Facing Racism

The Trump era has caused us to face the ugly specter of racism. No one wants to think of themselves as racist. When someone says "that's racist" let alone "you're being racist" or worst of all "you're a racist" our natural reaction is to deny and defend ourselves against the accusation. It's more than an accusation, it's a condemnation. Our response is to want to distance ourselves from people or groups that we see as racist, as if by doing that we could claim to be immune and untouched and pure. 

I recently came across a talk by David Gushee called "In the Ruins of White Evangelicalism" which he gave as the presidential address to the AAR. In the talk he said that the connection between Trump's base being racist and white evangelicals being the demographic most likely to support Trump made it an inescapable conclusion for him that racism was a major problem within evangelicalism. He says he is driven to the conclusion that evangelicals support Trump not in spite of his racism and cruelty, but because of it.

But the part that really impacted me was where he went from there. Although he had distanced himself from evangelicalism, he did not distance himself from its sin of racism. Instead he wondered how he, as a major voice within evangelicalism focusing on ethics, could have been blind to racism for all those years. His talk therefore was one of him confessing and repenting for what he called the sin of racism.

Calling racism a sin is interesting because it opens up a way to see racism that leads to self-reflection and growth. Let me unpack this. As Christians we should be familiar with the concept of confessing that we are sinners. We see this in the catechisms, but also in the Gospels, in the parable Jesus tells of the Pharisee and the tax collector,

The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: "God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector."

But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. (Luke 18:11-14)

If we come at sin like the Pharisee, saying "I was a sinner before, but now I've repented and go to church and am saved and chosen. I thank God that I am not like those sinners outside of my church" then Jesus says we don't go away justified, even though we are trying to justify ourselves.  Growing up evangelical I heard statements like that made from the pulpit constantly. "Thank God we are not like those liberals, gays, woman's lib-ers, welfare queens, Muslims out there!" In other words, I heard messages of homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, and racism constantly growing up evangelical.

Of course as an ex-vangelical it's just as easy for me to say "Thank God that I am not like those racist Trump supporting evangelicals over there." It's easy to write of racism as a problem "over there" in evangelicalsm, or in the South. In fact, it's really common for progressives and liberals in an attempt to "out-woke" each other to condemn others for the sins of racism and white privilege. People will be shamed and ostracized on social media, calls will go out for people to be fired and shunned for some insensitive comment or act. In that atmosphere of self-righteous progressivism, it's really no wonder people react defensively. They act like they are being attacked and condemned because... well, they are. Progressives see themselves as champions of compassion, but boy can they be merciless.

Jesus said we should remove the log from our eye before we take the splinter from our brother's eye. What if I looked at my own life before I became the progressive moral police of social media? Maybe if I did, I could approach others with the same mercy I know I need. Maybe if I did I could have conversations rather than accusations. Maybe I as a progressive Christian need to take the stance of the tax collector in Jesus' parable and say, "God, have mercy on me, a racist!" What if instead of seeking to prove myself innocent of racism, I assume that just as I am a sinner, just as I know that I can do things that hurt others, I am open to the idea that I have blind spots in me, I have racial bias, and am therefore open to seeing this and becoming sensitized to it so I can do better.

I also feel pulled to look back at my evangelical past and try to make sense of why it is that evangelicals today so overwhelmingly support Trump, as Gushee says, not in spite of his racist cruelty, but because of it. At the same time, evangelicals would all deny that they are racist. I think that's due to a misconception of what racism is. We think of racism as the stereotypical Southern plantation owner in the Hollywood film. We think that if we don't have malicious intent in our hearts, that we are not racist. But the thing is, people who do evil and hurtful things, even horrific things, never think they are doing evil. They think they are doing good. That's why the whole focus of "but I don't have any racism in my heart!" misses the point, and blinds us to the racial blinders that lead to do cruel and hurtful things.

What's behind racism is a reaction to fear that causes us to be tribal, to protect our tribe, and if "they" suffer as a result, well that's just too bad. It comes from perceiving some other group as being a threat, and reacting in fear to that threat. Fear is the opposite of empathy and compassion. As Gushee says in his address, American white evangelicalism today has really become "U.S. white tribalist religion" characterized by "aggrieved white conservatives." That stance of "aggrieved whites" of course is the constant mantra of  Fox News, and it very much echoes what I heard from the pulpit Sunday after Sunday, a message of fear and resentment towards "those sinners out there" who were a threat to our family, our way of life.

That tribalist fear stance is very much tied to the tendency in evangelicalism to justify violence as good and righteous. Evangelicals are more likely than just about any other demographic to support violence as a means to good, whether that's supporting torture, war, capital punishment. When you tie that propensity to justifying violence and cruelty together with demonizing other groups, fearing them, seeing them as a threat, it seems inevitable that when little black boys are shot by cops, evangelicals stress that "blue lives matter" and when hispanic children are traumatically ripped from their parents and held in concentration camps, white evangelicals feel the need to justify and support this.

If you feel threatened, it's a natural human reaction (Paul would call it a fleshly reaction) to justify a harsh, merciless response. 

The two poisons of racism and violence go hand in hand, specifically violence understood as a means to good, and racism as a fearful otherizing and thus dehumanizing of a person or group. Of the two of these, I want to argue the most important one to address is racism. I do not want, therefore, to propose a Christian solution of total abstinence from violence. That is, I am not arguing that the police should not be armed, we should not have an army, or even that a person cannot defend themselves in their home. I say this, primarily because it is utterly impracticable. If we want to take steps towards reducing violence, towards less cruelty, towards more compassionate way I living together, I don't think abstinence from violence is the key.

Rather, I want to argue that the core problem here has to do with the otherizing or dehumanizing of a person or group. When we see a person or group as a threat, as "other" it is easy to justify cruel or inhuman treatment. We see them as a monster, an animal. If we instead saw them as our brother, our sister, our child, as part of us, we would seek to deal with them in more humane ways. This would lead to a reduction in violence, a reduction in cruelty and hurt. We would find other ways because we value the other as we value our own. That's something that Jesus was constantly preaching, widening our circle to include loving the sinner, loving the enemy.

Conservatives need to not see liberals and people of color as the evil other, and progressives similarly need to not see white evangelicals as the evil other. Isn't that what "love your enemy" means? That is, it does not mean they are not your enemy, but that you should act lovingly towards them nevertheless. We should see them as a part of us. Again, that does not mean we tolerate people doing or saying hurtful things, but it does mean dealing with them as we would deal with someone beloved, which would lead us to seeking ways to deal with things restoratively and humanely.

Boyd and Copan's Unbelievable Debate, and the Problem of Unquestioning Obedience

Premier Christian Radio's show "Unbelievable" recently hosted part 1 of a 2-part debate  between Greg Boyd and Paul Copan, discussing Greg's book The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. Those of you who are familiar with my own  debate with Greg on this topic (which you can read here, here, here and here) know I have had my own critiques of Greg's approach to the problem of violence in Scripture, so let me begin here by saying that in comparison to Copan, Greg and I are totally on the same page. I thought Greg did a great job presenting and defending his position, and I encourage folks to have a listen.

What I noticed more than anything listening to the two talk is that Boyd and Copan have very different ways of reading the Bible. Boyd speaks of the "humanness" of the Bible and how his understanding of the incarnation allows for him to see the Bible as divine, even with its flawed human parts. This is very much in line with the approach outlined by Pete Enns in his book Inspiration and Incarnation which I see as a healthy and realistic approach to Scripture. Indeed, Boyd pastorally warns that people who look for a "perfect" Bible set themselves up for disappointment and even a challenge to their faith by expecting the Bible to be something that it is not.

On the opposite side is Copan who exhibits what I describe as the hermeneutic of "unquestioning obedience" where one uncritically accepts everything the Bible says, no matter how unloving or morally irresponsible that may be. For example, in the debate the subject of the OT command to kill children who are disobedient to their parents is brought up (Matthew 15:4, citing Exodus 21:17 and Leviticus 20:9). Greg somewhat incredulously suggests that no one in their right mind could seriously propose that we follow that today. Paul Copan however argues that since Jesus called this a "command"  this implies that Jesus endorsed it. QED: so does Paul Copan.

The idea that a 21st century theologian who is focused on ethics could with a straight face and zero sense of irony endorse the execution of children is of course just jaw-droppingly morally irresponsible--not to mention a truly atrocious reading of the passage (which I'll return to in a second)--but it illustrates what the hermeneutic of "unquestioning obedience" looks like in action. Copan seems oblivious to how morally problematic his reading is. That's the "unquestioning" part of the hermeneutic. What is the alternative hermeneutic that we see both Jesus and the Apostle Paul demonstrating in how they read Scripture? The hermeneutic of faithful questioning, and the key question is "how can I read this in a way that will result in loving action? In this case, as Greg points out, the key take-away is that actually killing children seems pretty obviously not the loving thing to do, and so Greg presses on to dig into the passage, trying to find a way to read it that does result in love. If you listen to the interview, I think you'll agree that Greg does a pretty good job with his reading.

Copan on the other hand does not wrestle to find the reading that results in love, but instead approaches the Bible with the assumption that everything it says is good, and thus looks for ways to argue that the profoundly immoral and unloving things we find in Scripture -- like killing disobedient children, like genocide, like cannibalism, like slavery, and on and on -- are actually good and right and God's will. More specifically, because the a priori assumption Copan works with is that everything in the Bible must be good, he encounters a problem when he gets to the New Testament. This is be because the NT as a whole, and the teaching of Jesus in particular, constitutes a healthy Jewish critique of the OT. I stress that this is a Jewish critique because Jesus here is following in the tradition found throughout the Old Testament of a healthy introspective critique of one's own religion and institutions and systems in the name of love. In other words, Jesus does not agree with everything in the OT, and in fact the OT often does not agree with itself. The prophets and Psalmists (not to mention Job) frequently question the law, and do so in the name of love. However, that is not in the realm of the possible for Copan. His assumption is that the Bible must harmonize, and so Jesus can't be disagreeing. The result of this reading (which is extremely common among neo-Calvinists) is to end up missing (kind of by design of how their hermeneutic functions) most of the major teachings of the NT in a pained attempt to read Scripture as if it all agrees. This is the approach identified in the interview as "synthesis" but in the end it mostly means accepting all the authoritarian and militaristic parts of the OT as good, and mostly ignoring the NT and the way of Jesus. In contrast to this, the aim of Boyd's "cruciform hermeneutic" is to do the opposite: He begins with the revelation of God in Christ crucified, and reads everything else in Scripture in that light.


What I want to stress here is that Copan's approach is not an exception, but characteristic of how most conservative evangelicals read Scripture. This is what conservative apologetics looks like: Faithfulness to Scripture is understood to mean justify everything in the Bible, no matter what.

Let me give another example from the interview of this. Boyd brings up the subject of the Amelikite genocide, where the Israelites slaughtered every living thing, including slaughtering infants, under the command to "show them no mercy." This for Boyd is a clear example of a deeply problematic violent text, and it's hard to imagine that anyone could possibly disagree with him. Copan's response is to pontificate on how sometimes we "need to defend the innocent." Sorry, what? Are we even having the same conversation? How in God's green earth is slaughtering infants "without mercy" an example of defending the innocent!? Again this is an example of how in Copan's hermeneutic absolutely everything is justified and defended. That's how faithfulness is understood.

It's not a very big step to go from this kind of cognitive dissonance in biblical interpretation, and carry this into the public sphere and politics. We recently have seen examples of this from folks like Jerry Falwell Jr, Franklin Graham, and most recently Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council who, in a truly mind-boggling interview (be sure to listen to the audio of the interview in the link above)  justifies everything Trump does (including committing adultery with a porn star), saying--much to the apparent shock of the interviewer--that Perkins sees no problem morally at all in any of this for him as an evangelical.

So there you have it: Copan justifies everything in his authoritative book, and Perkins justifies everything the authority (here in the form of the President) does. It's not hard to see how one leads to the next. Within authoritarian evangelicalism, those in authority are typically unquestioned, and even more so the system itself remains unquestioned. When this makes its way into the public sphere as it has now with Trump and evangelicals' overwhelming support, the hermeneutic of unquestioning obedience has given birth to a Frankenstein monster. But in this version of the story the villagers can't seem to recognize the monster.  As an article in the Washington Post puts it, "evangelicals have lost their gag-reflex," they have seemingly lost all ability to be introspective and reflect morally on who and what they endorse and represent. This is painfully obvious to everyone but conservative evangelicals themselves. They have come to champion all that is untrue, whatever is ignoble, whatever is not right, whatever is impure, whatever is unlovely, whatever is not admirable.

What we need to do instead, as morally responsible adults, is to learn how to reflect on our own lives, as well as reflect on our public institutions and systems and sacred texts. That kind of introspection is what allows us to grow and develop and heal and reform and repent. That is precisely what Jesus taught us to do.

Wealthcare: Attacking the Weakest Among Us

Our faith matters most in how it affects the way we treat others, especially the least. Jesus stressed this over an over. Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the children. In other words, we need to care for the weakest among us, the vulnerable.

Alyssa Mastromonaco, former Deputy Chief of Staff for Obama, speaking on Pod Save America last Thursday (June 22, 2017), lays out who will be hurt by the Senate health care bill:

49% of all births
64% of all nursing home residents
30% of all adults with disabilities
40% of all poor adults
39% of children
76% of all poor children
60% of all children with disabilities 

She sums this up by saying "Way to go Republicans, literally attacking the weakest among us. If you want to find a purpose for government it should be protecting the weakest among us."

I think Jesus would agree, and I hope you do, too. But it's not just about caring for the weak among us. The fact is, there are things in this bill that will likely hurt you, including not covering for your preexisting conditions (or only at prohibitive cost), and caps on maximum spending for your medical expenses.

I'm sure that many Republican Senators are good people at heart who did not go into government to take away health care from children. But there is a lot of pressure on them right now to vote "yes" on this bill, and so they need to know that the people who voted for them don't want this, and that they will support them in having the moral courage to care for the weak, and to do what is right.

So if you live in a State with a Republican Senator, please call them this week and urge them to vote no. The Senate will likely vote on this bill this Thursday, so time is of the essence. You can call the the U.S. Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and a switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request. If you don't live in a State with a Republican Senator, please urge your friends or family who do to call their Republican Senator.

I realize that many of you may want to avoid talking politics with your extended family in these polarized times. I know also that it can feel like a neverending stream of one horrible position after another, which can be almost numbing. But this bill tops it all. It would have far graver impact, harming more people, than anything else that has happened so far in this administration. So if there's one thing that is worth entering this awkward conversation with relatives for, this is it. This goes way beyond any particular political position, and comes down to our most basic humanity and morality.

The Shack and a God of Color

When God was portrayed in William P. Young’s bestselling novel The Shack as a black woman it got some white conservatives upset. The same thing happened again last month when the film adaptation was released starring Octavia Spencer (The Help, Hidden Figures) as God, or “Papa” as she is referred to in the Shack. Apparently when God is portrayed as a lion, that’s totally fine, but when God is portrayed as a black woman this gets some people quite offended. Color me unsurprised.

I haven’t seen the movie yet, and I’m a little bit afraid that it will be a bit too sappy and on the nose for my own personal taste. But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the idea of depicting God as a black woman, and I’m convinced there is something quite profound there, if we are willing to look past the “offense of the cross” to see it.

Of course historically, Jesus was unquestionably a person of color, despite the many depictions of him as a blond-haired blue-eyed white man. But there is something much deeper going on than skin color. Jesus explicitly chose to associate with those who were at the bottom of society, those who were considered the “least of these.” To proclaim Jesus as Lord is to say that the Caesar is not. It means the dethroning of the god of empire, dominance, force, wealth. As Jürgen Moltmann put it,

“For Christ's sake I am an atheist, an atheist in respect to the gods of the world and world history, the Caesars and the political demigods who follow them. Only a Christian can be a good atheist.” (The Crucified God, p. 195)

I own a great debt to what I have learned from white male theologians like Moltmann. But I feel compelled to go in a more radical direction. When I look at how white evangelicals in America have abandoned Jesus to follow empire, mammon, hatred, and state violence, I feel tempted to become an atheist, and I certainly do declare with Moltmann my categorical rejection of their false gospel. While in the past I could think that these “hyper-Calvinists” where perhaps a loud and angry minority, I cannot ignore that 80% of evangelicals voted for Trump. 

For decades I have, like many others, attempted to walk a middle ground, stressing that liberals and conservatives both have valid perspectives, and also both have some big blind spots. However, there has been a major shift within conservative Republicanism over the last several years culminating in the most recent political election.  This shift is characterized by a movement away from compassion towards an outright fostering of hatred and fear, seeing those from other races, other countries, other religions as the “enemy.” Really it is a move away from democracy towards something more akin to dictatorship. In light of this, I simply cannot in good conscience maintain a position of being “in the radical middle” politically and socially. I feel that I have a moral obligation to categorically name that movement as representing the polar opposite of Christ and his kingdom values, and openly opposing it in Jesus' name. I refuse to normalize this by acting as if voting for Trump was a legitimate choice for followers of Jesus to make. This is not politics as usual where there is room to be neutral. There is no place to watch from the sidelines, as if I were morally above it all. If I care for the least, as Jesus does, I must stand with them. With the incarnation Jesus shows that holiness does not remain separate, detached and above it all, rather purity requires getting dirty.

Because of this decline of conservative politics into moral bankruptcy, and the evangelical church's blindly following them into this seemingly bottomless pit, I find myself often exclaiming in disbelief, “What is wrong with the church?!” But as I ask this, I have to stop and wonder why it is that I assume that this is the church? As you may be aware, when national statistics refer to “evangelicals,” they exclusively mean white evangelicals. Black evangelicals are not counted. So when I exclaim, “What’s wrong with the church?” or “Why does the church not care about social justice?” there are plenty of people of color who could answer back “Excuse me? What church are you talking about?”

To put things in the starkest of terms, it’s clear that when slave owners worshiped God in their Christian churches, they saw a very different God, a very different Jesus, than their slaves did when they worshiped God in their churches. For those slaves, Jesus was the one who had come to set the captives free. Knowing what I do about the historical Jesus as well as the Jesus of the New Testament, I can say unequivocally that the slaves were much more in line with the real Jesus.

We don’t have institutional slavery anymore in America, and I used to think that racism was a thing of the past, too. Something that we fixed back in the 1960s. Or at least it was something you could only still find in the deep south. I was so very wrong. Michelle Alexander opened my eyes to see the extent of how profoundly broken our criminal justice system is, as well as how wide-spread systemic racism is within our nation’s police force. I’ve learned that nearly all black parents need to talk to their children about how not to get killed by police. As a parent myself that really hit me hard.

While I have just woken up to this disturbing reality, it’s something African Americans have been living with for... well, for my entire life. I see the angry white atheists, and believe me, I understand their righteous anger. But I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to convert to atheism, even in a Moltmannian “Christian atheist” way. I’m convinced that’s a very “white guy” thing to do. I want to do something more radical, and I hope more life-giving. I want to convert and become a black Christian. In fact, I’d like to become a black female Christian. Can I do that? Well, I’m just going to.

Of course I can’t change my skin color (I can’t even get a tan). But I do want to sit at the feet of people of color, and especially of women, and learn from their faith. I’ve done that already in an intellectual way over the years, having read lots of feminist and black liberation theology, and have found this to be tremendously rewarding to learn from this “theology from the margins.” But I want to take that to a deeper place. I feel honestly like my own faith depends on it. 

My faith in the “church” I have known as a white evangelical has been shattered. I no longer believe in that religion. But I see hope in another church. I want to learn how they can hold on to hope in the face of so much injustice. I want to learn to see through their eyes, to learn how to channel this anger and hurt and fear into action for good in the face of an empire that calls itself “Christian” when it is clearly not. I want to worship and trust in the God they have seen all along. 

I am not talking about theology here, about something I can do in my head and in isolation. I am talking about church, about community, about learning from the lived example of others who have been walking for a long time in the place where I have only begun to walk.

Beau Willimon on Trump & Bannon's Path to War

The following is from a Twitter thread by @BeauWillimon, the creator of the show House of Cards. I thought it was worth sharing,

"Fifteen years after 9/11, the election of Donald Trump is precisely the sort of White House that Bin Laden would have hoped for. I was living in New York when 9/11 occurred. I vividly remember a city that came together in the wake of a horrific tragedy. And all of us in New York were grateful for and inspired by the overwhelming support we received from the rest of the country. We were a nation in grief, united in our resolve to heal and remain strong despite the senseless death of thousands. The rest of the world joined our grief. Including the vast majority those in Muslim nations. They too prayed for healing and recovery. But it didn't take long before fear-mongerers seized the opportunity to advocate war for the sake of extreme ideology & profiteering.

In 2003 the Iraq War began, justified by manufactured intelligence. No WMDS were found. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost. Meanwhile Halliburton and other similar companies made millions. And warhawks in Washington used the war to advance their agendas. Public opinion turned on the war. By 2004 most of the Dem candidates wanted it to end. Even some in the GOP were expressing doubts. Bush won re-election, but by the end of his second terms a majority of the nation wanted the war to end. Obama promised it would. Obama's withdrawal didn't happen as fast as many would have liked. And blowback from the Iraq War has caused major instability. The Middle East was swirling with chaos in response to a power void. New groups like ISIS began to emerge. The Arab Spring offered some hope for progress, but it also opened up the door for further instability.

Despite all this, the Obama administration did aim for a sustainable, more stable future in the Middle East. We can debate the effectiveness of Obama's policy. It certainly deserves criticism. But its aim was a balance between peace & security. Trump and Bannon, however - have no such aim. Their goal has been to build upon fear in order to justify their extreme agenda. They will say "peace" and "security", but they are deliberately stoking increased animosity between the U.S. and the Muslim world. Bannon has publicly said that he foresees a great holy war between Christians and Muslims.

Sound familiar? That is exactly what Bin Laden hoped to accomplish with terrorist tactics. A Holy War. Bannon's rhetoric is not any different. Increased defense spending & militarization is proof that he doesn't intend to stop at rhetoric. Discrediting the press and Intelligence Community is in preparation to propagandize the justification of armed conflict. War is Trump & Bannon's pathway for Bannon's desire to "dismantle the administrative state." And all of this plays directly on Putin's hands, who wants nothing more than to see massive destabilization of the West. Putin's alliance with the Assad regime and aggression in Syria is an attempt to foment this destabilization. nd Russian interference with elections in the U.S. and Europe is intended to exacerbate it.

Trump and Bannon welcome this interference. They have no interest in peace and security, only unfettered power. By any means necessary. They have little regard for democracy, human rights or freedoms which comprise the core values of our country. Their policies will not make us safer. They will create a more dangerous world. They will lead to war. And war is the fuel of dictators.

This dismantling of our government, erosion of values, dissolution of democracy - these were Bin Laden's aims. Which Putin will exploit. But we can #resist this future. We don't have to let Bin Laden and Putin claim victory through Trump and Bannon. We can be the nation that came together after 9/11. Who welcomed the support of our friends abroad and valued their humanity. We can lead by example again rather than following the script of terrorists & dictators. But only if WE the people lead. #Resist"

A Thousand Starfish

Watching the news of Trump has been overwhelming, alarming, and frankly exhausting. One of the biggest stories has been of Trump’s Muslim ban. People who had legitimate visas and green cards were held in detention or deported. Families were separated, people were refused their rights to see lawyers, despite direct court orders. It was a nightmare.

That’s why I was so surprised by the perspective of a young student from Iran I know (I’ll call her Zahra). When I told Zahra I was glad to see her here, she replied with a huge grin, “Thank you, and thank you to America!”

I realized that for Zahra, America is not defined by what Trump or the White House does. It’s not CBP or ICE. She sees America in all the people who protested in airports across the country. She sees the thousands and thousands of people who took a stand for her and others like her. That’s the America Zahra sees.

It’s so easy for me to let the deluge of news stories define what America is. It’s easy to feel like my single voice is powerless. That’s why I want to remember Zahra’s perspective. I need it to sustain me through what will likely be a long resistance.

I’m reminded of the story of a beach covered with dying starfish. A man sees a boy, throwing the starfish back into the water one at a time, and says to him cynically, “There are thousands and thousands of starfish. What does it matter?” The boy throws another starfish into the water, and answers, “It mattered to him.”

It mattered to Zahra.

.

Worlds Apart: Maintaining Personal Relationships as Political Opposites

Photo credit: AP

This election cycle has been characterized by an unprecedented amount of polarizing discourse and outright hostility. There are strong feelings of alarm and moral outrage on both sides of the political divide. Many have reported getting into a fight with a friend or family member over the election.

From the perspective of relationship experts, the turn our political discourse has taken this election can be seen as a case-book example of exactly how not to speak if you value your personal relationships. Marriage researcher and therapist John Gottman famously identified four styles of interpersonal communication that his studies revealed as key predictors for divorce, ominously dubbing them the “four horsemen of the apocalypse.” They are criticism (of a person, rather than a behavior), contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling, and of the four, contempt has been found to be the greatest predictor of divorce.

As examples of contempt, the Gottman Institute lists “sarcasm, cynicism, name-calling, eyerolling, sneering, mockery, and hostile humor.” That kind of contempt is plain to see in one particular Presidential candidate who frequently calls people invectives like “disgusting” and “pigs.” But that spirit of contempt has spilled over into how people commonly characterize those on the other side of the political fence as well. It’s easy to see why speaking to your spouse with that kind of ugly animosity would not be good for a marriage. At the same time, this begs the question of how you can speak with a loved one when you find their political views deeply troubling and hurtful.

For some, the best policy seems to be avoiding the topic altogether. This is a matter of setting healthy boundaries that both respect, with the aim of setting aside these differences for the good of the relationship. Talking through these differences is a lot harder, and requires a good deal of moral maturity on the part of both partners. Those who do not possess that maturity, sensitivity, and sophisticated communication skills may need to go with the wisdom of “don’t try this at home.”

For those who do want to venture into talking about these things with a loved one who is a political opposite, it’s critical to be able to speak in a way that is not condemning, disrespectful, or degrading. That is not a matter of agreeing on the issues, but on how you speak with each other, even when there is strong disagreement. When we feel anger or anxiety – two strong feelings that this election has brought up in many people – our brains go into alarm-mode, making us cling to our beliefs, doubling-down on them, shutting ourselves off to the other.

The antidote to this is creating an environment of respect, where you both feel socially safe and connected. A debate is not a place where the two parties change their views, it is an atmosphere where each side becomes all the more entrenched and polarized. Change can only happen in an atmosphere where both feel safe, respected, valued, understood. That entails how you speak with each other, but it also will likely mean at first that you need to get behind the issues, and seek to understand the vulnerable feelings (such as feeling threatened, wronged, or afraid) behind them. In other words, you genuinely try to understand the other, while also expressing how you feel.

That’s hard to do, because it means both of you managing your reactivity. However, if the goal is to come together, if the goal is to resolve conflict... and even if the goal is to win over the other, the only way to get there is through this type of vulnerable and respectful dialog. If one instead has a diet of rage, resentment and contempt fed to them through their favorite liberal or conservative news outlet, the result will be a continued polarization – moving further and further away, fostering fear, anger, and otherizing.

Trump and the Dangerous Rise of American Authoritarianism

There is no shortage of outrageous comments made by Donald Trump. His recent comments about punishing women who have abortions is only the latest in an endless stream of deeply disturbing extremist rhetoric that is frankly alarming coming from a Presidential candidate.

Add to this the fact that Trump’s events have increasingly been marked by mob violence – violence which Trump has actively supported and encouraged, even promising to pay their legal fees – and it’s understandable why so many are asking,

“What is wrong with this country? What has happened to us?”

While we may be appalled at the hateful comments and calls for violence, there is clearly a large group of people that this appeals to. For them, these are not embarrassing slips, rather they appeal to the core values and aspirations of Trump’s base.

So while much media attention has focused on the phenomenon of Trump himself, an equally important question to ask is who his supporters are. How is it that someone as outrageous and dangerously amoral as Trump can garner so much popular support?

This has been a question that has captivated political scientists since the rise of the Third Reich. What causes a people to shift – rapidly and in large numbers – towards extremist political views characterized by fear of minorities and the desire for a strongman leader?

A recently released study of Trump supporters, conducted by PhD student Matthew MacWilliams,  found that one common denominator far surpassed the usual suspects of education, income, gender, age, ideology, and religion. 

The factor most likely to predict support for Trump was a belief in authoritarianism.

To determine this, MacWilliams employed a set of questions, developed by Stanley Feldman in the 1990s, to determine a person's inclination towards authoritarianism, questions on the seemingly innocuous subject of child-rearing:

1. Which one is more important for a child to have: independence or respect for elders?
2. Which one is more important for a child to have: self-reliance or obedience?
3. Which one is more important for a child to have: to be considerate or to be well-behaved?
4. Which one is more important for a child to have: curiosity or good manners?

Authoritarianism, Feldman notes, is not so much an ideology as it is a personality profile. While its causes are debated, says MacWilliams, the political behavior of authoritarians is not. Authoritarians gravitate towards strongman leaders, and feel threatened by and respond aggressively to outsiders.

In fact, it is this tendency towards punitive action -- a desire to use government power to eliminate threats -- that sets authoritarians and Trump's supporters apart from the establishment GOP.

While specific policies, such as limiting immigration or protecting national security, may line up with the rest of the GOP, what sets him apart is how extreme he is willing to be. As Amanda Taub writes in Vox,

"That's why it's a benefit rather than a liability for Trump when he says Mexicans are rapists or speaks gleefully of massacring Muslims with pig-blood-tainted bullets: He is sending a signal to his authoritarian supporters that he won't let 'political correctness' hold him back from attacking the outgroups they fear.

This, Feldman explained to me, is 'classic authoritarian leadership style: simple, powerful, and punitive.' "

Again, the issue is not simply the danger of Donald Trump as a leader, but the authoritarian base which he has "activated" (a term used by Karen Stenner in her 2005 work The Authoritarian Dynamic).  The larger issue is the growing constituency of authoritarianism that exists independently of Trump.  As Taub writes, "If Trump loses the election, that will not remove the threats and social changes that trigger the "action side" of authoritarianism. The authoritarians will still be there. They will still look for candidates who will give them the strong, punitive leadership they desire.

Authoritarianism goes beyond political or religious affiliation. Not all Republicans are authoritarians, nor are all authoritarians Republican. However, as Marc Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler argue in their 2009 book Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics, the GOP's billing of itself as the "traditional values and law and order party" had the effect of directly appealing to authoritarian values. However, rather than representing the establishment orthodoxy of the Republican Party, the rise of authoritarians within the GOP represents a major split between establishment Republicans and authoritarian Republicans, which threatens to tear to party in two.

A similar divide can be seen within Evangelical Christianity, which has likewise seen a rise in authoritarianism gaining influence in its ranks. This has also led to a split within Evangelicalism between authoritarians and those increasingly identifying with the "Evangelical left" and progressive Evangelicalism, which is focused on retaining core values such as compassion, grace, and relationship over what they perceive as an angry and reactionary "defending of the fort."

The critical point here is that it is not a particular religious or political set of values or ideology that is the heart of the problem here, so much as it is a growing movement towards authoritarianism within these groups. It is vital for those who identify with these groups to recognize this, and further to recognize the very real danger that this poses, given authoritarianism's penchant for enforcing its will through the means of coercion and force, at the expense of religious and civil liberties. 

It is not enough for progressive Evangelicals and political liberals or even moderates to speak out. Conservative politicians and religious leaders alike need to recognize the very real danger of authoritarianism, and find the moral courage to speak out against it. We can see the warning signs of the danger of authoritarian movements throughout history. That history teaches us a lesson, if we have the wisdom to listen. We should not be so naive as to think that we are somehow immune, that it "couldn't happen here."

Many conservative politicians have begun to speak out -- although it has been far too few and too timid. Conservative religious leaders -- and in particular conservative Evangelical Christians -- need to likewise find their moral backbone and unreservedly call out the dangers of authoritarianism in its own ranks. They need to call it out for what it is. As much as it may attempt to present itself as righteousness, as moral, it represents the very worst of human nature. It is, quite simply, sin. Conservative religious leaders need to wake up to that.

This is a theme that we see Jesus himself address repeatedly, throughout the Gospels, in his repeated confrontations with the Pharisees and religious leaders of his day. As I argue in Disarming Scripture, it’s imperative to stress that the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees is not about pitting one religion against another. Rather it represents an inner-Jewish dispute between two diametrically opposed understandings of what faithfulness to the same Scriptures looks like.

As a show in Disarming Scripture, this debate has a long tradition within Judaism and can be found throughout the Hebrew Scripture. Jesus takes up one side of this debate, characterized by faithful questioning, and focused on compassion towards those considered outsiders. On the other side there is a way of religion characterized by unquestioning obedience, leading to using religion to justify acts of authoritarian violence.

When I wrote about the dangers of religiously justified violence, calling people to move away from  the hurtful authoritarian tendencies within Evangelicalism back in 2014, I wish I had been writing of something only in the distant past, something that we are now beyond today. But unfortunately, the low-level moral development which characterizes authoritarianism will always be with us, because there will always be immature and morally under-developed people in the world. What we can and must do, however, is learn to call out that moral immaturity for what it is, and help people to grow away from fear and towards thinking socially and empathetically.

Those of us who are followers of Jesus can hear how he warns, over and over again, of how authoritarianism pretends to represent the good, when in fact it promotes the very opposite of what Jesus stood for. "Ravenous wolves in sheep's clothing" Jesus called them, "but you can recognize them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:15-16). Those fruits of fear, hate, and violence are plain to see. It's time for conservative religious leaders to recognize this, and heed the sober words of pastor Martin Niemöller, speaking now while they are still able to speak.

When Trump attacked Mexicans, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Mexican;
Then he attacked Muslims, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Muslim;
Then he attacked the disabled, and I did not speak out - because I was not disabled;
Then he attacked women, and I did not speak out - because I was not a woman;
Then he came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me. 

 Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Wake up America.

Realistic Nonviolence in a Violent World

Every 4th of July we nonviolent bloggers feel the need to write an obligatory post on American empire. I didn't, and instead enjoyed watching fireworks with my kids that some guys were lighting illegally on the street in front of our friend's house, and baking an apple pie (Mmmmm).

I get the comparison of the United States to the Roman Empire, but one has to ask, what would the alternative be? Would we rather live in a failed state? If our goal is the reduction of violence, it is clear that a failed state is far more violent and unjust than our country. The fact that we have police and a military does serve to reduce violence. That of course does not mean there is no room for improvement, that there are no problems in our country. But it does mean that the direction we need to move is not towards anarchy. That would be naïve.

A big problem, as I see it, is that there is a tendency for both pacifists and patriots to grandstand -- both taking unrealistically romantic positions on opposite sides of the issue. This may make for good Tweets, but it leads to bad public policy. On the one side we have the patriot/hawks who speak of the necessity of violence as a means of keeping the peace. On the other hand we have the pacifists who say we should abolish the police and military, or that as Christians we should not participate in them. Both take extreme positions in reaction to the other's, employing dramatic rhetoric to appeal to their base. Here there is no possibility for a conversation, just a widening of the divide. That is certainly not peacemaking.

I would instead like to propose something different. I think we should begin by all agreeing that peace and safety are desirable, and that violence is not. The question to ask, therefore, is how can we reduce violence while maintaining peace and safety?

One clear example of this is with the many news stories we have seen of police shootings of unarmed black men and women. There is clearly a problem when there are no legal consequences for police who abuse their authority. We've seen this multiple times where Grand Juries will acquit officers who clearly seemed guilty. 

Here it is clear that there needs to be change. Police who abuse authority and commit criminal acts should be subject to the law. But legal punishment cannot be the only response. The problem runs much deeper. That is, the problem is not just a few bad apples, but a system that fosters them. On a more systemic level there is a fundamental problem with the way policing is done in low income neighborhoods, as well as how police interact with the mentally ill. 

This is something that whites like myself generally do not experience.  I feel safe around police. My interactions with them have generally been respectful. I do not feel unsafe around police. But for people of color, that is not the case.

In general, the approach often taken by police in "bad" neighborhoods is a militaristic one of "zero-tolerance." It's the "no broken windows" approach, and it has certainly only been made worse by the recent militarization of the police by the government. As a result of this, over time members of a community come to be regarded by police as "them" rather than "us," and one is either doing nothing or is a problem. If someone is a problem, then they must comply immediately with all orders or else. With such an approach it is extremely easy for things to escalate, often leading to lethal results. 

The answer is well known by the police and to the US Department of Justice. Part of it involves what is known as "community policing" where police work to build trust in the community, acting as a part of it, rather than as an occupying force. Another critical element is police training in how to deescalate a situation, rather than making it worse with threats, screaming, and a show of force. 

The result of such deescalation training makes things safer for everyone, including safer for police. So it's a win-win. Such training programs are readily available to police departments, but officers often do not participate. Perhaps such training should be a mandatory part of their qualification as police officers. That's a bigger issue, and hopefully as more light comes on to the issue, we will see needed reform here.

Let's take a step back through, and return to the broader picture: What I want to propose is that those of us who advocate for Christian nonviolence should not be calling for people to withdraw from politics or societal engagement. We should not be proposing a utopian Christian society without violence. Rather, we should be the ones training police in how to deescalate potentially dangerous situations. We should be in the middle of our messy world, offering practical and realistic means to reduce violence and actively promote justice. 

A poignant example of this is how Mennonites have worked to introduce principles of restorative justice into our judicial system. I find this remarkable because Mennonites have traditionally been the ones who have sought to separate themselves from society and politics. But now they are in the middle of that system, working to reform it.

That's where I want my nonviolence to take me as well. I am not interested in ideals that are cut off from the realities of our current world. I want instead to have ideals that actually work here and now to help make our broken world a little less broken, and a little more humane.

The President Sings Amazing Grace: A Song About "Our Nation's Original Sin"

President Obama delivered an emotional eulogy for Reverend Clementa Pinckney and the other victims of the AME church shooting in Charleston. If you have not yet heard it yet, you can it watch above, as well as read the full transcript of the President's speech.

Offering thoughtful reflections on themes such as institutional racism, gun control, and the epidemic of mass shootings in America, what was perhaps most remarkable about Obama's speech was that it was not delivered as a political speech at all, but as a gospel sermon. 

The central theme that the President kept returning to was the subject of grace. Grace as a gift of God. Grace in the face of loss and pain. Grace in the face of evil and hate. 

The President spoke of the grace that opened the church doors and invited a stranger in. The grace the families of the fallen showed when they saw the alleged killer in court, and in the midst of unspeakable grief, met him with words of forgiveness. 

The sermon reached a crescendo when the President paused. 

It was a long pause. 

Then President Obama began to sing in a low baritone the words to the familiar gospel hymn Amazing Grace.

Amazing grace how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found.
Was blind but now I see.

Amazing Grace is a song we all know well. It has been called our country's "spiritual national anthem," and has become a song that inspires hope in the wake of tragedy. But there is a significance in the words of this song that are particularly significant in the immediate context of the AME shooting, and its connection to the continuing effects of what Obama referred to as "our nation's original sin." 

Amazing Grace was written by John Newton in 1779. When he penned the words "that saved a wretch like me" he was not expressing remorse for some personal failing - such as intemperance or infidelity. John Newton came to see himself as a "wretch" because of his participation in the African slave trade. This was Newton's great sin. When the words of this song exclaim "I was blind, but now I see" Newton's blindness was specifically to the damage of systemic racism, and his participation in it for economic gain. This was what his eyes were opened to, leading to his conversion and outspoken advocacy for abolition.

Amazing Grace is a song about repenting of systemic sin. We typically think of "sin" in individual terms, as personal failings. Systemic sin is often not on our radar at all, but it needs to be. They say "all sins are the same in God's eyes," but that simply isn't true. Newton's involvement in the slave trade clearly affected and damaged more lives than any of his individual failings could have. What makes it all the worse is that systemic sin often hides under the mantle of political or religious authority, claiming as the system to represent "the good." That is the nature of systemic sin, and it is indeed wretched. 

In recent years there has been a move to soften the words of the hymn, replacing the line "that saved a wretch like me," with more palatable verse, such as"that saved and strengthened me" or "that saved and set me free." While it's easy to understand the desire to move away from the song's negative theological roots of self-loathing, at the same time, there is a power in those words that perhaps we should seek to face, even if that's hard to do, even when it's hard to face and own up to.

Even now, in a time when we have become almost numb to the news of yet another mass shooting, weary of all the vitriol, tired of nothing changing -- as we stare into the depths of our nation's addiction to violence, and its deep scars of racism -- perhaps especially now we need to rediscover as a country, as a community, the kind of grace that John Newton did.

Amazing Grace is a song about one man's real and ugly sin. The sin of slavery. At the same time it is a song about the power of forgiveness, a song about looking into the depths of very real evil and, even there, especially there, finding grace that is bigger than all the hate.

That light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Justice is What Love Looks Like in Public

In part two of this series on violence and the New Testament I discussed the tendency we have to embrace parts of Scripture that fit into the values we already hold, and side-stepping those that do not. I proposed that instead of doing that, we should instead have our values shaped by the way of Jesus.

The difficulty is that the way of Jesus, expressed in his teaching on enemy love, is something that is seldom taught in church, and largely not understood. As I explained in my previous post, if we don't understand something, we won't do it and will find ways to side-step it in how we interpret Scripture.

We see this in how conservative Christians embrace Romans 13 as a God-ordained societal model, but reject Jesus' understanding of the kingdom as one. This has little to do with biblical exegesis, and a lot to do with projecting one's pre-existing values into Scripture--using the Bible to support what we think is good, rather than having the Bible shape what we think is good.

In the case of Romans 13 the reason conservatives take this one small part and uphold it as a God-ordained societal model is that they are taking their pre-existing values of empire and projecting these onto this text. In other words, they defend state violence, not because they read the whole New Testament and concluded that this was its message, but because as part of the privileged class in America, they deeply believe in state violence, and so they use whatever snippet of text they can find in the Bible to support that.

So why do they embrace state violence? The basic idea behind state violence is we give the state the right to use force, including lethal force, with the idea that this will reduce violence. If you can call the police when someone takes your stuff, you don't need to take the law into your own hands, and that means less violence overall. It's a version  of Paul's statement in Romans 12:19, except it replaces the state for God, saying effectively,

Do not take revenge, citizens, but leave that for the police take care of it, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the state.

The result is that we feel safe in our homes knowing that the police are there to "serve and protect" and part of that is that they are permitted to use force, including lethal force if needed, to do this. That's the idea behind state violence, and why it is seen as "good." When people defend state violence, they do so because they believe that it keeps them safe. I recognize this. I'm glad we have police. I feel much safer knowing that they are there.

However, as we have seen in protests across the country in response to police shootings of unarmed black men, women and boys, many people of color do not feel safe around police. They do not feel protected, they feel afraid, harassed, mistreated, and in danger.

The reason conservative Evangelicals support state violence is that, as part of the privileged majority class of American society (and I should note that when I say "conservative Evangelicals" here I really mean white conservative Evangelicals), the system works for them. That makes sense. It works for me, too as a white male.

This however is not the perspective of Paul or the New Testament. Paul is writing to a people who are a persecuted and oppressed minority in the Roman Empire, not to those who are the privileged in that empire. The situation at the time of Paul's letter was an impending revolt against abuses surrounding taxes. The church in Rome was considering taking part in that revolt, and Paul in Romans 12 & 13 is telling them not to resort to violence, telling them that this is not God's way in Jesus.

At the time, it was inconceivable that Christians could have political influence in Rome. So Paul is not saying in Romans 13 "here's how Christian government should operate." Romans 13 is not intended to be a model for what Christians should do if they have political influence (which was not the situation they were in), it's a model for how a persecuted minority should act under oppression (which was their situation). Most of all this is about rejecting the solution of violent revolution and revolt that had been their script for centuries. Paul, and the NT in general, want to change that script of violent revolt. Paul rejects the way of the Maccabees.

So if we read Romans 13 today, from the very different context of a people of privilege living in the world's biggest empire, rather than seeing this as an affirmation of the values of empire, what the gospel and the way of Jesus call us to do is look beyond ourselves and what works for us, and to look to how our system is hurting others--especially the disenfranchised. I truly do understand why white conservative evangelicals embrace state violence as good. As a white male myself, the system of state-sanctioned violence indeed works for me. But Jesus shows me I should not only care about my own welfare, but especially for those who are marginalized, oppressed, and condemned in our society. For those people the system does not work, and these are precisely the ones Jesus tells me I need to pay attention to. As I care for them, I care for Jesus. And as I disregard and dismiss them, I do the same to Jesus. "As you have not done it unto these, you have not done it unto me. Depart from me!" 

That's quite the wake-up call. As Brian Zahnd puts it in A Farewell to Mars, Jesus judges nations on how well they care for four kinds of people:

The Poor. “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink … I was naked and you gave me clothing.” 
The Sick. “I was sick and you took care of me.” 
The Immigrant. “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” 
The Prisoner. “I was in prison and you visited me.” (Matt. 25: 35– 36)

Jesus did not identify with power and privilege, but rather identified with the "least"--the poor, the sick, the immigrant--in short, he identified with those who were regarded as unworthy and even as enemies. Jesus tells us to love our enemies. Over and over again in his parables, the good guys are those who are dismissed and despised and seen as "other" by those in power, and the bad guys are those with power and privilege who shut the door on them.

Romans 13 is not a model for what Christian political influence should look like. The fact is, the NT does not tell us what that would look like at all. This was beyond their horizon, just as the abolition of slavery was beyond their horizon at the time. So to move away from slavery, or to move towards lessening state violence, we need to go beyond where the New Testament writers were able to go. That's where a trajectory reading becomes so important.

Charting what that trajectory may look like is our task for today, and a place to start is to begin by seeing people as Jesus did, through the lens of compassion. The big problem with (white) conservative Christianity is that it is a theology that appeals to those in a position of privilege, to those for whom the system works. That's why the wealthy and powerful like and support it--because it does not call them out for their oppression, but upholds them as noble benefactors, focusing on private sins (usually sexual sins), and ignoring systemic sin. Both personal and systemic sin are important of course, but systemic sin is more important for the simple reason that it hurts more people. When conservative evangelicalism ignores the problems of systemic sin it misses a major aspect of the gospel. It is their persistent stubborn neglect of this major aspect of Jesus ministry and heart that led me to leave conservative Evangelicalism, as I found it incompatible with the way of Jesus and far too comfortable around Caesars and CEOs.

In regards to state violence, I'd say it is still beyond our horizon today to imagine how society would function without the use of state violence and force. However, there is a lot we can do to reform police brutality and abuse, to reform our profoundly unjust and broken prison system, and to reform the systemic abuses of our military from Guantanamo to the NSA. Just as it is a part of the gospel to care for the poor, it is equally a part of the gospel to care about justice, and to look for a better way of creating justice in our society today than simply mirroring Rome. In the words of Cornell West,

"Justice is what love looks like in public."

Soldiers Aren't Heroes, They're Humans

Soldiers are not heroes. They are not villains either. They are human beings; human beings who have been put in the middle of a horrific situation.

A ten year old boy holding a grenade approaches a group of soldiers. He does not respond to their shouts. One shoots him with his M-16 and the boy crumbles to the ground, dead.

Did he have a choice? It was do or die, kill or be killed. Still he killed a little boy, and those images still haunt him.

This is a classic example of psychological trauma: A person is put in horrific life-threatening situation where they do not feel they have control. That's the situation he found himself in. It was a no-win scenario -- kill a little boy or have you and your friends all die.

Soldier suicides have reached epidemic numbers. As the AP reports, More soldiers are taking their own lives than are falling in battle. Add on top of that the many who suffer from PTSD, and who as a result find themselves estranged from their home, their loved ones, and indeed from themselves.
This is about experiencing trauma, and, with multiple deployments, being repeatedly re-exposed to trauma. It's about people who have seen or done things that they can't forget, things that may haunt them for the rest of their lives. It's about people like you and me carrying the horrors of the reality of war, and often they are carrying those burdens completely alone.

The tendency in the media is to glorify war, to speak of "heroes" and noble ideals like God and country and freedom. But war is not about ideals. Our bumper stickers say "support our troops," but if we really care about our service men and women then we need to wake up to the very real fact that many of them have had their worlds shattered. On returning home they need more than just a parade, they need real support.

Regardless of what you think about the war, I'd like to suggest that we all should support our troops -- not as warriors, but as people. We need to get away from the rhetoric of either glorifying or demonizing soldiers, and instead treat them as fellow human beings like us.

Trauma disrupts a person's sense of security and connection to themselves and others. Consequently there is a deep need to make sense of the world afterwards, to recalibrate reality. For many soldiers that means bridging the disconnect between their experience of war, and the "real world" which can now seem so unreal. Simply "trying to forget" and bury the past is not enough.

That's why it's so important that we provide the soldiers in our lives with a safe space to work through what they experienced. We need to have the courage and the compassion to hear their stories, told in their own time and on their own terms. We need to listen, without judgment, to what they have to tell us. It's a difficult conversation, but one that we as a country need to be willing to have.

As a Christian this is a difficult issue because the church has tended to fall into those two polarized camps: either romanticizing it on the conservative side or condemning and demonizing it on the liberal side. Then there are the rest of us caught in the middle who simply fall silent. So I want to break the silence. I want to speak up from the radical center with a message of unconditional grace.

As soldiers struggle with feeling profoundly estranged and de-humanized by what they have seen and done, as they work through the fallout of this brokenness in their lives of divorce, depression, unemployment, and the crushing feelings of abandonment that accompanies all of this (including feeling abandoned by the military when they are denied benefits) what they deeply need to hear is a message of grace from the church. Soldiers need to hear that  no matter how damaged or inhuman you may feel, you are loved. They need to experience that same unconditional grace that we all so desperately need. They need to know that we will stand beside them, even when it is messy and scary.


One of the best ways to understand something is to listen to people's stories. The trailer above is from the 2006 feature documentary The Ground Truth and in it veterans of the Iraq war speak of their experiences in war, what it did to them, and what they are going through now that they are back. It's a really powerful and eye-opening film, and I hope you will watch it. You can view the entire film either on Archive.org (for free) or on Netflix (instant download):

Watch The Ground Truth on Netflix

Watch The Ground Truth on Archive.org

 

The Real War on Christmas

Well, it's that time of year when Fox drums up outrage about the alleged "war on Christmas." This time around they are declaring victory because as they report,

"Walgreens is the latest store to return to explicit references to Christmas, switching its position a day after some Christian groups threatened to boycott over its generic holiday wording."

What I'd like to remind these "Christian groups" is that Christmas isn't actually supposed to be about shopping at all. We Christians don't need to fight to have Christmas associated with shopping, we need to fight for it not to be. You're fighting the wrong war guys.

So let's take a moment to remember what Christmas is really about: Christmas celebrates the story of God coming among us in the most humble of circumstances. Christ was born in a manger to a homeless teenage girl named Mary. These humble beginnings are in keeping with the ministry of Jesus which was focused on the poor, the sick, and the outcast. Jesus teaches us that the way we treat "the least of these" is how we treat him. It's a story about God coming among us, meeting us in the middle of our need.

With that backdrop in mind, let's also remember who the real Santa Claus was. Yes, Virginia, there really was a Santa Claus, but he didn't live on the North Pole, he lived in Asia Minor. Saint Nicholas was known for his love for children, and his generosity to the those in need, often given in secret. For example, one story tells of a poor father who was unable to provide a dowry for his daughters. At the time that meant that they could not marry, and so were destined to be sold into slavery. As legend has it, Nicholas secretly placed bags of gold in the girl's shoes and stockings, hung by the fire to dry. So those Christmas stockings you hang by the chimney are symbols of liberating the poor from the bondage of slavery.

The moral of all this is that the original Christmas story and the story of Saint Nick are both focused on caring for the least and on compassion. So what if we remembered that this Christmas, and spent a little less money shopping for all those gifts we don't really need. Then instead of standing in line at the mall or stuck in traffic, we could spent more time with people we love. And what if we took all that money we saved, and gave some of it away to people who are really in need? To the poor, the hungry, the hurting, the lonely, the sick? That's what the folks at Advent Conspiracy are asking.

So maybe the way we really should be celebrating Christmas is by caring for the least, rather than shopping til we drop. Maybe we should be teaching our kids lessons about compassion and giving, instead of about getting more and more stuff. And... just maybe... Christmas should be about showing "peace on earth and good will towards all mankind," rather than on getting mad at people who say "happy holidays" to us.

An Evangelical Approach to Homosexuality - A Proposal

There is a lot of talk among Evangelicals about whether homosexuality is "right" or not. There are people on both sides of the debate, each quoting their Bible. I don't know if this will ever really be resolved, but there is one thing that I think we all can agree on:

We as the church ought to demonstrate love and grace towards people who are gay.

At this point in the argument, however it is common for someone to say, "Yes, but there is a difference between accepting someone and condoning their behavior."

It is at this point that my proposal comes in. Let me begin with some very sobering facts: Statistically, homosexuals have a higher rate of drug abuse, mental illness, and suicide than the larger population. Alarmingly higher in fact. This is well known in the LGBT community, and the reason is quite clear: the rejection they experience - being kicked out of their homes, hiding who they are, being threatened and hated, and so on can easily make a person sick, depressed, broken, and even drive them to suicide. So when gays talk about the importance of being accepted, this is not just political, its something very very close to home for them. It is quite literally, a matter of life and death.

Because of that fact, I think it is rather clear where our priorities should be, and where the priorities of Jesus would be. In his time he was known for "fellowshiping with sinners". Religious folks saw how he welcomed sinners, and concluded that he must not be a prophet. And what did Jesus do? Did he defend his reputation? Did he make sure not to give people the wrong impression? No, he went out of his way to reach out to these people on the margins, often causing open confrontations between himself and the religious leaders of his day. That is our model. Jesus who cares waaaaay more abut loving people than he does with if that looks proper or not.

So based on that model of asking "what would Jesus do" taken together with the severity people in the gay community have of hearing more than anything "you are loved," I propose an indefinite moratorium on pronouncements of the morality or immorality of homosexuality. Let's put that on hold for something much more important.

Regardless of where we stand on the rightness or the wrongness of being gay, I think we should all realize that none of that matters much when people are dying. We need to change our priorities and focus on the critical issue of communicating love and acceptance to these people. Communicating it to a fault, communicating it so completely that we are "misunderstood" and get a "bad reputation," because that is exactly what Jesus did. I want to hear sermons only on how we should love and welcome gay people into our churches, and I want those sermons to be completely unbalanced.

We have spent so much time being "balanced" in the other direction, so much time worrying about "giving the wrong impression" that it is time to shift our lopsided boat the other way. Because as long as our priority is in looking moral rather than in showing compassion and grace to those on the outside, we simply do not have the priorities of Jesus. And when we do not reflect Christ, we are giving the wrong impression. So let's change that.

Jesus was a Democrat

Below are some highlights from the lyrics to the song "Jesus was a Democrat" by Everclear.

Jesus Was a Democrat - Everclear

I bet you think of him
As a nice clean long haired Republican, nah
He would be all locked up in Guantanamo Bay
If he were alive today
He would have been a revolutionary
Wanted by the CIA

I picture him in all the wrong places
Finding diamonds in the dirt
A Star of David tattoo
And a Che t-shirt
Jesus Christ was a left wing radical Jew
Murdered by people like you

If Jesus was a Democrat like the bible says he was
I don’t think he’s going to want to take the blame
For all the awful things you say and do in his name
I am pretty god damned sure ……
He is going to be angry
He is going to be angry

You say Jesus loves the little children
And I say I know that’s true
I say he loves all the Muslims and the Jews
All the addicts and the porn stars too
You say Jesus died to save us all from a fiery hell
I say Jesus died to save us
Save us from ourselves
Will you save me from myself?

If Jesus was a liberal like the red letters say he was
I know he would have big love for all the killers and the racists
And the bullies in this world

If Jesus was alive today
And you had a chance to meet him face to face
I’m pretty God-damned sure that you and your friends
Would find some way to kill him all over again
You would kill him all over again
Again and again and again
Just like you always do
You do just what you always do

Is Obama the Anti-Christ?

There is a video making the rounds on Youtube that claims to present biblical evidence that Barack Obama was declared the anti-Christ by none other than Jesus himself. Dan Wallace in a blog post at Reclaiming the Mind Ministries reports that the video is wildly popular and that many Christians find its arguments compelling. (I should mention that Dan thinks it's completely ridiculous, and that I really like Reclaiming the Mind Ministries which has no affiliation with the loony in the Youtube video).

The basic argument in the video goes like this :


Jesus says in Luke 10:18 "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven". The New Testament written in Greek, but many scholars believe that Jesus likely spoke Aramaic. The word for "lightning" in Hebrew is בָּרָקwhich is pronounced "bā∙rāk" (the Q at the end is pronounced like a K). Sounds like Barack right? (Hebrew and Aramaic are pretty close, so we'll just pretend they are identical here). Now as Aramaic scholar Steve Caruso points out, the Swahili word "Barack" does have a Hebrew etymology, but comes from the word בָּרַךְ or barak meaning "blessed", not בָּרָק or baraq meaning "lightning". The two words barak and baraq are pronounced similarly, but have no etymological connection. Just as the English words "write" and "right" sound the same but are unrelated.




Next the narrator decides that instead of looking at the word in Hebrew for "heaven" which is שָׁמַיִם pronounced sha∙may∙im, he would rather translate the word for "heights". Now the two most common words for "heights" in Hebrew are מָרֹום pronounced mar∙um and קֹומָה pronounced qu∙mah. That won't do of course so he takes the word בָּמָה which really means something more like an elevated hill, often referring to an alter or place of worship. Why does he pick this word? I bet you can guess what's coming can't you? Because it is pronounced ba∙mah. Now nevermind that this translation would mean that Jesus said "I saw Satan fall off a hill like lighting" which would be a really weird thing to say, and instead imagine him saying

"I saw Satan fall like Barack from Bama"

So we're almost there, now all we need to do is stick an "O" in front of "bamah". The Hebrew for "from" here would be מִן but that would give us Barack Min-bama, so he makes it an "O" instead which would mean "and". Giving us

"I saw Satan fall like Barack Obama"

Or as his disciples would have understood him

"I saw Satan fall like lighting and a hill" (huh?)

Or the equally strange

"I saw Satan fall like lighting and a height" (again, huh?)

Of course since Jesus said "heavens" and not "height" it would have sounded like

"I saw Satan fall like Barack Min Shamayim" or if we go with "heights" it would be
"I saw Satan fall like Barack Min Bamate" since "heights" is plural.

Unfortunately, I don't know anyone with either of those names...

So, now that you have suffered through all of that, let me present you with my own theory based on the same type of argument.

Jesus says in Jn 14:6 "I am the way and the truth and the life." The Hebrew word for "the way" is דֶּרֶךְ which is pronounced "Derek". My name is Derek. Therefore Jesus said

"I am Derek, the truth and the life. "

So there you have it. If Barack Obama is the anti-Christ, then by that same logic I am the second coming of Jesus (hint: I'm not). The real exegetical problem here is that just because a word in one language sounds like another word in a different language does not mean there is any relation to them. The word for "drive" is German is fahrt which sounds like "fart" in English. The above exegesis is like that. It sounds like fart, so it must be a secret message about farts.

If we want to just take the word "lightning" in the NT and switch it out with the Hebrew for lightning pronounced "Barack" I could also then cite the passage in Mt 28:2-3 which describes the angel at the tomb , was that angel really our President?

"An angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like Barack, and his clothes were white as snow."

And while I'm at it, the word in Hebrew for "shame" בֹּושׁ is pronounced "Bush" and the שׁ looks like a W. So "Bush" according to my Dictionary of Biblical Languages With Semantic Domains means:

"To have a painful feeling and emotional distress (sometimes to the point of despair), by having done something wrong, with an associative meaning of having the disapproval of those around them (Jdg 3:25; Jer 14:4), note: this wrong can refer to a social mistake, or a serious sin. Bring shame, cause disgrace, with an associative meaning of causing frustration, and loss of hope to the object one is shaming (2Sa 19:6)"

I report. You decide.