Fifty Years Ago

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 3:28

The summer before my freshman year in college I received a letter from Wesleyan University asking whether I would mind having a “Negro” roommate. At the time, I was insulted by the question. What would make them think I was a racist? I rewrote the response card to indicate that I would not mind having a black roommate, but I did object to the question.

Looking back, the experience seems surreal. Did I really grow up in a time when we thought that white people needed to be asked whether they could share a room with a person of another race?

To be fair, Wesleyan was embarking on a new and precedent setting path. They were the first of the elite, private, traditional liberal arts colleges to actively recruit and admit a large minority population to the student body, and they were understandably nervous. Looking back, I am proud of Wesleyan’s leadership in that historic endeavor.

And I ended up with a great roommate; Stewart Malloy, a young black man from North Carolina. At a recent reunion we had a group discussion about racism and racial issues while we were at Wesleyan. I recounted the story of the letter I received before freshman year. When I said I was pretty sure that Stewart had not received a similar letter, he just laughed. But I was surprised to learn when I questioned the other folks at the reunion that no one else remembered getting a letter like that. Stewart was amused by what he thought was my naiveté. “Well, Trench,” he laughed, “I guess they wanted to put the poor black kid and the poor white kid together.”

As our freshman year unfolded, Stewart and I found ourselves living through a time of great racial tension and upheaval. The Wesleyan vision of integration was continually under attack from the larger white community, which wanted “more time” to do this more “gradually,” (that was before we had even reached “all deliberate speed”) and from the pressures of the growing Black pride and Black separatism movements on campus. Our room was, at least in our minds, like the eye of the hurricane. Stewart and I talked often about racial issues, but we never had a single argument on the subject. We listened to each other, and we learned. And like many other young people, we were busy thinking about how we could change the world.

Then one night, as I sat at my desk, Stewart came back to the room in tears. “They killed him,” he said. And immediately, I knew who the “him” was. Martin Luther King, Jr., the prophet of non-violent change, had been murdered. On campus and around the country, racial tensions increased dramatically.

A few weeks later, after a meeting with the Black student group, Stewart told me that we could no longer be friends in the same way. Nothing would change in our room, but outside we would not speak to each other. It was not personal. It had nothing to do with us. It was all about larger issues in the Black student community as they related to the racism in the country.

Freshman year ended and we went our separate ways. I don’t believe we spoke again until our twentieth reunion. Stewart was sitting on a stone wall in front of the College of Letters. We hugged and laughed and talked for a long time. It was as if our conversation had only been briefly interrupted.

A lot has happened in the fifty years since Dr. King died. We have made great progress. But racism remains a major issue for us as Christians and as Americans.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

Progress and the Bending of the Moral Arc

When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
Deuteronomy 26:6-9

Senator Dianne Feinstein

In a recent blogpost on the Juicy Ecumenism blog of the Institute for Religion and Democracy, the Rev. Dr. David Watson commented on remarks by Senator Dianne Feinstein directed at Roman Catholic judicial nominee Amy Barrett addressing the role which

Professor Amy Barrett

Barrett’s faith might play in her judicial decisions.

“Dogma and law are two different things,” said Feinstein. “I think, whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different; in your case, Professor [Barrett], when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for, for years, in this country.”

Watson’s indictment is scathing. “Let’s be clear,” he writes. “Senator Feinstein’s statement cannot mean, ‘You are dogmatic and I am not.’ Rather, it means, ‘I prefer my dogma over yours.’”

Although the term “dogma” is often used negatively as the description of a rigidly held system of beliefs that is impervious to rational inquiry, it can have a more neutral meaning as an established set of opinions. Watson defines it as “a body of accepted teaching.”

Secular liberals, he argues, have their own dogma.

“Secular liberalism is not a value-neutral position. It is a value-laden position with its own set of moral and philosophical underpinnings. One of those presuppositions is the idea of “progress,” that human beings are becoming better and better as time goes on. . . . We are becoming better in our understanding of the natural world and in our mastery of it. We are learning to understand human behavior and human flourishing better than we ever have before. We are developing a keener sense of morality than those who came before us in history. We know better than they did.”

For Watson, “the idea of human progress . . . is an untenable myth, at least with regard to our moral and spiritual development.” And then he lists the evidence for his assertion:

“Two World Wars, the Holocaust, the development of nuclear weapons, the Vietnam War, the Khmer Rouge, the Rwandan Genocide, ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, 9/11, chemical warfare, the rise of global extreme poverty… It was a bloody hundred years.”

Yes. It was a bloody hundred years. But it was also an amazing hundred years: the rights of women, the advancement of race relations, the end of segregation and apartheid, advances in worker rights, advances in the rights of the handicapped, giant leaps in our global standard of living, the end of colonialism, increases in life expectancy and healthcare, and that's just a partial list.

A lot of good things happened in the twentieth century, but the belief in human progress is not based on a single century; it is based on the observation of human history over thousands of years. 

The belief in human progress grows out of a fundamental biblical idea, that God is at work in human history. That’s why, as Dr. King said in his sermon after the march from Selma to Montgomery, the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. This is the central claim of the Exodus. And it is the theology of the Kingdom of God.

In the rich symbolic language of Deuteronomy, "The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm . . . and he brought us into this place . . .”

Does the Moral Arc of the Universe Bend Toward Justice?

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

                                                                 James Russell Lowell

At the end of the Selma march, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech titled, “Our God Is Marching On.” And at the end of the speech, he wove together a rich poetic tapestry of Bible verses with the poetry of Julia Ward Howe and James Russell Lowell. Then he adapted a phrase from the great abolitionist preacher Theodore Parker and declared that although it had been a long struggle for Civil Rights, in the end they would be victorious because “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

No one doubts the “long” part of that sentence. But especially this week, some of us may have our doubts about whether it is bending toward justice.

I don’t know whether King would see his phrase about the “arc of the moral universe,” as interchangeable with “the moral arc of the universe,” but I prefer the latter.

If we believe in the Kingdom of God, then we believe that the universe itself has a moral arc that bends toward justice.

Jesus told his disciples that the Kingdom of God was already among them although it was not yet fully realized. This is what God is doing in the world. The moral arc is bending toward justice. Jesus called his disciples to join in what God is already doing, to share in bending the moral arc of the universe.

The liturgical season of Kingdomtide ends next Sunday.

That is, if we still celebrated Kingdomtide, it would be ending next Sunday.

In the old Methodist liturgical calendar the Sundays from the end of August to the beginning of Advent were known as the season of “Kingdomtide.” It was a time to reflect on the biblical promise of the Kingdom of God and to ask ourselves what the world would look like if we were serious about building the Kingdom of God on earth.

The loss of Kingdomtide is not a metaphor for everything that is wrong with the world, although sometimes it seems to me as if it is. And the loss of a liturgical season does not stop the bending of the arc or the coming of the kingdom. But it is still a loss.

Jesus preached the “good news of the Kingdom of God.” He announced that God was already at work in the world, and we were invited to live in the new reality that God was creating. The idea of the Kingdom of God begins with Jesus, but it grows out of the experience of the people of Israel. And a primary theological component is the liberation of the Israelites in the Exodus.

Although Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God occupies the overwhelming majority of his teaching, it has often been ignored by modern Christians.

For Jesus, this alternative community was a place where the poor were lifted up, where everyone had a place at the table, where love governed both individuals and institutions. It was a place of radical hospitality, egalitarianism, inclusion, mutual concern, self-sacrifice, and social justice. In this biblical vision, everyone has enough and no one has too much.

The great abolitionist and social gospel poet James Russell Lowell was a Unitarian. He was also a disciple of Jesus in the best and most inclusive sense of that term. And he was clear that those who follow Jesus must be in it for the long term: 

"Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong.
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own."

In this post election season some of us may feel like truth is on the scaffold. For those who live in the relative security of privileged race and gender, as I do, it is only a metaphor. And to some it may seem like hyperbole.

But to those on the margins, it is a terrifying reality.

At the University of Pennsylvania, African American students themselves unwillingly added to a group email account that invited them to a “daily lynching” and received other racist threats. The FBI eventually traced to students at the University of Oklahoma. In a statement to the students at Penn, University President Amy Gutmann wrote:

"We are absolutely appalled that earlier today Black freshman students at Penn were added to a racist GroupMe account . . . The account itself is totally repugnant: it contains violent, racist and thoroughly disgusting images and messages. This is simply deplorable.”

Similar incidents have been reported around the country.

Luke reports that in a far more perilous time than our own Jesus was asked when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” (Luke 17:20-21)

“Against the data,” as Walter Brueggeman would say, Jesus declared that this “Kingdom of God” was already among them. In spite of the Roman occupation, which would go on for centuries. The world did not belong to the emperor; it belonged to God. And God was at work in the world. The disciples were invited to live into the new reality; this alternative community.

This is a vision that transcends partisan politics.

The popular misinterpretation is that when Jesus talked about God's Kingdom, he was talking about heaven.

But he wasn’t.

He was talking about what happens (and doesn’t happen, but ought to happen) on this earth.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

Moral Evolution: Is the World Getting Better?

Once Jesus was asked when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”
Luke 17:20-21

Is the world getting better, or is it getting worse?

For Christians, that is a faith question. If we are not making moral progress, if we are not evolving morally, then the whole premise of Christianity is suspect.

It is fundamental. More fundamental than any of the supposed “fundamentals” of Fundamentalism.

My Old Testament professor, mentor and friend, Dr. Harrell Beck (of blessed memory) pointed out that although the people of Israel could see the evidence of God in the natural world, and they could see God’s presence in humanity, it was primarily in history that they saw God at work. 

He would recite those treasured lines from Psalm 121: “I lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help,” and then note ruefully that most Christians did not recognize that there was a period after “hills,” and a question mark after “help?” For the people of Israel, help did not come from the hills, it came from God. And they encountered God in human history.

The people of Israel believed that God acts in history, in Exodus and Exile and Restoration. When Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God, he was talking about establishing God’s vision for humanity on earth, in history.

At the end of the march from Selma to Montgomery, when Dr. King delivered one of his greatest speeches, analyzing the economics behind the racial politics of the Jim Crow laws, he concluded with an affirmation of faith. Weaving together James Russell Lowell’s great hymn, “Once to Every Man and Nation,” with Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” he concluded by channeling the great Abolitionist preacher Theodore Parker. We know that we will prevail in the struggle for Civil Rights, he proclaimed, because “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”  

So, is the world getting better, or is it getting worse?

In a recent column in the New York Times, Leif Wenar, of King’s College London, describes the scene in that city in 1665, when England encountered the worst outbreak of the Plague since the Black Death three centuries earlier. Samuel Pepys wrote in his famous diary, “Every day sadder and sadder news of its increase. In the City died this week 7,496; and of all of them, 6,102 of the Plague. But it is feared that the true number of the dead this week is near 10,000 — partly from the poor that cannot be taken notice of through the greatness of the number.”

The devastation was increased by choices made in ignorance. 

As the death toll mounted and the streets were filled with waste, Londoners saw so many dogs and cats roaming the city that they seemed about to take it over, in response the Lord Mayor ordered that all of the dogs and cats should be killed. 

Wenar describes what happened next:

“The Chamberlain of the City paid the huntsmen, who slaughtered more than 4,000 animals. But the dogs and cats were chasing the rats that were feeding on the waste — and the rats were carrying the fleas that transmitted the Plague. Now spared from their predators, the rats spread the affliction even more fiercely. The medical advice from London’s College of Physicians — to press a hen hard on the swellings until the hen died — did not slow the disease. In the end, the Plague of 1665 is thought to have killed almost 20 percent of London’s population (the equivalent of a million and a half people today). A great fire then consumed a third of the city.”

The immediate cause of death was bubonic plague, but the scope of the devastation was the result of what Wenar calls a “crisis of ignorance.” Now we know how to keep the disease from becoming a pandemic. “Ignorance,” he observes, “no longer plagues us.”

We have made progress. “In 1665,” writes Wenar, “half a billion humans sweated to sustain the species near subsistence with their crude implements. Now our global economy is so productive that 16 times that number — some 8 billion humans — will soon be alive, and most will never have known such poverty.”

Much of our progress is technological, but we have also made moral progress.

We have advanced in terms of civil rights, women’s rights, the rights of LGBTQ persons, and in human rights generally. In the seventy-five years since the end of World War II, there have been many regional conflicts and we have often seemed at the edge of Armageddon, but we have lived in relative peace. Isis is troubling and sometimes terrifying, but it is not the Third Reich. Or Imperial Japan.

Sometimes the moral arc is so long that it looks flat, like the earth’s horizon.

They asked Jesus when the Kingdom of God would come and he cautioned them not to expect obvious signs. But nevertheless, he insisted, “in fact, the Kingdom of God is among you.”

The Kingdom of God is already and not yet. 

It is not yet fully realized, but it is already among us.

There is still too much violence and oppression in the world. We cannot be content with billions of people living in poverty. The growing gap between rich and poor is an affront to biblical ethics and economics. As Wenar writes, “The world now is a thoroughly awful place — compared with what it should be. But not compared with what it was.”

We face great challenges. But we are also living in a time when we have achieved incredible advances in technology as well as in morality. “Something is happening,” writes Wenar. “What future generations might marvel at most will be if we, in the midst of it, do not see it.”

Unarmed Truth and Unconditional Love

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land. "And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid." I still believe that We Shall overcome!
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 
Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, December 10, 1964

Near the conclusion of his State of the Union speech, President Obama spoke about his hopes for our country and he talked about how he was “inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far. . . .  Voices Dr. King believed would have the final word — voices of unarmed truth and unconditional love.”

He talked about how he sees those voices “everywhere I travel in this incredible country of ours.” 

“I see you,” he said. “I know you’re there. You’re the reason why I have such incredible confidence in our future. Because I see your quiet, sturdy citizenship all the time.”

And then he listed the places and the ways and the people in whom he sees these voices of unarmed truth and unconditional love:

“I see it in the Dreamer who stays up late to finish her science project, and the teacher who comes in early because he knows she might someday cure a disease.

“I see it in the American who served his time, and dreams of starting over — and the business owner who gives him that second chance. The protester determined to prove that justice matters, and the young cop walking the beat, treating everybody with respect, doing the brave, quiet work of keeping us safe.

“I see it in the soldier who gives almost everything to save his brothers, the nurse who tends to him ’til he can run a marathon, and the community that lines up to cheer him on.

“It’s the son who finds the courage to come out as who he is, and the father whose love for that son overrides everything he’s been taught.

“I see it in the elderly woman who will wait in line to cast her vote as long as she has to; the new citizen who casts his for the first time; the volunteers at the polls who believe every vote should count, because each of them in different ways know how much that precious right is worth.”

It was a moving moment.

As a pastor, and specifically as a United Methodist pastor, I found my attention focused on that vignette of the son “who finds the courage to come out,” and the father “whose love for that son overrides everything he has been taught.”

Sadly, the Christian church generally and United Methodists specifically, have too often been responsible for teaching fathers and mothers to reject their gay sons and daughters. 

There is language in our United Methodist Book of Discipline which is supposed to mitigate that rejection, but when we tell people that homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching,” some amount of rejection is inevitable. 

Bill Ziegler was a great United Methodist preacher, whom I was blessed to have as a mentor and friend. He was a tireless advocate for social justice and for the inclusion of LGBTQ persons in the church and in the culture. Whenever we debated an issue like this, he would always caution us to remember, “this is a human being you’re talking about.” 

For Bill, it was always personal.

In our debates about how we deal with the “issue” of sexual orientation in the United Methodist Church, we often talk as if we have forgotten that this is about human beings. We are debating the inclusion or exclusion of human beings.

In the end, it’s not about polity, or doctrine, or the Book of Discipline. In the end, it’s not about the authority of scripture (though on that score we can be reasonably certain that love wins), it’s about human beings.

Over the centuries the church has often fallen short of what it ought to be as the Body of Christ in the world. That’s not because the church is more fallible than other institutions or communities, it’s because our expectations are so much higher. But this is a mistake we need to correct.

Unarmed truth and unconditional love need to have the final word.

We need to be the community that gives the son “the courage to come out,” not the institution that teaches the father that he cannot accept who his son is.

This is about human beings and we need to get it right.

Handel's Messiah and the Killing in San Bernardino

What then are we to say about these things? 
If God is for us, who can be against us? 
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:31, 35, 37-39

What then are we to say about these things? 

After the shooting in San Bernardino, which was the second mass shooting of that day, what can we say? How does our faith speak to such horrific events?

Last Sunday afternoon I attended a performance of Handel’s “Messiah” by the Rhode Island Civic Chorale and Orchestra at St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Newport.

It was the complete “Messiah,” not a selection of “favorites” pretending to be the real thing. So it was long. Two and a half hours. But it was wonderful. Elaine, who sings in the chorus, had told me repeatedly that I did not have to go just because she was singing, and afterward she inquired anxiously how I had endured. “What’s not to like,” I answered. “It begins with Isaiah and ends with Paul. What could be better?”

And then we talked about the individual pieces and the movement through the scriptures. Those verses from Paul’s letter to the Romans provide the text for one of my favorite pieces.

Our conversation moved from the verses in Romans back to the “Hallelujah Chorus,” which is the theological and emotional center of the oratorio. I told Elaine that I found it incredibly moving when everyone stood and the chorus sang, “For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth . . . Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”

If you ask me what I believe about the resurrection, I will tell you that I am long past anything that sounds like a resuscitated corpse or a flying body. I don’t think Jesus popped out of the grave like a groundhog on February second. And a close examination of the Gospel accounts reveals an understated sense of mystery that is somewhat at odds with our tendency toward an Easter Sunday extravaganza.

There is a sense in which the “Hallelujah Chorus” does not fit very well with my theology. 

I was well into what might have been a long dissertation on this when Elaine interrupted my reflection to say, “Yes . . . but it’s true!”

Of course, that’s the point. It is moving because it is true. 

Fifty years ago this past spring, at the conclusion of the march from Selma to Montgomery, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the steps of the State Capitol. Recognizing the frustration of the long struggle for civil rights, he drew on the poetry of James Russell Lowell and William Cullen Bryant, and a sermon by Theodore Parker, to preach about the meaning of resurrection:

I know you are asking today, "How long will it take?" (Speak, sir) Somebody’s asking, "How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?" Somebody’s asking, "When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?" Somebody’s asking, "When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, (Speak, speak, speak) plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, (Speak) and truth bear it?" (Yes, sir) 

I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, (Yes, sir) however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, (No sir) because "truth crushed to earth will rise again." (Yes, sir) 

How long? Not long, (Yes, sir) because "no lie can live forever." (Yes, sir) 
How long? Not long, (All right. How long) because "you shall reap what you sow." (Yes, sir) 
How long? (How long?) Not long: (Not long) 

Truth forever on the scaffold, (Speak) 
Wrong forever on the throne, (Yes, sir) 
Yet that scaffold sways the future, (Yes, sir) 
And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, 
Keeping watch above his own. 
How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. (Yes, sir)

Handel’s “Messiah” is about faith in its simplest form. It does not focus on social justice as Jesus did. But without that faith it is hard to sustain the struggle for justice and peace. We are always proclaiming Easter in a Good Friday world. 

And our faith is that Easter has the power to transform Good Friday. We don’t yet have the answers to gun violence. But we will. And we don’t yet know how to prevent terrorism. But we will. 

Until the kingdoms of this world
have become the kingdom of God
and he shall reign
forever and ever.
Amen.
Revelation 11:15

Bending the Moral Arc: The Season of Kingdomtide

The poor are invited to the feast. Luke 14:15-24

Once Jesus was asked when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”
Luke 17:20-21

At the end of the Selma march, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech titled, “Our God Is Marching On.” And at the end of the speech, he wove together a rich poetic tapestry of Bible verses with hymn texts by Julia Ward Howe and James Russell Lowell. Then he adapted a phrase from the great abolitionist preacher Theodore Parker and declared that although it had been a long struggle for Civil Rights, in the end they would be victorious because “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” 

I don’t know whether King would see his phrase about the “arc of the moral universe,” as interchangeable with “the moral arc of the universe,” but I prefer the latter.

If we believe in the Kingdom of God, then we believe that the universe itself has a moral arc that bends toward justice.

Jesus told his disciples that the Kingdom of God was already among them although it was not yet fully realized. This is what God is doing in the world. The moral arc is bending toward justice. Jesus called his disciples to join in what God is already doing, to share in bending the moral arc of the universe.

The liturgical season of Kingdomtide began last Sunday. That is, if we still celebrated Kingdomtide, it would have begun last Sunday. In the old Methodist liturgical calendar the Sundays from the end of August to the beginning of Advent were known as the season of “Kingdomtide.”  It was a time to reflect on the biblical promise of the Kingdom of God and to ask ourselves what the world would look like if we were serious about building the Kingdom of God on earth. 

The loss of Kingdomtide is not a metaphor for everything that is wrong with the world, although sometimes it seems to me as if it is. And the loss of a liturgical season will not stop the bending of the arc or the coming of the kingdom. But it is still a loss. 

Jesus preached the “good news of the Kingdom of God.” He announced that God was already at work in the world, and we were invited to live in the new reality that God was creating. The idea of the Kingdom of God begins with Jesus, but it grows out of the experience of the people of Israel. And a primary theological component is the liberation of the Israelites in the Exodus.

For Jesus, this alternative community was a place where the poor were lifted up, where everyone had a place at the table, where love governed both individuals and institutions. It was a place of radical hospitality, egalitarianism, inclusion, mutual concern, self-sacrifice, and social justice. In this biblical vision, everyone has enough and no one has too much.

“Against the data,” as Walter Brueggeman would say, Jesus declared that this “Kingdom of God” was already among them. In spite of the Roman occupation. The world did not belong to the emperor, it belonged to God. And God was at work in the world. The disciples were invited to live into the new reality; this alternative community.

Although Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God occupies the overwhelming majority of his teaching, it has too often been ignored by modern Christians. The popular misinterpretation is that when he talked about Gods’ Kingdom, he was talking about heaven. But he wasn’t. He was talking about happens (and doesn’t happen, but ought to happen) on this earth.

How Long Must We Wait?

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?
Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save?
Why do you make me see wrong-doing and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me; 

strife and contention arise.
So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous— therefore judgment comes forth perverted.
Habakkuk 1:2-4

The late Dr. Harrell Beck (Blessed be his name!) liked to speak of the Book of the Prophet Habakkuk as a place where the writer stands on tiptoes to see what is coming. He noted that although Habakkuk was commonly referred to as one of the minor prophets, that was a reference to the length of the book, not to its meaning.

As I watch the nightly news from Baltimore and listen to the commentary, I wonder with the Prophet, “How long?” How long will this dark night of racism consume us?

As commentary on the Baltimore situation, Senator Cory Booker posted a quotation from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on his Facebook page. I think it is taken from an interview with Mike Wallace in 1966:

“Now I wanted to say something about the fact that we have lived over these last two or three summers with agony and we have seen our cities going up in flames. And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view. I’m absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results. But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.”

When I read that paragraph, and then read it again, I am struck by how greatly we underestimated Dr. King as a thinker and a social philosopher. He makes the current commentary on television seem shallow and superficial. Every sentence deserves analysis and reflection.

I want to lift up just one theme found in two places. “I’m absolutely convinced,” he says, “that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt.” Can I get an “Amen?”

Over and over I have heard pundits and ordinary white people speak as if the riots (I am using that word as Dr. King did, but with the awareness that the word itself is racially charged) absolved the larger white culture of any responsibility for the underlying problems.

And in the last sentence of the paragraph he observes that, “large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.” Once again, can I get an “Amen?”

Habakkuk begins with a lament, a complaint against God. In the face of injustice and strife and violence, God has not acted to liberate his people from oppression. How long, he demands, how long will this continue. The answer comes to him, but not in the way that he expected. He is the one who must act. The prophet must proclaim the vision and “make it plain,” so that “a runner may read it” as he goes by.

And I remember Dr. Beck raising up his considerable bulk, standing on tiptoes as he read the last verse of the book,

The Lord is my strength,
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
and makes me tread upon the heights.

Of course, we know that we will find our way through this. Peace will return. But will there be justice? Will this be a turning point? Will we work toward real solutions, or just continue to be “more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity?”

The Arc of the Moral Universe

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer with violence. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also."

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."

Matthew 5:38-39, 43-44

Today marks the 50th anniversary of a brilliant speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the end of the march from Selma to Montgomery.

This is the speech that contains his famous affirmation that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” And that section alone would make the speech a classic.

I often think that our Bible should be a continuing canon, and we should add new sacred texts over the years. This is one that belongs in my personal collection of the unfolding witness of our faith. King speaks at times like one of the great Hebrew prophets and at other times he sounds like a modern Apostle Paul writing to Christians in new times of struggle and growth.

As you read the speech, note his economic and political analysis of the enactment of Jim Crow laws and the rise of racism as a means of pitting poor whites and blacks against each other.

In 1965 King was facing enormous pressure from those within the black community who believed that violence was the only way to defeat racism. In this speech he patiently and passionately makes the case for non-violence as both effective and morally right. In the end, King believed, right would triumph.

The speech is transcribed from an audio tape, so the shouts of the crowd are also recorded. In the interchanges we can sense the cadences of black preaching and the spirit of the black church, which was the foundation of the movement.

Our God Is Marching On!

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

March 25, 1965. Montgomery, Ala.

My dear and abiding friends, Ralph Abernathy, and to all of the distinguished Americans seated here on the rostrum, my friends and co-workers of the state of Alabama, and to all of the freedom-loving people who have assembled here this afternoon from all over our nation and from all over the world: Last Sunday, more than eight thousand of us started on a mighty walk from Selma, Alabama. We have walked through desolate valleys and across the trying hills. We have walked on meandering highways and rested our bodies on rocky byways. Some of our faces are burned from the outpourings of the sweltering sun. Some have literally slept in the mud. We have been drenched by the rains. [Audience:] (Speak) Our bodies are tired and our feet are somewhat sore.

But today as I stand before you and think back over that great march, I can say, as Sister Pollard said—a seventy-year-old Negro woman who lived in this community during the bus boycott—and one day, she was asked while walking if she didn’t want to ride. And when she answered, "No," the person said, "Well, aren’t you tired?" And with her ungrammatical profundity, she said, "My feets is tired, but my soul is rested." (Yes, sir. All right) And in a real sense this afternoon, we can say that our feet are tired, (Yes, sir) but our souls are rested.

They told us we wouldn’t get here. And there were those who said that we would get here only over their dead bodies, (Well. Yes, sir. Talk) but all the world today knows that we are here and we are standing before the forces of power in the state of Alabama saying, "We ain’t goin’ let nobody turn us around." (Yes, sir. Speak) [Applause]

Now it is not an accident that one of the great marches of American history should terminate in Montgomery, Alabama. (Yes, sir) Just ten years ago, in this very city, a new philosophy was born of the Negro struggle. Montgomery was the first city in the South in which the entire Negro community united and squarely faced its age-old oppressors. (Yes, sir. Well) Out of this struggle, more than bus [de]segregation was won; a new idea, more powerful than guns or clubs was born. Negroes took it and carried it across the South in epic battles (Yes, sir. Speak) that electrified the nation (Well) and the world.

Yet, strangely, the climactic conflicts always were fought and won on Alabama soil. After Montgomery’s, heroic confrontations loomed up in Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, and elsewhere. But not until the colossus of segregation was challenged in Birmingham did the conscience of America begin to bleed. White America was profoundly aroused by Birmingham because it witnessed the whole community of Negroes facing terror and brutality with majestic calm and heroic courage. And from the wells of this democratic spirit, the nation finally forced Congress (Well) to write legislation (Yes, sir) in the hope that it would eradicate the stain of Birmingham. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave Negroes some part of their rightful dignity, (Speak, sir) but without the vote it was dignity without strength. (Yes, sir)

Once more the method of nonviolent resistance (Yes) was unsheathed from its scabbard, and once again an entire community was mobilized to confront the adversary. (Yes, sir) And again the brutality of a dying order shrieks across the land. Yet, Selma, Alabama, became a shining moment in the conscience of man. If the worst in American life lurked in its dark streets, the best of American instincts arose passionately from across the nation to overcome it. (Yes, sir. Speak) There never was a moment in American history (Yes, sir) more honorable and more inspiring than the pilgrimage of clergymen and laymen of every race and faith pouring into Selma to face danger (Yes) at the side of its embattled Negroes.

The confrontation of good and evil compressed in the tiny community of Selma (Speak, speak) generated the massive power (Yes, sir. Yes, sir) to turn the whole nation to a new course. A president born in the South (Well) had the sensitivity to feel the will of the country, (Speak, sir) and in an address that will live in history as one of the most passionate pleas for human rights ever made by a president of our nation, he pledged the might of the federal government to cast off the centuries-old blight. President Johnson rightly praised the courage of the Negro for awakening the conscience of the nation. (Yes, sir)

On our part we must pay our profound respects to the white Americans who cherish their democratic traditions over the ugly customs and privileges of generations and come forth boldly to join hands with us. (Yes, sir) From Montgomery to Birmingham, (Yes, sir) from Birmingham to Selma, (Yes, sir) from Selma back to Montgomery, (Yes) a trail wound in a circle long and often bloody, yet it has become a highway up from darkness. (Yes, sir) Alabama has tried to nurture and defend evil, but evil is choking to death in the dusty roads and streets of this state. (Yes, sir. Speak, sir) So I stand before you this afternoon (Speak, sir. Well) with the conviction that segregation is on its deathbed in Alabama, and the only thing uncertain about it is how costly the segregationists and Wallace will make the funeral. (Go ahead. Yes, sir) [Applause]

Our whole campaign in Alabama has been centered around the right to vote. In focusing the attention of the nation and the world today on the flagrant denial of the right to vote, we are exposing the very origin, the root cause, of racial segregation in the Southland. Racial segregation as a way of life did not come about as a natural result of hatred between the races immediately after the Civil War. There were no laws segregating the races then. And as the noted historian, C. Vann Woodward, in his book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, clearly points out, the segregation of the races was really a political stratagem employed by the emerging Bourbon interests in the South to keep the southern masses divided and southern labor the cheapest in the land. You see, it was a simple thing to keep the poor white masses working for near-starvation wages in the years that followed the Civil War. Why, if the poor white plantation or mill worker became dissatisfied with his low wages, the plantation or mill owner would merely threaten to fire him and hire former Negro slaves and pay him even less. Thus, the southern wage level was kept almost unbearably low.

Toward the end of the Reconstruction era, something very significant happened. (Listen to him) That is what was known as the Populist Movement. (Speak, sir) The leaders of this movement began awakening the poor white masses (Yes, sir) and the former Negro slaves to the fact that they were being fleeced by the emerging Bourbon interests. Not only that, but they began uniting the Negro and white masses (Yeah) into a voting bloc that threatened to drive the Bourbon interests from the command posts of political power in the South.

To meet this threat, the southern aristocracy began immediately to engineer this development of a segregated society. (Right) I want you to follow me through here because this is very important to see the roots of racism and the denial of the right to vote. Through their control of mass media, they revised the doctrine of white supremacy. They saturated the thinking of the poor white masses with it, (Yes) thus clouding their minds to the real issue involved in the Populist Movement. They then directed the placement on the books of the South of laws that made it a crime for Negroes and whites to come together as equals at any level. (Yes, sir) And that did it. That crippled and eventually destroyed the Populist Movement of the nineteenth century.

If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow. (Yes, sir) He gave him Jim Crow. (Uh huh) And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, (Yes, sir) he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. (Right sir) And he ate Jim Crow. (Uh huh) And when his undernourished children cried out for the necessities that his low wages could not provide, he showed them the Jim Crow signs on the buses and in the stores, on the streets and in the public buildings. (Yes, sir) And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, (Speak) their last outpost of psychological oblivion. (Yes, sir)

Thus, the threat of the free exercise of the ballot by the Negro and the white masses alike (Uh huh) resulted in the establishment of a segregated society. They segregated southern money from the poor whites; they segregated southern mores from the rich whites; (Yes, sir) they segregated southern churches from Christianity (Yes, sir); they segregated southern minds from honest thinking; (Yes, sir) and they segregated the Negro from everything. (Yes, sir) That’s what happened when the Negro and white masses of the South threatened to unite and build a great society: a society of justice where none would pray upon the weakness of others; a society of plenty where greed and poverty would be done away; a society of brotherhood where every man would respect the dignity and worth of human personality. (Yes, sir)

We’ve come a long way since that travesty of justice was perpetrated upon the American mind. James Weldon Johnson put it eloquently. He said:

We have come over a wayThat with tears hath been watered. (Yes, sir)
We have come treading our pathsThrough the blood of the slaughtered. (Yes, sir)
Out of the gloomy past, (Yes, sir)
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleamOf our bright star is cast. (Speak, sir)

Today I want to tell the city of Selma, (Tell them, Doctor) today I want to say to the state of Alabama, (Yes, sir) today I want to say to the people of America and the nations of the world, that we are not about to turn around. (Yes, sir) We are on the move now. (Yes, sir)

Yes, we are on the move and no wave of racism can stop us. (Yes, sir) We are on the move now. The burning of our churches will not deter us. (Yes, sir) The bombing of our homes will not dissuade us. (Yes, sir) We are on the move now. (Yes, sir) The beating and killing of our clergymen and young people will not divert us. We are on the move now. (Yes, sir) The wanton release of their known murderers would not discourage us. We are on the move now. (Yes, sir) Like an idea whose time has come, (Yes, sir) not even the marching of mighty armies can halt us. (Yes, sir) We are moving to the land of freedom. (Yes, sir)

Let us therefore continue our triumphant march (Uh huh) to the realization of the American dream. (Yes, sir) Let us march on segregated housing (Yes, sir) until every ghetto or social and economic depression dissolves, and Negroes and whites live side by side in decent, safe, and sanitary housing. (Yes, sir) Let us march on segregated schools (Let us march, Tell it) until every vestige of segregated and inferior education becomes a thing of the past, and Negroes and whites study side-by-side in the socially-healing context of the classroom.

Let us march on poverty (Let us march) until no American parent has to skip a meal so that their children may eat. (Yes, sir) March on poverty (Let us march) until no starved man walks the streets of our cities and towns (Yes, sir) in search of jobs that do not exist. (Yes, sir) Let us march on poverty (Let us march) until wrinkled stomachs in Mississippi are filled, (That's right) and the idle industries of Appalachia are realized and revitalized, and broken lives in sweltering ghettos are mended and remolded.

Let us march on ballot boxes, (Let’s march) march on ballot boxes until race-baiters disappear from the political arena.

Let us march on ballot boxes until the salient misdeeds of bloodthirsty mobs (Yes, sir) will be transformed into the calculated good deeds of orderly citizens. (Speak, Doctor)

Let us march on ballot boxes (Let us march) until the Wallaces of our nation tremble away in silence.

Let us march on ballot boxes (Let us march) until we send to our city councils (Yes, sir), state legislatures, (Yes, sir) and the United States Congress, (Yes, sir) men who will not fear to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.

Let us march on ballot boxes (Let us march. March) until brotherhood becomes more than a meaningless word in an opening prayer, but the order of the day on every legislative agenda.

Let us march on ballot boxes (Yes) until all over Alabama God’s children will be able to walk the earth in decency and honor.

There is nothing wrong with marching in this sense. (Yes, sir) The Bible tells us that the mighty men of Joshua merely walked about the walled city of Jericho (Yes) and the barriers to freedom came tumbling down. (Yes, sir) I like that old Negro spiritual, (Yes, sir) "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho." In its simple, yet colorful, depiction (Yes, sir) of that great moment in biblical history, it tells us that:

Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, (Tell it)
Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, (Yes, sir)
And the walls come tumbling down. (Yes, sir. Tell it)
Up to the walls of Jericho they marched, spear in hand. (Yes, sir)
"Go blow them ramhorns," Joshua cried,
"‘Cause the battle am in my hand." (Yes, sir)

These words I have given you just as they were given us by the unknown, long-dead, dark-skinned originator. (Yes, sir) Some now long-gone black bard bequeathed to posterity these words in ungrammatical form, (Yes, sir) yet with emphatic pertinence for all of us today. (Uh huh)

The battle is in our hands. And we can answer with creative nonviolence the call to higher ground to which the new directions of our struggle summons us. (Yes, sir) The road ahead is not altogether a smooth one. (No) There are no broad highways that lead us easily and inevitably to quick solutions. But we must keep going.

In the glow of the lamplight on my desk a few nights ago, I gazed again upon the wondrous sign of our times, full of hope and promise of the future. (Uh huh) And I smiled to see in the newspaper photographs of many a decade ago, the faces so bright, so solemn, of our valiant heroes, the people of Montgomery. To this list may be added the names of all those (Yes) who have fought and, yes, died in the nonviolent army of our day: Medgar Evers, (Speak) three civil rights workers in Mississippi last summer, (Uh huh) William Moore, as has already been mentioned, (Yes, sir) the Reverend James Reeb, (Yes, sir) Jimmy Lee Jackson, (Yes, sir) and four little girls in the church of God in Birmingham on Sunday morning. (Yes, sir) But in spite of this, we must go on and be sure that they did not die in vain. (Yes, sir) The pattern of their feet as they walked through Jim Crow barriers in the great stride toward freedom is the thunder of the marching men of Joshua, (Yes, sir) and the world rocks beneath their tread. (Yes, sir)

My people, my people, listen. (Yes, sir) The battle is in our hands. (Yes, sir) The battle is in our hands in Mississippi and Alabama and all over the United States. (Yes, sir) I know there is a cry today in Alabama, (Uh huh) we see it in numerous editorials: "When will Martin Luther King, SCLC, SNCC, and all of these civil rights agitators and all of the white clergymen and labor leaders and students and others get out of our community and let Alabama return to normalcy?"

But I have a message that I would like to leave with Alabama this evening. (Tell it) That is exactly what we don’t want, and we will not allow it to happen, (Yes, sir) for we know that it was normalcy in Marion (Yes, sir) that led to the brutal murder of Jimmy Lee Jackson. (Speak) It was normalcy in Birmingham (Yes) that led to the murder on Sunday morning of four beautiful, unoffending, innocent girls. It was normalcy on Highway 80 (Yes, sir) that led state troopers to use tear gas and horses and billy clubs against unarmed human beings who were simply marching for justice. (Speak, sir) It was normalcy by a cafe in Selma, Alabama, that led to the brutal beating of Reverend James Reeb.

It is normalcy all over our country (Yes, sir) which leaves the Negro perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of vast ocean of material prosperity. It is normalcy all over Alabama (Yeah) that prevents the Negro from becoming a registered voter. (Yes) No, we will not allow Alabama (Go ahead) to return to normalcy. [Applause]

The only normalcy that we will settle for (Yes, sir) is the normalcy that recognizes the dignity and worth of all of God’s children. The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy that allows judgment to run down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. (Yes, sir) The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy of brotherhood, the normalcy of true peace, the normalcy of justice.

And so as we go away this afternoon, let us go away more than ever before committed to this struggle and committed to nonviolence. I must admit to you that there are still some difficult days ahead. We are still in for a season of suffering in many of the black belt counties of Alabama, many areas of Mississippi, many areas of Louisiana. I must admit to you that there are still jail cells waiting for us, and dark and difficult moments. But if we will go on with the faith that nonviolence and its power can transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows, we will be able to change all of these conditions.

And so I plead with you this afternoon as we go ahead: remain committed to nonviolence. Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding. We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of man as man. (Yes)

I know you are asking today, "How long will it take?" (Speak, sir) Somebody’s asking, "How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?" Somebody’s asking, "When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?" Somebody’s asking, "When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, (Speak, speak, speak) plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, (Speak) and truth bear it?" (Yes, sir)

I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, (Yes, sir) however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, (No sir) because "truth crushed to earth will rise again." (Yes, sir)

How long? Not long, (Yes, sir) because "no lie can live forever." (Yes, sir)
How long? Not long, (All right. How long) because "you shall reap what you sow." (Yes, sir)
How long? (How long?) Not long: (Not long)
Truth forever on the scaffold, (Speak)
Wrong forever on the throne, (Yes, sir)
Yet that scaffold sways the future, (Yes, sir)
And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
Keeping watch above his own.

How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. (Yes, sir)

How long? Not long, (Not long) because:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; (Yes, sir)

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; (Yes)

He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword; (Yes, sir)

His truth is marching on. (Yes, sir)

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; (Speak, sir)

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat. (That’s right)

O, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant my feet!

(Yeah)

Glory, hallelujah! (Yes, sir) Glory, hallelujah! (All right)

Glory, hallelujah! Glory, hallelujah!

His truth is marching on!

Ana Marie Cox and Fanny Crosby: Love and Mercy Found Me

Fanny Crosby in 1872

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
Mark 1:14-15

Longtime blogger and political commentator Ana Marie Cox recently wrote a column called, “Why I’m Coming Out as a Christian.” In her introduction she said that she was not worried that non-believers would want to disown her, she was worried about what Christians would say if she publicly embraced “the punk-rockness of being a progressive, feminist, tattooed, pro-choice, graduate-educated believer.”

Turns out she was worried about the wrong group.

The response from self-identified Christians was generally characterized by a warm acceptance. Many noted that the still disagreed with her views on public policy, but they were generally pleased to embrace her as a sister in Christ. On the other hand, the response from self-identified atheists was overwhelmingly judgmental and condemning. A short summary would be, “That’s just stupid.” Some hoped she would be happy with her imaginary friend.

Cox says that she has made her life over. She is happier, healthier and freer. And, she says, it shows:

“When people ask me, ‘What changed?’ or, ‘How did you do it?’ or, sometimes, with nervous humor, ‘Tell me your secret!’ I have a litany of concrete lifestyle changes I can give them—simply leaving Washington is near the top of the list—but the honest answer would be this: I try, every day, to give my will and my life over to God. I try to be like Christ. I get down on my knees and pray.”

Just to make sure we know she has not completely given up the persona we have come to know and love, she followed her testimony by recalling that the last time she gave that answer, “it stopped conversation as surely as a fart, and generated the same kind of throat-clearing discomfort.”

To be fair, self-righteousness and judgmentalism never seem to be in short supply on all sides of any Internet commentary. Sometimes it seems like no one has any filter at all. And they do all of their thinking out loud in CAPITAL LETTERS. It is also apparent that lots of folks comment on articles without actually reading them first.

One of the complaints about the column is that the reasons Cox gave for her new-found Christian faith were not really reasons at all. And they quoted the offending paragraph:

“Here is why I believe I am a Christian: I believe I have a personal relationship with my Lord and Savior. I believe in the grace offered by the Resurrection. I believe that whatever spiritual rewards I may reap come directly from trying to live the example set by Christ. Whether or not I succeed in living up to that example is primarily between Him and me.”

Of course, if you read it closely, you can see that she isn’t trying to give reasons for her faith. She is only explaining to those who might not think that she is a “real” Christian, why she believes she is. She is stating what she believes. She isn’t making an argument for it.

For the most part the article is a warm and inviting witness to her faith.

Two things bother me.

First, the theology seems fresh out of Fanny Crosby. And maybe that has a certain poetic logic to it, since Crosby was a fiercely committed abolitionist. Cox seems to espouse an essentially personal faith. It’s all about her connection to Jesus, and her personal salvation.

That’s not an uncommon view.

When I read that passage from Mark’s Gospel as a young person, I assumed that the “Gospel” or “good news” that Jesus announced was about himself. Even when I developed a much broader and deeper understanding of salvation as wholeness and healing and new life, I still thought that Jesus was announcing the good news about himself and the New Life we might have in and through him. In spite of my commitment to social justice (thank you, Dr. King!), I did not really connect that to the announcement Jesus was making.

When I read the passage more carefully and realized that the good news he was announcing was about the Kingdom of God on earth, I was initially baffled by it. It took me a long time to grow into an acceptance that maybe (in spite of what I had learned) Jesus meant exactly what he said.

And second, she seems to assume an implicit dissonance between progressive politics and Christianity. This reflects a very common historical misunderstanding.

Today most commentators in the media seem to assume that progressive Christianity is an oxymoron. At the very least, it is something that needs to be explained. But a century ago it was a tautology. Progressives were overwhelmingly Christian (and Protestant) and the strongest Christian voices were also progressives.

The word and the movement had a religious connotation. Of course, a century ago the Progressives were also mostly Republicans.

The Fierce Urgency of Now

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

Rev. Dr. Marin Luther King, Jr. August 28, 1963

On this day in 1963, Dr. King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered what we now call the “I Have a Dream Speech” to 200,000 peaceful advocates for racial justice.

They were marching, he said, to “demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice,” and to remind the nation of what he called “the fierce urgency of now.”

He talked about pursuing this struggle with discipline and dignity and he talked about solidarity with white people who would share in that struggle. The militancy of the struggle, he argued, “must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.”

The tragic shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, in Ferguson, Missouri, and the reactions to it, provide a sad reminder that the dream is not yet a reality.

We have come a long way. The idea of a black man as President of the United States was hard to imagine when Dr. King addressed the crowd in Washington. Our society is more integrated, more open, and less overtly racist. These improvements are real and they are dramatic. The need now is less about new laws, although the gains made by the voting rights laws need to be protected. We cannot minimize our needs in job creation, education, and health care, but in many ways, our greatest need is for new attitudes and new understandings

And we have a long way to go.

If you don’t believe that racism is alive and well, just go on almost any internet site that hosts commentary on the shooting in Ferguson. A web site set up to receive donations to help pay the defense costs for the police officer who shot Michael Brown received so many racist comments, they had to shut it down and start again. For a glimpse of what it looked like before the shutdown, click here. Columnist and Fox News contributor Linda Chavez wrote a column for the New York Post complaining that it was biased to call Michael Brown “an unarmed black teenager.”After all, he was over six feet tall and weighed three hundred pounds. As if large teenagers were no longer teenagers or unarmed.

Racism is the air we breathe. It infects all of us. In a New York Times column titled, “Is Everyone a Little Bit Racist?” Nicholas Kristof reminds us of our latent racism. There are many people, he points out, who are enlightened, who are intellectually opposed to racism, and yet harbor racist stereotypes and prejudices.

Studies have shown that when doctors treat people for a broken leg, they prescribe pain medication more often for white patients than they do for blacks and Hispanics. Black students are suspended by school administrators at a rate that is three times the rate of white students. Although blacks and whites use marijuana at approximately the same rates, blacks are arrested 3.7 times as often.

Kristof cites another study in which scholars responded to nearly 5,000 help-wanted ads. They sent half of their resumes with stereotypically black sounding names and the other half with white sounding names. It took 50% more mailings to get a response for a black name as for a white name, and a white name gained the applicant an advantage equal to eight years of experience.

In yet another study, scholars found that we unconsciously connect “American” with “white.” In 2008 they questioned a group of California college students and found that they treated then presidential candidate Barack Obama as if he were more foreign than Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister, in spite of the fact that many of the students were supporting Obama for president. The tests also showed that although Americans knew that Lucy Liu is an American actor and Kate Winslet is British, they still thought Liu was more foreign.

Not only do we have a hard time recognizing the reality of our own racism, many of us believe that America is more prejudiced against white people than against black people.

That fact is so bizarre, I was tempted to call this column, “White People Are Crazy.”

According to a study by scholars at Tufts and Harvard, both whites and blacks agree that anti-black racism has decreased over the last sixty years. But the study also shows that whites believe that anti-white racism has increased over that same time period and now is a bigger problem than anti-black racism.

Participants were asked to rate the anti-black racism and the anti-white racism in society on a 10-point scale, with 10 as maximum bias. On average, whites rated anti-white bias as the greater problem by more than a full point. And 11 percent of whites rated anti-white bias as a 10, the maximum rating.

“It’s a pretty surprising finding,” says Tufts Associate Professor Samuel Sommers, Ph.D., “when you think of the wide range of disparities that still exist in society, most of which show black Americans with worse outcomes than whites in areas such as income, home ownership, health, and employment.”

Apparently, even our perceptions of racism are colored by racism.

In his commentary about what he seemed to perceive as an anti-white bias in the coverage of the events in Ferguson, Bill O’Reilly complained, “to the race hustlers, Officer Wilson is already guilty. They have convicted him. Their slogan is ‘no justice, no peace’. I guess that's lynch mob justice because those people will never accept anything other than a conviction of murder in this case. They don't really care what happened. They want Officer Wilson punished.”

No one should be in favor of “lynch mob justice,” but it is useful to put that in historical perspective. On this day in 1955 a 14 year old black teenager by the name of Emmett Till was lynched for allegedly flirting with a white woman. Not figuratively lynched. Brutally tortured and lynched.