Can We Lament?

My heart is heavy today.

My heart is heavy because for the second time in the past month, a black person lies dead at the hands of white law enforcement and/or vigilante justice (which is no justice at all).  That’s just the instances we know about because the videos went viral on social media.  There are probably countless other black men and/or women who suffered a similar fate during the past month that we don’t know about.

My heart is heavy because protests in my city concerning the death of George Floyd turned violent.  I do not condone the violence but I cannot imagine what depth of suffering and injustice could push someone to the place where he/she feels that he/she has no recourse whatsoever but to riot.

A word about riots:  Riots don’t just blow up out of thin air.  Riots happen because there has been a long weight of systemic injustice bearing down heavily upon a certain people, with no movement whatsoever to resolve the injustice, and certain members of that people feel that they are left with no recourse but to take to the streets and tear shit up.

The CNN Center, the College Football Hall of Fame, Lenox, Phipps, etc. will be fine.  Given sufficient time, those places will get cleaned up and back to normal and looking like nothing ever happened.

You can’t say the same for Ahmaud Arbery or George Floyd, or any of the other victims out there that we don’t know about.  They’re gone.  Their families will not be able to clean this up and get back to normal and make it like it never even happened.

And this has been going on, in some form or fashion, for decades, centuries even.  It started with slavery, continued with Jim Crow, and persists to this day via all manner of institutional injustices which continue unchecked and remain unaddressed.

Now do you begin to get a clue as to why someone might feel in this moment as if they have no recourse but to take to the streets and tear shit up?

My heart is heavy because it is my race that is responsible for that.  And there has been no movement whatsoever toward rectifying these generations-old injustices.

Oh, and there’s this:  For generations, black parents have lectured their children on how to stay safe:  Don’t talk back to police.  Stay out of bad places.  Don’t act out.  Avoid confrontations.  Be respectful.  Things like that.

Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd followed all the rules.  They did everything they were supposed to do to stay out of trouble.  And it still wasn’t enough.

What the fuck does a black parent tell her/his children now?

My heart is heavy because I am on the other side of that.  I never had to have “The Talk” when I was growing up.  That doesn’t happen when you’re white.

That ain’t right, people.

My heart is heavy because there is a FUCK ton of work to be done to make this right.  Yet from where I sit there does not seem to be much more that I can do but sit here and write angry blog posts.  Well, if that’s all I can do then so be it.  I will keep them coming.

To all my black friends out there who might happen upon this:  I’m trying.  Really I am.

Lament does not come easy to us in America, and especially in American evangelicalism.  It goes against our happy-clappy, can-do ethos.  Yet at this cultural moment, lament is right.

Don’t know what lament is?  Start with the Psalms.  There’s a shit ton of lament psalms in there, you won’t have to look too hard to find one.  Pick one and just sit with it.

Of course there is still, as noted above, a shit ton of work to be done, and lament is not going to get it done.  But it is a start.

Let us take the time to sit in lament.  And then let us get busy and do the work.

For Fuck’s Sake, Christians: Stop Spreading Conspiracy Theories

Conspiracy theories are the secular, political version of Gnosticism.

What is Gnosticism?  Gnosticism was rife during the first century or two of church history.  Much New Testament ink was devoted to countering Gnostic beliefs and claims.  Mystery cults were all over the place in ancient Rome; these cults promised their adherents inside knowledge on how things really are that was not available to the public at large.  That is the basic Gnostic premise:  that there is this secret body of knowledge available only to a chosen few, that this knowledge is reflective of how things really are, and that everyone on the outside is ignorant, perhaps to their own detriment.

Today’s conspiracy theories and theorists are essentially the same thing.  Only an enlightened few know what is really going on in the world; what everyone else believes is a huge, pervasive, insidious lie perpetrated by a top-secret cabal of like-minded actors all around the world in order to cover up their nefarious schemes and intentions.

You know what I’m talking about here.  By “conspiracy theory”, I mean anything on the same level as anti-vax, Flat-Earth, Deep State, QAnon, etc.  Shit like “9/11 was an inside job” or “NASA faked the moon landing”.  Now we have “Plandemic” and the theory that 5G cell towers are spreading coronavirus.

What is most distressing is that it is Christians, and especially evangelicals, who are driving the spread of these conspiracy theories.  It’s come to a point where Saddleback Church in Los Angeles and the Humanitarian Disaster Institute had to come together to craft a resource for pastors to quell the spread of false information in their congregations.  And when Ed Stetzer published an article in Christianity Today calling on Christians to stop spreading coronavirus-related conspiracy theories, he had to amend it to make note of the vitriol that it received in response.

As if that isn’t enough, consider the healthcare workers on the frontlines who are daily told by conspiracy theorists and social media trolls that the hospitals are really empty and coronavirus is a hoax, and then return to their jobs the next day to see that the exact opposite is true.  Think of the toll it takes on them.  Christians:  You should have no part whatsoever in propagating this toxicity.

As Christians we are called to be lovers of truth.  We are expressly forbidden from spreading false witness.  Yet that is exactly what these conspiracy theories are:  false witness.

To quote from Stetzer:

Spreading unproven speculation is bearing false witness and I still believe we need to repent when we have borne such witness. We need to spend more time in God’s Word and less time being influenced by social media trolls and clickbait.

More poignantly and to the point:

If you still insist on spreading such misinformation, would you please consider taking Christian off your bio so the rest of us don’t have to share in the embarrassment?

As Christians, we are called to be lovers of truth.  The world deserves better than Christians who are doggedly rushing to be at the front of the line in spreading outrageous conspiracy theories.

Come on, people.  You are better than that.  Christianity is better than that.

For fuck’s sake, Christians:  Stop spreading conspiracy theories.

Further reading:  Instrument of Mercy breaks down the reasons why conspiracy theories are so attractive to people, and especially Christians.

Ahmaud Arbery: What A Present-Day Lynching Looks Like

Today we are going to talk about Ahmaud Arbery.

ICYMI:  Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, was shot and killed back in late February while jogging through a mostly-white neighborhood in Brunswick, GA.  Brunswick is a small-ish town in coastal Georgia, about 4 1/2 hours from downtown Atlanta.  If you have ever vacationed at St. Simons Island or Jekyll Island, you have passed through Brunswick.

The case stalled for over two months as local prosecutors recused themselves due to conflicts of interest.  The shooters, Gregory and Travis McMichael, a father and son, suspected Arbery of being involved in an earlier burglary in their neighborhood.  Gregory McMichael had served with the local police department and as a district attorney, thus causing the conflicts of interest.

Last week video footage surfaced which clearly indicated that the McMichaels initiated the incident leading to Arbery’s death.  This footage went viral and quickly drew national and world attention to the incident.  The GBI launched an investigation, and the McMichaels have been arrested and charged with murder.

Arbery was an avid jogger.  At one point he had hopes of a football career, but those had long since fizzled.  Yet that did not quell his passion for physical fitness and remaining in shape.  On this day, he was out for a run and it ended tragically.

Basically this was a case of running in a white neighborhood while being black.

For those of you who are African-American, this incident awakens painful echoes of Trayvon Martin back in 2012.

But there is hope.  One of the chief differences this time around is in the reaction from leading conservatives here in Georgia and elsewhere.  Attorney General Chris Carr took to Twitter to express deep concern.  Governor Brian Kemp offered the services of the GBI, which of course was accepted.  He also stated that he would be open to hate crimes legislation targeted toward this very type of incident.  Russell Moore, chief of the SBC’s public affairs division, weighed in as well with criticism of those who would point to Arbery’s prior background as a mitigating factor for the McMichaels:

Whatever the specifics of this case turn out to be, we do know several things. The first is that the arguments, already bandied about on social media, that “Arbery wasn’t a choirboy” are revolting. We have heard such before with Trayvon Martin and in almost every case since. For all I know, Arbery was a choirboy.

But even if he were the complete opposite (let’s suppose just for the sake of argument), that is no grounds to be chased down and shot by private citizens. There is no, under any Christian vision of justice, situation in which the mob murder of a person can be morally right. Those who claim to have a high view of Romans 13 responsibilities of the state to “wield the sword” against evildoers ought to be the first to see that vigilante justice is the repudiation not just of constitutional due process but of the Bible itself.  And, of course, the Bible tells us, from the beginning, that murder is not just an assault on the person killed but on the God whose image he or she bears.

It seems that the world may be at a tipping point.  One can only hope so.  I certainly do, for the sake of my black friends, who have lived through Trayvon Martin, Emmett Till, and many other such incidents, and now this.  And for Ahmaud Arbery, who did nothing more than go out for a run in a white neighborhood while being black, and certainly did not deserve to have his run end the way it did.