to think they are simply called to make theological statements (plural). Those churches are hollow, like the "whitewashed tombs" Jesus described. The church is called to embody, to incarnate, a theological statement. Theology that is not first embodied is no theology at all. It will not amaze the world. In fact, it will disgust the world. Jesus came to us. We know God because of the incarnation. Yet the American church wants to pull off a bait and switch that God himself did not dare to try. We want to call people to a Christ who does not appear to solve the most pressing divisions of our society. We want people to be amazed by a disembodied Christ. On the contrary, they are rightfully disgusted.
When we seek a practical unity that crosses all the barriers of division in American society, we make a theological statement. It is an evangelistic witness that Jesus is who he says he is and can accomplish what he claims. When we do church the way it is normally done in the United States, we simply reproduce the divisions of society at large, and give that society no reason to be amazed. 3% of American churches are racially integrated. Does this have anything to do with the values of the Kingdom? Or does it have everything to do with American society? When was the last time you went to a church where the millionaire and the homeless person worshiped side by side? When was the last time you went to a church that was more welcoming and comfortable for the homeless than for the middle class? How do the values of whiteness and middle classness and upward mobility that dominate our churches fit in with the Kingdom of God? What theological statement are they making?
How can we break through the complacency and self-satisfaction of an American church that is so far from the heart of God? Our whole pattern of church life and composition blatantly reflects American history, American values, and American social divisions. Yet many well-meaning Christians find little reason to make integration a top priority. We're willing to cast off one of the primary means of being the body of Christ as if it's a stylistic choice. Churches that are eager to "evangelize" often cannot be bothered to embody their message. How can we break through? What will it take?
In the thirteenth chapter of John's Gospel, Jesus said that people will know that we are his followers if we love each other. I do not see much love in the American church. I do not see much love in myself. I search my heart and cannot find a good motive. I truly cannot. Am I so much worse than everyone else? Why do we appear so satisfied? Yes, we tend to do a good job loving people in our little congregation in our little corner of the world. We even do a good job of loving people 6,000 miles away! But while we do so we wish to absolve ourselves of all responsibility for why we live and worship where we do, why the people around us are so like us, why the poor in our own country are so far away. We love our congregation in our little corner, while lobbing missiles of misunderstanding and recrimination toward our brothers and sisters in their corners.
Trayvon. Ferguson. For those of us who long to see a compassionate American church that values Jesus more than whiteness, these were shattering experiences from which we will not recover.
Why do we accept the premise that American society, rather than the values of the Kingdom of God, should structure the biggest decisions of our lives? The segregation of the American church has no theological basis. It is not in the will of God. It is sinful. It reproduces misunderstanding and isolation. It fosters division. It does not amaze the world. It merely shows the world that we are just like them. Though racial segregation in American society has slowly eased a little bit (not by much) Americans are increasingly self-segregating by income and political views. If you're poor, you probably live around a lot of poor people. If you're middle class, you probably live around a lot of middle class people. Will we, the church, join in this trend? Or will we live by the values of the Kingdom?
In the fourteenth chapter of Luke's Gospel, Jesus told a story that the American church desperately needs to hear:
_____________________
* This statistic is from United by Faith by DeYoung et al. They classified a church as "racially mixed" if no single racial group made up more than 80% of the congregation. That seems to be a generous definition, but even that is met by only 3-4% of churches over the long term.
There is no law requiring it. There is no church enforcing it. This has nothing to do with Jim Crow.
In fact, most churches are downright eager to become more diverse.
But the goal remains elusive.
Consider: even if we use a really broad definition of what constitutes a diverse church, only around 3% of American churches are racially mixed over the long term.* A slightly larger number are mixed for a short time as they transition from one group to another. But most of our churches have a single racial group that makes up the vast majority of the congregation.
I suspect that one of the reasons diversity in our churches is so elusive is because it is something that most people support in the abstract, but few churches and church leaders make it an urgent priority.
Is this a problem? Is it sin? Or is it, in fact, just the way things are? Is it an innocuous fact -- no harm, no foul? Is it God's design?
Does it depend where you live?
If you live in rural Maine, you can hardly be expected to attend a diverse church. It simply isn't possible.
But most of us don't live there. Most of us live in metro areas that are, on the whole, much more diverse than the churches we attend. (Despite the vast rural regions of our country, four out of five Americans actually live in cities or suburbs, where diversity is almost always close at hand). What is our responsibility when diversity is in reach, as it is for most of us? Is racial integration something our church leaders should make a top priority? Is it a nice idea and something we hope for but one that should not get in the way of more important church functions? Or is it not really important at all?
I have a simple premise: Christianity teaches that the racial segregation of the American church is sinful. As such, racial segregation in the church is necessarily harmful, and fixing it is an appropriate concern of every believer. Just as every believer is called to abstain from sins such as lust, pride, anger, and so on, every believer is called to abstain from the sin of worldly divisions. There is a lot more to be said, but that simple premise is more than enough to keep us occupied for now.
Jesus prayed that everyone who would ever believe in him in the future would be united, would be "one" just as he and the father are one. The fascinating thing about this prayer in John 17 is that the purpose of this unity is entirely outward focused: "so that the world may know that you sent me." In a broken world that has always been riven with strife and divisions of all kinds, Jesus intended Christians to come together across those lines of division. This is an act of evangelism. The unity of the church is one of only a handful of ways Jesus said we can practically attest to the truth of the Gospel.
Now, many Christians have spiritualized this prayer into nothingness, in two different ways. First, the prayer is often thought of in the context of doctrinal ecumenism. Christians should agree on a few fundamentals and be willing to cross doctrinal lines in order to maintain the unity of the church. This is fine as far as it goes, but it is not the primary sort of unity about which Jesus prayed. Remember, this is an outward-focused unity. Its purpose is to show the world that the Gospel is true. But internal doctrinal differences are often invisible to those on the outside, if not confusing and irrelevant. Coming together across lines of disagreement that the world does not even recognize has little potential to provoke and amaze the world. We must cross lines of division that the world counts as meaningful. This is where the second means of spiritualizing this prayer into nothingness enters in. Many Christians say, we might worship in different places but the true church is united in spirit. The problem with this second perspective is much the same as the first. This spiritual unity is essentially invisible to those on the outside. As such, how can it be an evangelistic, outward-focused unity? How can it amaze? How can it show the world that Jesus is who he says he is?
The New Testament church came to understand this, though we have forgotten it almost completely. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul urged them to "put to death" their old selves and "put on" the new self given by Jesus. In this new self, Paul admonished, "there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all" (Chapter 3). We can spiritualize this under the rug too, but at grave risk to our souls. We must wrap our minds around the fact that Paul's readers could not have turned this into a vague spiritual point, because he had just named all the starkest divisions in their society. He named groups they disliked. He named ethnic, sectarian, and economic divisions. He told them to stop identifying with one group against another. He told them to be united across the most bitter divisions of their society.
This was not an isolated commandment. A key subtext of the entire book of Romans is Paul's knowledge that Jewish and Gentile believers are in conflict with one another. He does not simply tell them to get along. He laboriously provides a deep theological grounding for why and how they can be unified. Because if they are not unified, Rome will not be amazed. Because if they are not unified, will the Gospel appear to be true?
In his letter to the Galatians, Paul recounted the story of Peter and other church leaders giving in to worldly divisions and allowing those divisions to rupture the church. What was Paul's response to church leaders who let society's values guide them rather than Jesus's prayer for unity? He did not think it was merely unfortunate. He did not think it was a distraction from preaching the Gospel. He did not excuse it as just the way things are. He publicly rebuked them for "not acting in line with the truth of the gospel" (Chapter 2).
God calls the church in a given society to make a theological statement (singular). But wait, we must be more specific. Many churches seem to think they are simply called to make theological statements (plural). Those churches are hollow, like the "whitewashed tombs" Jesus described. The church is called to embody, to incarnate, a theological statement. Theology that is not first embodied is no theology at all. It will not amaze the world. In fact, it will disgust the world. Jesus came to us. We know God because of the incarnation. Yet the American church wants to pull off a bait and switch that God himself did not dare to try. We want to call people to a Christ who does not appear to solve the most pressing divisions of our society. We want people to be amazed by a disembodied Christ. On the contrary, they are rightfully disgusted.
When we seek a practical unity that crosses all the barriers of division in American society, we make a theological statement. It is an evangelistic witness that Jesus is who he says he is and can accomplish what he claims. When we do church the way it is normally done in the United States, we simply reproduce the divisions of society at large, and give that society no reason to be amazed. 3% of American churches are racially integrated. Does this have anything to do with the values of the Kingdom? Or does it have everything to do with American society? When was the last time you went to a church where the millionaire and the homeless person worshiped side by side? When was the last time you went to a church that was more welcoming and comfortable for the homeless than for the middle class? How do the values of whiteness and middle classness and upward mobility that dominate our churches fit in with the Kingdom of God? What theological statement are they making?
How can we break through the complacency and self-satisfaction of an American church that is so far from the heart of God? Our whole pattern of church life and composition blatantly reflects American history, American values, and American social divisions. Yet many well-meaning Christians find little reason to make integration a top priority. We're willing to cast off one of the primary means of being the body of Christ as if it's a stylistic choice. Churches that are eager to "evangelize" often cannot be bothered to embody their message. How can we break through? What will it take?
In the thirteenth chapter of John's Gospel, Jesus said that people will know that we are his followers if we love each other. I do not see much love in the American church. I do not see much love in myself. I search my heart and cannot find a good motive. I truly cannot. Am I so much worse than everyone else? Why do we appear so satisfied? Yes, we tend to do a good job loving people in our little congregation in our little corner of the world. We even do a good job of loving people 6,000 miles away! But while we do so we wish to absolve ourselves of all responsibility for why we live and worship where we do, why the people around us are so like us, why the poor in our own country are so far away. We love our congregation in our little corner, while lobbing missiles of misunderstanding and recrimination toward our brothers and sisters in their corners.
Trayvon. Ferguson. For those of us who long to see a compassionate American church that values Jesus more than whiteness, these were shattering experiences from which we will not recover.
Why do we accept the premise that American society, rather than the values of the Kingdom of God, should structure the biggest decisions of our lives? The segregation of the American church has no theological basis. It is not in the will of God. It is sinful. It reproduces misunderstanding and isolation. It fosters division. It does not amaze the world. It merely shows the world that we are just like them. Though racial segregation in American society has slowly eased a little bit (not by much) Americans are increasingly self-segregating by income and political views. If you're poor, you probably live around a lot of poor people. If you're middle class, you probably live around a lot of middle class people. Will we, the church, join in this trend? Or will we live by the values of the Kingdom?
In the fourteenth chapter of Luke's Gospel, Jesus told a story that the American church desperately needs to hear:
“A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’
“But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’
“Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’I will leave the last word to Dr. John Perkins. He's a Black man who lost his brother when White policemen in Mississippi murdered him. Perkins got out of Mississippi. But then God called him to go back. He befriended two White pastors, who became convicted that they needed to tell their congregations to love their Black brothers and sisters. Within a short time, both pastors had committed suicide. Such was the strain of fighting against racism. Later, White policemen beat Perkins almost to death as he struggled for civil rights. These experiences caused him to dedicate his life to seeking racial reconciliation among American Christians. In 1982 he wrote a book called With Justice for All. His searing critique of the church might sound angry to you. Or unfair. But it is the critique of man who loves the church and has given much more for it than most of us.
“Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’
“The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’
“‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’
“Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”
The only purpose of the gospel is to reconcile people to God and to each other. A gospel that doesn't reconcile is not a Christian gospel at all. But in America it seems as if we don't believe that. We don't really believe that the proof of our discipleship is that we love one another. No, we think the proof is in numbers -- church attendance, decision cards. Even if our "converts" continue to hate each other, even if they will not worship with their brothers and sisters in Christ, we point to their "conversion" as evidence of the gospel's success. We have substituted a gospel of church growth for a gospel of reconciliation.
And how convenient it is that our "church growth experts" tell us that homogeneous churches grow fastest! That welcome news seems to relieve us of the responsibility to overcome racial barriers in our churches. It seems to justify not bothering with breaking down racial barriers, since that would only distract us from "church growth." And so the most segregated racist institution in America, the evangelical church, racks up the numbers, declaring itself "successful," oblivious to the fact that the dismemberment of the body of Christ broadcasts to the world every day a hypocrisy as blatant as Peter's at Antioch -- a living denial of the truth of the Gospel.
_____________________
* This statistic is from United by Faith by DeYoung et al. They classified a church as "racially mixed" if no single racial group made up more than 80% of the congregation. That seems to be a generous definition, but even that is met by only 3-4% of churches over the long term.
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
The Slaying of Michael Brown
True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.
--Martin Luther King
The slaying of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri calls forth disparate but by now well-worn responses. There are two that I want to highlight that might come from White people like myself.
The first response is the evenhanded call for calm and justice in this particular incident. What happened to that boy is a damn shame, this person says, but it was a distinct event unconnected to anything else. A full and impartial investigation of this incident is needed, but now a media circus is going to make that more difficult. Furthermore, she might say, the rioting that has followed the shooting is more troubling than the conduct of the police force. She can't understand why a lonely shooting in a nation of 318 million souls provokes such an outcry, especially when people who look like Michael Brown are killing each other every day.
This person says everyone deserves justice. He says everyone is innocent until proven guilty. He says the color of a person's skin ought not matter, either in the application of justice or in the awakening of our sympathies. Indeed, this person is usually right, but it is the superficial and airy rightness born of complacency temporarily disturbed. "What's that? A racial disturbance in the national news, you say? Hold on, let me find my racial disturbance opinion flowchart."
This person accepts, but has not seen fit to understand, that peace is hard work. This person has learned about something called out-group prejudice but has happily found himself to be the exception proving humanity's rule. He makes his logical and insufferably correct pronouncements with no embarrassment, because he cannot imagine that others bring full and weighty lives, with full and weighty words to match, refined as they have been by fire. He cannot see what is so obvious to the grieving: his flowchart is showing.
The second response stands in opposition to the first. This person contemplates the experience of people who look like Michael Brown. She gets to know people who look like Michael Brown. She understands how governmental authorities operate in Michael Brown's neighborhood, because she has seen it with her own eyes. She sees the last few days not as a sudden and unwelcome disruption or media event, but as a cresting wave in a continuous roiling current. Most of this evil current is beneath the surface, invisible to the flighty holders of flowcharts.
This person has seen the men who look like Michael Brown on the side of the bustling boulevard pathetically selling bottles of almost-cold water to passing motorists on a too-hot day because no one will hire them. He understands that their strength of character and work ethic is stronger than his as he commutes to his rewarding middle class job. He has seen the boys who look like Michael Brown meekly submit as police assault them for what they might have done rather than what they did. He has seen the elderly woman who could be Michael Brown's grandmother faithfully sweep the sidewalk in front of her house every morning as her block falls apart.
This person has seen all this, and she is not surprised by the death of Michael Brown. Her surprise comes from elsewhere: how do millions of people who look like Michael Brown press on with patience in their step and bitterness absent from their heart? She contemplates this mystery. As she does she is tired and she is heavy with grief, because she cannot see the isolated incident that the flighty holders of flowcharts see. She sees another page in a very long story with an uncertain ending.
This second response is the Christian one. Racism as such is not addressed in scripture, since it's a category that didn't exist. But race, inextricably mingled with class, is our modern means of performing that ancient human rite that certainly did exist in biblical times: othering. Many of us, good Christians in our self-image, our loath to contemplate our practice of this insidious vice. But if the Gospel is working on us, we cannot avoid it. In its natural condition the human heart declares that its virtues are intrinsic and its faults extrinsic. In other words, if I am good, it is because I am good. If I am bad, it is because someone bothered me. The Gospel enters in and demands a complete reversal. There is nothing good in us; everything is a gift; I am bad because that's the sort of creature I am. We begin to find the playing field leveled. We look out on humanity and we can't find anyone worse than us. In a sense, with empathy infused by the Gospel, we can't even find anyone different from us.
Now, Michael Brown has been slain. There are "sides" to take. There are arguments to be won! Many of us are so afraid to confront the deepest sins of the human heart (pride toward God; indifference toward fellow human beings) that we fail to make the most basic application of Christian principles to American society. We know the God of our scriptures is on the side of the oppressed. Well, we'd better consider what that means right here in the United States. We'd better do so with no regard for the heretical worship of nation that dares to tell God our system of markets and liberties has rendered moot his categories of oppressed and oppressor. This heresy is rampant in our churches. In short, we must consider the basic fact that Black Americans are an oppressed class of human beings in our country. This calls for a response that transcends the evenhanded reasonableness I discussed above.
Some of us -- judgmental souls like myself -- are likely to ride our logical and evenhanded pronouncements all the way to hell. God, through scripture and in the the human form of Jesus, reveals himself to us without ambiguity as a God on the side of the weak, the poor, and the oppressed. Jesus died for us all, but beyond that there is very little even-handedness with God. He decided to give more faith to those at the bottom of society (the book of James). He decided to eternally judge us based on how we treat them (the book of Matthew). It is a fearful thing, then, to find that in controversy after controversy -- and much more than that, in the structures of our daily lives -- we take the side of our group against another. Christians need only consider where we would be if Christ's loyalties were constrained in the narrow manner of our own. Amid the perfect justice, peace, and fellowship of the Trinity, he might have asked, "Why let the humans in? Are any of them deserving? Why sacrifice for them?" It's laughable to consider, because of course Jesus apparently doesn't think like that. But it's more than laughable because it is precisely how we, his followers, do think.
Michael Brown is dead. It is not an isolated incident. It speaks of a centuries-old story. It speaks of the pain of millions. It speaks of oppressions yet to come. If that has not yet settled into your heart, please look to Jesus. Try to add your tears to his. Only then can you come back to consider how you might fight for the presence of justice rather than the absence of tension.
--Martin Luther King
The slaying of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri calls forth disparate but by now well-worn responses. There are two that I want to highlight that might come from White people like myself.
The first response is the evenhanded call for calm and justice in this particular incident. What happened to that boy is a damn shame, this person says, but it was a distinct event unconnected to anything else. A full and impartial investigation of this incident is needed, but now a media circus is going to make that more difficult. Furthermore, she might say, the rioting that has followed the shooting is more troubling than the conduct of the police force. She can't understand why a lonely shooting in a nation of 318 million souls provokes such an outcry, especially when people who look like Michael Brown are killing each other every day.
This person says everyone deserves justice. He says everyone is innocent until proven guilty. He says the color of a person's skin ought not matter, either in the application of justice or in the awakening of our sympathies. Indeed, this person is usually right, but it is the superficial and airy rightness born of complacency temporarily disturbed. "What's that? A racial disturbance in the national news, you say? Hold on, let me find my racial disturbance opinion flowchart."
This person accepts, but has not seen fit to understand, that peace is hard work. This person has learned about something called out-group prejudice but has happily found himself to be the exception proving humanity's rule. He makes his logical and insufferably correct pronouncements with no embarrassment, because he cannot imagine that others bring full and weighty lives, with full and weighty words to match, refined as they have been by fire. He cannot see what is so obvious to the grieving: his flowchart is showing.
The second response stands in opposition to the first. This person contemplates the experience of people who look like Michael Brown. She gets to know people who look like Michael Brown. She understands how governmental authorities operate in Michael Brown's neighborhood, because she has seen it with her own eyes. She sees the last few days not as a sudden and unwelcome disruption or media event, but as a cresting wave in a continuous roiling current. Most of this evil current is beneath the surface, invisible to the flighty holders of flowcharts.
This person has seen the men who look like Michael Brown on the side of the bustling boulevard pathetically selling bottles of almost-cold water to passing motorists on a too-hot day because no one will hire them. He understands that their strength of character and work ethic is stronger than his as he commutes to his rewarding middle class job. He has seen the boys who look like Michael Brown meekly submit as police assault them for what they might have done rather than what they did. He has seen the elderly woman who could be Michael Brown's grandmother faithfully sweep the sidewalk in front of her house every morning as her block falls apart.
This person has seen all this, and she is not surprised by the death of Michael Brown. Her surprise comes from elsewhere: how do millions of people who look like Michael Brown press on with patience in their step and bitterness absent from their heart? She contemplates this mystery. As she does she is tired and she is heavy with grief, because she cannot see the isolated incident that the flighty holders of flowcharts see. She sees another page in a very long story with an uncertain ending.
This second response is the Christian one. Racism as such is not addressed in scripture, since it's a category that didn't exist. But race, inextricably mingled with class, is our modern means of performing that ancient human rite that certainly did exist in biblical times: othering. Many of us, good Christians in our self-image, our loath to contemplate our practice of this insidious vice. But if the Gospel is working on us, we cannot avoid it. In its natural condition the human heart declares that its virtues are intrinsic and its faults extrinsic. In other words, if I am good, it is because I am good. If I am bad, it is because someone bothered me. The Gospel enters in and demands a complete reversal. There is nothing good in us; everything is a gift; I am bad because that's the sort of creature I am. We begin to find the playing field leveled. We look out on humanity and we can't find anyone worse than us. In a sense, with empathy infused by the Gospel, we can't even find anyone different from us.
Now, Michael Brown has been slain. There are "sides" to take. There are arguments to be won! Many of us are so afraid to confront the deepest sins of the human heart (pride toward God; indifference toward fellow human beings) that we fail to make the most basic application of Christian principles to American society. We know the God of our scriptures is on the side of the oppressed. Well, we'd better consider what that means right here in the United States. We'd better do so with no regard for the heretical worship of nation that dares to tell God our system of markets and liberties has rendered moot his categories of oppressed and oppressor. This heresy is rampant in our churches. In short, we must consider the basic fact that Black Americans are an oppressed class of human beings in our country. This calls for a response that transcends the evenhanded reasonableness I discussed above.
Some of us -- judgmental souls like myself -- are likely to ride our logical and evenhanded pronouncements all the way to hell. God, through scripture and in the the human form of Jesus, reveals himself to us without ambiguity as a God on the side of the weak, the poor, and the oppressed. Jesus died for us all, but beyond that there is very little even-handedness with God. He decided to give more faith to those at the bottom of society (the book of James). He decided to eternally judge us based on how we treat them (the book of Matthew). It is a fearful thing, then, to find that in controversy after controversy -- and much more than that, in the structures of our daily lives -- we take the side of our group against another. Christians need only consider where we would be if Christ's loyalties were constrained in the narrow manner of our own. Amid the perfect justice, peace, and fellowship of the Trinity, he might have asked, "Why let the humans in? Are any of them deserving? Why sacrifice for them?" It's laughable to consider, because of course Jesus apparently doesn't think like that. But it's more than laughable because it is precisely how we, his followers, do think.
Michael Brown is dead. It is not an isolated incident. It speaks of a centuries-old story. It speaks of the pain of millions. It speaks of oppressions yet to come. If that has not yet settled into your heart, please look to Jesus. Try to add your tears to his. Only then can you come back to consider how you might fight for the presence of justice rather than the absence of tension.
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