I don't know if that story is true, half true, or completely made up. I wasn't there and, thankfully, since I don't have cable, I've not been inundated with every last detail and opinion on the matter.
I do find the story immanently believable though, because it so fits with the kind of thing I've seen over and over again.
I know a few police officers. I met and spoken with many on various occasions, almost always off-duty. They seems like normal, committed, sensible people. When I've encountered police officers "in the real world," however, it's almost always been a negative experience. My experience with cops has been of the power-trip, hair-trigger temper, angry for no reason variety. Perhaps it's the company I keep?
I've been screamed at by police officers for having a conversation with a homeless man. I've seen teenagers thrown up against cars for little more than being black. I've seen the intimidation first hand.
I won't go so far as to say these particular police officers are normative or even numerous - but they exist. I've heard plenty of cops talk about co-workers who are jerks or take the job too seriously. I imagine the police officers who are calm and committed to upstanding service simply avoid the kind of activities that give their profession a bad name.
The problem comes, though, when a particular class of people - namely the urban (largely black) poor - have only experiences with the worst examples of policing. When you only know angry, power-tripping cops (or the nameless, faceless others who frequently patrol your neighborhood), it's difficult to get a sense of justice and fair play.
Someone asked me the other day what the point of looting was. I don't condone it and, deep down, its simply a way of getting stuff for free. But, when your perception of the world is, "it doesn't matter if I follow the rules or not, the Man is coming for me," there's little motivation to actually follow the rules. It's a silly, wasteful type of protest - one that almost always misses the mark - but it is protest nonetheless.
I was raised in middle-class white society. I was one of those kids taught that the police are your friends and they'll always help you out of a jam. I was taught that I have nothing to fear if I've done nothing wrong and I have the right to stand up for myself.
As an adult, having spent time in places where police presence is something other than inconspicuous, I have trouble believing, deep-down, that those lessons are true. I certainly know a lot of people who grow up being taught to avoid the police at all costs; if you find yourself in an unfamiliar place - don't go to the cops, they'll blame the nearest crime on you; even if you've done nothing wrong, being black is often enough to get you hauled downtown.
These are, of course, anything but absolute truths. However, they are reality for a lot of people. Unfortunately, those people are disproportionately black. Black people do not have the best history of relations with law and justice in this country. While great strides have been made over the years to raise the ceiling of opportunity for African-Americans (at least one can be elected President), this incident (and many others) illustrate that the floor of treatment remains solidly in the basement. Scenes from Ferguson this week (outside of modern riot gear and armored vehicles) could be mistaken for the Deep South in 1962.
When I've been party or witness to police over-stepping bounds, I've spoken up, talked back. I've done so with almost no fear of reprisal. I recognize the angry guy I'm speaking with is armed, but I'm fairly confident he won't do anything to me. I'm right and I'm white. That's just not the truth for everyone.
To me, though, the real failure in all of this is the response. It's the position of leadership. Sadly, there are innocent people killed every day in this country - more often than we'd like, they're killed by police officers. In most cases, there is an investigation, consequences, results. It's only those few times when action is avoided or delayed or ignored, that it becomes news.
Human nature is towards defensiveness. That's natural. But we have the ability to recognize our nature and override it; it's literally what separates us from the animals (except maybe whales and dolphins - those guys are smart!). Problems arise when people given power refuse to accept accountability. Police officers command public trust - therefore they must be willing to submit to a higher, more invasive, possibly unfair level of suspicion. It just comes with the territory. People in power just have a higher standard, whether we like it or not.
It gets tricky for police, because they're also the ones charged with upholding those standards - essentially, they're policing themselves. A quick, defensive response (whether its correct or not) just doesn't communicate the kind of accountability required of those charged with upholding the law.
My wife is a teacher; it's the world in which our family lives. It's painful to see that those people who most probably deserve to be in a different position are the ones most strenuously defended by teachers' unions. It's like police policing themselves. Too often these units become exclusive clubs, designed to benefit lifetime members, rather than defenders of their own profession.
I recognize the value of brotherhood and family and unconditional support, especially in an occupation so fraught with danger. I get what that's pushed so strenuously. At the same time, police officers must know that for every bad decision that gets defended, every mediocre cop who keeps their job after a screw up, the reputation of the whole profession takes a hit.
With cops, like with teachers (or really any profession) if they themselves are not the ones upholding the standard, the standard is not long for this world.
Positions of power attract abuse of power. I'm not simply talking about how people with power issues are attracted to positions of power (which is true), but that the positions themselves breed abuse of power when lacking accountability.
You can go back to the oft-cited Stanford study - where a group of undergraduates was split into prisoners and guards and left alone. With 24 hours, those with power had descended into dehumanizing acts of violence and torture against classmates who had been their equals not a day before.
I have great sympathy for the cop who says, "I'm gonna tell these kids to get out of the street, because I can and they have to listen." I've been in similar positions of authority that have similarly gone to my head. It happens without conscious awareness. Power just takes over.
When those who are supposed to listen and obey don't, well then, it's a short step to increased pressure, force, and violence. It's not an outrageous leap to make - especially for those who've been trained to respond that way - especially when you know deep down there's no way anyone with any power will accept the word of a poor, black teenager over that of a cop.
The Ferguson Police Department has proven to be anything, but a bastion of calm, considered, response - or even really community awareness. The whole week has been a lesson in how to do PR poorly. Whether you think the office is telling the truth or not, they've bungled everything that came after.
It's no real stretch to think perhaps the atmosphere and subconscious training could have lead to a lack of awareness, judgment or discipline. When we make it easy to abuse power, we can't be surprised when it happens. It doesn't have to be malicious to be evil. We haven't heard from the office in question - while its entirely possible he's as resolute and unfeeling as his department seems to be, my guess is he's as broken up about the whole thing as anyone. My indefensible bouts of anger have never resulted in consequences quite so dire, but they just continue to devastate my soul. I can't imagine what Darren Wilson's life is like right now.
Then again, despite all the furor and anger, these kids could be cunning con artists. They could have concocted the story knowing that public opinion would be on the side of unarmed minorities over the big, bad white cop. I doubt it, but I'm not ruling it out. Lord knows I've witnessed some terribly disrespectful behavior from arrogant teenagers in my neighborhood and thought they could really use someone to shake them up a bit.
I doubt the reality of this situation is comfortable to anyone, no matter what angle your experience and bias leads you to believe.
But even if this incident isn't everything most people think it to be, it looks enough like other, real, verifiable abuses of power (disproportionately correlated with race), that it can be representative of the larger problem.
We have a race problem in this country, but we also have a real issue with power and accountability. We (and by that I mean just about every organized group - from Catholic bishops to drug-running street gangs) have an affinity for "looking out for our own." We tend to rally around our own - both when they deserve it and when they deserve the strong corrective force only "we" can give.
Ultimately, none of these issue will be solved until we come to one profound realization: there is no "them;" there is only us. We are all in this together.
I follow that crazy radical Jesus Christ (or, at least, I attempt to), and one of the most profound lessons I've tried to learn from him is that our place is always on the side of the outcast the minority, the downtrodden, the forgotten. I try (and I think I do a better job than most of my friends and acquaintances would like me to do), whenever a "them" emerges (from molesters, to immigrants, to teenage "thugs"), to put myself on their side, in their shoes.
I do this in part to remind myself and others that we're all human; any division we create is arbitrary at best, but also because it's only from inside the "us" that any real change can occur. No one is taking heed of "them" telling me what to do. No one is changing their life because "they" told me to do it. Change comes when we stand up to ourselves and call ourselves to something better.
If there is going to be a "them," whoever it is, count me among them. That's where I'll make my stand, because that's where, time and again, I find my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And when this particular "them" becomes strong enough and powerful enough to become an "us," I'll cross over again.
The only "us" that matters is the "us" of all humanity. Only when we recognize that we're responsible both for and to each other - when there is nothing fruitful to be gained from creating a "them," can we really begin to address the problems that plague us.
Playing "us" and "them" games is all about power. A wise man I know once said, "the only legitimate use of power is to share it," or give it away. That's called accountability - a recognition that we all (every one of us) have a part to play. No one can or should do more than their share. We're all in this together. There is no "them," only us.
They hit on a blog post from the "Christian" music group Gungor about their perspective on historicity in Genesis. The post itself was a reflection of a radio interview given eighteen months before and expressed an opinion that was not revelatory for them or new to the world - namely that the biblical book of Genesis is not intended to answer specific historical questions, perhaps Adam and Eve were not the names of the first people, the great flood probably didn't cover the whole of the Earth, and that perhaps it took longer than seven days to get the world to the state it was in when humans showed up.
By using words like "unorthodox" the viral piece made something controversial out of something mundane. Yes, a few fundamentalist baptists cancelled concerts or wrote angry letters, but no one was really shocked.
The things the band said might be considered on the liberal side of evangelicalism (although maybe not even there anymore), but certainly are well within the confines of Christian orthodoxy. What's more, they align with nearly all scholarly research and investigation into the subject. In other words: this is not news.
I have seen a lot of interesting responses, though - the one most interesting is this idea that "you must believe all scripture is literally true or none of it is trustworthy."
Beyond the egregious abuse of logic in that statement, it sort of skips over the more important issue: how does one know what the Bible "literally" says? The most common answer: "It's pretty clear if you read it," leaves much to be desired.
I'm coming out here today. I can admit to you, publicly (I'm pretty sure I covered this in a previous post, but I couldn't find it, so here it is) - I believe the Bible is literally true. I do.
The word literally literally means to take seriously the author or speaker's meaning when interpreting said communication. There's been a lot of controversy lately because the dictionary definition of literally has been amended. So many people now use the word to place emphasis on something, rather than to define anything specifically (that new Taylor Swift song is literally the pinnacle of human creativity). We get fooled when we think literally means "exactly what most people hear when they hear the next few words." It's not an interpretation by democracy. Literally means whatever the speaker/writer means. It's up to the interpreter to notice body language, inflection, context, past interaction, etc to parse the exact intention of the word.
It's always meant that, but the dictionary has traditionally relied on people meaning the same things when they speak. Now there are literally no rules. People can use the word any way they choose and its up to us to figure out what they mean. Sad, I guess, but helpful in this context.
When I say I believe the Bible is literally true, I mean exactly that. I mean I believe it says exactly what it's authors and compilers and editors intended it to mean when they put it together.
That's different than just "what is says if you read it," often called the "plain sense" interpretation. It's a popular one, but, again, interpretation by democracy is not always the best way to find out what something literally means.
When I say I take scripture seriously as a literally true document, I am committing myself to a lifelong process. I have to become knowledgeable about the various genres of literature found in the Bible, how they're constructed and the ways they're intended to be used. I have to parse out historical context - what was happening in the world when people first read these stories in these ways? How does that history change the meaning and purpose of the text? I have to look into the history of the passages themselves - were these oral histories, later written down - how does the process of transmission and the various contexts in which this was received over time shape the story?
In short, I have to ask a lot of questions - questions that can be answered, but never completely. Scripture itself is called the living, active word of God (although at the time those words were written, they themselves were not included in scripture, so one has to speculate about the author's intentions for his - and it's almost assuredly always his, which adds its own layer of bias and investigation to the process - own words should be viewed, and also brings into our discussion the subject of cannonization and the process by which God's people chose which writings would be scripture and which would not - another layer of investigation), which means it's an ongoing process.
All of this speaks to the notion of inspiration. Christians of most sorts confess that scripture is inspired by God - how that happens is a topic of some debate, but ultimately what it means is we think it's a true, reliable source of information upon which to base our understanding of the universe and our actions within it. During the trial of Jesus, scripture recounts Jesus' interaction with the Roman authorities who ultimately allowed his execution. One of the most famous questions posed to him is, "what is truth?" That's ultimately at the bottom of this whole thing.
I confess that Jesus Christ is truth. He claimed as much (if the scripture is to be believed). The only problem with that claim is that it's so squishy. Confining truth to a person brings into the equation relationship - something that changes over time, even if the people involved are the same people throughout.
Just another wrinkle in the process of discerning "literal" truth.
A lot of Christian believe the Bible says the universe was created in seven "literal" days." Unfortunately, that's not even an historic position. It's relatively new. As far back as the scholars of Alexandria in the second and third centuries or the great theologian (who practically defined orthodoxy for a thousand years) Augustine in the fourth and fifth, Christians (leading, important, influential Christians - and many more beyond these) were calling that particular belief silly and a menace to the spreading of faith - pretty much everything that's been said about Gungor the last week.
In the end, I do have an opinion. I can talk you through the "literal" truth of Genesis as I see it, provide the historical, theological, and contextual discoveries that have led to my conclusions, and present the ways this "literal" reading has changed over time as I've grown in knowledge and experience.
What hasn't changed, though, is my commitment to the literal truth of scripture.
That doesn't depend on how many days it took for humans to show up on the Earth, or how massive Noah's flood was, or whether Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob even existed at all. The modern study of history as we know it has only been around for a couple hundred years - it's pretty new as academic fields go. The questions of history we so often ask of ancient texts (like the bible) are completely anachronistic to their interpretation.
if we're going to take anything literally, especially something so old, diverse, and complex, we're going to have to ask deeper questions, spend more time studying, and perhaps admit we don't always know everything so concretely - even as we know more things, more thoroughly than we did before.
That's just the nature of literal truth and, I believe, what makes life exciting.
[Edited to add: Here's a great link with a brief interview with Michael Gungor, but, more importantly, lots of links to other things I only referenced in passing in the post above.]
But of course we didn't know then what we know now and we're certainly not the same people we were back then (those people seem unbearably thinner).
When I reflect back on who I was and who I am there is the unmistakable marks of your life all over mine. I think I was happier then - mostly because I was meeting the vast majority of my selfish desires just fine. My life was small and simple. It was much easier.
When I look at myself in the mirror today, I find a lot more to respect. I am more patient, although not patient enough. I am more compassionate and caring. I am more responsible and work harder. I am likely just as neurotic and frustrating, but hopefully about fewer things.
I am a more mature, well-rounded person and that is, largely, because of you.
We've talked about this a bit. I think we've both come to see marriage as a cooperative endeavor on its own terms, rather than just a relationship between two people. It's something bigger than ourselves - even bigger than the beautiful family we've become. I know they call it co-dependent when you've grown too thoroughly connected to someone else for emotional stability, identity, and well-being. Maybe it's unhealthy. I don't know.
What I do know, is that despite the difficulties we have understanding each other, and all the times we've tried and failed to communicate properly, through all the frustrated nights when we've tried to envision a better life elsewhere, at this point, today, ten years in with another fifty to go (now that your heart's fixed I think we can make it), there's not a single other person on this planet I'd rather be facing the future with.
I love you. Happy Anniversary!
Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of this book for the purpose of review (I bought my own copy of The Unkingdom of God). My integrity is not for sale. Those who know me well are aware I would relish the chance to give a bad review in exchange for a free book. If I've failed to do so, it has nothing to do with the source of the material and only with the material itself.
I did not intend to read two books about the same thing at the same time; it just happened that way. I agreed to review Ken Wytsma's Pursuing Justice and Mark Van Steenwyk's The Unkingdom of God just happened to be the next book on my "to read" shelf. Both deal deeply with justice and Christian life. Both derive from a biography of radical change.
I expected the books to be quite different. Wytsma is an evangelical pastor and teacher, famous for founding the Justice Conference; his book is published by one of the big names in Christian media. Van Steenwyk is a Mennonite most people have never heard of, who lives in communal housing, hosts a podcast, can often be found at protests, and promotes Christian anarchy.
I expected to resonate profoundly with the challenge of The Unkingdom of God and generally shrug at Pursuing Justice. I found them profoundly similar and equally important - which is why I've included both in this review.
I appreciated Van Steenwyk's overt admission of struggle and hypocrisy. He presents a strong challenge to the empire (read: American) dominance in our culture - not just public culture, but Christian culture as well. It's the kind of theological approach most often seen from hippies and radicals and hardcore followers of Christ. Can Steenwyk presents all of those things, but with the humility and honesty to say, "yeah, but I buy my kid a Happy Meal from time to time, too." There's a real value in recognizing that life isn't an either/or; the reality of the world in which we live is complicated and precludes perfection in any form.
I found Wytsma's book to be profoundly deep. He begins with the assumption his readers have no concept of biblical justice and meets people there. The book does proceed rather quickly to some real theological depth, especially challenging the stereotypical, generic evangelicalism I was expecting from a Thomas Nelson imprint. Perhaps it is the clout of his Justice Conference or the real need for such a book to be published, but there is just as much revolutionary, radical, in-your-face truth as is found in The Unkingdom of God. The eighth chapter alone, on consumerism, is worth whatever you pay for the book.
Both books are rooted in the concept of shalom - more than just peace, but a sense of rightness, fulfillment, a flourishing of all creation. This is the Kingdom of God so often spoken of by Jesus, it is the goal of the Church, and the end result of justice. While the specifics of the illustrations and the implications of each author may vary, the point of each is to connect God's people to God's mission of restoring shalom.
I spent some time reflecting on what exactly makes these books so different and yet so the same. I've arrived at this:
Wytsma's challenge is to get beyond your mostly just, comfortable world and give your life in pursuit of God's restorative shalom. It is, in essence, to expand your sphere of concern. Van Steenwyk's challenge is to look around you and see your mostly just, comfortable world as neither just nor comfortable, and thus to live into the dream of a better way.
In both cases this involves a deep dive into the margins - a sacrifice of comfort and cultural expectancy in exchange for life as it was created to be lived. Pursuing Justice helps the reader wade into the pool of injustice, whilst The Unkingdom of God pushes you, unexpectedly, right into the deep end.
I hope it's not too cliched to say both are important. Each book will appeal to certain audiences who will likely ignore the other outright. I'd say there are some chapters which work less well than others in each book; at 300 pages, Wytsma's is certainly longer than it has to be. Neither one is a home run, but they're valuable, worthwhile additions to the library.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com® book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
It's a pretty standard format throughout - a problem must be solves involved a journey of some kind, a helpful map provides three landmarks along the way, our imperious adventurers overcome child-sized adversity to accomplish the goal and be slightly more bilingual in the process. Dora has a few friends and, I guess, fremenies, for lack of a better word, she encounters along the way (no one will convince me that "Benny the Bull" is not an intentional clever allusion to Benecio del Toro) - my favorite is Tico the Squirrel.
As we moved through the episodes of Seasons 1 and 2, I became very comfortable with the world in which they'd created. There was magic and imagination, but the cast of characters and the lives they led were relatively defined and understandable.
But Season 3. Oh, Season 3. In Season 3 they changed up the opening montage, speeding up the theme song and throwing a cavalcade of flashing images and colors at us, most clearly designed to bring on seizures (or satisfy the ridiculously face-paced, stimulation addicted attention span of the modern child). They also added another main character - Diego, Dora's older cousin who's well versed in animal husbandry and often performs feats of valor beyond his years. I think Diego eventually got his own show (I don't know - Amazon charges us for things starting in season 4, so we haven't seen them).
The whole of Season 3 struck me as just a total affront to everything they'd established for the show. It was like a different thing - yes, with familiar characters and vaguely similar plot lines, but certainly something different.
I tend to be change-resistant and pretty obsessive-compulsive by nature. I had really come to appreciate, if not enjoy, the show. Certainly it was loads better than most of the other options out there (although, I am on team Backyardigans for life). I hated the changes. I didn't think they worked well and I see no point in change for change sake.
My daughter, on the other hand, loved it. It took a couple episodes to adjust to the changes (she was beyond overwhelmed by that new opening), but she adjusted quickly and enthusiastically. She doesn't hate Diego, she loves him - just like she loves everything else on the show.
For a moment, I had some frustrated, righteous anger. Clearly this is some attempt to grab a larger market share (coinciding with Season 3, Dora moved from a Nick JR. show to the big time on regular Nickelodeon), and profit from something that was already a success. For a moment, I was quite concerned that I'd failed a parent because my daughter had so easily bought into this pandering crap they'd pulled.
Then, of course, I remembered she's two (one and a half at the time).
I began to analyze what exactly is it that makes her so easily adaptable to what I considered to be a tragic turn of events in children's program development.
Then it struck me. I'm old.
Not that all old people have closed their minds to new possibilities, but a lot of us have. We encounter the world in ways that become predictable - we build a world for ourselves where expectations are usually met (if we've been paying attention) and things turn out the way we expect (even if not the way we'd like). We're set in our ways. We want comfort, familiarity, stasis.
Kids are different. My daughter is still very much experiencing the world for the first time. Each day brings understanding and encounters that are genuinely new to her. She's full of imagination because she legitimately has no clue about the boundaries of the world in which she lives. She's embraced the larger, more complex, fuller world of Season 3 because that's the kind of world she's used to - one with surprises around every corner, one that is constantly expanding and growing. She's used to a world that's confusing at first and she's pretty darn good at learning.
There's clearly a message here - at least there was for me. I may not be able to help getting old, but I sure don't have to act like it. No one does. I want to engage the world with wonder and imagination. I want to take confusion and unfamiliarity as a beautiful gift, rather than a troubling challenge.
This is made even more real by my faith. I believe in a world that works differently than it seems, a world of endless - perhaps miraculous - possibilities where the typical rules and assumptions are just not set in stone. I believe that, but it doesn't often show up much outside my preaching.
Yes, I can say, perhaps I embrace the craziness of the world with a little more comfort than most people, but it's not even a fraction of the way my daughter does. She's pretty confident balloons can't talk back to her, but that doesn't keep her from talking to them.
I've spent two years of my life, now, trying to instill in her the value of imagination and reinforcing the notion that possibilities are indeed limitless. I think I'm doing ok passing my world view on to my daughter - she's brave and hopeful and confident, most of the time - but I don't seem to be listening to any of the words coming out of my mouth.
Hopefully I can change that. I'm gonna start by trying to like this Diego guy; I'm not sure I've yet given him a fair shake.
