Rev. Lowery's Benediction

Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery Delivering the Benediction
at the Inauguration of President Barack Obama

Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.
Amos 5:24


When I started writing “Thinking Faith” in January of 2009, the first post I wrote was about the Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery’s benediction at the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

Rev. Lowery’s death yesterday at the age of 98 called to mind his benediction and the reaction to it.

Halford Luccock, who taught preaching at Yale Divinity School for many years once called the history of Methodist preachers an “Endless Line of Splendor.” That was more enthusiasm than critical analysis, but among that line few were more splendid than Rev. Lowery. He was a close friend and ally of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and served for many years as Director of the Southern Christian Leadership Council which King founded. And he was a great preacher.

I was deeply moved as I listened to Lowery’s benediction at the close of the inauguration and later in the week as I was writing the “Welcome” for our Sunday bulletin I wanted to reference it and I went online to find the text. Along with the text, I was shocked to discover thousands of comments labeling Dr. Lowery’s remarks as racist. I couldn’t imagine what they were talking about.

The prayer began with a quotation from James Weldon Johnson’s great hymn, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which has become the Black National Anthem. He called on the nation to reject greed and violence, to embrace inclusion rather than exclusion, and love rather than hate. 

Moving toward his closing, he prayed, “As we leave this mountaintop, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.”

“Bless President Barack,” he prayed. “First Lady Michelle. Look over our little, angelic Sasha and Malia.”

Then he referenced the Hebrew Prophets:

“Help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid; when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.”

But what set the right wing blogosphere and the pundits into hysteria came in the final paragraph. This is a transcript of the audio recording:

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around -- (laughter) -- when yellow will be mellow -- (laughter) -- when the red man can get ahead, man -- (laughter) -- and when white will embrace what is right.Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen.AUDIENCE: Amen!REV. LOWERY: Say amen --AUDIENCE: Amen!REV. LOWERY: -- and amen.AUDIENCE: Amen! (Cheers, applause.)END.

“when white will embrace what is right” was the incendiary line.

Of course, those lines were not original. They were meant to recall an earlier time, not that many decades ago when the rhyme told the story of race and color in America: 

"If you're white, you're right, 
if you're yellow, you're mellow,
if you're brown, stick around, 
but if you're black, get back." 

And in the 1970’s those words, just as Dr. Lowery spoke them, were used by Black preachers as a call to action. The laughter in the audience came from those who immediately recognized the reference.

Only those completely ignorant of both Dr. Lowery and the history of Civil Rights would think he was saying that white people had never embraced what was right, and he did not mean to divide. He did mean to raise up a vision of the future by remembering the past. And one could see by the angry responses that the past is not really past, in part at least, because too many people just don’t know their history.

But beyond the issue of historical literacy, the reaction to Dr. Lowery’s benediction was a precursor to the resurgence of racism that has plagued us over the past decade.

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

The full transcript of Dr. Lowery’s benediction is printed below:

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far along the way, thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee. Shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand -- true to thee, O God, and true to our native land.

We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we've shared this day. We pray now, O Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant, Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration. He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national and, indeed, the global fiscal climate. But because we know you got the whole world in your hand, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations. Our faith does not shrink, though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.

For we know that, Lord, you're able and you're willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor or the least of these and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.

We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that, yes, we can work together to achieve a more perfect union. And while we have sown the seeds of greed -- the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.

And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.

And as we leave this mountaintop, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.

Bless President Barack, First Lady Michelle. Look over our little, angelic Sasha and Malia.

We go now to walk together, children, pledging that we won't get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone, with your hands of power and your heart of love.

Help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid; when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around -- (laughter) -- when yellow will be mellow -- (laughter) -- when the red man can get ahead, man -- (laughter) -- and when white will embrace what is right.
Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen.
AUDIENCE: Amen!

This Is What Fascism Looks Like

The crowd chants "Send her back!" at a rally on Wednesday night

Woe to you who call evil good and good evil, 
who put darkness for light and light for darkness, 
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Isaiah 5:20

In his speech at the opening of the National Museum of African American History in 2016, former President George W. Bush said, "A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws, and corrects them." 

"This museum tells the truth,” he observed, “that a country founded on the promise of liberty held millions in chains, that the price of our union was America's original sin."

President Bush was not the first one to speak of slavery and racism as America’s original sin, but the fact that he said it is a reminder that this should not be a partisan issue and his use of the phrase “original sin” reminds us that the issue is about faith as well as politics.

Confronting racism is a necessity for Christians regardless of their political affiliation.

Racism is evil and it produces bitter fruit for the recipients as well as for the perpetrators. There is nothing about it that can be called good. And woe to us when we do not call it out for what it is.

According to Gizmodo, after Mr. Trump’s speech in Greenville Wednesday night, the two most commonly searched words were Fascism and Racism.

You can be a racist without being a fascist but you cannot be a fascist without being a racist. Sadly, both were on display in Greenville.

One cannot use those words without being accused of being an alarmist. 

But the association is unavoidable.

We cannot pretend that evil is not evil, let alone that it is good.

Half a century ago, Jurgen Moltmann, perhaps the last of the great German theologians of the twentieth century,  was visiting the United States for a theological conference when the discussion turned to segregationists in the South.

“They are Nazis,” Jurgen Moltmann declared, “and when you are confronted by Nazis you must defeat them.”

Nothing else matters, he insisted, until you get rid of the Nazis.

As my theology professor told the story, Moltmann had insisted  to his fellow theologians that they had no business discussing theology until they had first done something about the Nazis.

I remember thinking that although the segregationists were certainly bad, it was hyperbole to call them Nazis. 

Perhaps it is hyperbole to speak that way of the Greenville rally. I fervently hope so. But by the time we know for certain it may be too late.

Jurgen Moltmann grew up in a secular family in Hamburg. As a teenager he was drafted into the German Army near the end of World War II. He was captured by the British and spent several years as a prisoner of war. During that time his captors presented him with descriptions and pictures of the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Auschwitz, and he was overwhelmed with guilt for what his country had done.

While he was held prisoner an American Army Chaplain gave him a New Testament and it transformed his life. “I did not find Christ,” he would later say, “Christ found me.” After the war he completed a doctorate in theology and his reflections on Nazism and the war led him to develop “A Theology of Hope.”

Moltmann could see, as Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Reinhold Niebuhr, and others had made clear before him that the absolute claims of Nazism were theological as well as political. And that those absolute claims made it antithetical to Christianity. 

When Moltmann insisted that there could be no theological discussion until Nazism had been addressed, he wasn’t introducing politics into theological discourse. He was recognizing that until they were dealt with, the absolute claims of Nazism made authentic theological discussion impossible.

In an interview published in Newsweek.com, Chantal Da Silva spoke with Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley, one of the leading scholars of Fascism. And Stanley called the Wednesday night rally “one of the single most racist moments in modern American history.” He also said that the country is “facing an emergency.”

"The word 'emergency' is tricky to use because 'emergency' is a word that anti-democratic people use all the time to justify non-democratic measures," he said.

Stanley said that he was “shocked” when he watched the video of the Greenville rally where the crowd chanted “send her back” after Mr. Trump attacked Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a Somali refugee who came to America as a refugee who came to American when she was eight years old. 

The chants came after Mr. Trump had devoted considerable time to attacking Representative Omar along with three Democratic colleagues, Representatives Aryanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Aexandra Ocasio-Cortez. The women are all persons of color, and Representative Omar is a Muslim.

Mr. Trump initiated the controversy at 5:27 a.m. last Sunday when he unleashed this tweetstorm:

“So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”

Apart from the obvious racism of telling anyone to go back where they came from, it misses the obvious fact that three of the four women were born in the United States. Rep. Omar is a naturalized citizen (like two of Mr. Trump’s three wives).

In the Newsweek interview, Stanley observed that Mr. Trump was expressing his “deep-seated commitment to fascism” as well as racism. "This whole administration has been orienting itself around attacking and vilifying ethnic minorities," he said. "It's horrifying to see."

"Fascist ideology is based upon the vilification of 'outsiders,' you know. It's an ideology that has, at its very center, panic and fear about outsiders. All fascist movements are toxically anti-immigration.”

"Fascist ideology says there's the nation and the members of the nation and they are ethnically defined and they face this mortal threat from leftism, communism, socialism and foreigners and so you would think the president has a choice: he could run saying well you know the economy's strength or he could run with one of the most toxic ideologies the world has ever seen... and that's what he's doing.”

In the Newsweek interview, Stanley insisted that today's journalists cannot equivocate in calling out Mr. Trump’s speech for what it is: racism.

"Journalists have two competing pressures: one is to represent the different sides in political debates and, two, is to tell the truth. These run into conflict with each other when you have a very extreme situation like the one we now face where, with one political side, there is no reasonable way to represent it."

Stanley argues that Mr. Trump “is utterly clear about his white nationalism and his racism.”

“You just have to call it what it is and not suggest that it's being misunderstood," he said.



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

*The Jurgen Moltmann story was first included in a post originally published on August 16, 2017 in response to the Nazi demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Bigotry in the Name of God Is Blasphemy

Senators Tim Scott, Kamalah Harris and Cory Booker, sponsors of the Anti-Lynching Bill

Whoever says, “I am in the light,” while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates a brother or sister is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness.
I John 2:9-11

For Christians, this is Epiphany, the season of light. We celebrate the light of the world, which we see in Jesus. And we remind ourselves that we believe in light rather than darkness.

Regardless of our religious affiliation or lack of it, light is a powerful image which speaks to the heart of our spiritual journey. We are always seeking more light; always doing our best to choose light over darkness; reminding ourselves that we can trust the light.

It is a struggle, because we are tempted by the darkness. Often the world seems to love darkness more than light. And there are some who will try to make us believe that darkness is light, and light is darkness.

Sometimes the campaign against the light is led by people who call themselves Christian.

In an online article for NBC News, Brooke Sopelsa reports that the Liberty Counsel, a self-proclaimed evangelical nonprofit that opposes gay rights, is opposing a bill that would explicitly make lynching a federal crime.

Liberty Counsel Chairman Mat Staver explained that the group opposes the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act because it specifically includes protections for LGBTQ people.

"The old saying is once that camel gets the nose in the tent, you can't stop them from coming the rest of the way in," Staver told the conservative Christian news outlet OneNewsNow. “This is a way to slip it in under a so-called anti-lynching bill, and to then to sort of circle the wagon and then go for the juggler [sic] at some time in the future."

The anti-lynching bill was introduced in June by by the Senate’s three black members, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. It addresses lynchings motivated by a victim’s “actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.”

In a statement after the bill passed the senate unanimously, Senator Booker remarked:

“For over a century, members of Congress have attempted to pass some version of a bill that would recognize lynching for what it is: a bias-motivated act of terror. And for more than a century, and more than 200 attempts, this body has failed. We have righted that wrong and taken corrective action that recognizes this stain on our country’s history.”

One might think that an anti-lynching bill was at least a century too late to make any difference, but the opposition proves it is still needed.

Mat Staver and the Liberty Counsel hope they can stop it before it passes the house where they are lobbying Lawmakers to remove protections for “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” before taking a vote.

They want to make it clear: they oppose lynching. They simply object to including the specific protections for LGBTQ persons.

The Liberty Counsel is not promoting liberty or Christianity. They are darkness rather than light.

In the words of John’s letter, “whoever hates a brother or sister is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness.”

Epiphany is a good time to remind ourselves that Christians are always called to walk in the light, and choose light over darkness. Bigotry is always wrong.

But Christians have a special responsibility to reject bigotry in the name of God.

Bigotry in the name of God is blasphemy.

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

Prayer and Protest: Fox News Gets It Right

Jesus said, 
“Pray then in this way:
Our Father in heaven,
   hallowed be your name. 
   Your kingdom come.
   Your will be done,
     on earth as it is in heaven.”
Matthew 6:9-10

Fox News was widely criticized for airing a news report showing Philadelphia Eagles players kneeling in prayer before a game and claiming that they were protesting the National Anthem. The photos provided a background visual for a news report on the President’s cancellation of a planned White House visit by the Philadelphia Eagles to celebrate their Super Bowl Championship.

The President had disinvited the team because only a small number of the players (less than ten) were planning to attend. In reporting the story, Fox used pictures that purported to show Eagles players kneeling during the National Anthem, when in fact none of the players had kneeled during the anthem at any game all season. The pictures actually showed Eagles players kneeling in prayer before the game and before the playing of the anthem.

Philadelphia tight end Zach Ertz, one of the players shown kneeling, expressed his frustration on Twitter:

"This can’t be serious.... Praying before games with my teammates, well before the anthem, is being used for your propaganda?! Just sad, I feel like you guys should have to be better than this."

In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post, Judd Legum was sharply critical:

“Innocent mistake? Possible, but unlikely. Fox News commentators have been railing against NFL protest kneelers for some time. ‘And you have to ask, what are we kneeling for at this point?’ said host Pete Hegseth last September. ‘Because you talk about social injustice. This is the least sexist, least racist, most free, most equal, most prosperous country in the history of humankind.’ Tucker Carlson: ‘They’re attacking the flag and the country, and I’m just telling you that when the richest people in a society decide the country they are supposed to be running is corrupt, it falls apart’ Sean Hannity: ‘Patriotism under fire’.”

Eventually, Christopher Wallace, the executive producer of "Fox News at Night with Shannon Bream," issued this apology:

"During our report about President Trump canceling the Philadelphia Eagles' trip to the White House to celebrate their Super Bowl win, we showed unrelated footage of players kneeling in prayer. To clarify, no members of the team knelt in protest during the national anthem throughout regular or postseason last year. We apologize for the error."

The pictures were deceptive. 

But there is a deeper issue here.

The complaint is that Fox News misrepresented prayer as protest.

But at the deepest level Fox (unintentionally) got it right: prayer is protest.

Karl Barth liked to say that, “To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.” ("Hände falten im Gebet ist der Anfang des Aufstandes gegen die Unordnung der Welt!")

Prayer is a rebellion against violence and injustice. Jesus instructed his disciples that when we place ourselves before God our first petition should be for the coming of God’s kingdom of social and economic justice, peace and non-violence.

Even the simplest prayers at meals or at bed-time point toward a different reality than the one we normally encounter. We ask forgiveness for the wrongs we have done and we protest our own failings. Our protest in those moments is introspective, but it is real.

If prayer is not protest, it is not authentic prayer.

It is important to be clear with regard to the NFL players. Fox has consistently misrepresented the issue. No one is protesting the National Anthem. They have been protesting racial injustice and police brutality, which disproportionately impacts people of color. 

When Henry David Thoreau was in Concord prison for his refusal to pay the poll tax as a protest against slavery and the Mexican-American war, legend has it that Ralph Waldo Emerson asked him, “What are you doing in here?” And Thoreau responded, “Waldo, what are you doing out there?”

The exchange is apocryphal, but the question is true.

If we are at all familiar with the issue of racial injustice in America, the question is not, “Why are some of the players kneeling?” The question is, “Why isn’t everyone kneeling?”

As Christians, we should be kneeling in prayer and in protest.

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

If the Church Were More Like Starbucks

When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 19:33-34

After Starbucks announced plans for anti-racism and diversity training for all of their workers, one of the protestors held up a sign saying, “Too Little, Too Latte”

(Full disclosure: I am drinking Starbucks Coffee as I write this and I have been through more anti-racism workshops than I can count. I have actually been to the Rittenhouse Square Starbucks in Philadelphia where the incident took place.)

And lest anyone misunderstand, I do not think for a nano-second that Starbucks is any more racist than the rest of us. But that’s the problem, isn’t it?

Unless you have been subject to a news blackout for the past few days, you know the story. Two young black business men, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, were waiting for a colleague to arrive for a business meeting. 

Mr. Nelson asked to use the Rest Room and was told that it was for paying customers only and since he had not yet purchased anything he could not use it. 

No problem. He sat down with his friend and business partner to wait for their colleague to arrive.

Errin Haines Whack, AP National Writer, describes what happened next.

“A few minutes later, they hardly noticed when the police walked into the coffee shop — until officers started walking in their direction.
“’That's when we knew she called the police on us," Nelson told The Associated Press in the men's first interview since video of their April 12 arrests went viral.
“. . . Robinson said he thought about his loved ones and how the afternoon had taken such a turn as he was taken to jail. Nelson wondered if he'd make it home alive.”

A white customer recorded the incident on a cell phone and then posted the video

As outrage spread across the internet, the two men spent hours in a jail cell with no outside contact and no idea what would happen next, unaware of the storm generated by the incident on social media. They were released after midnight when District Attorney Larry Krasner declined to prosecute them for trespassing.

Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson has met with the two men to apologize and hear their concerns. Johnson has also announced that 8,000 stores will be closed on the afternoon of May 29 so that 175,000 Starbucks employees can attend workshops on racism and diversity.

Some sociologists have expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of anti-racism and diversity training in curbing the implicit bias that white people have toward people of color.

They point out that the training may backfire as white employees may feel that it puts them down by elevating the status of minorities. And they note that sense of white victimhood was a factor in the last presidential election.

I don’t doubt that the skeptical sociologists know the data in ways that I do not. And I agree that real progress requires a lot more than a few hours at a seminar. But I believe this is a very good first step.

First, because it is big. And it’s very public. Without making any excuses, Starbucks is saying that they have to do better. 

And second, they are sending the clear message to their employees that racism and racial profiling are unacceptable.

Of course it’s also good publicity and it’s about brand preservation. Self-interest is always a motivating factor. (Thank you, Reinhold Niebuhr.) But that doesn’t diminish its value.

And it makes an important statement to the culture beyond Starbucks.

Thinking about the Starbucks response led me to thinking about the United Methodist Church. What if the church were more like Starbucks? 

Of course we still have lots of work to do on racism. We are Americans, after all. 

But I found myself thinking about our continued discrimination against our LGBTQ siblings.

We don’t have a CEO, but would it not be amazing (as in grace) if our Bishops and District Superintendents went to high schools and spoke to the local Gay-Straight Alliance (or other appropriate group) and apologized for the harm we have done—and for the harm done by other “Christians?”

What if we took an afternoon, or a Sunday morning, and dedicated that time to learning how to be better neighbors? Maybe we could learn to stop talking about the “homosexual lifestyle,” for starters. Maybe we could work to make sure that our LGBTQ siblings never feel like they are going to be “charged with trespassing” when they come to church.

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

"Like a Flag Flown at Half-Mast to Mark a Tragedy"

Eric Reid and Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the National Anthem last season

He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.
Philippians 2:7-10

In a Tuesday morning tweet, theologian Diana Butler Bass wrote:

Preaching on Sun & just checked assigned lectionary text:  "At the name of Jesus, every knee should bend."

I kid you not.

Apparently even the Apostle Paul has something to say about NFL players “taking a knee during the National Anthem on Sunday.

The protest began in the 2016 preseason when Eric Reid and Colin Kaepernick chose to sit on the bench rather than stand during the national anthem to protest racial injustice and police brutality. A week later they decided that they should kneel rather than sit in order to make clear that their protest was meant to be respectful of the anthem and the flag.

In an op-ed piece in the New York Times, Reid writes:

“After hours of careful consideration, and even a visit from Nate Boyer, a retired Green Beret and former NFL player, we came to the conclusion that we should kneel, rather than sit, the next day during the anthem as a peaceful protest. We chose to kneel because it’s a respectful gesture. I remember thinking our posture was like a flag flown at half-mast to mark a tragedy.”

Like a flag flown at half-mast to mark a tragedy. 

Hardly a sign of disrespect.

“It baffles me that our protest is still being misconstrued as disrespectful to the country, flag, and military personnel,” Reid wrote. “We chose it because it’s exactly the opposite. It has always been my understanding that the brave men and women who fought and died for our country did so to ensure that we could live in a fair and free society, which includes the right to speak out in protest.”

Other players around the league joined Reid and Kaepernick in their silent protest, but it did not gain widespread attention until the President put it front and center in a speech on behalf of Senator Luther Strange in Huntsville, Alabama. He asked the crowd if they would “love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, he’s fired’?”

He also called for fans to boycott the league until the protest was stopped.

Which resulted in many more players choosing to take a knee during the anthem, and many of Mr. Trump’s fans reacting with anger toward the players.

We might pause for a minute to think about the language Mr. Trump used. The Nazis and White Supremacists in Charlottesville were carefully described with the generalization that there were good people on both sides. But (mostly) black football players taking part in a peaceful protest are called “sons of bitches.”

When the “Black Lives Matter” protests began, a major part of the criticism was that the protests were not sufficiently peaceful. But it is hard to think of anything more peaceful than kneeling.

In his “Minority of One” column in the Chicago Tribune, Steve Chapman writes:

“. . . if you don’t like how Black Lives Matter pursues its agenda, you should welcome the NFL players’ approach. It’s silent; it’s not disruptive; and it’s entirely nonviolent. It doesn’t block traffic, occupy police or frighten bystanders. . . That the display evokes so much fury and disgust among whites, from the president on down, confirms what was evident 50 years ago. The problem is not how blacks raise their complaints about American society; it’s that they raise them.”

  

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

The President's Rally in Phoenix

When it was evening, he sat at table with the twelve disciples; and as they were eating, he said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” And they were very sorrowful, and began to say to him one after another, “Is it I, Lord?”
Matthew 26:20-22

Is it I, Lord?

There are many strange scenes in the Bible, but this is one of the strangest.

We commonly call this “The Last Supper.” Jesus is celebrating Passover with his disciples. And he tells them he knows that one of them will betray him. Immediately they begin, one by one, to ask him, “Is it me? Am I the one who will betray you?”

Christians have wondered for two millennia how all of them could be asking that question. How could they not know the answer?

I thought of this scene as I contemplated the President’s rally in Phoenix.

There is an almost (or more than almost) messianic quality to the loyalty and praise he receives from some of his followers. Many believe that he has sacrificed his life to serve the country. They see the Trump White House as a forerunner of the Kingdom of God.

Where Christians might believe that “if Jesus said it, then it must be true,” in a similar way many of Trump’s supporter believe that if Donald Trump said it, then it must be true. So when he says that the television cameras have been turned off, they believe him even if they can see that the cameras are still on. 

And he does seem to believe that he is the Messiah.

But in this case I was not thinking about similarities. I was thinking about a profound difference.

David Smith wrote an article for The Guardian, reporting on interviews he had with Trump supporters at the Phoenix rally. He interviewed nine people, so it hardly qualifies as a scientific study, but the results are interesting.

Most of it was very predictable. They voted for him because he is not a politician, because he is not afraid to say what he thinks, because he will shake things up in Washington, and, amazingly, because they trust him.

One woman voted for him because she “didn’t want someone being investigated by the FBI sitting in our president’s seat.” She did not seem aware of the irony in her statement.

They were asked whether or not they thought that Mr. Trump was a racist. Not surprisingly, they all said no. They did not think he was a racist. In fact, they were certain he was not a racist. 

They knew this because each of them said in one way or another, “he believes what I believe.”

There is logic to it:

“I am not a racist. Mr. Trump believes what I believe. Therefore, Mr. Trump is not a racist.”

When Christians discuss that interchange at the Last Supper, they often marvel that the disciples would have so little self-knowledge that each would think himself capable of betraying Jesus.

But I think that misses the point. The Disciples doubt themselves precisely because they know themselves all too well. They know their own weakness and moral frailty. And they know the darkness that can cloud the human heart.

When we look back on the great moral divides in human history we often feel certain that if we had lived in that time and faced those issues we would have been on the right side. We would have stood with Jesus against the violence of the empire. We would have sided with the abolitionists. We would have been against child labor. We would have supported women’s suffrage. We would have marched for civil rights. 

And if we had lived in Germany in the 1930’s we would have resisted the Nazis.

In other words, we are certain of our own goodness. 

The Trump loyalists in Arizona were not asking, “Is it I, Lord?” 

“Am I a racist?”

A year and a half ago, before the Iowa caucuses, Donald Trump was interviewed about the surprising revelation that he was actually a Christian and that he went to church. Frank Luntz asked him if he had ever asked God for forgiveness and he basically said, no.

Of course not. 

A real Trump supporter would know that’s a pretty silly question.

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

Trump Tweets, Confederate Statues, and Our Three Cats

When Moses saw that the people were running wild (for Aaron had let them run wild, to the derision of their enemies), then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me!”
Exodus 32:25-26

Once upon a time in our family we had three cats.

Their given names were Duster, Longfellow, and Wamba.

Their nicknames were General Lee, General Longstreet, and the Gray Ghost, Colonel John Mosby. Since they were gray there was some logic to naming them after Confederate officers. Duster, always looked dignified with his long gray fur and a beautiful white patch from his chin down his chest that reminded us of Lee’s beard. Wamba was fast and elusive and somewhat of a guerrilla fighter, so Gray Ghost seemed to fit. And Longy had to be Longstreet.

The nicknames came into being when we were reading “The Killer Angels,” Michael Shaara’s brilliant historical novel about the Battle of Gettysburg.

We were reading the book because of an interest in Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who left his position as a professor of Rhetoric and Revealed Religion at Bowdoin College to volunteer for the Union Army. At Gettysburg he led the Twentieth Maine Volunteers to hold the extreme left flank of the Union line against repeated Confederate assaults. Chamberlain’s leadership saved the day, and the battle, and possibly the war itself.

Chamberlain was our hero, but General James Longstreet was the most sympathetic character. Shaara portrays him as a pensive and deeply devout man, shaken by the loss of three children who died in rapid succession in an epidemic of scarlet fever in 1862. He was also a brilliant general who tried in vain to dissuade Lee from ordering Pickett’s disastrous charge.

The nicknames took hold without any conscious decision on our part. They were gray guys and of course they were Confederates.

But when I think about it, it is odd that we did not think it odd at the time.

We were the unlikeliest people to indulge in southern nostalgia.

Elaine and I are Yankees. I am named after my great-great-grandfather, William Crowell Gibbs, who was a Lieutenant Commander in the Union Navy, served under Admiral David Farragut and lost an eye in the Battle of Mobile Bay. And Elaine’s great-grandfather, who was not old enough to fight in the Civil War, was part of reconstruction. He went south after the war to teach former slaves on Wadmalaw Island in South Carolina.

We grew up on Civil Rights. We know about systemic racism. We understand white privilege. And anyone who reads this blog knows that racism has been a frequent topic.

But still.

We named our cats after Confederate war heroes.

Which goes to show how deeply the romanticism of the Civil War is embedded in our national psyche.

I was meditating on all of this as I considered the matter of Confederate Statuary. When the President called the statues part of our culture and history, he was only partly wrong. His advocacy against removal of the monuments was wrong and insensitive. But he was right in his observation. Unfortunately, the statues are part of our history and they remain part of our culture. The myth of the “Lost Cause” which says that the Civil War was not really about slavery, is alive and well. We may be against racism, but we still love “Gone with the Wind.”

But there’s more to our family story

In our little gray trinity, I was surprised to learn that both Longstreet and Mosby became Republicans after the war. They actively supported the reunited Union and each served in the government.

Longstreet’s work after the war was particularly significant. He moved to New Orleans where he played a key role in government and civilian endeavors.

His biography in “The Civil War Trust” views his post war years through a hazy mist of Civil War romanticism:

“In 1867, the New Orleans Times asked several leading citizens to comment on the newly passed Reconstruction Acts. Unwisely, Longstreet suggested that Southerners support the Republicans. . . He supported Grant for president, and when elected, Grant nominated Longstreet to be the Surveyor of Customs for the Port of New Orleans. For this last betrayal of the South he was labeled a ‘scalawag.’”

Longstreet became the target of “Lost Cause” advocates such as Jubal Early, William Pendleton, and Rev. J. William Jones among others. They were so outraged by his support for black suffrage and his willingness to command a biracial force against an uprising of white supremacists that they tried to smear his war record and blamed him for the Southern defeat at Gettysburg.

One of the monuments that the city of New Orleans now proposes to remove is dedicated to the white supremacists that General Longstreet put down in 1874 with an African American militia. It would be fitting to replace that monument with one that honors Longstreet, not for his Civil War exploits, though they were extensive, but for the service he rendered to his country after the war.

Mr. Trump is right that the Confederate statues are part of our history and culture. But we need to reclaim that history from the romantic imagery of the Lost Cause and recognize it for the evil that it was.

William Faulkner wrote, “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.”

In this case, it is long past time to let go of the past. We cannot and should not forget it. But we should stop celebrating it.

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

Nevertheless, She Persisted.

This 1906 Cartoon depicts the Senate as a more fearsome place than it is today.

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. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.
Galatians 3:28-29

Nevertheless.

She persisted.

This should not be a partisan issue.

The United States Senate has done something that they ought not to have done.

They have confirmed Jeff Sessions as Attorney General of the United States, which means they have placed a man with a public record of racism in charge of overseeing the Civil Rights laws that are supposed to protect our citizens against racial discrimination. And they have placed a man opposed to the equal treatment of our LGBTQ citizens in charge of protecting those citizens.

Along the way they silenced Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren using an obscure Senate regulation  called “Rule Nineteen,” which dictates polite discourse in Senate debates and states in its second section:

“No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.”

Her sin was in reading a letter from Coretta Scott King written in opposition to the appointment of Sessions to a Federal judgeship after he was nominated by President Reagan. In her letter she detailed how Sessions had worked against Civil Rights and had used the Voting Rights Act to harass civil rights workers who were trying to help African Americans to vote by absentee ballot.

He used an act designed to prevent voter suppression in order to suppress voters.

Sessions was defeated for the judgeship, but he was elected to the senate a few years later. And as a senator he has continued to oppose Civil Rights for African Americans as well as for LGBTQ persons. 

Curiously, after voting to use Rule Nineteen to silence Senator Warren, no one objected a day later when several of her male colleagues read the full text of the letter into the Congressional Record.

In an article published in TheAtlantic.com, Russell Berman reviewed the genesis of Rule Nineteen:

“In February 1902, the Senate was debating a treaty to annex the Philippines when Senator Benjamin ‘Pitchfork Ben’ Tillman became infuriated that his fellow South Carolina Democrat and onetime close friend, John McLaurin, had switched his position to join Republicans in supporting the accord. McLaurin, Tillman raged, had succumbed to ‘improper influences’; Republicans had showered him with perks and privileges, Tillman charged, and he had caved in return.

“A former South Carolina governor whose statue still stands on the statehouse grounds, Tillman has drawn more recent attention for being a white supremacist who advocated until his death the lynching of black people who tried to vote. Back then, he was known for his outspokenness and his ‘less than courteous’ manner of debating in the Senate. Alerted to Pitchfork Ben’s comments, an incensed McLaurin ‘dashed into the Senate chamber and denounced Tillman's statement as “a willful, malicious, and deliberate lie,’” according to a Senate history of the incident. Tillman responded by physically attacking McLaurin ‘with a series of stinging blows,’ the historians wrote, and efforts to separate the brawling Southerners ‘resulted in misdirected punches landing on other members.’”

The problem is not that Attorney General Sessions engaged in racist acts thirty years ago. The problem is that he has not apologized, nor has he clearly stated a present understanding that what he did then was wrong. But it does not end there. He has continued to oppose Civil Rights from that time until now.

The unintentional connection to “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman through the invocation of Rule XIX is worth a closer look.

In an article published in the Washington Post, Sarah Larimer cites an Associated Press report that up until his death in 1918, Tillman was an unapologetic defender of his “post-Reconstruction tactics to restore white rule in the then-majority-black state by killing any black who tried to vote.”

“The purpose of our visit was to strike terror,” he said in the Senate in 1900 about the so-called Hamburg Massacre of 1876, where his militia killed black Republicans. “And the next morning when the Negroes who had fled to the swamp returned to the town the ghastly sight which met their gaze of seven dead Negroes lying stark and stiff certainly had its effect.”

So a rule first voted into effect to civilize the behavior of a man who once practiced the most extreme form of voter suppression was used to suppress the witness of Coretta Scott King  and silence the dissent of Elizabeth Warren. And this was done in order to support the nomination of a man who continues to oppose the civil rights of minorities.

Nevertheless.

She persisted.

Sometimes it feels like we have gone through the looking glass.




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

Racism in the Age of Obama

President Obama Addresses the Memorial Service in Dallas

Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.
I John 3:18

Yesterday morning President Obama spoke at the Dallas Memorial Service for the five police officers killed last week. If you missed the speech, you can watch the whole service here. In his remarks, he cited the verse above and lamented the fact that words, his own words, spoken at so many different occasions of national grief, were not enough.

In a New York Times column this morning, Frank Bruni asks the question, “Has Barack Obama Hurt Race Relations?”

There are people who believe that he has.

More specifically, there are white people who think he has.

They blame him for pointing out the stupidity of arresting Professor Henry Louis Gates at his Cambridge home. They blame him for the observation that if he had a son, that young man would look like Trayvon Martin. And they blame him for talking about the issue of police shootings of black men at the memorial service for five slain police officers. 

His memorial reflection focused first and foremost on the sacrifice of the slain police officers and he applauded the Dallas police force for their role in saving lives when the shooting started, but for his detractors that did not loom as large as his statement that racism is still a problem in America.

A Pew Research study released this spring shows that blacks and whites have very different views of the state of race relations in America. Only 36% of whites believe that racial discrimination is a problem. Among blacks that number is almost double, at 70%. The disparity is not surprising. The people who actually experience racism think it is a bigger problem than the people who only observe it, or perhaps even inflict it.

But it must come as a surprise to many social scientists that both numbers are not higher, since we have reliable research showing that racial discrimination is a problem, even for people who are trying their best to overcome it.

We (white people) are in deep denial on this issue.

Our collective view seems to be that since there are laws against discrimination and we do not personally see ourselves as racists, there is no longer a problem. At least there should no longer be a problem. 

And we have gone even further. Now we label as racist the person who points out the racism. Activists are called race hustlers. Civil rights is called the grievance industry. 

The critics of the President’s view, that though we have come a long way we still have a long way to go, are seemingly unaware that their unrelenting attacks on his views provide incontrovertible evidence that he is correct.

And the racist abuse directed at President Obama is beyond our ability to quantify it. As I was writing this I went looking for examples, but there are too many. Typically the main article is written with subtle racism and then the comments overflow with raw sewage. 

We should be beyond this, but we are not, and we are not about to blame ourselves. We are angry that the black guy in the White House keeps reminding us.

President Carter: Naming the Demon of Racism

President Carter announcing his cancer diagnosis.

Then the whole town came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him they begged him to leave their neighborhood.
Matthew 8:34

I said they refused Jesus, too, and he said, “You’re not him.”
Bob Dylan

They asked Jesus to leave because he had been casting out demons.

The Gospel stories of demons and demon possession are hard for us to understand. The pre-scientific world view of the first century is in many ways very different from our own. But the demon stories leave us with some enduring truths:

1. The demons recognize Jesus. They see the truth in him and they are afraid.
2. He names them and by this naming and identifying, he takes away their power.
3. People get nervous when demons are cast out.

This last point was apparent in the response to President Jimmy Carter’s remarks about racism and our first African American President.

Jimmy Carter has been on my mind a lot lately. He is 90 years old, so his death cannot really be a surprise. But when he announced, with typical grace and humility, that he has brain cancer, it brought me up short. I will miss him. I wish him a long but pain free good-bye. I do not want him to go quickly into that good night.

Whatever else one might say about Jimmy Carter, “Jimmah,” as Rosalynn always seems to pronounce it, he was our most self-consciously and consistently Christian president. More than any other president, he tried to put his Christian faith into practice in the White House. And that was always his problem. As a country we demand that our presidents profess their faith, but we are generally uncomfortable if they try to put it into practice.

Over the next few weeks I want to look back on some brief episodes in the long and good life of a man we have so often under-appreciated.

The first episode comes from the summer after President Obama took office when Carter was asked why he thought there was so much criticism of the President. Much to the chagrin of the White House, he said that although there were many legitimate policy issues to debate, he attributed the virulence of the reaction to racism.

Speaking from his experience growing up in the South, he correctly identified the demon of racism, which has possessed our country for so long, and he has been vilified for it. I remember watching a video of him being asked about this. Carter sat solemnly, his shoulders hunched and his posture bent by age, as the commentator talked about him “intimidating” and bullying those who disagree by calling some of it racism. Apart from the gentleness of his demeanor, it was hard to imagine this elderly man intimidating or bullying anyone. But when a person has the courage to name the demon, we say that he or she is “playing the race card.” The one who names the oppression is called the oppressor. That is our way of begging Jesus to leave our neighborhood.

Racism does not surprise me. What surprises me and troubles me, is the inability (or unwillingness) of people to call it what it is and cast it out.

The issue was in the news at the time of Carter’s interview because of an incident earlier that summer when Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested at his home in Cambridge, when a police officer thought he was a burglar. President Obama commented critically on the officer’s behavior and then invited both the officer and Professor Gates to join him for a conciliatory beer in the Rose Garden.

In an attempt to refute the charge of racism, the Providence Journal ran an editorial comparing Bob Dylan’s encounter with a police officer in Atlantic City with the Henry Louis Gates incident in Cambridge. If only Professor Gates had been as calm as Bob Dylan, said the editorial, there would never have been a problem. And except for a few small details, the circumstances are remarkably similar:

• Bob Dylan was trespassing on someone else’s property, while Professor Gates was in his own home.
• Dylan was wandering in the middle of the night and Gates was coming home in the middle of the day.
• Dylan was dressed like a street person and Gates was dressed like Henry Louis Gates.
• Gates showed his identification, and Dylan had no ID.
• They both got a ride in a police car. Gates was handcuffed, Dylan was not.
• Gates was taken to the police station to be booked. Dylan was taken to his hotel to see if someone could verify his identity.
• And in the Dylan case, the police officer apologized.

Other than those minor details, the cases were identical.

In an interview with Brian Williams, President Carter said, "I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African American.” Sadly, the issues of racism have intensified over the years since President Carter first had the courage to speak that painful truth.

President Carter named the demon and there were (and are) lots of people who want him to leave the neighborhood. He did not call it racism because he disagreed with the criticisms made by President Obama’s opponents. He was naming the demon. We need to have the courage to cast it out. Then we can get back to debating the issues.

Removing the Confederate Flag

Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death.
Matthew 10:21

The Civil War ended 150 years ago this April.

After 620,000 deaths, the war to end slavery was over. 

In his Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln was more theologian than politician. He suggested that the war had come to both North and South as divine judgment for the great offense of slavery. In the next to last paragraph, he delivered a confession of faith:

“If God wills, that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”

And then the famous conclusion:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

The Dead at Gettysburg

If you doubt that Abraham Lincoln was our greatest President and our greatest public theologian, go read the Second Inaugural. His address would be amazing for its grace and generosity of spirit even if you didn’t know that in the South, Lincoln was our most hated president. And in some parts of the country, he is still the most hated, although our first African American president may have him beaten in some areas.

Lincoln's solemn and sacred reflections are much more in keeping with the picture of the dead at Gettysburg than with with the romanticized picture above. And it is useful to remember that the second picture is real and the first is not. The Civil war was our deadliest and most brutal conflict. More Americans died in the Civil War than in any other war. It was not until the Vietnam War that the total combined deaths in all other wars was more than the number of deaths in the Civil War.

Sadly, the Civil War did not really end at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865. And it did not end on June 19, 1865 (Juneteenth) when Union Troops began liberating the slaves in Texas. In many ways, it is not yet over. 

The decision by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley to ask legislators to remove the Confederate Flag from the grounds of the State Capitol is important because it is one more step in ending that war and moving the country healing our racial divisions. One hopes that a movement in South Carolina will lead other states to follow suit. 

For many years after the Civil War, the use of the flag was limited to cemeteries and historic memorials. But that changed over time. Popularity of the flag soared after Dixiecrats used it as the emblem of their support for Jim Crow laws and segregation. Strom Thurmond used the flag in 1948. George Wallace raised the flag over the Alabama legislature in 1962.

The flag is important today because it has become a symbol of racial hatred. As South Carolina Republican state legislator Douglas Brannon candidly observed, "It's not just a symbol of hate, it's actually a symbol of pride in one's hatred."

Removing the flag will not end racism in America. But it is important. It is a step. It matters because symbols matter.

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?”