Tag Archives: hate

Refugees: boy on street

Guns, flowers, refugees… and why I am not afraid

You’ve probably seen it by now. A little boy and his dad are being interviewed about the recent attacks in Paris. He wants to move away to escape the terrorists who, he explains, have guns, prompting this (excerpted) exchange:

  • They have guns but we have flowers.
  • But flowers don’t do anything!
  • Of course they do. Look, everyone is putting flowers. It’s to fight against the guns.
  • It’s to protect?
  • Exactly. Do you feel better now?
  • Yes… I feel better.

Is this exchange inspiring or hopelessly naïve? Is the father simply lying to provide an illusion of safety, or does he have some kind of valid point? The questions of safety and danger are on everybody’s minds right now, especially as we in the U.S. weigh whether to participate in the sheltering of refugees fleeing from ISIS. What does the Bible have to say?

Illusion of safety

The little boy in this video has a tragically valid concern: getting shot. The father gives him a soothing answer, but is there a better answer? Something he could say or do to actually assure his son’s safety? Of course not.

We all want to feel safe, but we live in an unsafe world. If the little boy feels better because he has a flower, an adult perspective recognizes that as just a calming illusion. But we all are clinging to calming illusions. Some places in the world are more violent, some less so, and it is worth working to reduce violence, but also remember that, if you’re reading this, you live someplace with enough violence to worry about and it’s going to be that way for a while. The father could have said, “We have guns too and we’re going to keep you safe,” but we have more guns in the U.S. than any other developed country and violence still exists here. So as we advocate for our particular solutions, we must also figure out how to keep getting out of bed in the morning even if violence is never solved, and that is where the flowers come in.

How “the flowers” fight

From “love your enemies” to “do not resist one who is evil” to “all who draw the sword will die by the sword“, Christ’s response to violence is nonviolence and submission. There is no exception for us; we are commanded to take up the cross as well.

The whole point of forgiveness and love is that it takes the power away from the terrorists. It is not the result of stupidity, ignorance, or naïveté. There are other words for facing danger without fear. They are words like bravery, self-sacrifice, heroism… the firefighters did not rush into the World Trades on 9/11 because they were unaware of the danger.

Where, then, should we stand when there is a choice between heroism and danger? If we can save some innocent lives, should we not be willing to risk even our own lives to do so? Up to now, the whole argument on accepting refugees has been, “Is it dangerous or isn’t it?” To me, both arguments are nonsense. Resisting evil is always dangerous.

Into danger, unafraid

It was dangerous to operate the Underground Railroad. It was dangerous to confront Apartheid. It was dangerous to shelter Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide, to inscribe the names on Schindler’s List, to harbor the family of Anne Frank. It was dangerous for Christ to go into Jerusalem. All of those people walked into danger with their eyes open. Many of them paid with their lives. I don’t think any of them had regrets.

The dustbins of history are littered with the names of those who chose their own prosaic safety rather than stand up to a monstrous evil. When we consign the innocent to their fate in Syria, we number ourselves among them. We buy our illusion of safety at the price of our humanity. Because the reality is, we are no safer for our refusal to help the victims. We are in constant danger regardless.

When attacks come, if we are marked to die, we should at least be buried in hallowed ground. We should cry out our defiance. We should plant flowers on the graves of our fears.

We should shelter the refugees.

We are still, above all, the home of the brave.

Other recommended posts:

Photo credit: Bengin Ahmad / Foter.com /CC BY-ND

strength604x270.

All the delicious anger

This week, I was invited to be angry. That happens almost every week, but this week I had an unusually large smörgåsbord of options to be angry at— Ashley Madison cheaters, hackers who exposed the Ashley Madison cheaters, Josh Duggar, Jared Fogel, police gun violence, criminal gun violence, abortion/Planned Parenthood, anything to do with Donald Trump, anything to do with Hillary Clinton.

Now many of those causes are important, and many of you are probably angry about them; some of you are probably angry at me for not being angrier. A popular saying nowadays is, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” Personally, that saying reminds me of Despereaux, failing mouse school for being too brave, and his teacher imploring him, “There are so many wonderful things in life to be afraid of, if you just learn how scary they are!”

That is to say, maybe I am paying attention, but I choose peace over anger for reasons of my own. Maybe I feel that nothing good comes of the anger. Maybe I have seen too many souls I loved whose anger filled them up like bitter poison. Maybe I am simply following the advice of God.

The case for anger

I believe that much of the anger-seeking in our society is motivated from a good place, namely, a wish to identify what is wrong with our world and to fix it. Our society has big problems and it feels wrong to be complacent about them. Keeping ourselves educated is important. All of that is true, but none of it requires anger. Passion for injustice has taken many forms throughout history. Only recently have we begun to mistake non-angry responses for indifference.

In fact, other emotional responses may be better suited to positive action. (Quiet steely resolve comes to mind.) Contrary to our paradigm, anger by itself accomplishes little. We may raise awareness, but that only helps if unawareness is the problem (see “cigarettes cause cancer”, circa 1950). Yet we apply the salve of “awareness” to a vast array of unsuitable ailments as though it were a magic cure-all. Everyone remembers the ubiquitous “Kony 2012” campaign of a few years back. How much awareness was raised? How much outrage was generated? Yet what, if anything, was accomplished? In April this year, Relevant Magazine posted an editorial: “I Feel Like Kony Won.” Unless Kony follows American Twitter accounts, did he even know we were fighting? It’s almost as though ranting to like-minded friends on Facebook is not an effective means of toppling a hostile foreign dictator.

The cost of anger

Meanwhile, we are paying an enormous price— both individually and collectively— for our “take no prisoners” mindset.

Once we see that anger is not the only possible response to injustice, it becomes clear that our anger is something we are choosing. We meditate on topics that anger us, we listen to radio programs for facts that confirm our views and stoke our anger, our social media feeds are peppered with our angry shouting. All of this requires a large investment of our most precious and limited resource: our time. As with any limited resource, whenever we invest time to purchase that satisfying hit of righteous indignation, something else is being sacrificed. A recent XKCD cartoon showed a wife calling her husband (working on his computer) to bed. “I can’t,” he responds, “This is important.” “What?” she asks, and he responds, “Someone is wrong on the Internet.” Solomon never envisioned the Internet, but his 3000 year old advice still rings true: “A fool multiplies words… Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.” Social media addiction is a real phenomenon whose cost is only beginning to come clear. How many of us are literally staying at the keyboard and sacrificing relationship in a way that is nothing to laugh about?

Apart from time spent, cultivating anger has a more pernicious personal cost. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” says the scripture. The brain is like a muscle: the parts we exercise become stronger. Who we are is literally the sum of the daily choices we make. When we train ourselves to anger, that response becomes more easily available to us. As the old saying goes, if all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Words can hurt, and carelessly wielded, anger is a hammer with enormous destructive power. I know. I have been the angry shouting guy, I have been the guy who finally lost it and lashed out, and I have been the guy at anger management group, learning tools to turn it around. But how much better off would I be if I had never walked so far down that road in the first place? When James warns that “the tongue is a restless evil full of deadly poison”, I do not think it is a tongue full of gentle, gracious words he has in mind.

We are paying a cost as a society as well. Think about this: when we take time from our spouse and kids to invest in the anonymous stranger, being honest, are we there for his or her welfare? Or are we just after the adrenaline rush? When our interactions with each other become a form of video game, we have strayed far from the path marked out by Christ when he commanded, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Like all the bible’s commands, this one is offered as much for self-preservation as for its ability to please God. When we are working toward the collective good, by definition we all benefit, yet a battlefield is not a place where working toward the collective good is possible. And a battlefield is what our society becomes when we make contemptuous statements about each other’s motives, when we belittle and dismiss one another. We all are made in the image of God, and Christ died for us all. We would do well to remember that before we say to our brother, “Raca! (that is, ‘You fool!’)”

A better way

Despite the deep-­seated problems we face, there is still hope. It wasn’t always this way. The issues that stir our passions can motivate us in many ways that result in an outpouring of love and renewal and healing. When Mother Teresa’s heart was moved on behalf of India’s untouchables, she could have done all the things that come so naturally to us now: berating Indian society for their callousness, attacking from the outside, raising awareness among other westerners who already shared her worldview. Instead, she took up a rag in love, and personally began washing out sores. She took up those with broken bodies, and laid them in soft beds to show them kindness and mercy before they died. She took up her own personal cross and carried it all the way to her own personal Calvary. And as a result of her actions, the fragrance of a new, less callous worldview began to infuse that place until all of Indian society had caught the scent.

We have quite recently known how to do that here in America too. We have had our Malcolm Xs, it is true, but we have also had our Martin Luther Kings. Confronting a certain set of gross injustices, we were offered one vision, informed by worldly wisdom, of transforming American society into a battlefield; and we were offered another vision, informed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, of sacrificially drawing America out of darkness into light. It was the latter vision we embraced. It was the latter vision that transformed us. I have heard it said that Dr. King’s vision was too weak, that its changes did not last. But has not the loss of our positive transformation coincided with our descent into a society polarized against itself? If the prescription now proffered is hatred of our enemies, then that medicine is the very agent that is causing our disease.

There is a way for us to turn back. There is a way for us to return to the upward path. It is not the easy path: the “click-tivism” of signing an outraged petition costs us nearly nothing, but quite likely, it also accomplishes nearly nothing. It is not the natural path: sacrificial service to our enemies does not trigger any adrenaline rush. But if we are to be spared, we must leave the path we are on. “Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath,” warns the scripture, “it tends only to evil.”

There are a lot of causes in the world; this week was example enough of that. We do care about them, and we should; they are important. They are worthy of our best, but our best cannot emerge from our anger. Our best can only emerge when we are seeking one another’s good in love.

Serving beside those we hate

Serving beside those we hate

A conversation between my friend and her daughter, posted on Facebook this week:

  • Daughter: “Why is there a ripped up Chick-fil-A coupon on the table?”
  • Mom: “Because your brother doesn’t agree with their politics.” 
  • Daughter: “Oh. That makes sense.”

A quote from Rachel Held Evans, on the occasion of last year’s brouhaha over WorldVision’s short-lived policy change on same-sex marriage:

  • When Christians declare that they would rather withhold aid from people who need it than serve alongside gay and lesbian people helping to provide that aid, something’s very, very wrong.

In Oregon, a bakery owner is risking a six-figure fine rather than bake a cake for a same-sex couple. And now this week, Franklin Graham, founder of Samaritan’s Purse, has waded into controversy with his simple-minded and ill-informed remarks on police brutality.

So, what to do?

On the one hand, Samaritan’s Purse is one of my family’s favorite charities for year-end giving. Part of our annual Christmas celebration often involves drilling a well or fighting disease somewhere in the world. On the other hand, our society’s go-to reaction seems to be disengagement when a political principle is at stake. How can I partner with you to save the life of an at-risk child if I can’t even bake you a cake or buy your chicken sandwich?

How can I partner with you to save the life of an at-risk child if I can’t even bake you a cake or buy your chicken sandwich?

To me, all of this shows that such disengagement can only end in mutually assured destruction, and the last, best hope for our fractured society may be our simple shared humanity. In the 2012 movie Big Miracle, circumstances throw together an oil-company executive and a Greenpeace organizer who is his sworn enemy; after many days laboring toward a common goal, they share a quiet moment and he reflects, “You’re a lot harder to hate than I thought you’d be.” How much potential Christ-honoring reconciliation do we miss in our eagerness demonstrate our own righteousness?

Besides, if we have any hope of accomplishing good in the world, then a standoffish rebuff of all the “morally unworthy” is simply not an option. As Shakespeare’s Henry V reflects, “There is no king, be his cause never so spotless, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers.” Whether we disapprove of gays or of those who disapprove of them, we will find ourselves serving alongside them when we begin trying to better our world. People can be good and loving and Christian while still being wrong in some ways, and there are such people from every walk of life, you and I among them.

The last point to remember about the moral high ground is, there isn’t any. Or rather, however kindly we may favor ourselves, we aren’t on it. Scripture makes that abundantly clear:

  • “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.” (Romans 2:1)
  • “You hypocrite! First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:5)
  • If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8)
  • If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. (Galatians 6:3)
  • There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. (Romans 3:10-12)

Even the poster child verse for disengagement, James 1:27, which says “to keep oneself from being polluted by the world,” also says in the very same sentence that it is just as important to look after orphans and widows in their distress.

Perhaps the best guide, as we confront the problem of those who differ from us, whose views are morally reprehensible to us, is to remember the example of Christ. Scripture says that God demonstrates his love for us in this: that while we were yet sinners, Christ came to us and healed us, came to parties with our tax collector friends, and ultimately gave his life for us. I think it’s a good bet that he’d have been willing to sit down to a chicken sandwich or two into the bargain.