Author: greg@seek1st

Heritage and Hate, Part 2

In my previous post, I described how I came to be one of the “Heritage, not Hate” guys.  How a “Southern Pride” identity could lead me to identifying with a Confederate Flag as a symbol of who I was, even though I truly held NO ill-will toward black people, or any other race or ethnic group.  This is not to try to justify Confederate flags, or statues, and it is CERTAINLY not a defense of White Supremacist ideology or the repulsive, hateful behavior displayed in Charlottesville, on alt-right websites, etc.  I don’t “identify” with that; to the contrary, it makes me violently angry.  I can understand, particularly if you’re not a white from the South, how difficult it might be to reconcile me saying I identified with the Confederate Flag as a symbol, yet bore no ill-will, and in fact had genuine love for black people.  Just hang with me a while.

Another Army story:  After college, I went back in the Army as an officer.  I loved leading soldiers and building high-performing units.  I spent a lot of time working on making my team the best, a place where everyone grew individually, and as a unit we did amazing things.  Having been a private, it was important to me to hear what my privates were thinking.  As a company commander, that’s harder to do, but I would schedule quarterly “sensing sessions” where I met with just the junior enlisted.  No sergeants, no other leaders in the room.  I gave them the opportunity to speak pretty candidly about what was on their mind.  In one of these meetings, a black female specialist (E4) spoke up.  I hadn’t been commander long.  SPC Marshall was from East St. Louis.  She told me something I’ve never forgotten.

I tend to be fairly self-deprecating, and I never really liked a lot of the privilege and honor that comes with being an officer (such as being saluted by those you out-rank).  When I stood in front of my company, on more than one occasion I had referred to myself as a “redneck,” trying to imply that I was just a simple guy, nobody special.   SPC Marshall informed me that she couldn’t understand why I kept calling myself a racist.  “I’ve been watching you, and I don’t think you’re a racist.”

“WHAT?!  When did I EVER say that?!”

“You keep calling yourself a ‘redneck,’ and where I come from that means a white racist.  I couldn’t understand why you were calling yourself a racist, but I finally figured out it must mean something different to you, because you don’t seem racist at all.”

That was almost 20 years ago, but I remember the moment like it was yesterday.  The conversation after that wasn’t significant; I apologized, stumbled through some quick explanation of what I meant in my mind, and we moved on to a new topic.  But I learned a hard lesson there:  A word, or a symbol, can have a huge impact on what people think about me, and it can take a lot to correct a misunderstanding.  I don’t want to be misunderstood.  I no longer had a Confederate Flag on my truck, but I decided then and there to pay more attention to the perceptions I gave others, because most people aren’t in the same situation SPC Marshall was.  She had to pay attention to me long enough to discover the truth, because I was her commander.  She couldn’t just go find another unit. I tried to eliminate “redneck” from my vocabulary from that day forward, not because of political correctness, but because I didn’t want people to misunderstand ME, and I didn’t want to accidently place a barrier between me and others.

It’s funny in hindsight, because about that same time, I received my copy of that big genealogy binder I showed you in the previous post.  Not only does it have huge family trees, but it has a lot of historical detail, including dates of birth, marriage, death, but also occupations and records of military service.  I didn’t know much of anything about my military heritage.  My dad and his two brothers were in the Navy in the early 60s. His dad was crippled with polio as a child, so wasn’t medically qualified to serve.  My mom’s dad was in the Navy in the Pacific in WWII.  Other than that, I really didn’t know about any other family service.  I really didn’t know much about my heritage at all.  I had a few stories that my dad’s mom told about her relatives, including her grandma telling her about watching her dad being forced to dance on the hot stove by “Bald Knobbers” (a term I wasn’t familiar with at the time), and then cut up and fed to the hogs while she watched.

I poured over the binder, and discovered more about my heritage.  I had a LOT of military service in my background.  French and Indian War, Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican-American War, Indian wars, and yes, the Civil War.  On both sides, but predominantly the Confederacy.  I didn’t dig into the details, other than to remember that there were a few officers, a few prisoners of war, but probably at least a dozen different family members with documented Civil War service.  As someone who had by that time determined that I was going to be a career Soldier, I took pride in that history–particularly the Confederate history, for all the reasons I cited in the previous post.

The binder also contained other historical records. One of the key items was executed wills.  They provide genealogists with a lot of detail on a person’s life, including their wealth, and property.  It’s funny to read through a will detailing the disposition of a person’s plow, bucket, and other things that we would consider disposable today, certainly not worth accounting for, or willing to the next generation.  Several of those recorded wills listed property that I was not all proud of… Slaves.  My family owned slaves.  Some just a few, at least one is estimated to have owned around 100.  One, who died in 1796 (of the same era as Presidents Washington and Jefferson), recorded in his will instructions to free his slaves, provide them room and board, and pay them for their labor.  Another, whose slaves were emancipated at the end of the Civil War had a married couple who chose to stay with their former masters on their land, and were apparently provided for and treated well until they died. Well, at least my ancestors were the kind-hearted masters. Except, that wasn’t any consolation.  Reality started to hit home.  Not so much guilt, per se, because it was not my doing, nor was it something I had any control over.  But suddenly, that “Southern Pride” was stained.  I could no longer claim all the positive things about my heritage while ignoring the atrocity of treating another human as less-than-human.  I didn’t hate black people, but my family was implicit in treating them hatefully.  And make no mistake, no matter how you try to spin it, depriving any human of their freedom, treating them like property, is hateful, no matter how well you treat them.

Fortunately, as my desire to have my identity tied to my Southern heritage dissipated, I found myself developing a new identity–Alaskan!  Rugged individualist? Check!  Capable of surviving in the wilderness, of taking care of myself? Check.  Lots of macho cool-guy stuff? Check!!! (Note, this was long before reality TV made Alaskans look like rubes).  Plus, cowboy boots on arctic ice was a recipe for disaster.  My binder went on the book shelf, and the “South” was 5000 miles away.  But the tragedy of black history in the US was about to get a lot more personal.

My second job in the Army in Alaska found me leading a combined team of Soldiers and US Army civilian workers.  One of those civilians was a black man named Dan Grant.  Dan was a retired Master Sergeant, and he was about the same age as my dad.  He had served in Vietnam, and was an amazing man.  Known around Anchorage as “Deacon Grant”, Dan was a big, barrel-chested man, always smiling, with a booming baritone voice that made him a natural choice for Master of Ceremonies at every military function.  Dan and I became good friends, close friends.  We often would spend hours, occasionally an entire afternoon, sitting in our office talking about life.  Dan had not always been “Deacon” Grant; one of his last duty positions was as the NCOIC of the Club.  But Dan found Jesus, and boy did he love him.  At that time, I called myself a Christian, and I went to church, but I certainly wasn’t following God.  But we talked about Him, and music, and the Army, and family…

The Army works hard to appreciate diversity, including holding ceremonies to observe things like Black History Month.  One year our unit was tasked to run the Black History Month event for our installation.  It was decided to present a dramatic reading of Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”.  One of our soldiers would portray Dr. King in his cell by sitting on a darkened stage on a cot, dimly illuminated by a single spotlight, writing, while Dan was off-stage narrating Dr. King’s letter.  To be honest, I’d never heard or read the letter.  I really didn’t know much about King; I’d heard snippets of “I have a Dream” and I knew he was assassinated.  Hearing Dr. King’s words, in my friend Dan’s voice, wrecked me.  I was really glad the theater was dark, so people couldn’t see my reaction.  Those impersonal historic facts became real.  Afterward, Dan and I talked all that afternoon in his office… That’s when he told me about growing up in Georgia.  I wish I’d have taken notes, but I don’t remember the precise locations.  He talked about how he lived on one side of the tracks, and his white friends on the other, but it didn’t matter.  His friends liked to hang out at his parents’ store, and they all did teenage boy things together.  A few years passed, and Dan was marching in a civil rights march (led, as I remember the story, by Dr. King).  Dan described how he saw some of his white buddies standing along side the road, throwing urine on the marchers as they passed by.

My heart ached, like it was made of lead–and at the same time, a white-hot rage burned inside it.  In my mind, I could see myself doing violent, serious physical harm to anyone who would degrade another human, my friend, like that.  That wasn’t in my history book.  This was ugly.  It was hateful. It was evil.

A few things changed that day.  First, I resolved that I would try to understand and empathize that my story wasn’t like the story of others.  Second, I began to learn more about the Civil Rights movement, and black history in the US in general.  Third, I doubled down on the lesson that SPC Marshall taught me–I was willing to let go of things that I thought were important if they were hurtful to others.

In Part 3 I talk about reconciling heritage, rewriting history, and new identity.

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Heritage…and Hate

Lots of discussion going on in the world, and in social media, about race.  I haven’t blogged about it much, but not because I haven’t had something to say.  I wasn’t sure I had anything valuable to add to the discussion, but that changed last Friday.  I hope you’ll take the time to listen, because I think my journey of discovery with respect to race might be useful.  And if you don’t, maybe someone will find it useful, because I am done not-talking about it.

First, a little background-I’m white.  Reaaallly white.  Not just my ethnicity, but my upbringing.  White, middle-class, central-Missouri-raised country boy.  My mom’s family were Welsh, Scottish, and Swedish (so they claim), all immigrants to the US from those countries in just the last few generations.  My dad’s side?  Scottish, English, and one thin line of Huguenots, which gets me the “Saxon” part of my rather long, well-documented “Anglo-Saxon” pedigree. They’ve all been in the US for a LONG time… since the 1600s for the most part.  My grandma was into genealogy, and she and my aunt traced the Walker clan back 14 generations.

This binder is my family geology on my dad’s side… pretty cool!

I grew up pretty isolated from black people.  There were a few in my elementary school class, but none that lived anywhere near me.  My parents were certainly not racist, and didn’t raise me to be racist; race wasn’t really on my radar.  In high school, racism didn’t show up much, but “Southern Pride” did.  I attended high school in the early 80s.  While Missouri isn’t known as “the South” in a lot of people’s minds, the town I grew up in was sure “Southern” in culture.  Add to that the popularity of country music, led by Hank Williams, Jr and Charlie Daniels, and Confederate flags and all things “Southern” became part of my identity.

Identity.  That’s an important word here… You see, for a middle class boy in flyover country, particularly if you’re not a star football player, finding an identity that is more exciting than Wonder Bread is pretty important.  “Southern Pride” did that, particularly in the 80s.  And the preeminent symbol of Southern Pride was the Confederate Flag.  That flag represented a lot:

  • The Confederate Army:  It wasn’t until I joined the Army and was exposed to “Yankees” did I ever consider it a sign of a losing force.  I know they “lost” the war, but bear with me…  The Confederate Army didn’t “lose”, they fought valiantly, vastly outnumbered and out-equipped, and they almost won!!!

  • Rugged Individualism:  The flag represented the tough guy, the man who could provide for himself off the land, defend against tyranny, and make his own way.  One of my favorite movies then (and even now) is The Outlaw Josey Wales starring Clint Eastwood.  The movie starts with Josey, a Missouri farmer whose farm is raided and family massacred by Kansas (Union) Redlegs. Seeking revenge, Wales joins Quantrill’s Raiders, a pro-Confederate guerilla force operating in Missouri and Kansas.  My absolute favorite movie of that time, True Grit starring John Wayne, also depicts the Duke’s character, Marshal Rooster Cogburn, as a former member of Quantrill’s Raiders.  Never mind what actually happened, the image, or identity was something that was larger than life, and something I aspired to.

  • Leadership:  Like it or not, the reputation of Confederate Army leaders, from Lee on down, was one of gentlemen-warriors, chivalrous, honorable men of great moral character and superior strategy and tactics.  Union generals, on the other hand, were often portrayed as bureaucrats, poor strategists, and even drunken buffoons (or in the case of the bad guys in The Outlaw Josey Wales, rotten, blood-thirsty scoundrels of no morals).  The superiority of Confederate Army leaders was reinforced after I joined the Army, where I was stationed at Fort Benning and  Fort Bragg (both named for prominent Confederate generals).  There is no “Fort Grant,” and the only Union leader I remember being lauded in my studies was Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, the hero of Little Round Top at Gettysburg.

But what about the Civil War? That flag represented rebellion against the US!!!  No, not according to my history books, they didn’t.  See, what I learned, IN SCHOOL, about the Civil War, was that the North took advantage of the South, using Southern raw materials to get rich making products in their Northern factories, then selling the finished goods back to the Southerners at a premium.  The poor Southerners could only make their economy work using the labor of slaves, and now those no-good Northerners were trying to take the slaves away… This wasn’t about human rights, it was economic oppression, rotten to the level of Pharaoh taking away the Israelites’ straw used for brickmaking, but telling them to continue producing the same number of bricks!  Those poor Southern statesmen did everything they could to try to appease the judgmental Yankees, but they just kept taking, and taking, until finally they left the poor Southern states no choice but to stand up for states’ rights.  You see, all the real scholars know that while the North might have used abolition of slavery as a means to rally popular support for a war against the South, it was really all about the North, and the US government, trying to economically and politically dominate the Southern states.

Seriously.  That’s what I was taught, all the way through high school, and college, IN MY MILITARY HISTORY CLASS by a PhD in History, at a HISTORICALLY BLACK COLLEGE!!!

But what about slavery?! You know, actual, people-owning-other-people, SLAVERY???  Yeah, I watched Roots. But what I was taught was that the reality of slavery wasn’t really that bad.  Most slaves were well-treated, and even loved their masters.  In lots of cases, after they were freed, they chose to stay with their benevolent masters for the rest of their lives…  I’m serious–these were the FACTS that I learned.

What about Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights movement???  Lynchings! The KKK!  So, in my American History classes, we quickly glossed over the Reconstruction, where we learned about how those rotten Carpetbaggers abused their victory, and robbed the poor Southern states of the little bit of wealth they still had after the war (“but they never took our dignity!”). From there we jumped right into WWI, the Great Depression (which, as I look back, only apparently affected white folks), and then, after we got back from Easter vacation (that’s what Spring Break used to be), we did a big unit on WWII, and how we defeated the Nazis and the Japanese.  A quick skim through the Cold War (which was still going on, where we were in a life-and-death battle against the USSR and godless Communism), and it was finals week.  Oh, yeah, somebody shot Martin Luther King, Jr.  Terrible thing.  James Earl Ray was probably a communist, but don’t worry about that, because the final only goes through WWII.

Through that lens, a heritage represented by the Confederate Flag doesn’t look so bad… might even be something to be proud of!

After high school, I joined the Army.  The US Army is one of the most integrated places in our culture today.  Southern Pride is thick in the Army.  I don’t have statistics to back this up, but it sure seems like there are more Soldiers from the South.  There is racism, but it gets squelched pretty quickly and thoroughly.  I still remember as a young Private, fairly new to the 82nd Airborne Division, my platoon sergeant, SFC Jeffries, a black man from Alabama, yelled at me one night to “turn that shit down!”, referring to the Hank Williams music I had playing on my stereo while we were cleaning the barracks one night, getting ready for a big IG inspection.  Being the good soldier I was, I immediately went to my extensive country music collection and queued up that great Kris Kristofferson classic, “If  you don’t like Hank Williams…” and called out, “Hey!  SFC Jeffries!!!” just in time for the title line.  SFC Jeffries, being the great soldier/philosopher that all platoon sergeants are, grinned, looked me right in the eye, and said, “Walker! Are you prejudiced?”  My blood ran cold, and all my false bravado evaporated, leaving me a stammering mess…  “N-N-N-NO! SFC Jeffries, I’m not prejudiced!”  And I meant it!  I wasn’t!  “Bullshit, Walker.  Everybody’s prejudiced.  You gotta grow past it.” The Army reinforced in my brain, that you judged people by their performance, period.  And you fought, and died if need be, for your brothers in arms.

After my initial enlistment, I left active duty to go to college.  I attended a small Historically Black College in my hometown.  What an education in cultures and race.  Nestled in the middle of rural Central Missouri is Lincoln University, founded in 1866 by the officers of the 62nd and 65th US Colored Infantry Regiments.  When I attended, Lincoln had about 3000 students, about 900 of which lived on campus.  The on-campus students were about 90% black, and came primarily from inner city St. Louis, Memphis, and Chicago.  The off-campus students were 90% white, from Central Missouri.  During my time there in the late 80s, Louis Farrakhan was making news with Nation of Islam, and Jesse Jackson was running for President, bringing issues of race to the forefront in national news, and creating division on campus.  There were major protests when the administration rescinded the student’ government’s invitation to NWA to perform at our homecoming concert.  Our book store sold t-shirts that said “IT’S A BLACK THING, YOU WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND” and “BLACK BY POPULAR DEMAND.”  I got to see racism from the other side… sorta.  I walked around campus wearing my cowboy boots and hat, and I knew I wasn’t part of the predominant culture-on campus.  But when I drove my pickup two blocks down the street I was back in my world.  So there was no real threat.  And besides, I was a big deal in ROTC (at Lincoln, every incoming freshman had to take 1 year of ROTC), and I got along with almost everyone.  I was even invited to join the Alphas.  I left college proud of my university, happy for the cultural experience, and confident that I didn’t have a race problem–I did not judge people “by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”  

OK, so that was more than a little background… but it’s relevant.  I get it when people say “Heritage, not Hate.” If you made it this far, thank you.  Hang with me.  This is going somewhere important, but if you bail now, you’re gonna miss it.

Heritage and Hate, Part 2

Jesus-follower? Here’s some clarity on what our Lord says about Refugees

This article, published in “The Gospel Coalition,” is adapted from a speech the author gave in May 2016.  He does an excellent job laying out a Biblical foundation for bringing refugees into the US.  No tweetable platitudes here–sound theology.

I do have one disagreement though–In the author’s fourth “Biblical truth”: “Though God generally establishes government for the protection of all people, he specifically commands his church to provide for his people”, I believe the author provides an unsupportable excuse to prefer Christian refugees over non-Christians.  I don’t believe a comprehensive reading of Jesus allows his followers to show preference.

  • The author supports his point with one passage from Matthew 25, focusing on the word “brothers” when Jesus says that what we do, or don’t do, for the least of these, we did, or didn’t do for him.  The Greek word translated “brother” in this passage has a base meaning of “flesh and blood male sibling,” but culturally the Jews used it to mean fellow Jews, and the Greeks and Romans of the day used it to mean “compatriots.”  Taken by itself, one could infer, as the author does, that Jesus was talking about taking care of fellow disciples of Jesus.  But we shouldn’t interpret a stand-alone passage of Scripture to build a comprehensive understanding of Jesus’ way of thinking.  Consider other teachings of his:
  • In Luke 10 we read Jesus teaching one of his most well-known stories–the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus tells of a man who is beaten, robbed, and left on the side of the road.  His fellow Jews, his “brothers,” pass by without helping, because they have good legal or religious reasons not to help.  A hated enemy, from a race of people whom the Jews of the day considered inferior people, stops and goes to great trouble and personal expense to help the wounded Jew, even though society would say he was well in his right to leave the Jew to die.  The story by itself should convict us, but it is important to note why Jesus tells the story:  He’s answering a question.  A religious expert asks Jesus what the man must do to earn God’s favor.  Jesus asks the man what the Scriptures say.  The man replies with the correct answer:  Love God with your entire being, and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus tells the man that he has given a good answer, but the man isn’t satisfied, because this answer is too open-ended.  It requires self sacrifice. The man seeks to clarify, asking, “And who is my neighbor?”  The man is looking for a way out–a way to show that he is good enough for God, without having to sacrifice.  THAT is when Jesus tells the story.  He ends the story with a question back to the religious man:  “Who do you think was a neighbor to the man who was robbed–his fellow Jews, or the low-life?”  When the man answers, “The one who had mercy on him,” Jesus affirms his understanding by saying, “Go and do likewise.”
  • In the teaching on the Good Samaritan, Jesus is explicitly answering the question, “who is my neighbor (or brother)?”  Earlier in Luke’s account of Jesus’ life and teachings, Jesus makes a similarly difficult point:  “Love your enemy.”  This passage is one that gets a lot of “interpretation” (read qualifying) to help make it more palatable.  A straight-forward reading of the text is pretty easy to comprehend, and totally incongruent with what we believe to be “right.”  A more nuanced reading, with the benefit of some Greek background and cultural understanding of Jesus’ day makes this even more difficult to swallow.  Jesus isn’t talking about “enemy” like a foreign army.  He’s talking about anyone who isn’t “in your circle.” To his immediate audience, this was anyone outside your family, or your community, and even outside the Jewish religion.  When he says “love,” Jesus doesn’t mean to have warm feelings for them; Jesus is saying “do good things for them, even when it isn’t in your best interest to do so!” In case you want to argue with him, he even expounds on his point in the latter part of the passage, saying, “Don’t be proud of yourself for loving those who are in your circle–even evil people do that.  My followers will love those who are outside their circle!” And then he drives the point home:  “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”  We were all outside God’s circle, but he sacrificed so we could be brought back in–he sacrificed at a great price.
  • Full disclosure:  I despise the thought of Christians being killed because they are follow Jesus.  It makes me sad, angry, and vengeful, to be honest.  Nik Ripken, a former missionary to Somalia who has extensively studied Christianity in closed cultures, writes in his book “The Insanity of Obedience: Walking with Jesus in Tough Places” that these martyred Christians have a better understanding of Jesus’ teachings than we do!  When Jesus teaches in his Sermon on the Mount,

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil things against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11-12)

he is telling us to “Rejoice and be glad!”  In another teaching, Jesustells us that he is sending us out like “sheep among wolves.” He’s not telling us to be mindless here, because he follows that statement with the directive to be as shrewd as snakes, but innocent as doves.”  However, he also tells a parable in Luke 15 about how important it is for people who don’t know Jesus to be connected to him.  He tells a story of a man who has 100 sheep, but loses one.  He leaves the 99 in the open country (where they are most susceptible to attack) to go find the one.  He tells of the man calling all his neighbors to celebrate when he finds the one, and then says, “In the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” 

While I’m in no way wishing martyrdom on any Christian, could it be that if Jesus wants us to show preference to refugees, that we should be more concerned with providing refuge to those who don’t know him than those who do?  As Ripken describes in his book, many Arabic Christians who have converted from Islam point out that American Christians are soft.  They are more concerned with getting former Muslims to safety outside their Arabic nation, but the Arab understands that Jesus has called him to risk his life to tell his Muslim brother the Good News!  Rather than taking these indigenous missionaries out of the country, perhaps we should be preferring (if any religious preference is indeed necessary) to provide refuge to Muslims who can then experience the life-saving love of Jesus!

If you’re not a Jesus follower, I don’t expect you to agree with this.  I’m ok with you disagreeing, because you aren’t claiming to submit yourself to Jesus’ teachings and leadership.  But if you call yourself a “Christian”, literally a “little Christ,” I would encourage you to examine whether you are showing beliefs and attitudes that are more in line with Jesus’ teaching, or with a need for safety and security.

Merry Christmas from the Inn

It’s been a while, and this isn’t really a deep post, but it’s more than a Facebook comment for friends.  I hope everyone is having an amazing, perfect Christmas, but the reality is, most folks aren’t.  Lots of people are hurting, missing someone, worried about finances, their future, their children, or a hundred other fears.  They might be battling depression, or just overwhelmed by the difficulties of life, and more than a little irritated that no matter how they try, they can’t seem to get a break.  This time of year it’s especially hard, because, you know, you’re supposed to be HAPPY!

As I’ve been contemplating the Christmas story this year, I have been drawn to thinking about it from Joseph’s perspective.  He was a good man.  He always did the right thing, to a fault.  He worked hard, and tried to honor his girlfriend even though the world said he should publicly humiliate her for cheating on him.  Then, God sent a messenger with a crazy message-he was supposed to keep her, and raise the boy as his own, even though he was God’s son.

Sometimes when we’re doing exactly what God wants us to do, we expect everything to be easy and go our way.  I’m guessing Joseph did too.  But he got ostracism, gossip, shunning by the people of his community.  Every day.  And, just when it couldn’t get any worse, he gets ordered to travel to be counted (and taxed) by the oppressive government.  With a 9 month pregnant wife.

I can hear him shouting in desperation, “Seriously God?”  (Joseph sounds a lot like me in my imagination, and I’ve been saying that a lot lately).

I can’t imagine traveling with a 9 month pregnant lady, on foot, for days.  It can’t be good. I suspect the conversation was more than a little strained.  Hours of long walking in silence, rehearsing conversations, counting frustration on frustration…  And then they get to Bethlehem, and there isn’t even a decent place to stay to have the baby.

There’s no record of any other divine communication to Joseph after that initial visit from the angel.  He’s had 9 months to second-guess himself, to doubt what God was doing, to consider how lousy his situation is, when all along he was doing the right thing.  There was one thing that was undeniably real.  There was a baby.

Our nativity scenes and Charlie Brown Christmas Specials really skew our understanding of that event.  The multitude of heavenly host didn’t show up at the birth; from what we can read, there was no angelic presence at all at the manger.  The shepherds got to hear the angels worshipping; all Joseph got that day was a visit from a bunch of smelly low-lifes who claimed to have seen angels.  That was Joseph’s only confirmation that the promises were coming true.

Joseph’s “Christmas Story” wasn’t a “happy holiday.”  But God was working.  And even when we can’t see it, he can reassure us that we are on track, even by the least-likely of messengers, if we will listen.

“Merry Christmas” doesn’t always mean “Happy Christmas.”  “Merry” would be better translated as “joyful” because joy isn’t dependent on feelings or emotions, or even circumstances.  Joy is the reality of being in God’s will, doing what he made you to do.  Joy is always available, even when you have no reason to be happy.

I truly hope your Christmas is happy, but I pray it is joyful.

 

and God knew

Haven’t posted in a while.  It’s a crazy season, both nationally and personally, and I hold to the Thumper-rule:  “If you can’t say something nice… don’t say nothing at all.” OK, I try to hold to that rule.

Today, I can say something that, if not “nice”, should at least be encouraging.

My Bible reading this morning included the first two chapters of Exodus.  The Cliff Notes version:

Chapter 1:  A whole lot of time passes between the death of Joseph and the birth of Moses (We’ll leave the specific amount of time to another discussion).  During that time, a new Pharaoh took over, and decided that the Israelites who were welcomed during Joseph’s time, had become too numerous, and were now a threat to the Egyptians.  The Pharaoh declared first that they would be treated harshly as slaves, and when that didn’t decrease their numbers, he decreed that every male baby should be killed at birth.

Chapter 2:  This chapter only covers 80 years, and if you’ve watched the Charlton Heston movie, you know this story:  Moses is born to an Israelite slave couple.  His mom hides him for 3 months, then decides she can’t hide him anymore, puts him in a basket in the river, where his sister watches while Pharaoh’s daughter discovers the baby.  Pharaoh’s daughter gives baby Moses back to his mom to nurse him. When he’s older, she takes young Moses into Pharaoh’s house and raises him as her own son.  Fast-forward to 40-year-old Moses, a member of Pharaoh’s household, who also knows that he’s of Hebrew descent, goes for a walk in the brick yard, sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, and kills the Egyptian, hides the body, and apparently is not found out.  The next day, when he interrupts two Hebrew slaves fighting each other, they get mad at him, he suddenly becomes paranoid that he’s going to be found out for the murder, and runs away into the desert to the land of Midian.  There he marries the daughter of a shepherd, and spends the next 40 years unremarkably watching sheep for his father in law.  The last three verses of the chapter tell us that Pharaoh dies, and the Israelites cry out to God about their oppression in Egypt. God hears their cries, and remembers his promise to Abraham to make Israel a great nation.

I’ve read this account countless times, and seen Charlton Heston act it out several more.  What stood out to me today was the last verse of Chapter 2, and particularly the last three words.  Today I was reading from the English Standard Version (ESV), and it translates Exodus 2:25 as, “God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.”

“and God knew.”  That’s interesting.  I couldn’t recall ever reading that before.  I pulled out “old faithful,” my worn NIV (84 version) and read the verse, where those translators converted verse 25 to the English, “So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.” That sounded a lot more familiar!  In fact, I had looked at that verse many times, and thought, “What a primitive understanding of God.”

It always seemed as if the writer is giving the impression that God forgot about his promise to Abraham, and the fact that his chosen people, Abraham’s descendants, were being beaten as slaves for over 80 years, and then one day he said, “Oh, I wonder how they’re doing?  I seem to hear them carrying on about something.  I should check on them. They may be having some sort of difficulty.”

Now, I hold to a view of God as all-knowing, all-powerful, and present everywhere at the same time, so I am certain that he hadn’t become unaware of the plight of the Israelites.  I just chalked the peculiar language up to the fact that the writer of Exodus didn’t really have as complete an understanding of God as us modern folks do (that’s a joke, by the way).

“and God knew.”  OK, now my curiosity was piqued.  I needed to know more.  It turns out the Hebrew word translated by the ESV as “knew” and by the NIV as “was concerned about them” is yada. This is a complex Hebrew word that has a lot of variation of meanings in the 944 times it is used in the Old Testament.  Without going into all of the variations, it is safe to say that both translations are accurate interpretations of what the word could mean.  Being “concerned about them” fits within the various meanings of yada, but “know” hits the primary meaning.

“and God knew.”  As a parent, this resonated with me.  As we watch our children mature, we sometimes see them experience something for the first time, and we understand their experience better than they do. Often, we understand what they’re going to experience before they get there.  Imagine a teenager in their first romantic relationship.  They are “in love,” but parents know…  There is going to be infatuation;  sickeningly-sweet, life-long commitment; and eventually the  devastation that elicits sobs of, “I can’t live without him (or her)!”

“and God knew.” As that parent, we can’t intervene, we can’t stop the process, we can’t lessen the pain.  We can warn, we can cajole, we can make crazy threats and buy “Dads Against Daughters Dating” t-shirts, but no matter how much we would like to spare them (and us) of the experience, we have to let it play out.  But we know. We let the scenario play out, standing back, but watching intently, knowing that there will be a time when the lovelorn child cries out to us in anguish, and we are ready to step in and comfort.

“and God knew.” God hadn’t lost track of the Israelites.  He hadn’t become distracted, and suddenly realized he’d left them alone.  He knew. He was there, ready, waiting for them to cry out.

“and God knew.” Not only was he waiting, but he was prepared!  Read Exodus 2, or at least my summary above, again.  How plausible is this story?  A Levite couple (the family that priests come from) hide a baby. The king’s daughter finds it, and says, “Hey, Dad!  I found a baby today while I was taking a bath.  It was one of the Hebrew babies you are trying to kill.  Right after I found it, there was a girl standing there who said she could find a slave woman to nurse it for me, so I gave the baby back to her.  When he’s weaned, I am going to bring him here and I’ll raise him like he was my own baby, ‘K?”

Then, when the 40-year-old Hebrew/Pharaoh man kills somebody, he runs away into the desert and hides in another country for 40 years.  So a guy with a top-flight education, military training and leadership experience sits on a brown mountain for 40 years watching sheep do sheep-stuff, until one day when God randomly finds this perfect candidate to take on Pharaoh and lead hundreds of thousands of slaves to freedom from the world’s greatest power.  That’s only plausible if there is an unseen power directing the events.

“and God knew.”  In Jeremiah 1:5, God tells the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew (yada) you; and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”  God had given Jeremiah a purpose before he gave him a heartbeat.  Exodus 2 is a story that God authored before “In the beginning…”  I am always hesitant to try to determine or explain God’s purposes, but if we look at Exodus 2, it would appear that God needed to get the Israelites miserable enough in their current situation that they’d be willing to go through the hardship, fear, and unknown of leaving Egypt for a “promised land” that they’d only heard stories about.  And while they were getting good and miserable, God needed to raise up a leader, train him, and then shield him from the misery until the time was right.

“and God knew.” There is a lot of turmoil in our world, our nation, our cities, and even in our own homes right now.  My wife and I are facing an exciting, but terrifyingly uncertain future as we prepare to move across the continent to a city we’ve never lived in, to start a church in a place that doesn’t perceive a whole lot of use for Christians or God.  Oh, and the cost of living is higher, starting a church isn’t real lucrative, and my retirement savings is depleted after 3 years of being a volunteer (that’s Hebrew for unpaid) pastor. Things are looking pretty chaotic, unorganized, and… impossible.  Some of my friends are facing uncertainties much greater than mine.  They’ve lost their health, livelihood, or even their spouse, or father, way too soon.  There’s no way this can work!  In their more honest moments, they might even tell you that they might not want it to work.  It’d be easier to just quit.  And if you take the time to sit in their place for a minute, you can see how they think that.

“and God knew.”  God didn’t take away the Israelites misery.  In fact, he used it to move them.  He was standing close by, watching, waiting for their cry, and at just the right moment he sent the leader he had begun preparing (on earth) 80 years prior.  Truth is, if you consider how quickly the Israelites were ready to abandon the Exodus and return to slavery in Egypt, he probably should have let them get a little more miserable before sending Moses.  But he knew.

And he still does.  The Israelites never got all the answers, and their suffering didn’t magically go away.  In some ways, life got harder once they were freed from slavery.  But God was with them, watching over them, knowing them, throughout their time in slavery, their time of testing in the desert; always watching, acting at just the right moment.

“and God knows.”  Wherever you are today, whatever you are enduring, or fearing, or mourning, he still knows. 

Stop flinging statistics

I’ve got more to say than will fit in a Tweet…

My news feed is blowing up with highly distorted references to a “Harvard Study” that allegedly presents a “shocking conclusion” and “pokes a massive hole in Black Lives Matter claims.” I’m not linking to this internet propaganda that masquerades as journalism; if you want to see it plug the quotes into your favorite search engine.

Here’s a better NY Times article on the study.  While the skewed articles are factually correct in their statement that the study found no racial bias in police shootings, they leave out critical findings from the study.  A more accurate summary of the findings, from the study itself (it’s 63 pages, but over half is statistical data and tables, it’s not too difficult of a read, if you’re interested in facts and details):

On non-lethal uses of force, there are racial differences- sometimes quite large– in police use of force, even after accounting for a large set of controls designed to account for important contextual and behavioral factors at the time of the police-civilian interaction.  Interestingly, as the use of force increases from putting hands on a civilian to striking them with a baton, the overall probability of such an incident occurring decreases dramatically but the racial difference remains roughly constant. Even when officers report civilians have been compliant and no arrest was made, blacks are 21.3 percent more likely to endure some form of force. Yet, on the most extreme uses of force– officer-involved shootings- we are unable to detect any racial differences in either the raw data or when accounting for controls. (p35, emphasis added)

I could expend another couple of paragraphs detailing how what the report actually says in no way punches holes in the Black Lives Matter argument, or vindicates those who oppose it.  But that’s not the real point of this post.

Significant numbers of the African American community are telling us in multiple different ways, from tweets, blogs, speeches, sermons, and protests, that there is a problem.  When us white folks answer with “All Lives Matter,” or with statistics purporting to tell them that they are wrong, we are totally missing the point.  THERE IS A PROBLEM!!!  We can have a discussion about what the problem is, or how we solve it, or even about whether the problem is one of fact vs. perception, but that requires a willingness to have a dialog first.  If your answer fits in a tweet, or a meme, particularly if it points out how the other party is wrong, or how the problem doesn’t exist, you have failed at dialog before even demonstrating a willingness to participate.

Pastor Andy Stanley of North Point Community Church in Atlanta made an astute observation in his gathering last Sunday (watch the entire service here–it’s worth your time):

“The further away we are from a problem, the simpler it looks….  Most of us, from where we sit as white people, we are far away from what you’re talking about. We just are.  We believe you, it’s a reality (Greg’s note:  I would argue that this isn’t always accurate), but it’s still so far away and our answers, our emotional response is so simplistic.

“The closer you get to a problem, the more complex it becomes, because the closer you get to any problem there is the actual facts.”

We have to quit throwing out simplistic answers (“just comply”) or statistics and “facts” that deny the problem (see above), or pithy statements that dismiss the problem (“All Lives Matter”).  These do nothing but degrade our African American brothers and sisters.  We need to listen.  We need to lean in.  We need to get closer to the problem, so we start understanding it.  If you don’t think there is a problem, you’re too far away.  Sit down with the mom of an African American teenage boy, and ask her what she fears.  Ask her what she teaches her son about being pulled over by the police.  Listen.

Stop being defensive.  The African American community is not calling you or me an explicit racist.  What they’re trying desperately to tell us is that there is bias in the system, and it’s hurting them, it’s creating fear, and we need to help.  If your solution is a study to prove that the problem doesn’t exist, maybe you need to lean in a little more.

One more thought for my Christian brothers and sisters:  Prayer is vital, and necessary.  I implore you to pray, but not some lame prayer of “Jesus, fix what’s going on in our country.”  He empowered the solution 50 days after his crucifixion.  Jesus’s solution for addressing what’s going on in the world today is, and has been the same for the last 2000 years–the Church.

Instead, I ask you to pray the prayer that Andy suggests:

“Prejudice and racism are almost impossible to see in the mirror because it’s hidden in our hearts…. Would you ask God to do for you what he did for Peter (in Acts 10:28)? Would you ask God to show you? Would you say ‘God, I think I’m good with this, I think I’m free and clear.’… Regardless of your experience, would you at least have the courage to say, ‘God, show me. Help me to spot it and despise it the way that you do. Help me to despise it and to stop defending it.  And give me the courage to eradicate it from my heart, rather than keep telling myself that same story over and over and over that justifies it in my heart.’ “

But when you’ve prayed, don’t consider your role finished.  As Christians, we need to act.  Andy’s concluding words:

The church has to be at the epicenter of this.  Only in the church are we taught that I am looking at someone who is made in the image of God….  You cannot mistreat my children and get along with me, and I cannot mistreat you and get along with my Father in Heaven. That is the message of the New Testament, and that is the message of the Cross, and that trumps my experience, and your experience.

Lean in.  Get close to your brothers and sisters–so close that the problem is not “theirs,” but “ours.”  And when your response begins with, “But…” stop and listen again.

A new kind of independence

240 years ago today, a group of brave men staged the first Brexit. I doubt any of them had a clue what they where getting themselves into- in the form of the struggles and tragedy of war against the world’s greatest super power of that day, as well the amazing nation that they were bringing to life.  Nonetheless, these men committed wholeheartedly– pledging “to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

The leadership and dedication of those men is noteworthy. It is also unfortunately very much absent from national and world leaders today.  This morning, the leader of the anti-EU party in Britain quit, saying,

“I have never been, and I have never wanted to be, a career politician. My aim in being in politics was to get Britain out of the European Union,” Farage told reporters.

“During the referendum campaign, I said ‘I want my country back’. What I’m saying today, is, ‘I want my life back,’ and it begins right now.” -Nigel Farage

That’s it.  He got what he wanted, and now he’s leaving the mess for someone else to clean up.

Lest we think such boorishness is confined to our British friends, we should examine the political leaders in our own country.  How many of them are willing to forego their own personal resources, ambitions, and very lives to advance the cause of their nation?  In this age of super PACs and national parties funding multi-billion dollar campaigns, I don’t see a lot of leadership that has “skin in the game.”

Backing up one step further, though, I find myself asking whether the investment of our leaders reflects the investment of their constituency (meaning us)?  Just about every pundit with a voice, and every citizen with a social media account is bemoaning the demise of our nation/world, regardless of their personal political bent.  But is that possibly because our interests have shifted from the good of the many, to the good of me? Maybe we need a new “revolution” where we begin by putting our self interests a half-step behind the interests of our fellow citizen and fellow man?

Just an Independence Day thought.

Happy Birthday, USA!

Orlando, part 2: Seeing the people

One of the things I observed in Orlando on Monday, a little more than 24 hours after the Pulse shooting, was the people. The feeling was different. Even in the restaurant where we ate lunch, about a mile away, the staff was waiting tables, but you could tell their minds were distant… numb. The traffic was horrendous, as a main arterial through the middle of the city was closed for several blocks, yet people were patient. Courteous, even.

I was struck by who was there.

The first people I noticed were the locals. People who had this occur, in some cases literally in their back yard. Most of the time, catastrophic news happens in a place on TV. It’s not a real place; it could be a movie set in Hollywood as far as we know. But for these people, this was in their neighborhood, their place of work, at the Subway where they buy their lunch every day. It is their home. And it had been invaded, not just by a gunman, but by the world.

The next group of people I noticed were the media. Satellite trucks were everywhere. Miles of cables strung through the streets. Power inverters hooked to the batteries of rental cars for blocks in every direction. Enough pop-up tents to equip the infield of a NASCAR race. I’d already seen the Facebook posts about the “truth” that the media is keeping from us. You know, those plastic-faced souls who are trying to brainwash you into believing their version of America? Lies. All of it. Am I biased? You could argue that, since my son is one of them. Or, you could consider that maybe, since I know one of them, I have a better perspective on reality than most people. As I watched these reporters, producers, photographers, and others work and sweat, trying to make sure every detail was correct, to uncover truth and provide accurate details without spreading inaccuracies, I was struck by their determination. In horrific conditions, they were sweating it out, suppressing personal emotions, sleep deprivation, and technical frustrations. They weren’t doing it to control minds, nor to get rich. They were doing it because presenting the truth is important to them. Hear me on this one: The media plays an important role in our free nation, and these professionals perform their duty with the same gravity as law enforcement or military does. We owe them respect, and the benefit of the doubt.

It was impossible not to notice the law enforcement presence. What was most surprising was the number, and the variety. Local, county, and state police, but that was just the beginning. Federal agents from multiple agencies, mobile crime labs and command trailers from cities hundreds of miles away, some of which made no sense for them to be there, until you consider the enormity of the task. Again, I was impressed by their professionalism in horrific circumstances and in incredibly difficult conditions. The heat and humidity were brutal. Cops controlling closed roads who had to answer the same insistent plea to go down that street, from a different person every three minutes, for whatever brutal length of time their shift covered. Men and women who had spent hours working through the carnage of a crime scene that can’t be comprehended. All with a calm, patient presence that concealed their exhaustion, tension, and …pain. These men and women were there to “protect and serve.” The law enforcement profession has been battered lately in the public eye. But they deserve our respect and appreciation for their work on this day. All of them face death on a daily basis, much more often than most of us ever realize.

Then there were the volunteers. Christ Church Orlando  is just 5 doors down the street from Pulse. They opened their doors in the first hours after the shooting, providing a needed respite for the first responders and law enforcement, offering A/C, food, water, and a place to rest, 24 hours a day. As a general rule, Christians haven’t done the best job loving the type of people who frequented Pulse, but Pastor Paul impressed me with one thing he said: Since starting the church, they have always stayed true to their call to remain in the heart of the city. I didn’t get the impression that they had much of a connection to Pulse or its customers, but they were there, and they went to work, ministering to their community the best way they knew how.

If your news feed has an evangelical Christian channel to it, you’ve seen the posts about the Chick-Fil-A that opened on a Sunday to feed the first responders. If you don’t know, this is a big deal, first because Chick-Fil-A never opens on Sunday, because their owners are Christians who make it a corporate policy to allow all employees to have Sunday to be with their families (and go to church, if they choose). Chick-Fil-A has received bad press in the past on LGBT issues, so Christians are trumpeting it from the rooftops that no one has heard about this act (often with an air of self-righteousness because it’s not being reported by the biased media). Here’s the thing: It’s probably not making the news for several more legitimate reasons:

  • I get the impression they didn’t do it for publicity, but because they were serving a need in their community
  • EVERYONE was serving. Businesses were donating whatever they could to help out. The Target store just a few blocks away gave pallets of bottled water. Grocery stores were donating food. Restaurants were donating meals. Chick-Fil-A was just one business among many. ALL deserve to be appreciated for their selflessness, yet no one was doing it for appreciation. People needed to serve one another, to put their love into action.

I saw thousands of people. Straight and LGBT; community leaders and the impoverished; multiple ethnicities, and most likely multiple political parties. People who want to abolish guns, and 2nd Amendment loyalists. There were rednecks and illegals. Muslims, Christians, and atheists. But on this day, something was different:   There was a respect being shown, by everyone, to everyone. Suddenly, we were once again aware of the humanity of each one, even those who were different. It felt much the same as the feeling I had in DC, near the Pentagon, in the days after 9/11.

That day, no one was a them. Every person I encountered was a we. Someone who mattered, who hurt, who was a son or daughter, a sibling, a friend, a spouse… Most importantly, EVERY person there was a PERSON, with intrinsic value, which I believe is because they are first and foremost an image-bearer of God. God gives every person value, and no one has the right or authority to take that value away. On that day, in Orlando, each saw the value of the lives around them. My prayer is that we will all be changed by this event… that we will see that value for the rest of our lives, and even in those that we dislike, disagree with; and that we will think and act differently.

I’m not asking that each of us hold hands with a Muslim, or a transgender person, or an NRA Life Member, and sing Kumbaya. Start with your next door neighbor. Or the jerk that just cut you off in the grocery store parking lot. How about just changing your political rhetoric–not your opinions, but the words you use to state your opinions? Because, like it or not, Hillary, Donald, and Barack are people too. Once we start dehumanizing them, we are well on our way to hating them. And as I wrote a few days ago, that hatred is the evil that resides in each one of us, that is the root cause of this tragedy.

For my readers who aren’t followers of Jesus, you can jump out here.  The rest of this post is a family talk with my brothers and sisters.

In Luke 6:27-49 Jesus issues what is arguably the most difficult commands in all of his teachings.  He tells us to love everybody–not just those who are loveable, or who are in our circle and meet our standards.  Because everybody does that.  His followers are to be different, and to show that difference by loving those who hate them.  And he’s not commanding us to have warm feelings from afar–he’s talking about real, sacrificial action, without expecting anything in return.  Then he puts some teeth in his teaching:  in v 35 he tells us that in doing so, “then (we) will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked” (including me).  He goes on to tell us that we will be judged, condemned, and forgiven with the measure we use to judge, condemn, or forgive others.  We get this backwards.  We want God to forgive us as we forgive ourselves, and judge others the way we judge others.  He talks about the fruit in our lives coming from what is stored up in our hearts, either good or evil.

He then drives the point to a non-negotiable conclusion with his parable of the wise and foolish builders.  He starts in v 46 with a question that should cut each of us to the bone: “Why do you call me , ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”

The answer is, “because we don’t want to, Jesus.”  We want to do things our way, with your blessing, so we parse and interpret the words of this passage and others like it, to give ourselves loopholes to avoid doing what he plainly says.  But looking back at the logical implication of v 35 above, if we are children of the Most High if we obey him, then when we choose not to obey, or twist his words to make his commands more suitable to our liking, then the converse is true–v 49 tells us that like the house without a foundation, we will collapse, and our destruction will be complete.

Love.  It’s how we’re known as his disciples.

Orlando

My wife and I spent Monday in Orlando, on Orange Street, looking for ways to help in the aftermath of the Pulse tragedy. The day was emotional, exhausting, and difficult to process. I tried to take everything in… the people, the emotion, the activity. I spent much of Tuesday writing, and trying to distill what I sensed, and what I’m feeling. Most of those words will probably not leave my notebook. There are several blog articles that I’m not certain if I’ll ever publish. Some because I just needed to get my thoughts down on the page, and some because, well, I’m not sure they will mean anything to others. I’m also hesitant because so much has already been said, and I can’t seem to write fast enough to not be rehashing the thoughts of others.

I have to publish this one. I’ve been wrestling with it since Sunday. My (small) audience covers a really broad spectrum politically, philosophically, and theologically. I can bet that all of you disagree with me on something, which is OK, because there are some issues that I have trouble finding consensus with myself on. I work to write in a way that doesn’t compromise my deeply held beliefs, but at the same time encourages constructive dialog, or at least meaningful thought, even in those who hold core values that differ fundamentally from my own. But today I am writing from an unabashedly Christian viewpoint, yet with the same desire to cultivate meaningful dialog or thought amongst those who might disagree.

Much has been written to attempt to explain why. Hundreds of investigators are interviewing thousands of connections, exploring terabytes of data, all for clues as to what motivated the shooter. Some want to blame religion. Or hatred of homosexuals. Or repressed sexuality. Or ethnicity, mental health, or some other cause that we can find reprehensible. Donald Trump wants to blame Muslims and Syrian refugees. Hillary wants to blame guns. Some want to blame the FBI for not recognizing “warning signs” that are only perceivable after the fact. The reality is we all want to blame something. We’re looking for an external cause, a them, or a that, which we can then abolish, hate, or kill to make this stop.

Carey Nieuwhof is a Canadian pastor who teaches about leadership in the church. He wrote a blog Monday morning that contained a thought that rattled me. He offered up several thoughts on how churches should respond in this “age of terror,” and point #2 gave me trouble. He talks about the importance of confession and humility, two Christian staples that may have lost some of their importance in our Western church culture. In that discussion, he made a statement that I flat disagreed with, when I first read it. He said,

“The opposite of confession is blame…and that’s an instinctive reaction most of us have.”

I don’t disagree with the “instinctive reaction” part–we all are good at blame, and it comes from deep inside, without effort or conscious thought. My issue was with the “opposite” part. I have a fundamental issue with people creating dichotomies  and this one seemed to be stretching quite a bit. I read enough stuff that I disagree with that I didn’t dwell there much, but as I thought and pondered throughout the days, it kept bubbling back to the surface. And I started to consider the significant truth packaged there: Blame is an attempt to ascribe cause to the other… Confession is the admission that “I did it.” Not “I did it because…” or the original casting of blame that followed the original sin, in Genesis 3, where Adam blames Eve (“The woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” See how he did that, not only was it Eve’s fault, but it was God’s fault for putting her there!).

But, what do I have to confess? I didn’t shoot anyone. As I considered all the different angles being explored as we all seek a satisfying answer to the question “Why?”, I crashed into this confession thought again. Because the Christian concept of confession starts to point to the answer to the question. There is one common denominator to all of the tragic events that have dominated our news in recent years (and all of history, for that matter). It’s not religion, race, ethnicity, or weapon. It crosses every boundary. It is most often a silent killer, destroying from the inside out. It is a blackness of the human soul called evil.

We can all agree that the actions of the shooter in Orlando were evil. Our desire to blame is simply looking for an external locus for that evil. What made him evil? Was it his religion? Was it his upbringing? Was it defective brain chemistry? Repressed sexual urges? Any one of those causes can be a viable explanation, so long as we don’t share that same defect.   That last phrase is important. As long as it was them, we can accept an explanation. But when the explanation includes us, we react with vehemence. I am not in any way blaming this tragedy on guns, but observe the response of gun owners: When the expected call to in some way blame guns for this tragedy came, the shouted challenges and impassioned memes exploded across the ether. In this case, I have to agree: guns didn’t cause this, and banning guns won’t stop it. Because guns aren’t the problem.

Many want to blame religion, or Middle Eastern culture as the source of the evil we see, but that explanation doesn’t fly in the case of the Charleston shootings. Guns can’t explain away Timothy McVeigh’s actions. The Bible tells us the problem lies within each of us. Evil is inherent in the hearts of men and women. We don’t like to hear that, and mankind has pursued multiple philosophies to refute this claim. My purpose today is not to defend the claim, so much as to encourage us to consider it. We don’t want to, because if the shooter’s motivation was evil, and evil is inherent, then the logical implication is… we are all capable of similar atrocities.

I cannot prove this statement to be correct, but the more I consider it, the more I believe it is true. I suspect that each of us, if we were bold enough to take the time and consider the deeper recesses of our souls, would come to a similar realization. I’m not blaming here, I am confessing. I am capable of incredible evil. I wouldn’t shoot up a gay nightclub, because that’s not where the objects of my hate are found. But there is hatred in my heart, and it can cause me to consider unthinkable actions against my fellow man. I would humbly submit, based on both my knowledge of people and my study of the Bible, that we all have that same capacity. I further submit that if you haven’t seen that level of hate in your own soul, it’s because you haven’t met the object yet, not because you don’t have the capacity.

This post could become book-length, and not exhaust the consideration of this thought. My goal isn’t debate. Today, all I want to do is confess. I am capable of hating, and that hatred has the potential to judge a person bearing the image of God as a sub-human that I have the right to destroy. I believe that is the essence of the shooter’s action, whether his target is eventually determined to be because the victims were gay, or because they were Americans complicit in the bombing of his claimed country, or some other reason that we will probably never know.

I believe for each of us, there is a them. Them are the people that we don’t see as human. It might not start that way. It may just be a disdain for an action, or an origin, or a belief, or a characteristic. As we allow that disdain to separate us from them, the disdain can strengthen. As the chasm grows, their humanity shrinks, and eventually we can quite easily see them as not worthy of… You may not have pursued that thought to the point of being willing to take a life, but I believe we are all capable.

Before you think I’m just making this all up, let me point to someone who most agree was at least a great philosopher/ethicist/teacher. Jesus said that anyone who is angry with another person is subject to judgment the same as one who murders. Without delving into a deep parsing of the Greek word translated as “anger” in Matthew 5:23, he’s not rewriting the Ten Commandments. He’s pointing out that murder starts in our hearts as a judgment of another. John affirms this interpretation in 1 John 3:15 when he says “anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer…”. The rest of that verse tends to answer the next question: “What is the solution?”

John goes on to say “and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.” Christians will tell you that Jesus is love, and that having Jesus residing in you provides eternal life. For the sake of time, let me jump a few steps in this logical process–the antidote to the evil and hatred in each of us is LOVE. That’s the ONLY thing that is going to stop the atrocities. Gun bans wont. Walls wont. Bombing the Middle East into a parking lot wont.

 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 Love never fails….

 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.- 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, 13