No Justice, No Peace: what a wild ass boy and his brother Giggles can teach us.

The place of rage in the face of injustice is not a theme unknown in the Bible.  Divine justice sometimes takes our breath away.  Psalm137:8-9 is perhaps the best example of harsh justice and the frightening nature of Divine retribution. 

O daughter of Babylon doomed to destruction,

Happy is he who repays your for what you have done to us,

He who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

It is part of our nature to become angry when we are the victims of injustice.  However, Psalm 137:8-9 must give way to Isaiah 11:6 and Matthew 5:10-12, 43-48 to name a few.  While no one doubts that over the last 400 years black people have suffered injustice, the question is how is that injustice going to be corrected?

One of the cries associated with BLM has been, “No justice, no peace.”  While a pretty catchy cliché it has some fundamental problems.  Because it is so catchy it is easy to remember, chant, and take up as a battle cry.  But this statement is fundamentally flawed and without examination can be a seedbed for great harm.  It is in and of itself a dangerous proposition and if you wanted to excite people to violence and vigilante action a better slogan would be hard to imagine. 

In order to address the application of this statement we need to have a definition of both Justice and Peace.  Until we know what is justice we can’t know if it has been accomplished.  What is meant by peace and how is it achieved? To examine this I need to share two stories.  The first is about a wild ass boy and his half brother Giggles, the second is about a Roman soldier and a Jewish man outside of Jerusalem. 

Justice: the wild ass boy and his half-brother Giggles.

Let there be no doubt these brother’s hated each other and they did so with good cause.  The older one was ripped off and treated badly by his dad and his stepmom.  The family was so messed up that they could have done a whole week of Jerry Springer shows.  It all started when his dad and his mom, who was a domestic help, had a roll in the sheets.  His step mom knew about it and as we might expect developed some real hatred for the younger woman who had her husband’s son.  This wild ass boy grew up in a home that was some where between crazy and miserable.  His bio mom and stepmom were always at it, so much so, his mom decided to run away.  If that wasn’t bad enough his stepmom got pregnant and the new baby, “Giggles” was the favorite of the old man.  By now you may recognize the boys and will recall their actually names of Ishmael and Isaac. Hated and being hated the older boy took it out on his little brother on his special day by sexually molesting him.  (The word “mocking” in Genesis 21:9 is exactly the same word “caressing” in Genesis 26:8.  Whatever Isaac did to Rebecca that convinced Abimelech that they were not brother and sister, but husband and wife is what Sarah caught Ishmael doing to Isaac.)  Sarah wanted to send both of them out in the desert, sort of a slow death sentence. On top of that, Ishmael was disinherited.  Abraham left all he had to Isaac contrary to the custom of the day and the Law of Moses that would come later, in which the eldest son receives a double portion of the inheritance.  Ishmael had received no justice and had a right to feel enraged.  Interestingly, the family dysfunction continues in that the Midianites that bought Joseph and took him to Egypt were descendants of Abraham by his son Midian.

Within this family there is an act of injustice that is responded to by an act that is seen as retribution by one side and by the other as an act of injustice which must be responded to by an act of retribution.  The cycle is endless.  The injustices of Isaac and Ishmael have passed down generation to generation in a cycle of violence.  Both sides saying in effect, “Until we get justice there will be no peace.”  Take a moment and Google “Arab-Israeli violence”, my guess is that you can do this any time and find an event that has transpired in the last 24 hours. 

Which brings us to the question, “What is justice?”  Is it a bad cop being arrested?  Is it retribution for policies from 20, 30, 50 or 150 years ago?  How do we decide if justice means an equal opportunity moving into the future or retribution for past wrongs? Who decides what is enough retribution for past wrongs?  Who is to be punished and who is to be compensated?  Who do we blame: Confederate officers or enlisted men, slave owners, northern ship owners who transported the slaves, Arab and African tribesmen who captured the slaves, the person who first domesticated cotton, sugar cane and rice, or Darwin who gave the scientific justification for racism?  While I am not trying to be trite or disrespectful until we know what is justice we can never know if it has been achieved.

Peace: the Roman soldier and the Jewish man outside of Jerusalem.

We have no record of the name of the Roman, but what he saw had a profound impact on him and the rest of the Roman army.   In the days and the weeks ahead the experience of the army and a great many Jews would be impacted by what he saw or said he saw.  In fact, we can’t even be sure that the event actually happened.  But whether it happened or not the Romans acted as if it did.  The Roman soldier happened upon a Jewish man who was carefully searching through a pile of his own feces.  This Jewish man came out of the besieged city of Jerusalem to the army of Titus.  He was willing to surrender to the Romans rather than stay in the doomed city.  He was searched for weapons and valuables and then sent to the Jewish encampment.  So, why was he digging in his own feces?  Apparently, he was trying to smuggle jewels out of the city in his digestive track. Once found and recovered he could use them to secure a better life.  The fact or rumor of what happened spread through the army.  Perhaps in the belly of refugees coming out of the city there was treasure to be had.  As you might expect the Romans wanted the treasure, but were unwilling to wait for defecation to get it.  Refugees were searched inside and out; they were cut open to see if they had swallowed jewels prior to leaving the city.  The siege of Jerusalem was one of the most brutal, violent, blood thirsty, and ruthless battles in all of history.

So, what does this have to do with the chant, “No justice, No peace”?  The siege and the destruction of Jerusalem happened in the middle of what is called Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome.  What do we mean by peace?  For the Romans peace meant no resistance to power, the iron fist demands its way and if it is not given, monuments are pulled down, buildings and towns burned, and opposition is silenced, people are beaten and killed.  For the Romans peace was not a promise it was a threat.  Consider the violence enacted on Christians praying in St Louis this weekend.  Behold the ultimate expression of “No Justice, No Peace”.  https://youtu.be/yFvXJ8W93Cg

The chant of “No Justice, No Peace” is the near opposite of what the Old Testament calls Shalom and what Christ envisioned in His Kingdom. 

If a person or a group feels that they have not received justice are they allowed to arbitrarily act in ways that are violent till they feel they are satisfied?  Can a black man take it upon himself to deface a monument because it offends him for a wrong he feels he has suffered?  What if a monument to Dr. King offends someone, can they deface it?  Can the descendants of those who were the victims of war crimes at the hands of General Sherman or reconstruction burn federal buildings?  I am part Cherokee.  Does anyone doubt that American Indians have been denied justice?  May I scalp people?  After Alabama lost to Auburn and the statue of Bear Bryant was desecrated by having an Auburn jersey draped over it, Harvey Updyke was offended.  There would be no peace till justice was served, so Harvey poisoned the oak trees at Toomer’s Corner near Auburn’s campus.  It is universally agreed that Updyke is a lunatic, but his logic is the same.  “If I do not get what I perceive as justice, I will not allow peace.” 

There was No Justice, so there can be Peace

On another occasion outside of Jerusalem justice was denied to the absolute degree.  An innocent man was murdered by the powers of the state and the religious community.  He was completely innocent, but the punishment that we deserved fell on Him so that we can enjoy peace with God.  The cry of “No justice, No peace” is not the cry of the Gospel.  It is the cry of the Romans, the Arab-Israeli terrorist, of lunatics like Harvey Updyke, but it is emphatically not the message of the Gospel.  Every Christian needs to be very clear on this point, the threat of violence unless satisfied is not the message of the Church, the Scripture or the Gospel.  It must be condemned and receive no hearing or support within the family of God.  We do have a lot of work to do and the first things we must do is reject the damnable false teaching of “No Justice, No Peace” and replace it with the message of true peace because of the Cross.

Next week:  The Third Rail in Racial Tension

The lost part of the narrative

I recently listened to a discussion featuring a black minister who addressed why the black church in America is not leading the Black Lives Matters protest.  This was hosted by Christianity Today and was for the most part an insightful conversation.  However, there was a major missing component to the conversation.

There was a fair and reasonable critique of the evangelical church and its successes and failures in regard to the race relations in the United States.  It spoke positively about the efforts of many evangelicals in the matter of racial harmony in America.  It was spot on many points except for one glaring absence.  There was total silence about the decay of the black community and the associated lawlessness.  There is no justification for police brutality motivated by race or any other reason.  But the occasion of police brutality must not be used as a smoke screen to ignore the self inflicted wounds suffered in black America.  A young black man’s life is in much greater danger from another young black man than from a police officer.  According to the FBI, a black man is ten times as likely to be murdered by another black man than by a white man.[1]  I’m not terribly interested in chasing statics about who is hurting whom, but I do want to share one more story.  Recently, in Birmingham there was a protest in response to the death of George Floyd.  One of the speakers, a preacher’s kid ironically, used the platform to advocate for vigilante removal of a statue of a Confederate hero.  The removal of a statue by due process is civil society at work, by vigilantly mob is another thing altogether.  Not surprisingly, the gathering at the statute turned into a riot and recorded for all to see was a mob breaking into buildings, destroying private property, and a reporter being mugged.

The white church in America needs to use what is left of its position and influence to call for justice and reform of society.  The black church in America needs to use what is left of its influence to call for justice and reform of society.  The lost part of the narrative is the commitment to nonviolence that was at the core of the civil rights movement and gave it great moral authority.  The reason that the old civil rights movement was almost irresistible was that, under church leadership, the non-violence commitment allowed for no other interpretation of events.  The nation at large had to acknowledge that the nonviolent protesters were simply expressing a wrong suffered.

It is concerning to see the speed with which some in the BLM movement have allowed it to become a movement of vigilantes and violence.   Bad cops hurt innocent people, but then again so do mobs.  Without securing the high moral ground this may deteriorate into group warfare, which can only lead to ruin.  With the same vigor that we condemn police brutality we must also condemn mob violence. That lost part of the narrative, the voice of correction in and from the church, tells us much more than we want to hear.  The silence of Christians white or black in the face of injustice tells us they love their agenda more than the Kingdom of God, whether that injustice comes at the hands of a cop or mob. 

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[1] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls

Engaging in Black Lives Matter

Forgive me if this is going to seem terribly and painfully naïve, but I am at my core a simple soul or as some say a simpleton.  I am not a black person and have no personal understanding of what it means to be black in America today.  I don’t think many people today understand what it means to be black in America over the last 400 years.  The issues of race, slavery and America are highly convoluted, political and touchy issues.  As such, some people (but not all) will exploit this issue for their own self-serving agendas.  It seems that there is no space for any disagreement that is not labeled in the most extreme terms.  I recently read of an athlete that interpreted, “I’m tired of listening to your rap music,” as a racist statement.  Perhaps it was a purely racist statement meant to hurt, maybe it was simply a statement of musical preference.  But this illustrates the point that in our current context almost everything is interpreted emotionally.

Here’s the point, the emotions are running high and are real.  They may be the legitimate reaction of a lifetime of pain or they may be the overreaction of a herd mentality; however, the emotions are nonetheless real.  The Daughters of the Confederacy are hurt when they see statues taken down. The emotion is real.  I will not debate whether that emotion is legitimate or not I am simply saying it is real.  Have you every tried to tell a person with depression that they have no reason to be depressed?  How effective was logic in battling depressing? Emotions do not generally submit to logic.  Is porn logical?  Absolutely not, it is in every way stupid.  People do not beat any emotional struggle or addiction by logic. 

In the charged atmosphere we are in now, any act that can possibly be interpreted as racist will provoke an emotional reaction.  A Confederate battle flag on the top of a 1969 Dodge Charger may have nothing to do with racism.  It may have everything to do with teenage hormones excited by Daisy Duke, but my guess that today that latter interpretation would be impossible.

Equally impossible is to effectively resolve what is going on simply by the sway of argument, debate, and/or political power.  This conflict reaches into the very core of what we believe about this nation and its history.  With powerful emotions rooted in different understandings of a long history we can’t extricate ourselves by reason alone; in fact, we can’t extricate ourselves at all. However, we can build a better future.  But I believe the window of opportunity for this better future is closing and if we miss it we will miss a great opportunity for the Kingdom.  We may spiral into a situation where the chasm between people is so vast that we will not be able to reach across for many generations.  Consider the situation in the Balkans. 

So, here is my simpleton’s opinion.  We need to pray for each other’s healing over the hurts and wounds we have.  The hurts are real even if they are not legitimate.  Legitimacy is not the issue. The healing only God can bring is the issue.  The most terrifying thing Jesus said to disciples is recorded in Matthew 18:35.  Having told the parable of the unmerciful servant, which concludes with the king turning the un-merciful servant over to “the torturers” for what appears to be perpetual torture, Jesus utters a horrific judgment.  “So shall My heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.” 

I cannot demand that black people forgive all the real and imagined evil they have suffered.  I cannot demand that white people forgive all the real and imagined evil they have suffered.  What I can do is ask God to heal my hurt and help me to forgive and offer to pray for and with others that their hurts can be healed as they forgive. We can argue till the Resurrection who did what to whom and we will likely accomplish nothing.  Much more effectively we can reach out to those on the other side of this growing chasm and ask for their help in praying for us and offer to pray with them and for them. 

We better hurry, we are only one knuckle-head away from vigilante bloodshed and from that, turning back is much more difficult. 

 

Can we return to the Golden Age of the Church

Acts 4: 23-37

This passage is perhaps one of the most beautiful pictures of the church. Having come all the way from the threats of the priestly delegation Peter and John returned to the church unharmed and, in fact, emboldened.  This beautiful picture and moment of the church will not last, but if there is a golden age of the church it is this moment.

In this golden age of the church we see that the church is deeply rooted in Scripture the church is speaking the word with boldness. There is great unity in the church, which apparently resulted in great generosity within the church. New leadership is developing. The message of the resurrection and the abundant grace of God were being shared with great boldness. The word that is translated “boldness” in verse 31 could be translated with “dynamic great power".  We also see the Holy Spirit manifest Himself in the life of the church. The Disciples were empowered, united, generous, the “abundant grace of Jesus was upon them” and they were proclaiming this good news. This moment was the Golden Age of the church. It was before the corruption of Ananias and Sapphira and before the physical persecution that we see in the next chapter. This was before the misunderstandings, division, death of martyrs and the rise of false leaders that will come later in the book. Before the heartbreaking history of the church over the last 20 centuries we see in this moment what the church could possibly be. The Golden Age of Acts 4:23-37 may have only lasted a few weeks or months, but it was real.

We have lived our whole lives with a different kind of church experience. We have suffered and sacrificed much for the church.  Sometimes we have also suffered much because of the church.  We have invested and we have seen our investment squandered and opportunities wasted.  What we have seen has not been a golden age but a sort of local “dark age”.  It is sometimes easy to grow a little or even very cynical about the church. We know the life of the church is a mixed bag of good and bad.  This mixed bag is what we see in the rest of the book of Acts.  For our part, with the rampant evil of our world and the refuge of the church being so painful we have a hard time seeing the good.  Having been an eyewitness to the troubled dysfunction, pain, and pettiness so much we sometimes feel as if there is no other side to the church.

We will likely not enjoy another golden age on this side of Heaven. In fact, there is plenty of reason to be cynical about the church if we choose to be. But cynicism is a choice we make, it is not the inevitable reality of the world or of the Church’s brokenness. Cynicism is an attempt to avoid experiencing past hurts again.  It is a choice we make based on personal wounds, what we believe about reality and how we interpret the experiences of our life.  The person most cynical about love and marriage will not be the indifferent bachelor, but the jilted, passionate lover.  The person most cynical about the church is not the lukewarm agnostic, but the profoundly disappointed enthusiast.

However, we don't need to despair because we don't live in the Golden Age of the church.  Cynicism about “institutional religion” is not the only option that is available to us.  Rather than be disappointed by our failed experience with the church and passively slide into suspicion we can make a proactive choice.  I can, for my part, be a golden age of the church.  Or to use a more appropriate image I can choose to be a light on a lamp stand or a city on the hill.