Russell D. Moore's Blog, page 3

Ferguson and the Quest for Racial Justice

The violent scenes from Ferguson, Missouri, are not what most Americans expected to see in 2014 America. The simmering tensions in this town, following the shooting of an unarmed teenager, ought to remind the Body of Christ of our responsibility to model reconciliation in Christ.

We don’t yet know everything about what’s happened, or is happening, in Ferguson, but here’s what we do know. Michael Brown was shot and killed by police Saturday. Protests in the wake of this horrible death have been met with a virtually militarized response from law enforcement in the area.

Moreover, we know that the the myth of a “post-racial” America is contradicted by a criminal justice system in which young African-American men are, by almost any measure, disproportionately more likely to be arrested, sentenced, or even killed when compared to white peers. It’s not just the situation in which there’s disparity, but also even in the perception of the problem. A Pew study showed that when asked the question “Do police treat blacks less fairly?” 37 percent of whites said yes while 70 percent of African-Americans said yes.

Whatever the particulars of the horrific situation in Ferguson, racial division is far from resolved in America.

As Christians, we ought to weep for the loss of life in this situation, and we ought to pray for peace in the streets of Ferguson and for justice to be done in this case. The mandate from God to the state in Romans 13 is to wield the sword with impartiality and with justice. As citizens, all of us ought to seek to ensure that this is the case, across the board.

We ought to be reminded though that in a racially divided world, the church of Jesus Christ ought not simply to advocate for racial reconciliation; we ought to embody it. We ought to speak to the structures of society about principles of morality and righteousness, but we also ought to model those principles in our congregations. The quest for racial reconciliation comes not just through proclamation but through demonstration.

That’s because racial and ethnic division and bigotry are not merely historical vestiges still existing in the United States, or in the often even more violent scenes we see elsewhere in the world. These divisions and hatred are older than America, and are rooted in a satanic deception that tells us we ought to idolize “the flesh.” The gospel doesn’t just call us individually to repentance, but also congregationalizes that reconciliation in local bodies of persons who may have nothing else in common but the image of God, repentance of sin, and the redemption found in Jesus Christ.

The church, the Apostle Paul said, is a sign of God’s manifold wisdom, to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Eph. 3:10). When God joined together in one church, those who are both Jewish and Gentile, he was doing more than negating the bad effects of ethnic strife. He was declaring spiritual warfare. When those who the world thinks should hate each other, instead love each other, the church is testifying that our identity is in Jesus Christ (Col. 3:11). We cannot be pulled apart from each other, because we are one body, and a body that is at war with itself is diseased.

If we start to see more churches so alive to the gospel that they are not segregated out as “white” or “black” or “Hispanic” or “Asian” or “white collar” or “blue collar,” we will start to reflect something of a kingdom of God made up of those from every tribe, tongue, nation, and language (Rev. 5:9). And as we know one another as brothers and sisters, we will start to speak up for one another, including in the public square.

Ferguson reminds us that American society has a long way to go in healing old hatreds. Our churches are not outposts of American society. Our churches are to be colonies of the kingdom of God. Let’s not just announce what unity and reconciliation ought to look like. Let’s also show it.

—–

Photo Credit

               
Comments[…] and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist ... by Faith groups and leaders respond to violence in FergusonDr. Moore, if you really want to witness in-your-face racism ... by EarlBy: BCNN2 » Blog Archive » Russell D. Moore: Michael Brown Shooting, Violence In Ferguson Should Remind Body of Christ to Show Unity and Reconciliation In Christ by BCNN2 » Blog Archive » Russell D. Moore: Michael Brown Shooting, Violence In Ferguson Should Remind Body of Christ to Show Unity and Reconciliation In ChristBy: Russell D. Moore: Michael Brown Shooting, Violence In Ferguson Should Remind Body of Christ to Show Unity and Reconciliation In Christ | BCNN1 - Black Christian News Network by Russell D. Moore: Michael Brown Shooting, Violence In Ferguson Should Remind Body of Christ to Show Unity and Reconciliation In Christ | BCNN1 - Black Christian News NetworkBy: Russell D. Moore: Michael Brown Shooting, Violence In Ferguson Should Remind Body of Christ to Show Unity and Reconciliation In Christ | BCNN1 WP by Russell D. Moore: Michael Brown Shooting, Violence In Ferguson Should Remind Body of Christ to Show Unity and Reconciliation In Christ | BCNN1 WPPlus 5 more...Related StoriesAnn Coulter and Our MissionN Is for Nazareth 

Ann Coulter and Our Mission

In recent days, Donald Trump and Ann Coulter have kicked up a lot of social media dust about the Christian missionaries being treated for Ebola. Trump essentially patted missionaries on the head, saying its great if you go overseas to do stuff, but you pay the consequences. Coulter was, per usual, even worse. She argued that American Christians shouldn’t even be going to Africa. “Can’t people serve Christ in America anymore?” she asked.

Many Christians were horrified because they rightly understood that Coulter’s comments are a repudiation of the gospel and the Great Commission. Many felt betrayed. We should not feel betrayed, any more than we would when Howard Stern mocks us on the radio. The same thing is at work.

Ann Coulter has not suddenly pivoted to saying some outrageous, shocking thing. She’s made a living at it. Donald Trump is not suddenly a boor. He’s been playing this role for years. It doesn’t bother me what Trump or Coulter think about missiology or the Great Commission.

What I do think we should care about is the larger phenomenon. As the church of Jesus Christ, we should be the last people to fall for hucksters and demagogues. After all, we have the Spirit of God, who gifts the church with discernment and wisdom. But too often we do. We receive celebrities simply because they say they are “conservative” without asking what they are conserving.

Too often, our culture identifies conviction with intensity of feeling. And intensity of feeling is marked by theatrical outrage and attention-getting vitriolic speech. We see this in the lost world and, sometimes, lamentably, within Christian culture too. “I can’t believe she said that!” has replaced “Thus saith the Lord.”

Additionally, we too often have adopted allies on the basis of their intensity of outrage rather than on their consistency with the gospel. If you are angry with the same people we are, you must be one of us. Jesus just never operated that way. The Pharisees were at odds with the Sadducees; Jesus angered them both. That’s because he didn’t define his mission as first of all anti-Pharisee or anti-Sadducee. His mission was the kingdom of God, that casts judgment on every rival reign.

Rage itself is no sign of conviction. The devil rages, and rages more and more because he knows his time is short (Rev. 12:12). Loudness is no sign of being “prophetic.” The prophets of Baal were frantic and hysterical but it’s because their god was absent and no fire would fall (1 Kings 18:26-29).

In the New Testament, Jesus and his disciples were often thought to be crazy. They were saying strange things. Bloody crosses and empty tombs and Jew/Gentile unity—it all sounded insane. But they weren’t actually crazy. Jesus is the most reasonable voice in the gospels, pointing out that his opponents’ arguments don’t make sense on their own terms (Mk. 3:22-27; 7:14-16).

In Agrippa’s court, Paul is considered mad, but it is because he believes in the resurrection of Jesus, not because he is acting crazed. Paul honors Agrippa and Felix, tells them that the work of Christ has “not been done in a corner” (Acts 26:24-27). He notes that he is speaking “true and rational words” (26:25). He doesn’t mind being seen as crazy, but he keeps the scandal where it ought to be: on the gospel, not on his antics.

The church is built on the rock foundation of apostles and prophets, not hucksters and outrage artists.

Ann Coulter’s and Donald Trump’s comments are none of my concern. The church is to hold accountable those who are on the inside, not those on the outside (1 Cor. 5:12). What is our concern is that we don’t fall into the same pattern as the culture around us, of seeking to be heard with shrillness and demagoguery rather than with the gospel. The kingdom of God, after all, is not a matter of talk but of power (1 Cor. 4:20).

—–

Image Credit: Gage Skidmore at CPAC 2012

              Related StoriesN Is for NazarethWhat is the Kingdom of God? 

Aborting in the Name of Jesus

It is one of the most disturbing articles I’ve ever read. The current issue of Esquire magazine profiles the “abortion ministry” of Willie Parker, a doctor who flies in and out of my home state of Mississippi to perform abortions at the state’s only abortion clinic. The word “ministry” isn’t incidental. Dr. Parker says he aborts unborn children because Jesus wants him to.

Parker, the article says, preached in Baptist churches as a young man, before going into medicine. He had, he says, a “come to Jesus” moment where he became convinced that he ought to do abortions. “The protesters say they’re opposed to abortion because they’re Christian,” he says. “It’s hard for them to accept that I do abortions because I’m a Christian.”

The profile portrays Dr. Parker as he prepares women for the abortions he is selling them. He tells them to ignore everything but their own consciences, and then, of course, he informs their consciences that abortion is morally acceptable. “If you are comfortable with your decision, ignore everything from everybody else.”

Apparently, he knows how to ignore everything else, including the conscience. The article quotes him talking a woman through an abortion by telling her that her unborn child is “very small.”

In the most chilling passage of the article, Parker has just aborted triplets, and is sorting through the aftermath. He then points out the body parts of a nine-week unborn child he has just aborted. “There’s the skull, what is going to be the fetal skull,” he says. “And there are the eye sockets.” Parker points out, “That’s an eye.”

The article states: “Floating near the top of the dish are two tiny arms with two tiny hands.”

Parker says that he is not disturbed by these body parts because he is “not deluded about what this whole process is.” It doesn’t disturb him, he says, it just tells him the woman’s uterus is empty, and she’s no longer pregnant. He doesn’t consider the “fetus” a person because the child is totally dependent” on the mother, and “that dependence puts it in the domain of her choice.”

Parker says his “come to Jesus” moment, persuading him of the “call” to abortion, happened when he heard a sermon by Martin Luther King Jr. on Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. By performing abortion, Parker sees himself as the Samaritan, caring for the beaten neighbor on the side of the road.

That would be true, of course, if the Samaritan in Jesus’ story had euthanized the neighbor, to put him out of his misery. Of course, he didn’t. Instead, the Samaritan took the neighbor on as his own kin, nursing him back to health and caring for him, a picture that looks a lot like what many of the pro-life churches and organizations Parker dismisses are, in fact, doing for women in crisis and their babies.

Ironically enough, the one left for dead on the side of the Jericho Road was also totally dependent. Without the embrace of love and the kindness of a passer-by, he was left for dead. He was hardly viable on his own. The priest and the Levite passed on, Dr. King preached rightly, probably because they were afraid. Fear paralyzed them from seeing the humanity of another. The road to Jericho was filled with “choice,” as person after person averted his eyes from the hurting human being in front of them. The one on the roadside was dependent, totally dependent, on one who saw life as better than death.

Dr. Parker could be that Good Samaritan. Instead, he looks into the sonogram screen and says, “And who is my neighbor?” (Lk. 10:29).

Let’s pray and work for an end to the injustice of abortion. Let’s pray and work for better solutions for women in crisis. But let’s pray for doctors like this as well.

There is no one living who is beyond the call to salvation, and there is no sin that cannot be overcome by the redeeming blood of Christ. Jesus confronted Saul of Tarsus on the way to commit violence, and turned him around, using him to carry the gospel to all of us. And the Lord can do the same now. The gospel can even save one who is so far gone that he believes he is aborting in Jesus’ name. That’s good news for all kinds of sinners. We can pray that this abortion doctor hears and receives that sort of mercy that transforms the direction and purpose of his life. We can pray for a “come to Jesus” moment that puts him on the right side of the Jericho Road.

            Related StoriesN Is for NazarethWhat is the Kingdom of God?El Camino a Jericó y La Crisis Fronteriza 

N Is for Nazareth

Christians around the world are changing their social media avatars to the arabic letter “n.” In so doing, these Christians are reminding others around them to pray, and to stand in solidarity with believers in Iraq who are being driven from their homes, and from their country, by Islamic militants. The Arabic letter comes from the mark the ISIS militants are placing on the homes of known Christians. “N” is for “Nazarene,” those who follow Jesus of Nazareth. Perhaps it’s a good time to reflect on why Nazareth matters, to all of us. The truth that our Lord is a Nazarene is a sign to us of both the rooted locality and the global solidarity of the church.

Jesus is from somewhere. Yes, the eternal Son of God transcends time and space. He was with the Father and the Spirit in love and glory “before the world was” (Jn. 17:5). But in his Incarnation, Jesus identified with a tribe, with a genealogy, with a hometown.

He “went and lived in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: ‘He shall be called a Nazarene” (Matt. 2:23). Some of Jesus’ contemporaries rejected him because of where he was from. Nathaniel infamously asked Philip, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (Jn. 1:46). His question is entirely sensible. Nazareth was a powerless backwater, not the sort of urban, elite center that we are told drives cultural change. Philip’s response wasn’t an argument about Nazareth; it was simply to say, “Come and see.”

For some, the issue wasn’t just Nazareth particularly but rootedness itself. “But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from” (Jn. 7:27). They were quite mistaken. It is “the Beast” who is from nowhere, “rising out of the sea” (Rev. 13:1), representing humanity in its origins-denying self-exaltation (Rev. 13:18). Our Lord Jesus, on the other hand, is from “the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations” (Isa. 9:1). We know where this man is from.

Nazareth, though, reminds us that God’s purposes are global, transcending our tribal and national categories. When Jesus preached in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth, he was received with joy and awe, until he told his fellow villagers that they really didn’t understand what he was saying. Jesus demonstrated that God’s purposes had always gone “outside the camp.” He showed how God had raised a Gentile woman’s son, and healed a Syrian leper. (Lk. 4:24-27). In Nazareth, Jesus was setting the stage for the Great Commission, as the Spirit drove the church to all of the nations (Acts 1).

God embedded us with a need to love home. When that’s absent what fills its place is pride and ingratitude, as though we came from no one and we are dependent upon no one. When a hurricane warning is issued for south Florida, I pay attention. But when one is issued for the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, my hometown, I’m riveted. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.

In Christ, we have been brought into the life of Jesus. We are hidden with him, joined to him as a body to a head (Col. 3: Eph. 5). This means that, in a very real sense, Nazareth is our hometown. We belong to Jesus, and Jesus belongs to Nazareth. We are connected then to everyone who is also in Christ, not simply because we believe the same things but because we belong to the same Body.

We are “one new man,” and “fellow citizens with the saints, and members of the household of God” (Eph. 2:15, 19). That’s why Christians in America and Australia and Nigeria ought to care, and to pray fervently, for persecuted Christians in Iraq, in Sudan, and everywhere else in the world where they are endangered.

The Islamic militants mean it for evil when they mark homes with “N” for “Nazarene.” They assume it’s an insult, an emblem of shame. Others once thought that of the cross. But in that intended slight, we are reminded of who we are, and why we belong to one another, across the barriers of space and time and language and nationality. We are Christians. We are citizens of the New Jerusalem. We are Nazarenes all.

The church may be hounded and jailed and even crucified. But the church can never be beheaded. The Head of the Church is alive, and engaged, and on his way back. In the meantime, there will always be those who will ask, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Our answer, from now until the Eastern skies explode should be simple: “Come and see.”

              Related StoriesWhat is the Kingdom of God?El Camino a Jericó y La Crisis FronterizaThe Road to Jericho and the Border Crisis 

What is the Kingdom of God?

Recently, I sat down with the team at Ministry Grid to talk about the kingdom of God. This is an issue that may feel distant or abstract to Christians in the United States, as we have no king ruling over our government. But the kingdom of God is the central defining theme of Scripture and the end toward which God is moving all of history. In this video below, I talk about the nature of God’s kingship, and why the kingdom of God has everything to do with how we live the Christian life.

              Related Stories2014 Students for Life of America National Conference: Dispelling the Five Myths PanelEl Camino a Jericó y La Crisis FronterizaThe Road to Jericho and the Border Crisis 

The Road to Jericho and the Border Crisis

America’s southern border is engulfed in a humanitarian crisis, as refugees fleeing violence in central America, many of them unaccompanied children, seek safety. As Christians, we must recognize both the complexity of this situation and what it means to be people of justice and mercy.

I say that the situation is complex because some Christians would like a simple fix. Some would, it seems, like to hear that some organized mission trips to the border would alleviate the crisis here. This ignores the depths of the problem.

There is good work caring for human need at the border, much of it by Christians, but until the United States government steps in to solve the presenting problem, the crisis will go on.

Some would suggest that the border crisis should make us more fearful of immigration and of immigrants. This shows us, they would say, that the border is porous and any reform of our immigration system would lead to more children in harm’s way.

But, as the New York Times pointed out, these children (and their mothers) fleeing from Central America is a very different problem from that of Mexican migrants seeking work and opportunity. The problem is more akin to the situations we’ve seen on the African continent, with warlords dealing in human trafficking. These children and families are fleeing a drug war exploding in violence all around them.

Moreover, it’s the incoherence of the immigration system that fuels the problem, thus empowering the cartels and the traffickers. Immigration reform isn’t about making immigration easier. It’s about making the system coherent, so that we know who is here lawfully, and who isn’t. That done, reform is to try to make a way for those here under our “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy to come out of the shadows and, where possible, make things right.

As Christians, we don’t have to agree on all the details of public policy to agree that our response ought to be, first, one of compassion for those penned up in detention centers on the border. These people are not seeking the overthrow of our government; they are, most of them, seeking the sort of freedom and opportunity they have heard is characteristic of the American project.

When responding to the vulnerable, our greatest obstacle isn’t the question of knowing what to do. Our greatest obstacle is fear. The Samaritan in Jesus’ parable (Lk. 10:27-37) has every reason to be afraid on the Road to Jericho. The presence of a beaten man tells him there are robbers around, potentially hiding in the caves around him. Fear, though, is cast out by love; love is not cast out by fear.

The Samaritan has no reason to claim accountability for this terrorized neighbor. He does so because he treats him, a stranger, as though he were kin. The lawyer questioning Jesus rightly sees this as showing mercy (Lk. 10:37). And Jesus says simply, “Go and do likewise.” That’s why Christians are at the border, ministering to people. And that’s why all of us should be praying for those in harm’s way on the border, and those trembling in fear in violence-torn Central American countries, as well as those exploited by traffickers and cartels.

The situation at the southern border is frightening indeed, for multiple reasons. Border security is important for the physical safety of any nation, and the care of those fleeing danger is important for the moral integrity of any people.

The gospel doesn’t fill in for us on the details on how we can simultaneously balance border security and respect for human life in this case. But the gospel does tell us that our instinct ought to be one of compassion toward those in need, not disgust or anger.

The border crisis will take careful work by government leaders. And it will take a church willing to pray and to love. Our answer to the border crisis cannot be quick and easy. But, for the people of God, our consciences must be informed by a kingdom more ancient and more permanent than the United States. Our response cannot be to say, in Spanish: “And who is my neighbor?” (Lk. 10:29).

Click here to access this article in Spanish.

Image credit.

              Related StoriesChristian Eschatology and The Planet of the ApesIndependence and The Empty TombShould a Church Display the American Flag? 

Christian Eschatology and The Planet of the Apes

As the film Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is being released in theaters today, I’m reminded of a few years ago when I launched a new semester of my Doctrine of the Last Things class with the showing of a clip from the original film, The Planet of the Apes.

The clip my students watched was in the closing moments of the 1968 film, as Charlton Heston is fleeing a civilization in which gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutangs rule over non-verbal, animal-like human beings. Up to this point, Heston’s character assumes he’s on another planet, one that has evolved differently from life on earth. The final scene though tells the shocking truth.

Heston sees the Statue of Liberty in ruins, up to her torso in mud and sand. It’s then that he realizes he hasn’t traveled through space, but through time. He sees the wreckage of a civilization lost.

Contrast the ending of the 1968 film with the ending of the 2001 remake. In a similar attempt at a twist climax, the protagonist (this time, Mark Wahlberg) escapes the ape planet in his space ship, crash-landing in Washington D.C., skipping across the mall past the Washington Monument and the Reflecting Pool, to land right in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

Like Heston, Wahlberg is horrified by a national monument gone awry. In his case, it’s the Lincoln Memorial—with Lincoln’s face a chimpanzee. Wahlberg learns to his terror he hasn’t escaped at all.

And then, of course, there’s another recent Planet of the Apes film, The Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), starring James Franco. In this version, the apes are genetically mutated by a well-meaning scientist seeking a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease. The hyper-intelligent apes escape, begin reproducing and lash back against their human perfecters. Again, the closing scene is meant to be chilling—the redwood trees of northern California filled with primates staring out over the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco Bay.

All three of these movies, I insisted to my students, are about the intersection of eschatology with contemporary fears.

In the 1968 version, the era is worried about nuclear holocaust, as the U.S. and the Soviet Union are engaged in a high-stakes Cold War. By the remake in 2001, society’s fears focus on the more imperceptible threats of domestic and international terrorism, and of the loss of society from within. The 2011 film focuses on the fear of a future in which our technological prowess and our good intentions turn on us.

All three present a dystopian future in which our worst apprehensions are realized. That’s an eschatology, and a dark one.

The same point could be made with virtually every film and art genre. In the background or in the foreground, there’s a purpose, a goal, that’s either hopeful or tragic. Even in the realm of romantic dramas, there’s either a utopian goal (the “happily ever after”) or a dystopian end (the tragedy of love lost). But, whatever the genre, we have to live in light of the future.

As I went around the room with my students, I asked what their home churches had taught about the ultimate things: heaven, hell, kingdom, and so on. Most of them said their churches were reluctant to say much at all, beyond generalities. Many of their churches, it seems, were fearful to talk much about eschatology to keep from indulging in those speculative end-times enthusiasts we’ve all encountered.

But eschatology and discipleship in the church is kind of like sex education in the home. Just because you don’t talk about sex with your kids doesn’t mean they will grow up ignorant of sex. It means they’ll hear about sex from somewhere else.

Just because you don’t preach and teach about the Christian vision of the future, that doesn’t mean your church is void of eschatology. It means your church is picking up an eschatology from somewhere else, sometimes from the local cineplex.

A Christian vision of the future proves the dystopian movies to be right, in some sense. There’s a fire being kindled somewhere, and not even the Statue of Liberty can withstand it. But, after that, there’s the kind of new creation that makes everything new.

Image credit. An adapted version of this article originally ran on February 2, 2012.

 

              Related StoriesIndependence and The Empty TombShould a Church Display the American Flag?Racial Justice and The Gospel 

Independence and The Empty Tomb

A few years ago, I stood at the grave of Thomas Jefferson, and wondered. I was in Charlottesville to speak at the university Mr. Jefferson founded, and made my way up to his homeplace Monticello. Standing at his grave, I was prompted to give thanks for his life and legacy.

After all, if it weren’t for Jefferson and his majestic Declaration of Independence, there might not even be a United States of America, and certainly not a country quite like it is now. If it weren’t for Jefferson (and the Baptists), would I have grown up in some cold, dead, state-established Anglican church instead of the vibrancy of a free church in a free state? And, of course, if President Jefferson hadn’t purchased the Louisiana Territory, I would have grown up some place other than America.

But, much more than that, standing at Jefferson’s grave prompted me to realize that Jefferson is, well, in a grave. The Enlightenment ideals that gave this brilliant thinker a right understanding of natural rights led him to idolize human cerebral capacity. Jefferson’s anti-supernaturalism is seen in visual form in his famous Bible, with the miraculous parts cut out, most significantly the bodily resurrection of Jesus. I love Jefferson for standing up against King George, but not for standing up against King Jesus.

And yet, two hundred years later, belief in the resurrection of Jesus persists. Just days after I was at this hero’s grave, Christians from all over the world, despite all this science and all this progress and all this technology, confessed what the earliest believers in the catacombs of Rome cried out: “Christ is risen indeed.”

Thomas Jefferson is still dead. I thank God for him, but standing at his grave reminds me how limited even his legacy can be in the grand scheme of trillions of years of cosmic time. It also reminds me of the contrast with a Middle Eastern day-laborer whose monument isn’t a house or a temple made with hands, or even a simple grave-marker. It’s instead a borrowed tomb that isn’t filled anymore.

That empty tomb is, itself, a declaration of independence. By raising Jesus from the dead, God declared him (and all who are in him) to be free from death, free from the curse, free from Satan’s accusation. I suppose you could say that Jesus was endowed by his Father with certain unalienable rights, among these life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness… except that these blessings don’t end in a graveyard.

—–

A version of this post originally ran on April 9, 2012.

              Related StoriesShould a Church Display the American Flag?Racial Justice and The GospelWhy Hobby Lobby Matters 

Should a Church Display the American Flag?

Every so often I hear of a pastor embroiled in some controversy over his removing the American flag from the church sanctuary. The most memorable incident to me was the pastor who simply secreted the flag away in the middle of a Saturday night, as though the flock wouldn’t notice the next morning. But by dawn’s early light, they saw the flag was not there. And that’s when the metaphorical bombs started bursting in air.

A few years ago, Christianity Today asked me to weigh in on this issue, in a Village Green conversation with Douglas Wilson and Lisa Velthouse. Wilson says “Don’t Do It” and Velthouse, a Marine Corps wife, thinks churches should enthusiastically display the Stars and Stripes. I say, “Yes, But.” You can read all three essays here at Christianity Today.

What do you think? If you’re for displaying an American flag, how do you keep from nationalizing the gospel? Does it suggest to, say, a Christian brother or sister from Dubai or Dublin that this worship service is an American event rather than a kingdom of God happening? For those of you who are opposed to American flags in church sanctuaries, do you think this is a proverbial hill on which to die?

—–

A version of this post originally ran on August 3, 2012.

               
CommentsAs a Presbyterian with many Old School tendencies, I'm a firm ... by Jason PilandI will be the odd man out and say I do not mind the American ... by DougAfter some weighty pondering I do believe I've come to the only ... by sean carlsonI am opposed. The United States is not a Christian nation. It ... by Chris“In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all ... by Fay ClarkPlus 5 more...Related StoriesRacial Justice and The GospelWhy Hobby Lobby Matters2014 Students for Life of America National Conference: Dispelling the Five Myths Panel 

Racial Justice and The Gospel

On this, the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, I am reminded of one of my favorite pictures, which sits on a shelf in my office. It’s a photograph of a line of civil rights workers—in the heat of the Jim Crow era. They’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder, each of them bearing a sign. The sign reads, simply: “I Am a Man.”

I love that picture because it sums up precisely the issue at that time, and at every time. The struggle for civil rights for African-Americans in this country wasn’t simply a “political” question. It wasn’t merely the question of, as Martin Luther King Jr. put it from before the Lincoln Memorial, the unfulfilled promises of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution (although it was nothing less than that). At its root, Jim Crow (and the spirit of Jim Crow, still alive and sinister) is about theology. It’s about the question of the “Godness” of God and the humanness of humanity.

White supremacy was, like all iniquity from the Garden insurrection on, cruelly cunning. Those with power were able to keep certain questions from being asked by keeping poor and working-class white people sure that they were superior to someone: to the descendants of the slaves around them. The idea of the special dignity of the white “race” gave something of a feeling of aristocracy to those who were otherwise far from privilege, while fueling the fallen human passions of wrath, jealousy, and pride.

In so doing, Jim Crow repeated the old strategies of the reptilian powers of the air: to convince human beings simultaneously and paradoxically that they are gods and animals. In the Garden, after all, the snake approached God’s image-bearer, directing her as though he had dominion over her (when it was, in fact, the other way around). He treated her as an animal, and she didn’t even see it. At the same time, the old dragon appealed to her to transcend the limits of her dignity. If she would reach for the forbidden, she would be “like God, knowing good and evil.” He suggested that she was more than a human; she was a goddess.

That’s why the words “I Am a Man” were more than a political slogan. They were a theological manifesto. Those bravely wearing those signs were declaring that they had decided not to believe the rhetoric used against them. They refused to believe the propaganda that they were a “lesser race,” or even just a different race. They refused to believe the propaganda (sometimes propped up by twisted Bible verses) that they and their ancestors were bestial, animal-like, unworthy of personhood.

The words affirmed the thing that frightened the racist establishment more than anything. Those behind the signs were indeed persons. They bore a dignity that could not be extinguished by custom or legislation. I am a man.

The words also implied a fiery rebuke. The white supremacists believed they could deny human dignity to those they deemed lesser. They had no right to do so. They believed themselves to be gods and not creatures, able to decree whatever they willed with no thought to natural rights, or to nature’s God. The signs pointed out that those who made unjust laws, and who unleashed the water-hoses and pit-bull dogs, were only human, and, as such, would face judgment.

The civil rights movement succeeded not simply because the arc of history bends toward justice but because, embedded in our common humanity, we know that Someone is bending it toward a Judgment Seat.

“I Am a Man,” the sign said, with all the dignity that truth carries with it. And, the sign implied, “You Are Just a Man.” If that’s so, then, as Odetta would sing, “God’s Gonna Cut You Down.” The truth there is deeper than the struggles of the last couple of centuries. It gets to the root problem of fallen human existence, and it’s the reason white supremacy was of the spirit of Antichrist.

Behind the horror of Jim Crow is the horror of satanized humanity, always kicking against its own creatureliness, always challenging the right of God to be God. However often this spirit emerges, with all its pride and brutality, the Word of God still stands: “You are but a man, and no god” (Ezek. 28:2).

The gospel that reconciles the sons of slaveholders with the sons of slaves is the same gospel that reconciled the sons of Amalek with the sons of Abraham. It is a gospel that reclaims the dignity of humanity and the lordship of God. It is a gospel that presents us with a brother who puts the lie to any claim to racial superiority as he takes on the glory and limits of our common humanity in Adam. Jim Crow is put to flight ultimately because Jesus Christ steps forward out of history and announces, with us, “I Am a Man.”

A version of this article originally ran on January 17, 2011.

              Related StoriesWhy Hobby Lobby Matters2014 Students for Life of America National Conference: Dispelling the Five Myths PanelWhat if Your Child is Gay?