Skip to main content

George Floyd, Injustice, and the Church

My pastor wrote a letter to our congregation today seeking prayer for the family of George Floyd and the officer responsible for his death, among other requests, encouragement to guard against becoming jaded against the world we live in, and to help us be receptive to what we can do during this crisis. I wrote a short response in support of him, which follows.

"I was thinking this morning about our role in this as Christians. This is a moment when white, African American, and other Christians can together display the power of Christ and the gospel over racism: "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:38)

We are all servants of the same God, and all made in his image. To see you empathize with African Americans publicly is healing. I'm encouraged that, as Martin Luther King, Jr., said, we as a church can be like the early church: a thermostat and not a thermometer, that helped to end evils like infanticide and gladiator contests through its conviction of being "called to obey God rather than man." Alone, I am weak, but together with God's church, I'm part of his work to redeem his world, to help others know the freedom and hope we have in Christ; and so are you."

I once wasn't sure how to respond to Martin Luther King, Jr., because I had heard he supported communism, among other stances (I've since read that he, in fact, opposed communism because it is materialistic; its morality is relative and unfixed; and because it treats man as a part in the machine of the state--"a depersonalized cog in the turning wheel of the state;" see here). However, after reading his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," I see that he was a fellow believer and loved the church, despite its flaws and its failures in the face of racial injustice.

Anyone who knows me knows I am a quiet person. I try to stay apolitical because I hate conflict. However, I feel that the conflict in this world does not allow anyone to remain neutral for long. In the face of such conflict, racial or otherwise, I want others to see the church as God's instrument to bring them into the life offered to us in Christ Jesus. Regarding our Savior, the Jews were looking for a very political messiah that would end Roman oppression. Instead, they got a king who rules a different kind of kingdom, a spiritual kingdom whose heirs experience his forgiveness for sins, a peace, and a hope of eternity in which we will forever praise God because we will come to know his goodness.

We as a country are hurting, and while I believe I can't alone address that pain, I can be part of the solution by sharing the love of Christ with others and, yes, crying out against injustice in whatever form. Jesus did that with Pharisees who "strained out a gnat but swallowed a camel." He can use me to do the same. My voice, while quiet, can yet be heard as a voice of love and healing, as was the voice of Jesus. I know that it is only through him that I can do anything. In fact, far from being powerless, with Christ, "I can do all things." (Philippians 4:13)

 


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Nice Guy Fallacy

I read part of a poem recently by one of my favorite poets. It reads: I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods. I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time Unfetter'd by the sense of crime To whom a conscience never wakes. Nor what may call itself as bles't The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate'er befall I feel it, when I sorrow most 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. At base, Tennyson contrasted a life of risk, and consequent pain, with one of security. He sides conclusively with the life of risk, and says he fails to envy those who have faced no hardship. I agree with him; and, for good or ill, his words are just as relevant today as they were in the nineteenth century. Like then, there are those today who choose to live their lives with as little risk as...
2 comments
Read more

Experiment

My social studies students and I are studying Islam right now. The other day, we were reading about one of the Five Pillars, zakat (charity in Islam that means "that which purifies"). Muslims believe that giving away money helps to purify it and also "safeguards [them] against miserliness" (1). I asked the class if this was true, that giving money away makes us less greedy. They generally agreed that it does. I wanted to test whether or not they really believed this, so I handed a volunteer a $10 bill. I told the class that I would ask for the bill back the next day. I said that they should pass the bill around among their classmates, and that as a result, there would be no way for me to know who had the bill. For that reason, whoever wanted to keep the money could keep it. Even if I did learn who kept it, I told them, I would not punish that person. I wanted them to be motivated by their own honesty. The next day, I asked for the bill, and a student handed it to me...
Post a Comment
Read more

Persuasion

At different points in history, governments have devoted men, women, and resources to try to persuade others to their side. One significant example of this occurred in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Hitler knew how important it was to make sure the German people were on his side as leader of the country. One way he did this was by controlling what people heard. Specifically, near the beginning of World War II, Hitler made it a crime for anyone in Germany to listen to foreign radio broadcasts. These were called the “extraordinary radio measures.” He did this to ensure that Germans weren’t being persuaded by enemy countries to question their loyalty to Hitler. He knew that a German listening to a radio broadcast from Britain might persuade that German to believe that Great Britain was the good guy and Hitler the bad guy. This was so important, in fact, that two people in Germany were actually executed because they had either listened to or planned to listen to a foreign radio broadcast (one...
Post a Comment
Read more