On Someone Yelling the N-Word in Public

Originally published at Misfits Theology

So, this week we’ve seen another “scandal,” where a white person yelled the N-word in a fit of heightened emotion, then later apologized for the mistake. I know there are some people who think this is a regrettably acceptable occurrence, but we’ve got to stop making those excuses.

I get that some people have grown up around overt and intentional racism, where white people saying the N-word is common. If a person comes from such a background, I get that, perhaps, that word is part of a seldom-used vocabulary that comes out when they’re especially angry. I suppose apologizing is about all one can do in that instance, but I suspect there’s more that can be done to prevent it.

I can’t recall any white person ever saying the N-word in my presence (ie: not on TV or in the movies). Ever. I’m not saying I haven’t heard a lot of offensive or derogatory, racist ideas from white people – and I’ve absolutely heard a lot of other, equally unacceptable slurs against cultural and ethnic groups in casual conversation, I’ve just grown up in an environment where the N-word is a known taboo.

That’s not to say the white people I’ve been around haven’t thought it or been capable of using it; I just haven’t heard it. That reality makes it nearly impossible to imagine how anyone could even accidentally say it.

I’m suspect I’m in the minority, as it pertains to white folks, but I’m not trying to say, “we’re not all bad.” Just because that particular word wasn’t uttered, doesn’t mean I haven’t been thoroughly steeped in and guilty of racism.

Most of my conditioning wasn’t race-related at the time. It’s only as I grew up that I realized code words like “urban” were rooted in racism, which make those ideas – like locking the car do when driving through a city – so difficult to excise. My guess is that white people who “accidentally” use the N-word may have similar problems. I do believe there are still kids growing up who hear that word used a lot, for long periods of time, before they ever learn its offensive.

Dealing with our ingrained racism isn’t just a problem for the most obvious offenders, though – its a responsibility for every white person – and, to date, we’ve largely dealt with it by ignoring it or pretending it doesn’t exist. This is why these incidents are so terrible and so terribly handled; it’s as if someone’s worst secret is being publicly exposed.

It doesn’t have to be that way. We’re very used to celebrities using their platforms and money to address things like climate change or injustices in the court system or food insecurity or animal rights. They draw extra attention to issues where none of us is perfect, and while they may be annoying or extreme, we’re rarely offended or defensive about it.

As much as we hate to have those things thrown in our faces, those conversations do move the needle. They remind us of our own abilities to change and push us collectively towards improvement. Their fervent, sometimes comical views shape the conversations we’re able to have amongst our friends and neighbors and they do make a difference in how we live.

What we don’t often see, what we need more of, are honest conversations about our own biases, especially when it comes to race. Try as we like, we really can’t control what comes to mind in a given situation. We can certainly work to change in the future, but I can’t change a thought I’ve already had.

There are times I think more about my personal safety when I see a black man walking towards me than I would if he were white. It’s terrible and wrong and I hate that it happens, but, from time to time, it does. Of course there’s a huge difference between that thought and actually crossing the street because of it. I deserve no praise or pat on the back for simply continuing to walk down the sidewalk in those instances. At the same time, every time I do it – consciously reject the racist thoughts that pop into my head – the less likely those thoughts are to arise again. This is how change happens. It is, in fact, pretty pathetic to say “I’m less afraid of black people than I used to be,” but it is the truth. Again, that’s not something to be proud of; its quite literally the least that I can do.

Of course, we should be doing more than the least that we can do. It’s not enough just to do that work individually. This is the difference between being not-racist and what’s come to be termed anti-racism. We have to stop being silent. Those conversations that happen in our heads need to happen out loud – and in settings that are all white.*

We’re much more comfortable talking about our own racial failings in mixed settings, because we perceive some nobility in looking progressive in front of black friends. We’re much more reluctant to bring it up in all white settings, because we’re terrified of someone getting defensive. That’s a self-perpetuating problem.

We don’t speak publicly about the racial biases we’re trying to address and thus it becomes unacceptable to do so, making it more difficult to address them and us more likely to do whatever our personal version of screaming the N-word in public might be.

Part of that is the shame we direct towards people who are more racist than us. I can’t imagine using the N-word, even in a fit of rage, so it’s easy to scorn those people who do – but I’ll find myself on the side of unending grace when its my own racism that’s on display.

Again, this is not some plea for acceptance; its a call to conversation. It’s a call to white people, because the Black, Brown, LGBT, and Jewish among us shouldn’t have to bear the burden of being the racial police; they’re already putting up with enough.

They also shouldn’t be put in a position to absolve us. “Don’t worry, I know you’re trying.” Maybe our fragile egos need to hear that from time to time, but if we seek it out, we should seek it from white people – and white people who know us well enough to temper it with accountability.

I’m not saying people should get a pass and please don’t give me one. I’m certainly embarrassed when I say something ignorant or racist, but I need to know I said it if I’m ever going to change. I do believe, though, that if all we do is cancel someone or shame them, nothing will get better. Shame breeds secrecy and secrecy feeds dysfunction.

In the same way someone can stand up in church and say, “I’m a sinner” and receive lots of grace, someone can falsely be called a hero for admitting “I’m a racist.” When we start listing those sins, however, everyone becomes uncomfortable. We don’t know how to handle it. Starting those conversations puts us in the position of deciding whether to keep our own sins secret or expose them as well.

One of those choices is much easier, but if we make it, nothing changes. I’m not going to list here all the racist battles I’m waging in my own life and mind – it feels like too easy a way to gain points for honesty – speaking in a public forum, outside of real conversation. We do all need, though, to be willing to speak of those things among the people with whom we do life. Friends, family, coworkers, teammates, and fellow congregants – the people who have access to our lives and are in a position to keep us honest and hold us accountable.

We can’t be satisfied with being less racist than someone else and we can’t be motivated by getting “woke credit” for whatever work we’ve already done. Yes, we should all work to be less racist tomorrow than we are today, and while that is progress, it’s not something to be proud of, its just the bare minimum expected of a member of the human race.

So when someone uses the N-word, an apology really can’t be “enough,” but something does have to be “enough,” if we’re really working for the redemption and reconciliation of all people. I suspect, though, the “enough” is not something you can ever do after the fact; it’s work that needs to be done before.

*They also have to involve more than just our racist thoughts and words, but how those thoughts and words, over time, have contributed to inherently racist social systems and the ways we can participate in their reform or reimagination.

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

Reflection on Peace and Division

Originally published at Misfits Theology Club 

All I’ve been able to think about during this time are Jesus words in Matthew 10:

“Do not suppose I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law – a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.”

The gospel of Jesus Christ does not make sense to everyone. It seems downright foolish – stupid and dangerous to many. The Kingdom of God is not well received by the majority of the world around us, maybe not by those who sit next to you in worship, maybe not by those who sit next to you at dinner.

Divisions are not really the issue. Jesus tells us the gospel is, by definition, divisive.

The issue is how we respond to that division. For some, they see Jesus’ talk of swords as allusions to violence. We plant our flag in the ground and defend it to the death, pushing away those who disagree and increasing the chasm that’s grown between us.

For others, the next few verses ring true:

“Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”

The other response, opposite, but equally problematic to violent self-defense, is denial. We pretend the divisions between us don’t exist. We avoid talking about them or looking at them. We carry on as if everything is fine, hoping it will be.

Neither of these responses reflect the gospel. We can’t pretend our divisions don’t exist. We must, indeed, plant our flag in the ground and hold firm to our beliefs. What we must not do, though, is allow those divisions to break the bonds of love that tie us together as people.

Yes, there is a chasm between you and me. It is a distance too far to cross and neither of us will give in. Our only recourse is to deal with it. Speak the ugly, difficult truth. Talk to one another. Listen!

It is only when we maintain these tricky lines of communication, these essential bonds of love, that we can begin to pull our two drifting sides back together. We can close the chasm that’s formed, not by violence, or belligerence, or denial, but through the hard work of love.

If we are committed to one another, to serving one another, to seeing and hearing each other as human beings – beloved children of God – then we can truly be about the business of making peace. Not a stalemate or a truce, but genuine community that’s won through the hard work of naming and facing our divisions.

Photo by Ian Cylkowski on Unsplash

Commitment and the Search for Meaning

Originally posted at Misfits Theology Club

"The injunction of the gospel is... to lose one's life in the service of others, not to keep one's options open."

This is John Meacham’s interpretation of John Lewis’ practical theology in the Pulitzer Prize winner’s recent biography of the late Congressperson and Civil Rights icon.  It struck me as an acutely apt prophetic challenge for today’s commitment-averse society.

If you talk to contemporary pastors, one of the real stressors in ministry is the unwillingness of people to commit to the congregation.  In previous generations, it seems people organized their lives around membership in the body of Christ, as expressed by their local congregation.

“Regular” worship attendance used to mean 50 weeks a year; people might miss worship for vacation or an illness, but rarely anything else.  Those were your core members.  These days, the definition of “regular” is a lot more like 25 weeks a year.  Pastors never really know if even their most dedicated members will show up from week to week.

I don’t think our congregations are without fault in this trend.  We’ve largely avoided engaging in the issues that affect daily life for most people.  We’ve refused to challenge societal norms with the counter-cultural message of the gospel.  We haven’t given people a purpose they find essential to their lives.  Much has been written about moral therapeutic deism and you can read up on it elsewhere.

The typical pastoral complaints of youth sports, beach houses, and the pure enjoyment of just sleeping in aren’t entirely wrong either, though.  There are certainly more and more options competing with what was traditionally a Sunday monopoly for Christian congregations, but I suspect it’s this notion of “keeping our options open” that proves more dangerous to healthy lives.

We may be over-committed today, but not in the same way we would’ve defined commitment in the past.  We’re involved in more things, but much more loosely than we would’ve been twenty years ago.  You’re a member of a gym, a book club, and a congregation, but you keep all of those commitments at arm’s length.  There’s a “don’t ask, don’t tell” element whereby they won’t demand rigid attendance and we’re always available to do something more interesting.

It’s a by-product of consumer society.  We’re always open to trading up.  My kid gets recruited for a higher level travel team?  Let’s jump ship, teammates be damned.  My friends want to spontaneously go out for drinks tonight?  There will be another bible study next week.

I don’t want to be a Pollyanna, decrying the lost commitments of the past.  We’ve largely abandoned the shame tactics that made people feel guilty for an absence (“we missed you last week” might be a genuine expression of concern, but more often it sounds like passive-aggressive scolding), but we’ve not yet mastered a loving communication of importance.

This is the rub.  How do we reinforce the reality that no group is at its best without all its members and also not require those members to bear a larger burden or responsibility than they feel capable of shouldering?

First, the focus of our efforts should be on love.  The root of the gospel is not behavior modification, moral policing, or getting people to heaven.  The Kingdom of God is where everyone feels valued.  Whatever else we do in life, it’s all in a search for meaning.  As Christians, we believe you find that meaning in the eyes and in the lives of other people.  (Peter Rollins will tell you there’s no meaning to find, which may be true, but he still ends up at the importance of engaging in inextricable relationship with other people.)

We all need some place where we can unload the baggage of the week, express our inconvenient frustrations, and be encouraged to act and react out of the core of our being rather than the messiness of our emotions.

Binge-watching trashy reality shows over a gallon of ice cream allows us to do the first.  Laughing and crying with friends over drinks, board games, or ax throwing gives us access to the second.  The third, however, requires the Church.

I try to be very precise with my language.  A congregation is an organized local body of like-minded people.  The Church is the whole of those people, throughout time and space, committed to embodying the gospel.  Which means, your board game club might just be the Church, if it helps you better live out what’s really important.

There are real, foundational truths in the world.  There are a few things genuinely right and good and true regardless of context.  Some things are bigger than us and our emotions and they demand we commit our lives to them if we have any hope of peace in this world.

For Christians, those things are love.  That’s it, just love: reckless, extravagant, selfless love for even the worst human being you see each day.  We might not be called to end our lives in service of that love – as Jesus did – but we’re absolutely called to give our lives to that love.

Love is the gospel.  Whatever and whoever helps us align our lives with that truth is the Church.

Moving forward, Church can’t only bring to mind one very specific image that’s largely defined the word for the last millennium or so.  That’s not to say pews and hymns and sanctuaries are out of date or unimportant, just that they are only as necessary as their ability to foster the gospel of love in those who attend.

The important element, as Meacham says, is that we’ve got people around us who help us commit – not to obligations or guilt or pleasure or fun, but to something real and true and deep and bigger than ourselves.

We like to keep our options open to avoid stress and with an eye towards the false promise that easy satisfaction is right around the corner.  Whatever we’re looking for: meaning or validation or belonging or peace is not found “out there.”  We can only be truly human by going deeper – deeper in love, deeper in relationship, deeper in commitment to one another.

There is no other option, so stop looking.

Minding the Gap

I believe life and faith is mostly about the gap between our beliefs and our actions. Most tension in life comes in the disconnect between what we know (or believe at the moment) to be true and the reality we see around us. When we feel underappreciated, abused, or put-upon, this is the tension between the belief in our inherent value and the value others’ actions are ascribing to us. Our search for meaning is often a recognition that our choices are not producing the contentment we believe we deserve.

As a Christian, I allow the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to be the measure of my beliefs. I try to be challenged by scripture and the work of God’s Holy Spirit to align my life (my actions) with the life (and actions) of Jesus. The struggle comes in exploring the distance between those beliefs and my reality (both my actions and the actions of others that impact me).

But you don’t necessarily need a “faith” per say, to engage in this exploration. I’d argue no one has a choice. Willful ignorance or obliviousness might minimize the tension or limit your discomfort, but you can’t ever eliminate it entirely.

Even an extreme nihilist, driven by the belief that nothing matters will, on occasion, encounter some experience, some moment of meaning, that challenges this core assumption. Life will give you pause to doubt its ultimate meaninglessness the same way it will give a person of faith and belief pause to doubt its purposefulness.

I’d argue Jesus’ life and teaching were not intended to start some new religion, but to challenge the concept of religion. He deftly illustrated that a system of beliefs and practices cannot be the solution to our existential angst. We may ultimately come to find ourselves within a particular religious tradition, but that only happens because we’ve come to believe those beliefs and practices are worthwhile in our search to reconcile the truth in our heads with our reality.

This is why I can say our “church” is a gathering of people with no required set of beliefs. If whatever Christian perspective on life and belief I happen to have is actually true, others will be convinced on the merits, on its practical value in making life bearable (if not enjoyable), not because of some inherent authority or coercive fear.

I’d argue those religious leaders who appeal to authority or fear as the basis of belief don’t really believe in anything except power. They are religious leaders, but theirs is not the religion they claim to represent.

This is the perfect example of how a “church” built on this tension between belief and reality can be beneficial. It allows us to think about our own beliefs and our own actions and the relationship between them without the shame of having to live up to some imposed religious standard. The very religious standard, I’d argue, Jesus came to topple.

The twin questions of “Why do we do what we do?” and “What do our actions say about our beliefs?” allow us to examine this gap in ways that lead to growth. It doesn’t require us to have the same answer to questions like “What is true?” or “What is right?” in order to be supportive and helpful to each other.

I know this all sounds very relativistic, as if all beliefs are equally valid, but that could not be further from the truth. It’s merely a recognition that our beliefs can only truly change when we’re convinced they need to change. It’s a belief that truth wins out in the end. If my beliefs are right, that will become apparent. If my beliefs are wrong, that will become equally apparent.

The job of the “church” is then not to convince someone to change their mind, but to help people explore that gap between belief and action.

That gap gets exposed in two ways. The first is when we’re made aware of a gap that exists. It’s quite likely we’ve got beliefs that aren’t reflected well in our actions, but we simply don’t notice them because they aren’t supper impactful or they’re so commonly accepted as to never be questioned.

The “church” should be a place where we’re sometimes awakened to belief-action gaps we never knew existed. “The way I treated my co-worker this morning does not reflect the value I believe she possesses.” You may not have been aware of that gap at the time – she messed up, you got angry, it seemed appropriate – but when that awareness comes, either through your own self-reflection or the loving words of a friend, the “church” can be a place that helps you work through it.

The second way our belief-action gap is exposed is through a challenge to our beliefs. Ideally this wouldn’t be a direct confrontation – “Your belief is wrong” – although that happens all the time in life, but a realization that our belief just doesn’t add up. This is the stereotypical mid-life crisis: “I thought job success and money were supposed to make me happy and they don’t, am I missing the point of life?” It’s a question you need to work through for yourself, but a process you shouldn’t do alone.

Where “church” has failed in the past is where it’s heaped shame and scorn on the recognition of these belief-action gaps, rather than comfort and acceptance. We feel a natural shame when we recognize our beliefs and actions don’t match-up. We feel inadequate, guilty, sinful, even though what we’re experiencing is both deeply human and deeply healthy. Until and unless we face up to these belief-action gaps we’re never going to be able to grow.

Too often the “church” adds to the guilt, making us feel like these gaps, these tensions and discomfort are wrong. Let’s say you believe generosity is important, but find yourself saddled with debt and obligations that making giving generously impossible. Recognizing that gap brings with it a sense of failure and hopelessness. Too often the “church” compounds this with guilt and feeds a cycle of regret that prevents us from addressing the gap.

What if “church” were a place of comfort? What if the “church’s” response to this generosity gap was mourning and reassurance. “I’m sorry you’re feeling this discomfort and tension, but it’s an opportunity to grow. There may not be readily available solutions, but we’ll walk through this tension with you, and support you as you try to find balance.” What if “church” were the place you could go when you’re feeling lost and find assurance that you’re not lost alone?

This requires us recognizing the difference between internal and external pressure. It’s easy, especially in a religious setting, to feel pressure to change beliefs we’re not ready (and maybe don’t need to change). If everyone else thinks drinking alcohol is wrong and you don’t; it’s easy to feel an imposed shame, a challenge to your belief that is entirely external. This is bad and unhealthy.

At the same time, we pay feel a tension between our beliefs and the beliefs of others that is genuinely real within us. We might be convinced that our belief really does need to change – maybe it’s because we’ve been exposed to the alternative beliefs of others, but not because they’re imposing those beliefs upon us.

It’s a tricky thing to parse, of course, whether your tension is real or imposed. The “church” should be constantly policing itself in this regard. This could easily lead to a timidity that finds to discussion of beliefs at all out of fear we’ll make someone uncomfortable. The problem, of course, is not the discomfort, but the source of that discomfort.

There’s a real difference between saying “violence is evil and must be avoided at all costs,” and saying “I must avoid violence; I don’t like what it does to me.” When we can consider a belief outside of ourselves, it gives us the distance necessary to maybe consider it for ourselves. Does Ryan’s rationale for this belief make sense in my life? A healthy “church” is one where either answer to that question is genuinely acceptable.

I keep using quotations around the word “church” and I do that for a very specific purpose. We have a lot of ideas that come into our heads when we hear that word “church.” It means vastly different things to people. Usually it has some specific religious context. “Church” is the Christian version of the word; other religions use different terms: temple, mosque, gurdwara, etc.

I think, at their heart, all of these are attempts to be communities of care and concern. You don’t need to be affiliated with any particular religion to do this, either. As human beings we’re all searching for communities of radical acceptance, where we can be loved and valued regardless of our actions and beliefs. To me, this is what “church” means. I don’t think it has to be a place of songs and pews and preaching, although I don’t think we should necessarily throw those things out either.

If Jesus came to show us and call us to radical love – a love that is willing to die for its enemies – than any community can be a “church,” if it has this practice as its goal. Honestly, you don’t even really have to be willing to love your enemies; you really just have to be willing to love the people in front of you.

I know all of this requires some underlying beliefs that not everyone will agree with: a belief in radical love, in the ultimately victory of truth, in the importance of other people, etc. Someone who specifically disagrees with those things might not be capable of participating in “church” as I see it. That’s regrettably true.

Of course, if beliefs in love and truth and ultimate reality are in fact real and true and ultimate, those people incapable of participating won’t necessarily always be incapable of participating – in the very same way none of us are really capable of participating and never will be. That doesn’t mean we don’t try.

After all, we’re stuck with that gap between our beliefs and our actions whether we like it or not. Whether we embrace love and community or self-interest and individuality, we’re all going to face doubts and challenges and discomfort. If you want to do that alone, it’s fine by me. I’d rather do it together.

Kingdom Ethics and Government Laws

Last week, my friend Jeremy Scott (no relation), asked, on Twitter, about Kingdom ethics that speak to a maximum wage." As is my wont, I answered quickly and without enough thought. I said, essentially, that forcing people to do anything is not really a Kingdom value; we should love people and allow their actions to be transformed through that love. I know, it's a bit optimistic, but I' ma believer in Jesus Christ, what can I say - I think things will work out in the end.

What I failed to take into account is this idea I struggled with earlier this year - and one that could use a bit more working through - that a big issue with being a Christian in a democracy is the assumption of responsibility. We feel, somewhere deep down, that we can't really pass judgement on the value or morality of a law, policy, or government action without also proposing an alternative. Because it's nominally a government of, by, and for the people, democracy requires something of us beyond support or opposition.

This is really where our citizenship in a nation comes into conflict with our citizenship in the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom doesn't have a government, other than the benevolent grace of God; and it doesn't have a law, other than the law of love, exemplified in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In many ways, nations give us an out. We're less inclined to sacrifice or suffer with or change our lifestyles very much to help others, address needs, or express radical, Christ-like love, because we've got this government over our heads with nominal responsibility to take care of people. Maybe we get off the hook by saying, "if everyone just acted like me, things would be ok," and hopefully we're making choices and living lives that bear this out, but that's far from certain.

Getting back to the question at hand: I think Kingdom ethics speak just as strongly to the dangers of wealth as they do to the dangers of poverty. They might be different physical situations (deprivation vs indulgence), but both are harmful and both lead to pain. So, in one sense, it's very easy to say Christians could support a maximum wage, in which the earnings of folks are simply limited.

I'm not so sure, though, you could make that claim and also be in line with the US Constitution. In other words, for the government to institute a maximum wage, they might have to appeal to a morality the first amendment specifically prohibits them from enacting. This gets into all sorts of grey areas and arguments about the relationship of the US to Christianity and the Kingdom to the nations of the Earth, but those are really discussions beyond the immediate.

I believe Christians need to be able to make ethical and moral judgments about the laws, policies, and actions of the government without feeling obligated to propose a government solution. It is not the duty of Kingdom citizens to ensure the survival or orderly operation of the nation in which they happen to live. We certainly have responsibility to our neighbors, but that relationship does not need (and probably should not be) mediated by the government.

Do I think people would be better off with less? As a general rule, I do. Is a maximum wage one way to help the richest among us live with less? Sure. Does that make it good policy? That's not really a question Kingdom ethics can or should answer. I mean, you can have a similar Kingdom conversation about whether a maximum wage really helps anyone else beyond the few very rich folks it effects. Does increasing the coffers of the government do anything to further the Kingdom? Probably not. Would additional funds for health care or education be beneficial to people? Absolutely. Will the consequences of this potential action be as we envision? Almost certainly not.

Of course, that's the rub with everything.

I believe Kingdom ethics dictate a communal responsibility to provide people with a love, a family in which they are nurtured and valued.
I think this manifests itself in things like meeting basic human needs: nutritious food, shelter, medical care, education, and work. Of course, Kingdom ethics say you shouldn't need money or taxes to do any of those things.

In the end, maybe that's the solution: to just continue to preach the Kingdom - sharing, sacrifice, hospitality, love - and let the distinction between those ideals and the realities of the world be a judgment in and of themselves. Compare the Kingdom that's lived out among God's people to life in the nations of the world. I'm not sure either party will come out looking so rosy on that one.

The Soul of a Terrorist

I was reading TIME magazine yesterday and one of the columns referenced Trump refusing to call the Charlotteville terrorists terrorists. The complaint was that he instead humanized them and gave them souls. My first reaction was, "well, they are humans and they do have worth and value because they're humans." Then it dawned on me: we really don't have a societal way of explaining people who are so desperate they act out in violent ways. We've made "terrorists" into maliciously evil bogeymen, who are more comic book villain than human being. We simply lack an ability to denounce someone's actions without dehumanizing them.

I mean, we have the ability, but not in one word - not anymore. Perhaps Trump had trouble calling terrorism terrorism because he understood the humanity of the people behind the heinous acts. Well, not Trump, but perhaps a normal person, one capable of empathy and emotion, could understand the humanity and balk at labeling them terrorists.

We should be at a "people-first" place of description these days anyway, right? We should be beyond defining someone by their actions - a person who commits terrorism separates the action from the individual, at least a little bit. It helps us to value humans as humans before we judge their actions.

No doubt those blokes in Charlottesville were doing terrorism. Driving a car into a crowd is almost terrorism cliche these days. It's evil and intended to instill fear the same way a car bomb or a plane hijacking or a random shooting is. It shouldn't matter if it's Virginia or Paris or Baghdad or Manila.

Then I started thinking about the various people who resort of terrorism, be they white supremacists in the US or Muslim fundamentalists in the middle east. Generally these are desperate people, folks who feel left out. They lack options, often economically. They lack opportunity for education, work, access, and exposure to the larger world. It creates a myopic world view that, When pressed against the wall or backed into a corner (especially when those feelings of fear and desperation are cultivated and exploited through media, religion, or tribal connection), violence is often a natural result.

People who are used to being powerless attempt to gain power by scaring those who seem to have more options. It's not hard to recruit people into these armies when you provide an outlet for anger and frustration. We can all find ourselves in situations we'd never choose if we give in to our emotions to thoroughly.

That word "terrorist" gives us emotional license to condemn not just ideas or actions, but the very people behind them - it encourages the kind of emotional commitment that produces people willing to commit terrorism in the first place. When we dehumanize others, we dehumanize ourselves. That is the way of the world.

I don't mean to condone or excuse violence and evil. It's inexcusable and awful and damnable and wrong. That doesn't mean, though, we have to call it unbelievable or indecipherable. We ask, after every terroristic tragedy, "how could anyone do this," but the truth is, we should be able to understand, even if we don't agree or approve. If we really can't imagine how or why people would resort to such violence, we're either far too sheltered or we're lying to ourselves.

This is the real problem. We're always quick to justify violence when its in defense of our priorities. Anger clouds things, to be sure. We do things in anger or fear that we might not otherwise do. That's always going to be the fly in the ointment, so to speak. But when we justify violence - any violence - we're giving someone else license to justify any violence.

We have "rules" for our violence as some balm for our conscience, but "rules" don't exist in war - ask any person who's been in one. Violence is not something we can handle in moderation. We, as a human society, are (sometimes) functional addicts of violence. We demonize the terrorists who take things "too far" so we can justify our relationship to violence. "I'm not like those folks."

Guess what? "Those folks" don't think they're like you (or me).

We can point out the differences between the world "they" want and the world we're trying to make, but they can do the same thing. I'm not saying those visions are necessarily equal or that one side isn't preferable to another - just that so long as we back up "our" notions of right and wrong with violence, we're never going to find what we're looking for (and neither are "they").

If you export or enforce your ideas with violence, your only idea is violence - at least it's the only idea anyone's going to hear.

I got to thinking what would happen if we provided education and meaningful work opportunities for the people who committed terrorism in Charlottesville. Set aside whether these guys were really oppressed or forgotten or even if they were really representative of the rural white-working class that's fueled our current political climate. Let's avoid that argument for a bit and just imagine we could provide free college or job training and a place to work for all the southern, western, rust belt, and appalachian folks who got Trump elected.

There would still be angry, entitled, and racist folks out there, for sure. You'll never get rid of them. You'll probably have less, though.

The one (probably unintended) consequence of fixing this one societal issue that we don't think too much about is that you'll have real trouble recruiting soldiers for the military. The biggest draw for young men to sign up and fight is a lack of options. Military service provides the very things a stereotypical US terrorist lacks. We can have all the moral arguments we want about "us" and "them," "good" guys and bad, but at the end of the day we recruit the same group of people (poor, uneducated young men with a lack of options), in the same way (appeals to religious or patriotic duty, economic opportunity, or plain fear), for the same thing (a violent imposition of general societal norms).

It makes even me uncomfortable saying it, but I also can't get around it.

Do we really have "better" morals or more humane rules? We denounce torture and violence against civilians, but our track record on those things isn't the greatest. We fear nuclear war, but we're the only country who's ever used a nuclear weapon on anyone.

I'm not saying the US is the same as terrorists, not at all. I'm against war, but I'd rather live in the US than under Nazi Germany or ISIS Syria. It's not so much the moral arguments than the ways in which we're prepared to make them. I'm just not sure where we got the idea that if we believe strongly enough in an idea we should be willing to kill for it.

It seems to me if we believe strong enough in something, killing should be the last thing we need to do to defend it. Dying, maybe, but not killing. If our beliefs are really true, they will win out. If truth can be killed off or destroyed or defeated, perhaps this isn't a world worth living in to begin with, no?

In the end, I guess, it comes back to human nature. We try to demonize the practitioners of the most extreme actions because we want to pretend that we're not capable of doing what they do, when we are. We're all capable of tremendous acts of evil, given the right circumstances. It's part of being human.

As much as we want to say we're all one big happy family, there will continue to be disagreements, maybe even big enough that we can't live together - we just have to avoid getting to a place where we believe those horribly, dangerously wrong people over there, don't deserve to live at all.

That's when we're really in trouble. That's when we become terrorists.

Urbanity, Immigration, and Change

I know I've not been keeping up my end of the bargain this summer. We went on a two week, 2200 mile sojourn to the southest for a family reunion (48 Scotts!) and a wedding. It was fun and I did not miss the internet much at all. I've been reading a bit, trying to keep up with all the library holds that seem to come in at the same time. In that reading, I ran across an interesting statistic: in 1910, 40% of US urban residents were foreign-born.

There had been a wave of immigration following the Civil War, which only increased at the end of the century. Most immigrants at least began their lives in the US in the cities, a fact that continues to be true today. There are just better support networks for immigrants in largely populated places. Part of the reaction to this fact in 1910 was a retrenchment from the cities. There was an intellectual rejection of science, education, and global engagement. The suburbs didn't explode until after WWII, but the movement out of the cities (largely by white folks) began earlier.

This is the same period that produced radical, protectionist, conservative politics and the fundamentalist movement in Christianity. New ideas, in general, were rejected because they challenged a largely homogeneous culture that develops when people spend a lot of time with each other. Rural places were familiar and predictable and it brought comfort.

In reading that development, I couldn't help but think about today's US culture. Immigration and "the other" have once again become bogeymen, scapegoats for the plight of white, working-class, largely rural citizens who've been left behind by economic and political changes in the last decade. I've been saying that's it's not really the fault of immigrants, but I've struggled to really articulate an underlying problem.

I don't know the data for our current situation, but I suspect that with the rise of technology and communications, it's becoming easier and easier for immigrants to survive in more rural and suburban areas. Cities are still a big draw, but no longer are a required jumping off point for a new life in the US. Perhaps the encroachment of new ideas, customs, and cultures into previously homogeneous and isolated areas is creating the same kind of fear-based backlash we saw a century ago?

Obviously, it's not really about immigrants, but the new and unpredicatability they present to largely settled communities with accepted ways of life. It's not an issue of "good" and "bad" or "right" and "wrong" so much as it's a necessary struggle to deal with "different." Fear is a natural reaction to different, especially when we're used to accepted and predictable habits - like when our house guests don't put silverware in the dishwasher in the right direction.* There's a real tension that needs to be resolved. It can only be ignored or endured for so long before a conversation needs to be had and an arrangement worked out.

It's the same kind of issues every community goes through, but for rural areas, where population hasn't changed much (in number of composition) those conversations are relics of the past with no immediate memory in the present. We need to get passed the surface fears of change and otherness and see the infusion of new people, ideas, and customs as not a "problem" at all, but a challenge that requires attention. Religious fundamentalists discovered you can only put off dealing with modern science and thought for so long. Yes, the communities and ideas persist, but they bleed off population with each generation, as some adherents fail to escape the necessity of navigating the larger world.

I've never, ever met or experienced anyone who genuinely and openly encountered an "other" with an open mind and ears, who didn't soften their stance on the person or their ideas, even if they continued firmly in their own beliefs. Different people might not (and need not) change our minds to truly change our hearts.

I hate change as much as anyone. I like to have a long runway and lots of time for preparation to do or think anything different, but even I know you can't give in to your fear of change. Other people might have to patient, but we also have to be willing. Change is scary and difficult, but it can't be avoided. If others are willing to give us time, we have to be willing to consider the possibility. All it takes is a little trust and a little grace.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!




*Knives and small spoons facing down, forks and large spoons facing up, obviously.

The Ballad of Smith and Wesson

I spent most of my formative years in Vermont. We moved there near the start of second grade and left after middle school. I grew up there - for all intents and purposes - which means I grew up in a hunting culture. I haven't lived there in twenty-five years, so I can't say if things have changed, but certainly it was NOT a gun culture, at least not in the way you see today. Hunting was (and presumably is) a part of life. Kids went hunting as soon as they were old enough to take a hunter's safety course. My middle school was one wing of the high school and there were pickup trucks in the student lot with rifles (plural) on racks in the back. In what might be an apocryphal story (although if it is, I've done a phenomenal job of creating the memory of a photograph in my head) one of my sixth-grade classmates killed a deer with a .22 while out squirrel hunting before school one day (the photo is of a brutally mutilated deer head, because .22 bullets are small and it takes a lot of them to kill a deer).

We were not a hunting family, as anyone who's ever met my father could tell you (although there's a great/traumatic story about my mother picking off a moving groundhog with a head shot from 150 yards in defense of her garden), and guns have never really interested me, but I grew up around it. Hunting was part of life; there were guns everywhere. I never once felt afraid.

Of course the notion of self-defense never came into it. We lived in a small town where literally everyone knew everyone else; crime was not something to which one gave much thought - outside of kids from the state college getting into whatever mischief they happened to invent for themselves.

I say this only to register that I understand. Guns may not be in my DNA the way they are for some people, but I get hunting culture at least.
I'm serious when I say, although I'm no fan of guns, that I have no intention to get rid of them. I know why they're important and useful and proper in the right context.

I also spent a good deal of time volunteering and working in Kansas City during grad school, specifically at an after school program that catered to low income, largely minority students. I went to the funeral of a 15 year old kid who got shot, not even in anything crime adjacent, but in an accident with a handgun - which, I think more than anything, illustrates the problem of gun prevalence in inner-cities, coupled with an extreme lack of knowledge and preparation for how to use them.

I've got strong views on what I'd do with gun laws, were it up to me, but I hope, at the very least, I can understand the vastly different context from which people come to this debate.

The one that's totally foreign to me, though, as I've alluded to a couple times, is the true "gun" culture. I see people on youtube videos shooting ridiculously high-powered weapons at targets and almost literally blowing shit up. To some extend, as a former teenage boy, I get the adrenaline rush and excitement of the power. Although it's definitely not my thing, I do understand, to some extent, why having and shooting big guns is kinda cool. I won't claim to understand the culture surrounding this past time, though. I don't want to step in some place where I don't belong.

I'd like to at least be sympathetic, though - since the root of our dysfunction when it comes to guns is the fear we invoke in those who disagree with us.

If there were laws that banned assault weapons and super high-powered guns that, while possible to use for hunting are generally designed to kill people, and hunters were free to keep, buy, sell, and use their guns for their intended purposes, I don't think you'd get a lot of pushback.
Yes, the libertarian ideologues and conspiracy wackos would be up in arms (literally and problematically), but you wouldn't have a ton of major opposition. The problem is, those people involved in hunting culture just don't trust the people on the other side - they're not confident gun reform would be fair - and they've got a point.

Listen, I'm a pro-regulation guy. As much as I like and espouse the notion of anarchy, I get the reasons why a government bureaucracy is essential, but you'd have to admit it's a bit absurd. The inefficiency and waste of our system is mind-boggling and unnecessary - it's just the easiest way to do things, which is almost never the best. It's not impossible for us to image that gun regulations would go the same way.

Then you've also got the people who really do want to see every gun in the world destroyed. I get that from an ideological angle - in a perfect world we wouldn't need them, even for hunting, but it's also hard for me to find real fault with target shooting, as a pleasurable pastime. Yet those people exist - and they're generally the most vocal (along with the gun nuts who would complain most vociferously about reform) and you can't deny that it's all a bit scary.

I won't save the punchline for the end: this post is about fear. Extremes on either side of this thing have fear as a motivator. There's a lot of common sense in requiring registration and tracking for guns the way we do for cars - it's not too hard to sign the back of a registration form when you sell a car and transfer the ownership at the DMV - or limiting the capabilities of guns people can keep in homes. There's no common sense in seeing gun-toting murderers around every corner (which also goes for Presidential characterizations of immigrants, too, by the way). Yes, some people have suffered real gun-related traumas that cause them to literally see gun-toting murderers around every corner - and with good reason - but those are not healthy people, operating in functional or encouragable ways.

There's a lot of common sense in hunting as means of controlling animal populations (or simply improving the food supply) and there is a legitimate public debate to be had about the time, place, and degree of self-defense that's in the public interest. It's downright delusional to think private citizens should be armed to combat a future tyrannical government; those are the lunatic whims of fantasy world - not because tyrannical governments don't do bad things to ordinary citizens, but because the government in question has nuclear weapons and a fleet of sophisticated drones that could level your doomsday bunker before you even get the AR out of the ceiling tiles.

They call it the "lunatic fringe," because fear-reactions are not logical or helpful - and they're not limited to one "side" or the other.
Fear is the enemy, not guns or snowflakes. It's not even the hate and evil that make people kill no matter the weapon in their hands. It's fear. Being afraid is perfectly human; reacting out of that fear is the most inhuman thing you could possibly do. What we call "human nature" is actually the animalistic part of us. What separates us from the animals is our ability to recognize our own instincts, evaluate them and act against them, if necessary.

We don't because we're afraid of each other. Why? Because we're mean and cruel and evil and vindictive to each other. We're selfish and we take a mile when given an inch. We're generally subhuman and we excuse it as natural.

What saddens me most about the gun "conversation" right now is that it's not a conversation at all. We take our media-driven talking points and beat each other about the head with them, all pawns in the powerful's attempt to distract us from actual discussion. Who's paying for rallies and events are irrelevant to the discussion; rich interests on both sides pay to support people who agree with them. Ideology doesn't matter either. I know it's strange hearing me say that, but when it comes to enacting public policy, it's true - it's one of the reasons I'm not cut out to enact public policy. Philosophical notions of freedom and utopia are profoundly important, but entirely irrelevant to governing the real world in which we must all live.

If I leave you with anything, let it be that a call to self-reflection. However we're responding to people, whatever actions we advocate, let us do so without fear. Don't think the worst of someone with whom you disagree, but give them the benefit of the doubt: at the very least, take them at their word. Be graceful. You won't get what you want, because that's how life works; don't come to the conversation assuming you can or will. And please, please, please, don't get caught up in distractions and irrelevance; the arguments you hear on cable news aren't good or relevant or worth hearing, let alone repeating.

Talk to people like people; if we respect each other and genuinely seek the good of the other, not thinking first of ourselves, we'd already be in a better world.

The Shape of the Church

At our recent General Assembly, a workshop with Scott Daniels re-introduced me to Nietzsche's analogy about slaying the dragon. It was his way of explaining the post-enlightenment attack on authority in the name of individual freedom. Each of the dragon's scales represent a command from authority and as they're attacked, the dragon is slain.

We live in a world where the dragon is long dead. We've prioritized individual determinism over authoritarian rule. It's all but inevitable (and probably good, in most respects). People are individuals, after all, and our recognition and respect for that reality is important to the flourishing of humanity.

I think Nietzsche's point was that society will keep hacking away at the dragon until it's dead. We'll go after institutions and authority until none remain. Nietzsche saw the problem from a long way off - if we kill authority, from whence does authority come?

That is ultimately our contemporary question.

From a Christian perspective, our tendency has been to reinforce the dragon, saying that killing it is wrong and those who try are evil. This isn't entirely consistent, though, since much of the Christian story is that of championing the underdog and standing with the oppressed - so being anti-anti-authority is not something we can sell out for with integrity.

At the same time, though, we're believers in community - believers that the individual is not the end all and be all of existence. We believe we're all connected in our shared existence and what each of us does affects every other.

There has to be some means of recognizing the individual, but not as ultimate authority. In other words, we've got to stand with the dragonslayer, but also stick around after the beast is dead to work together to pick up the scales that make sense for community. We are not our own; we're part of something bigger. We shouldn't be denied our independence, but we must also not be content with our independence and in doing so, deny our interdependence.

We must fight tooth and nail for individual rights and freedom, but we must then call these free individuals to sacrifice some measure of that hard-won individualism for the sake of community. We can say, "authority resides in free individuals," but existence is bigger than that. The dragon is doomed, if its not already dead, stop guarding the body and help us pick up the pieces. Authority comes in relationship - the very relationships we all need to be truly human. We have to be together, to work together - not to tell each other what to do, but to help each other do what we exist to do.


The dragon might be a terrible idea, but not every scale is worthless. Authority must take on a different shape, especially as it pertains to the Church. The age of institutionalism is over; authority works in new and different ways. Although, just maybe, we've had those ideas all along. Whatever the new shape of the Church, it must not be a dragon.

Perhaps we should try a slaughtered lamb?

How to Train Your Dogma

Dogma isn't bad - we all need a set of principles by which to live - but uncritical acceptance of Dogma is really unhelpful. We have to be able to interact with people without bringing our dogma to the party as our definition of morality. That is not to say that morality is relative, but morality is relative. It just is. Whether we're talking about contextual differences or cultural ones - or just the way experience shapes the choices people make, things get messy.

That doesn't mean dogma is bad - we really do need to know what we believe and how that affects our actions. The dictionary defines dogma as "a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true," which makes holding them loosely difficult. Still, I don't think we have to filch on our own commitment in order to provide grace and real respect for people who may think differently or think the same for different reasons, or simply haven't thought through exactly what they believe on a certain issue.

It's important to bring our dogma to the party, just not as the center of attention. What we believe informs who we are, how we act, what we think - it is as much a part of us as our skin. We should be ashamed of or feel the need to cover over those underlying beliefs that make us who we are.
But, like our skin, dogma changes over time (we have an entirely new set of skin every seven years or so, based on the lifespan of cells). Holding our dogma as something we believe in, but also something we're not imposing on others, allows us to think critically about belief in general and evaluate our own ideas. I suspect, any idea worth keeping will stand up to such evaluation, but the real joy comes in finding those things we've always taken for truth might be slightly lacking.

That's real growth and it's real respect for other people, who, themselves, have a series of experience-shaped beliefs that underlay who they are as people. Life isn't going to work out for anyone if we treat it like a dogma fight, battling back and forth until someone emerges the victor.
No one wins those fights.

The negative portrayal of dogma is precisely its perceived permanence. Dogma, in a bad light, takes on a life of its own, disconnected from the religious principles it's supposed to support. Macklemore, in his tremendously unsuccessful follow up album uses the line, as advice to his daughter, "Find God, but leave the dogma," because there's some general understanding that God is more intangible, mysterious, complex, and transformative than staid dogma could ever be.

This perception doesn't come because dogma is, in fact, unhelpful or problematic; it comes because of the way we hold our beliefs: namely with a tight fist and a stubborn will. The false idol of certainty is a comfortable mistress and we're loathe to leave her side. We don't need to give up our beliefs to truly embody them faithfully, but we most certainly do have to give up our control of those beliefs to see all they have in store for us.

Truth is truth until its not. That might not be satisfying, but it's all we've got in this world. That shouldn't mean we abandon the search for truth or minimize its importance, we just have to remember its not something over which anyone has a monopoly. People are people and whatever we believe, we believe for a reason. Beliefs and reasons are different, but it's only in address each other as people that we'll be able to find any dogma that has any hope of fulfilling its purpose.

Despised and Rejected

I've been reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship lately. It's not a particularly fun read, but it's really good. There's enough there I could probably write something every day, but you get this one (and maybe a few more). In chapter four he talks about the call to take up our cross and follow Christ.

When Jesus calls his followers to take up their cross, he's calling them to the same path he walks - despised and rejected by humanity. Sometimes we forget this means everyone. Since we've formed this religion that reveres his sacrifice, we forget that Jesus was rejected even by his friends, family, and faith community. The call of Christ is counter-cultural and I think, in many ways, it works counter to every culture. To be faithful to the call of Christ we may very well have to challenge the very community that introduced us to Christ.

I think about my Sunday School class. We try to deal with difficult things - a few weeks ago was Christ's command to love your enemies - there's a real struggle between those who recognize the goal and their own failure to achieve it and those who have somehow compromised the goal in order to be able to achieve it. It's easy for us to move the goalposts, so to speak - Bonhoeffer calls this "cheap grace," that is accepting salvation and forgiveness without it costing us something (or costing less than it demands).

We live in a society that, despite the doom and gloom on the internet, is still very much a "christian" culture - even if it's more of a civil religion than anything resembling Christ. There is a general consensus on salvation as afterlife and not something that impacts the present beyond a general morality. When we really get to know each other, though, we discover the distance between a faith that demands something of us and a faith that merely wants us to get along. Perhaps this is why we, even within a congregation, resist those moments of real intimacy; we just don't want to be divided from each other. We don't want our culture countered.

I don't think this counter-culture has to be an outright rejection of tradition, though, but perhaps a pushing at the borders. A faithful member of any religious group does not need to - and certainly shouldn't - dump the framework from which they arose, but must, almost by necessity, expand and explore that framework in ways that make previous generations uncomfortable. This is the taking up of our cross.

I think about this in relation to Christian colleges, where parents send their kids, often in the hopes they'll be molded traditionally, when in fact they're challenged to engage Christ more deeply, which requires a reorganization of tradition. People might lose the faith of their childhood, but develop faith anew in new ways. That's a bit scary, especially to parents and loved ones, but it's necessary for vibrancy and, most importantly, obedience to Christ.

If we are taking up our cross in imitation of Christ, there will be conflict. Even among those most proficient at expressing grace for the journey to new places, an internal conflict arises. I can love and respect the faithful actions of my children without necessarily agreeing or understanding. This is a healthy approach to the counter-cultural gospel, even if it's difficult.

In the end, though, what this chapter reminds me is that the gospel is a truth that requires a response. Doing nothing is not an option. We must accept or reject, but trying to ride the tide will only wash us away. I see great conflicts bubbling beneath (and not so beneath) the surface of many Christian groups and denominations these days. Yes, both progressive and traditional perspectives have their own value and their own pitfalls; it can't be an either/or, black/white, good/bad dichotomy. At the same, though, we have to anticipate inevitable tension, because that is a requirement of faithful gospel response.

Taking up our cross means we will be despised and rejected. The key is to be truly counter-cultural and not accommodationist. The true temptation of progress is to follow the path of least resistance, when clearly the example of Christ ventures the way of most.

Free Speech and Safe Spaces

Safety is a loaded word. It speaks of an absence of danger, unthreatened. Safety is something we're consumed with in the US - probably to far too high a degree. What we've done, then, is expand the definition of "safe" to include freedom from discomfort - but "safe" and "comfortable" are two very different things - ask anyone who's spent time in a fallout shelter or apocalypse bunker.

What we've taken to heart is the notion that we're unsafe if we're uncomfortable, and that's bad for a whole lot of reasons. Discomfort is good. Very good. It's the only way we change or grow - it's why you can boil a frog if you change the temperature gradually. Discomfort makes us evaluate who we are and where we are and why we are. Discomfort is precisely why we go to college; you can't learn anything without it.

The "safe space" mindset is not unique to college campuses, but it is where you hear it bandied about most often. A safe space is not really what a college campus wants to provide (well, I'm sure some do, but that's more to keep students happy than to really teach them anything). Colleges want to provide a place of respect. Academia is a world of ideas, but it only functions if those espousing the ideas respect one another (even in disagreement).

Milo whateverhisnameis, the alt-right firebrand gets a lot of press for protests and instigation - recently his appearance at UC-Berkeley was cancelled due to damage and danger from those opposing him. The vitriol is not entirely because of his ideas, but also in the way he presents them. He's an antagonist. The medium is literally his message - berating and insulting those people and groups he dislikes or with whom he disagrees.

This is why it's NOT a free speech issue. Free speech is a public right - Yiannopoulos should be able to say whatever he wants (within the established legal framework) without fear of reprisal. Of course, that guarantee is that the government won't act against him for his words; it does nothing to restrain organizations or institutions. Free speech will get you barred from all kinds of places, jobs, and relationships. Those are the consequences of free speech.

Universities and self-congratulating progressives alike are big fans of free speech, but it really becomes a useless tool without respect. I'm sure there's some adequate short-term catharsis for those who get to express their anger and vitriol in stress-relieving ways - and lots of people make money off anger - but it doesn't actually serve a purpose in society without respect.

So, when the members of a community, like UC-Berkeley, for instance, say loudly that they don't want a certain type of speech on campus, it's the schools' job, as an institution of learning (and thus challenge) to go out of its way to defend even what might be termed "unsafe" speech. However, the same community is entirely within its rights to mandate decorum and respect for those given the privilege of addressing the community. It has to work both ways.

Speech is inherently dangerous. Any opinion I give is an opinion. In an age where people can't even agree on facts, opinions are shaky ground. speaking out publicly is vital and terrifying - but it has to be done in relationship, whether one-on-one in a conversation or within a community. For that, there are rules - even if they're unwritten. Even if your opponent has done horrible things, you still need to treat her like a human being who's done horrible things, not as the embodiment of those horrible things.

What happens, then, if my opinion is that you're worthless; if the free speech I am exercising is that you are, in fact, not worthy or deserving of respect? That's the dilemma. Typically, the whole purpose of these antagonists is to point out the hypocritical moral problem that comes from denouncing someone for denouncing someone. It's an insensitive piece of performance art against which there is no real rebuttal. It's a lose-lost proposition.

Unless, of course, a community is committed to community, to respect. A guest speaker does not show up willy-nilly and take the stage. There are negotiations; a relationship is constructed. If both parties cannot agree to the ground rules, there is no way to proceed. In these instances of real conflict, generally both sides are at fault; each fails to meet the other in the middle and we end up with chaos.

To me, the middle ground in any relationship must be respect. Even if I decide you're unworthy of it, I must still give it, or there's no point to anything. It is this sacrifice, inherently dangerous, uncomfortable, "unsafe," that allows us to be challenged, shaped, and changed. You won't like it - no one does - but it's all we've got, unfair as that might be.

Rights and Freedom

So there are some basic human rights - things I believe philosophically and theologically and existentially are owed to every human being by virtue of being alive. I've stated them here before, but simply, people deserve: nutritious food, a safe place to lay their head, education, basic health care, a meaningful day's work, and a loving community.

I believe a society (however one defines such a thing) is obligated to provide these things to everyone within the society or sacrifice mightily in the effort. That doesn't necessarily mean a government is obligated to provide such rights, especially if society has other means of doing so. However, governments, in a modern sense, are all-encompassing; they claim sovereignty over borders and all (human or otherwise) that lies within. To me, and I understand where some might disagree, this obligates them to be rights-provider of last resort.

Hear me: I don't think a government has to be all-encompassing. In fact, on the political spectrum, I'm much closer to a true anarchist than anything else. However, where a government makes such a claim without any major resistance (such as in the US), certain responsibilities come with such claims.

That's sort of the round about way to get to where I'm trying to go today - how I've come to, shorthand, claim that people living within the US deserve certain things - not because citizenship or residency automatically earns such things, but because their humanity demands them and their government, in a roundabout way, inherits the responsibility for ensuring they're provided.

I'd be all for society structuring itself in ways that provide for basic human rights without the need for heavy-handed top-down intervention. But until we have those systems working consistently and near-universally, responsibility remains. If you want the power, it comes with (Spiderman-like) responsibility.

Problems come when we focus our society around freedom. Yes, we like the wind-in-our-hair vitality of choosing our own destiny; and we love to have that coupled with the security of a nanny state. Make all your free-spirited decisions and trust that the social safety net will be there to catch you. It's the glory of celebrated self-sufficiency. Freedom is only real if we're capable of being self-sustaining individuals of true independence. I'm just not sure how anyone can believe that's the real state of humanity. It's wonderful wishful thinking and it might make for top-notch idealism, but a great ideal is not something you can eat for dinner.

I like the classic philosophical argument for the existence of God that says God is that of which nothing greater can be conceived. It's beautiful in its simplicity - the point being that while we can imagine the most gracious, benevolent, loving cosmic being, a real one is infinitely greater than the one in our head. That assumes, of course, limitless possibilities. It fails to take into account the very real world in which we live.

I have always considered myself an idealist. Those who (appropriately) nicknamed me Debbie Downer might disagree. However, I like to say I work my idealism within the parameters of reality. I believe the world contains greater things, profounder possibilities, and more infinite beauty than our senses can currently conceive - but that doesn't make the world completely open, because it still contains us and all our feeble human frailties.

We have and need rights precisely because we cannot achieve our aims, wants, and desires by ourselves. Self determination most certainly exists, but freedom does not. Our self-determination always comes with a cost and is contingent on our willingness to pay. That's precisely why we must secure, confirm, and provide these basic human rights to one another: because we can't supply them for ourselves.

We want to conflate rights and freedom, but really they're at the opposite end of the same spectrum. One is all about individualism, while the other is communal. As much as it would be nice (speaking as an introvert) to be able to wall ourselves off and survive, reality is as reality does, which means we're stuck with each other - for better or worse.

I choose better.

There Are More Important Things

This is a very unique election day - mostly because I'm running for President. I am on the ballot in Colorado and available as a write-in candidate in a dozen or so other states. I did this partly as a joke (outlined here), but largely because we take this whole process way too seriously and I thought this "campaign" might highlight that. I made silly videos and t-shirts and I'm really getting votes in more than a handful of states.

More than that, though, I seem to be a safe place for people who don't want to vote for a candidate they dislike, people who don't want to hold their nose and vote just to vote. I enjoy providing that option, but there's a larger message, too. People feel really obligated to vote. We've got people out there encouraging others to vote with words like "its the most important thing you can do today," or "its the responsible thing to do," or even "it's your civic duty." I get those are all in line with the public narrative of an election, but I don't think they're true.

The most important thing you can do today is love your neighbor, or, even better, love your enemy. The way we treat the people we interact with everyday has far more importance and a longer-lasting impact than any vote we could ever cast. Our government was specifically set up for the President to have as little real power as possible. Even in this day and age where the executive branch has more power than ever before, it's not much. Yes, a President can make life a little easier or a little more difficult for people - and voting for one or the other certainly makes sense.

Please, don't take it so seriously. I mean it. This is not the end of the world. In fact, the end of the world may only come when people put their faith in countries and governments to mediate our daily lives. The big lie of history is that power equals security; we are safe when we're in charge. It sure sounds and feels that way when you're scared, but the drive for power just leads to paranoia and the fear you don't have enough.

We live in a world with plenty. Everyone is valuable and there is enough to go around. I've dedicated my life to living into this truth and acting in ways that communicate it to other people. Fear and power and coercion are no way to live. There is always another option. Always. That's why I've tried to create on on the ballot, and I hope to always be a voice for another way in life and in my relationships with friends and neighbors.

Our culture drives us to imbue everything with as much meaning as possible. It's only true if you're trying to win ratings. The most important choices you make are usually the most ordinary. Do you let that guy merge in traffic? Do you bake cookies for the noisy neighbors rather than calling the cops? Do you spend an extra half hour in the midst of a busy day reading to a child or talking to your spouse?

Nothing that happens at the ballot box or in Washington DC could ever rival any of those choices. Even if your worst electoral fears are realized, those everyday decisions will still be more important.

I'm not saying "don't vote." People worked long and hard, sacrificed and sometimes died to provide the privilege. Most people in the world get no say in how their country works. We should use that opportunity as much as it seems valuable to us. But we shouldn't feel obligated. I left more than half the lines on my ballot blank today; there just weren't candidates I was comfortable voting for and there are more important things in this world.

I'm headed to Election Day Communion tonight at 6:30, where we'll gather around the table of God, a place where equality and abundance are joyfully proclaimed for all people, and I'll be reminded, both with words and actions, that there are indeed far more important things in the world.

No one will care about this election in 100 years (do you even know what party James Garfield represented?), what will matter is the kind of community we fostered with our lives and our love. I don't want elections and governments and nations to define that world. I believe there are much more important things.

Locker Room Talk

Donald Trump was caught saying some really outrageous, disgusting things ten years ago. Most telling, though, is his response. Time and again, even when given 48 hours to prepare to comment on them at the debate, he answered with "it was locker room talk." Essentially, he's saying "this kind of things is, of course, embarrassing and unseemly in public, but it's how people talk in private."

There are a lot of people who would never dream of saying something like that, and I think those people are justifiably expressing outrage. Let's be honest, though, a lot of people do talk, or at least passively participate in such talk. Maybe it doesn't rise to the graphic (and potentially criminal) level we heard in that video, but the objectification and sexualization of women is far too common in regular conversation. I have personally heard things from the mouths of people (people who were openly and vociferously opposed to Trump on social media this weekend) that troubled me in similar ways. I've usually said nothing, although I know my inconspicuously uncomfortable looks have betrayed my feelings more than a few times.

I certainly have plenty to apologize for. I can't say I've ever said something so crass as Trump did and, even wracking my brain, I can't remember any conversation I've ever heard where anyone said anything so shockingly vile in vocabulary, but I've certainly viewed people as objects. I don't know if I'm normal or profoundly sociopathic, but one of my greatest struggles is to value people as people and not as tools to be leveraged for my own selfish ends.

We live in a society that tells us to value people, especially women, but demonstrates the exact opposite. We teach our children not to judge on appearance and then spend the rest of our lives doing just that. There is a real disconnect between what we believe and what we'd like to believe. There is objective truth and there is painful reality.

One thing I haven't heard in all the clamor and denouncement is a collective mourning about just how correct Trump's statement was. "When you're a star, they let you do it." Shoot, they got off the bus and the first thing Billy Bush does is pressure that poor woman into hugging this creepy old guy - why? Because he's famous and she's supposed to be ok with it.

Now, I know many athletes have come out to refute that this kind of thing is even really "locker room talk," but this whole Derek Rose lawsuit proves that even if the rich and famous keep it out of their place of business (which I'm skeptical of to begin with); it is certainly a part of their lives.

I'm even willing to go so far as to believe that Trump was lying; that despite his colorful language, he hasn't actually done any of the things he says. Well, I don't believe it, but it's certainly possible - the guy has proven, over the course of a lifetime, that he's willing to say literally anything that will make himself look better in the moment. There's no reason to think he wouldn't lie so outrageously and offensively if he thought it might make him look cool.

The issue really isn't what he said or did; it's Trump's firm position that there is a place for this kind of talk. Man, even if he said it and was embarrassed about it, I might have some small measure of sympathy - but he's doubled down. He only feels bad that people found out, something he's admitted over and over again. "This is how people talk."


Enough has been said about all of this already, so I don't need to go into more detail. Excusing this behavior is worse than committing it. I firmly believe that. Even worse, that so many Christians were willing to put up with it just to win a political war. The very worst parts of Christianity are those birthed from an "ends justifies the means" mentality. It's so pervasive in US evangelicalism it might as well be synonymous.

As a Christian, I'm not even sure what those ends are anymore! Is it the belief that through enforcing a specific moral code, some internal switch will be triggered in people that will automatically make them intellectually assent to the basic tenets of Christ worship? That sentence doesn't even make sense to me... and I wrote it! Is there some placation of guilt if one can criminalize sin? Even if the Supreme Court were made up of James Dobson, Jerry Fallwell Jr, and Franklin Graham, what end, exactly, would that accomplish and how would it remotely relate to scripture?

I must admit, I am thoroughly confused.


But perhaps most difficult for me, is how we, as a country, respond to ideas we dislike. Be they racist or sexist, objectifying or consumeristic - we tend to make anathema the holding of an unpopular opinion. This is all fine and good until we are the ones with the unpopular opinion; then it suddenly seems tragic. The world has turned upside down and no longer makes sense.

Why?

Because we all hold the positions we hold because we think their right - or at least, as right as we can get at the moment. A person does not contend that black people are mentally inferior by virtue of their DNA simply to get a rise out of you. Well, I suppose some people do, but they are few and far between and almost always obvious. For the most part, people make statements like that because they really believe them. When we create a climate where saying that sort of thing gets one shouted down, at best, and physically threatened or assaulted, at worst, we do everyone a disservice.

When someone is smacked down for expressing an unpopular opinion it does not change their opinion, it simply tells them they shouldn't talk about it. Yes, I know there's an election involved here - and it's fine for us to reject a candidate for the positions they take, appropriate, even. And yes, people should express counter arguments and contrary opinions freely and with vigor.

At the same time, we have to be careful to do so with grace and humility. The purpose of challenging someone's opinion or idea should be to create dialogue, not shut it down. I know, most people don't change. That's very true. Unpopular opinions usually die out because the people who hold them die out. I get it.

That doesn't help the people who are still forming opinions, though. The kid who apes his father's objectification of women doesn't see rebuke as a reason to doubt his father, he sees it as evidence people don't want to hear the truth. It's an issue of authority. "My pastor said it," or "My political party said it," or "I read it in this book by an author I really like." We form our opinions in all sorts of ways, but it all comes down to those influences to which we ascribe authority in our lives.

Yes, Trump's kind of language may be popular in the locker room or the board room or the country club, but we must willing to have enough conversation to ask deeper questions. Why is this the language of those circles? Why are the customs and expressions of these people important to you? What might cause someone to be offended by that opinion? This is the kind of conversation that actually moves people to change.

If we don't, we're just ourselves engaging in this "means to and end" business. If my end is proving myself right and him wrong, then, yes, let's just shout down Trump, thrown him on the trash heap and be done. In that, though, we're objectifying him as the enemy. He's just an opponent to be consumed and discarded. We're defeating ourselves. There's no care or concern for my opponent as a human being.

Yeah, you might say, "that guy just isn't worth it," and I'd respond, "what influences have lead you to that opinion," and maybe, just maybe, we might have an enlightening, productive, and world-changing conversation.