Category: Society

Witness Amid False Christianity

What does witness to the Christ reality look like in the midst of so much that is false to Christ? This is an issue for followers of Jesus who care about witness to Christ. We see a distorted, destructive Christianity. Some expressions of "Christianity" are downright scary: We expect violence. Many of us viewed a video of a man, who had broken into the senate chamber, praying a prayer of thanksgiving to God. He was involved in the insurrection and claimed a God-given victory. These actions, of course, have nothing to do with the "reign of God" that Jesus proclaimed. Nor do any of the nationalist, ethnocentric, and racist blends of Christianity.

For those who have little experience with churches or Christianity other than what they receive in the news, there must be bewilderment at the dizzying array of Christian institutions, forms, practices, theologies, and values. Those that have read Jesus’ teachings in the Gospels may have recognized the distance between Jesus and many who lift up his name. There is much Christianity that operates in ways distant from the "reign of God" that Jesus proclaimed and his actions of mercy and compassion.

So, what does witness to Jesus Christ look like in the midst of so much that is false to Christ? Where do we see it? What forms does it take? Here are characteristics of a true witness in the midst of false Christianity:

  1. Actions Come First. Many, for good reason, are turned off on Christ-talk and God-talk. Witness to Christ, therefore, is seen first in acts of love. It simply manifests Christ in the world by action. It acts from the reality of the Spirit of Christ. Therefore it does justice, loves mercy, and lives faithfully. The love of God is made concrete and practical. It responds to actual needs with compassion. Actions proclaim the Christ reality. With loving actions there may also be opportunities to witness with words.

  2. Speak to Human Experience. When the opportunity to speak is present or necessary, Christ people must declare the message of Jesus without formulas and doctrines and with humility. We must operate like the first followers of Jesus: We must respond to people at the point of their need and with words that speak to their deepest humanity. We must speak to spiritual reality, rather than moralize. Our witness must come from a life rooted in the Spirit and able to discern the things of the Spirit. We may speak to spiritual realities long before we name Christ. Our words will engage with individuals’ spiritual journeys. Therefore, we will spend much time listening and receiving from their experience as well as sharing our own. If we see that the name “Christ” alerts them to be cautious because of their experience with people who do a lot of Christ talk without a Christ life, then we may, at first, speak of the Christ reality in terms that are more available to them. We may speak of our true humanity which, in its infinite depths, is rooted in God. After all, Christ is the union of God and humanity. He is our true humanity. People who have found their way to their true selves, have implicitly encountered Christ. They have come into a dying to the false and rising into their true humanity. The reality of Christ, even without the name, is never far away.

  3. Encourage Faith. Our primary message is the same as Jesus’ message: “God’s reign and purpose are near. God is near. Turn to God, the source of your life and identity.” We must encourage others to relinquish their lives to God and discover the Christ-life. When they let go of their lives to God (which is what faith does), they do so through Christ. As St. Paul puts it: We become right with God through the faith of Christ; his faith becomes ours. Faith is the gift of God in Christ. As we come to participate in this Christ reality, the word is: “Go on in him. Learn to live by an ultimate trust in God and in community with others.”

Filed under: Society, Spirituality, Witness

Trump, White America, and Our Humanity

After all that Donald Trump has done, all the misery he has caused, all the racism he has aroused, all the immigrant families he has destroyed, all the people who have left this life because of his mismanagement of a pandemic, still roughly half of the country voted to extend this horror show.

White people—both men and women—were the only group in which a majority voted for Trump. (Charles M. Blow)

I have thought of Donald Trump as a mirror by which we could see ourselves as a nation. After all, we had managed to put him into the office of the presidency. My hope was that, after four years of looking in the mirror, we would not like what we saw. I had not expected Trump to grow his base by several million voters. Apparently, many looked in the mirror, saw themselves, and liked what they saw.

Many, who have been the opposition to Trump, have been alarmed by the breaking of democratic and institutional norms, practices, and mores; the narcissistic, demeaning, dishonest, and immoral behavior; the utter lack of leadership and care for the real issues of our time. We have an incredibly self-absorbed human being heading our government. He is a mirror of self-absorption. In fact, Trump has mirrored our ability, as a people, to be absorbed with our most narrow interests, to see not far beyond our personal issues and those of people like us. When Trump has expressed grievances, prejudices, and fear of others different from us, we may have seen ourselves in the mirror. When Trump has demeaned those viewed as the opposition or “not us,” we may have seen ourselves, having craved their demeaning. If we have been a part of the opposition to Trump, we may have seen ourselves in the mirror of those who have demeaned Trump and his supporters.

It is apparent that we can look into a mirror that represents something of ourselves and be blind to the defacement that is present. We need a different mirror. We need the mirror of Christ, the mirror of our true humanity, a humanity turned outward to others, not merely looking out for its own interests. In Christ, we see compassion that recognizes the needs of others and reaches out with healing and liberation. We see mercy that enters into the lives of the “least” of the human family, those marginalized by our inhumanity towards others. In Christ, we see justice that works to make right what is wrong. In Christ, we see one who loses his life for the sake of the world. We need to look into the mirror of the humanity we see in Christ. This humanity—which is compassionate and merciful—is near, as near as God is to us, the God who is in all things. But we must turn from our false humanity to our true selves made in the image of God.

If we look into the mirror of Christ, the mirror of compassionate humanity, we will begin to see truthfully. We will see the disfigurement of our humanity by sin, the spiritual roots of our blindness. We will also see that neither Trump nor support for Trump is an aberration. As Jamille Bouie expresses it, “The line to Trump runs through the whole of American history.” Trump mirrors our history. Whatever our democratic ideals, ours is a history of the degradation and subjugation of people, of native Americans and people of African descent and others. Ours has been a history of White supremacy—what many have called our nation’s original sin. The majority of Whites voted for Trump. He represented them more than the alternative that at least expressed the desire to address racial disparities and injustices and to stop the mistreatment of children and families at our border. When we look into the mirror that is Trump, we see White supremacy. And White supremacy has supported him.

White evangelicals, who saw in Trump a protector of “Christian values” or, at the least, “religious freedom,” need to turn to Christ, who said that if we seek to secure our lives, we will lose them, but if we lose our lives for Christ’s sake, we will gain them. Only when we relinquish our lives to God will we be witnesses to Christ, rather than witnesses to our fears and self-absorption and White nationalist values that exist under a guise of “Christian values.”

Dear reader, if you are finding your true self in Christ, you know that you are called to be a witness to what is on the heart of God whose image you are. We are to be witnesses in a world plagued by inhumanity. We are to be witnesses before a false Christianity. We join with others who are discovering their true humanity. They may not call it Christ, but they are increasingly living from that humanity, and we recognize them by their compassion and share with them a common labor to do justice, love mercy, and live faithfully.

Filed under: Humanity, Justice, Racism, Society, WitnessTagged with: , ,

Gifts in a Time of Pandemics: Knowledge

At this point, in human history, there is an astounding accumulation of knowledge, along with many ways to access this knowledge. We do not need to be experts in infectious diseases to make our way through the present pandemic. We simply need to be open to receiving and learning from others.

Communally shared knowledge is a gift in a time of a pandemic. Experts in the field of infectious diseases, who are on a learning curve with a new virus, share their knowledge, observations, and proposals with one another and the public. We experience this knowledge as a gift when we listen to someone like Dr. Anthony Fauci. We are given steps to take.

As with all gifts, however, knowledge must be received and acted on. In the midst of a new virus that continues to spread, the knowledge that wearing masks can help us is a gift. But this knowledge can be received or refused. It may surprise us when people refuse to wear masks under our present circumstances, but all of us have the capacity to reject knowledge.

On the one hand, we are creatures that are infinitely open. We open out to the universe. We open out to the Mystery of the universe, to the incomprehensible God. This openness makes all knowledge possible. On the other hand, we are able to close in upon ourselves and close ourselves off from knowledge. We get sidetracked by our addictions and obsessions. Our fears, prejudices, hurtful dependencies hinder our openness. Here are questions we can ask ourselves: What goes on inside us that would get in the way of receiving and responding to much needed knowledge in this time of a pandemic? What keeps us from being open and receptive to knowledge?

As important as empirical, scientific knowledge is for responding to a pandemic, self-knowledge is especially critical. Interior knowledge of ourselves, the awareness of our motivations, attitudes, feelings, and commitments helps us to discern what gets in the way of receiving knowledge, why we avoid particular subjects, and why we rationalize behavior.

When we recognize and relinquish that which has us closed and allow ourselves to be open and receptive, we do not have to do battle with science or any form of knowledge. We are freed to change our lifestyles in order to address the realities of a pandemic. A loving openness to others will have us wearing masks not only for our own sake but for the sake of others.

Our responses to the surges of COVID-19 infections and deaths have demonstrated how closed we have become and sidetracked by our idolatries and false allegiances. I saw a video of a man raging against wearing masks. He saw mask-wearing as an offense against his “freedom.” The words on his tee-shirt said it all: “Selfish and Proud of It.” Without relinquishing his idolatry of self, he will be incapable of wearing masks for the love of others.

Loving openness frees us to receive from others—not only for addressing a coronavirus pandemic but for addressing the much more entrenched pandemic of racism. Many have been helped toward a degree of openness by a virus that has shone a light on the disparities and injustices in our society. But, of course, those injustices have always been there available to be seen by a loving openness. The video of the death of George Floyd and the actions of the Black Lives Matter movement have brought a sustained focus on what has always been there. These actions have gained the attention of Whites who are willing to be open and who have turned attention to their own racism and the systemic racism of our society. What will maintain this focus and bring about work for change will be a growing openness. Without such openness, we remain in darkness. And remaining in darkness hurts us and others.

If we allow ourselves to be open, we will change. If we go back to our same old rationalizations, we will go on losing our souls, and knowledge will escape us. It makes no difference whether we call ourselves Christian or view ourselves as enlightened. Openness to knowledge brings true change. Above all, love makes us open. The good news is that knowledge and love are not far away when we are open. And God will help us to be open. Therefore, Jesus says, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find.”

Filed under: Mindfulness, Racism, Society, TruthTagged with: , , ,

Gifts in a Time of Pandemic

The very depth of emotion, the connecting to the core of one’s being, the calling into play one’s strongest feelings and abilities, can be rich, even on deathbeds, in wars and emergencies, while what is often assumed to be the circumstance of happiness sometimes is only insulation from the depths, or so the plagues of ennui and angst among the comfortable suggest.

Rebecca Solnit, “A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster”

Rebecca Solnit examines catastrophes such as the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and Hurricane Katrina for the extraordinary experiences of community, sharing, and deep compassion. She gives expression to the hurt and suffering as well as the actions, often by those in authority, that make matters worse in the crisis. Her focus, however, is on human beings shining with the beauty of humanity in the midst of great trials.

We see this humanity played out today in the many concrete acts of compassion in the midst of the pandemic. Relationships often take on a deeper significance, not only relationships to those near and dear, but to neighbors and strangers. There is the sense that we are going through this together. Often it is very simple experiences that are deepened in their significance for our lives. Recently, on a pleasant weather day, neighbors came out of their back doors to enjoy the sun. We immediately greeted one another across two fences and entered into conversation. My neighbor two doors down shared how wonderful it was, in the midst of our “staying in place,” to find each other outside at the same moment and be able to share with one another.

We experience a deeper appreciation for neighbors and for those who deliver our mail, pick up our garbage, and work in our grocery stores. In addition to the health care workers on the front lines of combating this virus, we are recognizing other “essential workers:” bus drivers, farmworkers, food processors, first responders of all kinds, delivery people, maintenance people, home health aides. Some, like the last in this list, often receive less than a living wage. Many essential workers are undocumented. Will our recognition of the essential nature of their work bring about a societal change that ensures a living wage, health care for all, and a path to legalization for the millions of undocumented workers? Can we acknowledge that every one of us is “essential” and are to be loved?

We are given an opportunity, during this time of COVID-19, to reflect on the inequalities that are present and on the kind of society we want to have. The crisis this virus has created shines a light on the inequities. The statistics that show a much larger percentage of deaths in communities of color are a reminder of what has historically been the reality: The state of health, in these communities, is an outcome of years of inequities in the provision of health care, in the existence of food deserts, underfunded education, and diminished job opportunities. What this pandemic reveals to us about these injustices, we must not ignore. Deepened understanding is a gift, as is the call to work toward the kind of change that comes from doing justice and loving mercy. Will we receive these gifts?

There is much we can receive as we go through this time of pandemic, gifts that will change our lives. Saint Paul encourages us to make the most of the time: “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time.” There is something to receive during this time for the upbuilding and renewal of community. Therefore, we must make the most of this time, so that we receive the gifts given for the recreating of our relationships and society.

Filed under: Grace, Humanity, Justice, SocietyTagged with: , ,

Solidarity and the Coronavirus

It was a nurse practitioner that got me “woke.” She made plain that the trajectory we are presently on, without radical measures, will mean an exponential growth of the coronavirus. Her sharing also made plain the steps that I needed to take. I am taking directions from the doctors in my life and listening to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). God speaks to us in many ways.

Here is a sobering warning from an article this morning: “If the number of cases were to continue to double every three days, there would be about a hundred million cases in the United States by May.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/?itid=hp_hp-banner-low_virus-simulator520pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

It is all about containment at this point. It is about flattening out the growth curve. Therefore, it is about social distancing and cutting down on gatherings. (Along with hand washing and other practices that ought to be a general part of our lives.) The CDC is now encouraging gatherings of no more than 50. Illinois is closing restaurants and bars. The more we can stay out of circulation the better. This is particularly true for those of us who are able to do this. Young adults, who may have much less to be concerned about personally with this virus, must care about the wider community. There are some who have this virus and do not know it and are carriers.

We each have a part to play for the sake of the common good. Christians know (if they do not forget) that they are part of this world with all its problems, struggles, and breakdowns. We share in the decisions and calls to action. We know we are to seek knowledge and love our neighbor. We are called away from acting from fear or from self-absorption. We are to be a “people for others.” We must take steps regarding our gatherings in the same manner that others in the larger community must do.

We are to pray. Pray and act for the vulnerable among us. Pray for health workers and others who are on the front lines in countering this pandemic. Pray for those who are out of work and those who have child-care issues. Pray for leaders and those in positions of authority whose decisions affect the direction that we, as a global community, take. Pray for solidarity, that we work together for the good of all.

Be mindful of the changing needs in our communities. Each congregation has various ministries and ways of serving, some of which can be activated in response to specific needs. New ways of serving also may come into being in response to what is happening around us.

And receive the gift that is present in what we are enduring right now. We are experiencing an astonishing global action. Actions are being taken despite the effects on the economy. We must learn from this. What we are seeing right now of the global response, we must give witness to, when it comes to combating global climate change.

People of faith, reach out for discernment for the actions to take and for what God is doing in this time.

Filed under: Serving, SocietyTagged with: ,

The “Gospel” That Supports Trump

Pastor Robert Jeffress, an evangelical supporter of Trump, was interviewed for an opinion essay in the Washington Post. He provided us with his (and many Evangelicals) main reason for supporting Trump. He tells us “that regardless of what happens in Washington, D.C., that the general trajectory of evangelicalism is going to be downward until Christ returns.” He explains that, as he understands Scripture, things “get worse and more hostile as the culture does.” Things get less and less “evangelical-friendly or Christian-friendly.” He sees “the election of Donald Trump as maybe a respite, a pause in that. Perhaps to give Christians the ability and freedom more to share the gospel of Christ with people before the ultimate end occurs and the Lord returns.”

This is an amazing statement from someone who purports to be a Christian leader. Why is he focused on a downward trajectory for evangelicalism rather than a downward trajectory for the world (given the state of the world)? At the heart of Christian good news is that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” Jesus says that he did not come into the world to condemn the world but to liberate it, and he trains his followers for the work of deliverance and healing.

And Jesus does not look for respite from the emperor or provincial leaders. When he is told that King Herod is out to kill him, he says, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.” In effect, Jesus is saying that he does not have time to pay attention to King Herod, much less cozy up to him. He has a God-given mission that concludes, as it often does for prophets, in being killed. His focus is on the world, on hurting and broken lives. He is about healing and deliverance directed outward to others. He tells his followers it has to be the same way for them: “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the good news, will save it.”

Jesus does not entertain a “Christian-friendly” environment. Rather, Jesus tells his followers to expect persecution and that, therefore, they must “deny themselves, take up their cross (their suffering and death) and follow him daily.” They are not to seek to secure their lives (their Father in heaven will do that); they are to lose their lives for the sake of others receiving the good news. When they get anxious, they are reminded that their Father in heaven cares for them, and they are directed to seek first God’s reign and purpose and leave to God the kinds of things that they tend to get anxious about. They are set free to focus outward to the needs of others, even unto death.

Pastor Jeffress gives an alternate vision in which Christians, astonishingly, have to count on someone like Donald Trump to give them a respite, while Trump’s actions and that of our government, cause great hurt and death to others. This view eliminates the true mission and witness of Jesus’s followers. And an alternate “gospel of Christ” gets promulgated.

So, what is this alternate gospel? What kind of gospel seeks a “respite” for ourselves while putting up with degrading, demeaning language directed to others, often to the most vulnerable among us? What kind of gospel provides personal respite while allowing children to be separated from their parents at the border? What kind of gospel makes room for the consistent demeaning of people fleeing from great danger to seek asylum? What kind of gospel has nothing to say to the racist actions of a president who sets a tone for the country? What kind of gospel provides respite for white followers of Jesus while making room for demeaning, dangerous language directed to black and brown people? What kind of gospel has us so absorbed with our own condition that we minimize the impact of the rhetoric and actions of this president on others, or simply do not care enough to pay attention to the effects of his actions on others? What kind of gospel does not call us to confront the lies and deceit and injustices?

A “gospel” that puts up with so much pain and hurt at the expense of others while providing “respite” for Christians, has hidden idolatries that “accepting Christ” apparently does little to disclose. This “gospel,” rather than calling for repentance, carves out a place for the idolatry of nation and race, as well as other idols our culture worships such as our comfort, pleasure, possessions, and power. It allows for a form of “Christianity” whose message, in many aspects, is nationalist and often implicitly white nationalist. It is idolatrous. Oblivious to the idols that enslave us, we enjoy our worship and our thoughts about God’s grace toward ourselves while maintaining all manner of self-righteous and destructive attitudes toward others. We may even disregard repentance altogether. This “gospel” may leave us “unaware that the kindness of God would lead [us] to repentance.”(St. Paul) We may go around saying, “I accept Christ. I accept Christ,” as if that were the end of the matter.

The truly good news that Jesus proclaims is that the reign of God is near and is a gift and is available to all. Therefore, Jesus tells us to turn (repent) from our idols (our allegiances that are false to our true selves) and enter into God’s reign. Under God’s reign, we receive the freedom of the children of God—the kind of freedom we see in Jesus, the child of God. In Jesus, we see freedom from being directed by fears, including the fear of others; we see freedom to show mercy, to do justice, to love others. When we begin to experience God’s reign, we discover a very different kind of governing from that of the nations of the world, and we become witnesses in word and action to God’s ways of governing. We are witnesses by our compassion and mercy toward others, our welcome of those different from us, our work for justice, and our being instruments of God’s healing in the world.

Filed under: Grace, Justice, Love, Society, WitnessTagged with: , ,

The Coming Collapse

Hanns Lilje, a Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany, in his book, The Valley of the Shadow (1950), shares his experience with arrest, interrogation and a trial that ended with his being sentenced to death. (Before the sentence could be carried out, however, communication broke down and the Allies gained control of Germany.) One of his observations in this book was that the Nazi regime was collapsing from within. He sees the collapse in the faces, features, and actions of guards, interrogators, and judge.

He views young men whose lives were “empty,” who “were forced to be brutal” which “caused them to crumble inwardly.” He describes the judge’s face, at his trial, in this way: It “had originally been a good one, almost noble, with clear-cut and intellectual features, but it had decayed (as it were) from within, and all his features bore signs of a terrible inner decline.”

Of tyrants, like Hitler, Lilje writes: “God allows the tyrant to follow his way blindly, to the end, until nothing remains.” Evil sown reaps the decline and fall of the evil-doer.

We are reminded of Paul’s words: “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow.” (Galatians 6:7)

Evil sown carries its own demise within it. Sin is like a parasite. It eats away at truth, compassion, justice, mercy, and faithfulness until it has nothing left to feed upon. St. Augustine says, “Sin is nothing and human beings become nothing when they sin.” Sin always robs us of reality. The “nothing” that is sin produces no love; it undoes love. It shows no compassion, no mercy. Where justice is required, it is unjust. And it is untruthful: It takes away from and distorts the truth.

We experience this undoing personally, and we see it taking place all around us. None of us are without sin, and we all experience the breakdown sin causes in our lives and relationships, whether from our own sins or the sins of others against us. We see this corruption on a social and global scale. We see the loss of compassion daily in the mistreatment of human beings at our border, in our warring ways, in the gangsterism on our streets and in corporate boardrooms, in sexual assault and harassment, and in all forms of inhumanity towards others: the injustices in our criminal justice system, discrimination in housing, health care and educational resources, and in the neglect and hurt of the most vulnerable among us.

We see the disintegration of truth and compassion among those who are placed in positions of leadership. We currently have a man in the office of the presidency who has lied or made misstatements, according to fact-checking, more than 11,000 times in his presidency. Many have become numb to this situation. We have leaders who disparage and demean various ethnic groups and religions among us and leaders who show little regard for future generations as they refuse to address the issues of climate change, seeing such actions as disadvantages to their wealth and power.

But what we are seeing is not only the great hurt being perpetrated on others but the steady breakdown and destruction of the perpetrators themselves. They are unwittingly sowing the seeds of their own demise. Their corruption is eating away at branch and root. It is not surprising that our present government has had a steady flow of those who have had to leave their positions.

The New Testament book of James says, “Not many of you should become teachers…for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” Not many should become leaders. Judgment awaits. What has been sown will be reaped. If we have sown to destruction (the destruction of compassion and justice and mercy), we will reap destruction. We will reap our own inhumanity with its consequences in the hollowing out of our lives and our eventual collapse. Yes, we will leave carnage in our wake, but we will also lose our own souls.

We see this debilitation in the leadership of our government. It is a sickness unto death. That does not mean that we can simply sit, watch and wait for it all to fall apart and then attempt to pick up the pieces. That would mean more affliction on the most vulnerable, and it would mean our own disintegration. People of faith know that they are called to be witnesses. We are to witness from the grace, compassion, and justice we have experienced. As we learn to live from the Source of love, we know that we are under a call to speak to the corruption by witnessing to God’s compassion and justice. We are to join with others to call for compassion, justice, and mercy and do so by addressing the specific injustices of our time, working to make right what is wrong. We are to do justice. We are to be channels of the kind of love that effects actual change.

To those who continue down the road of destruction, who have committed themselves to that road, we will be viewed as subversives. To those who hold onto power for themselves (and “their people”) over against others, we will be called radicals. But then love, care for the truth, and doing justice are radical; they go to the root (radix) of being the humans God calls us to be.

Filed under: Evil, Humanity, Justice, Society, Spirituality, WitnessTagged with: , , ,

A Memorial for Healing

Last month, my wife, her sister and I journeyed to Montgomery, Alabama, to visit the National Peace and Justice Memorial which opened last year. It is a memorial to the thousands of African American victims of racial terror lynchings between 1877 and 1950. It provides an opportunity for this nation to confront its past violence and its legacy.

We walked through an open rectangular building among columns of metal blocks hanging from the ceiling on poles. On each block of metal were engraved the names and dates of individuals who had been lynched in public gatherings, often announced and reported in local newspapers. The names were listed by county. Some counties had multiple blocks.

At first these blocks were at eye level, but as we turned the first corner, the floor moved downward and the hanging blocks moved upward. There were over 4000 names engraved on these blocks as well as a memorial to the unknown victims of this terror.

When we first entered this memorial area, there were signs indicating that this was a sacred place, and we experienced it that way. We could see that people who had come in groups often divided up as we did. It became a solitary experience as each of us meditated on what was before us.

There were also signs that indicated that this place was a healing place. Healing often starts by looking into the darkness. After all, it is the light that enables us to see into the dark places. Our problem is that we often turn away before we can be healed. As Jesus tells us, “All who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.” It is when the deeds are exposed that we can begin to change and be healed.

Standing before the columns of engraved names, I felt and reflected on our inhumanity toward other human beings—a condition of inhumanity we all share. It was like looking upon the cross of Christ and realizing that it was our sin that put him there. The cross and the lynching tree call for repentance and conversion into the way of life that God provides.

I also imagine that African Americans experience another movement toward healing through this memorial as they confront a history of abuse, addressing the effects of the sins of others against them, experiencing grief and anger and release into action. There is healing in gaining historical clarity and a vision for the way forward.

The importance of memorials like this for those of us who are white is that they provide another opportunity to confront racism and its legacy. We need these confrontations for our healing. We need light in the darkness to expose our racism so that it does not remain active while hidden from us. After all, like all sin, racism hides. We would like to think it resides in ideologically white supremacist groups or overt racists. But racism is so thoroughly a part of our society, its attitudes and structures, that we are all participants.

To truly confront it, we have to come out of our comfort zones. We have to become self-aware and socially aware and historically aware. We have to be willing to explore ourselves and our society in unfamiliar ways. We have to become aware of our “whiteness”—what whiteness does for us, how it privileges us in a racist society.

It was, after all, people of European descent who came up with the notion of various human “races” as human types (rather than acknowledging gratefully a diversity of peoples and cultures) with white people as the supreme norm. An ideology of whiteness was born that would support the institution of slavery. The legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings and the present mass incarceration of people of color is the legacy of whiteness as a construct that dehumanizes others. And those of us who are white cannot simply step out of that history and socialized ideology. It is pervasive to the society of which we are a part.

For people of faith, there is the awareness that the Spirit of Truth brings to the light what is hidden in darkness. So, we can pray:

“Gracious God, give us eyes to see and ears to hear. Shine your light into the dark and hidden places of our lives. Give us willing hearts to hear the voices of those harmed by our racism. Help us to keep listening and to not excuse ourselves from the problem. Help us to fast from listening to ourselves and to other white people and instead free us to listen to the voices that our racism has dismissed. Lead us to confess our sin and deliver us from evil. Liberate us from all ways of thinking and acting that separate us from the one human race. Heal us and raise us up to do justice, love mercy and live faithfully. Amen.”

Filed under: Healing, Racism, SocietyTagged with: ,