A Living Protest.
THIS IS A PICTURE OF MY INCREDIBLE DAUGHTER JULES AT A SPRING CLEANING DAY AT MOUNT ZION AME CHURCH, TAKEN BY MY INCREDIBLE WIFE ASHLEY. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!
-Our church has been fostering a relationship with Mount Zion since October 2017, and it has led to some of the best contemplation, ministry, and conversations I have experienced.
"To those who need profound succor and strength to enable them to live in the present with dignity and creativity, Christianity often has been sterile and of little avail. The conventional Christian word is muffled, confused, and vague. Too often the price exacted by society for security and respectability is that the Christian movement in its formal expression must be on the side of the strong against the weak. This is a matter of tremendous significance, for it reveals to what extent a religion that was born of a people acquainted with persecution and suffering has become the cornerstone of a civilization of nations whose very position in modern life has too often been secured by a ruthless use of power applied to weak and defenseless peoples."
-Howard Thurman (1976)
I didn't make it past PAGE TWO of Jesus and the Disinherited without having to pump the brakes and stare at the wall in contemplation.
Everything about God's forming of Israel and Jesus announcing the kingdom of God and the acts of the early church was subversive to the power of empire. This is the nature of Christianity. It is a significant portion of how we are instructed to relate to God in the scriptures.
IF Christianity, which was meant to subvert empire, becomes the foundation of empire (and this is admittedly a big "IF" for some), is it really Christianity anymore or has it been shaped into something else?
It is clearly something else.
"If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!"
(Jesus in Matthew 6:23, NRSV)
So what do we do? I am not fond of protests (although I love seeing the signs people make). I just don't necessarily think they are helpful in the long run. I understand why people do them. I understand their historical significance. I just don't see that as the path forward for my life and work.
I don't want to just be angry or point terrible things out on social media.
I am a pretty good cartoonist. But I don't want to use my ability to just make political cartoons.
I WANT TO BE A LIVING PROTEST.
If people have hijacked Christianity to be an instrument of empire, then I want my actions, my conversations, my influence on others, my relationships with others, my learning, my prayer life, and my talent to undermine that. I don't want to be angry about it. I want to live in such a way that I poke holes enough holes in the empire that it eventually sinks.
I don't believe there is a place for nationalism in Christianity.
I think that is actually a major part of the problem.
This is not a critique of American Christianity. It is about more than political divide. It is about more than the racial disparity between black and white folks. It is about more than war and military intervention. This has been happening to our faith since Constantine took the reigns in Rome. It wasn't a problem with Roman Catholicism that was solved when the Protestant Reformation came about. It has been present and will continue to be present.
This is a problem with humans and how they relate to God and to one another. Christianity should never be a religious institution that subjects its will on others. This is not part of the authority of the church. We are not a people called to inflict suffering. We are a people called to suffer with the suffering. This is where the love of Jesus is found. We are not called to cast people aside or trample over people. We are called to stand with the outcast and the trampled upon. This is where the love of Jesus is found. A Gospel full of scripture quotes and theological discourse about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus that does not move its followers to live this way, is weak, ineffective, and not worthy of devotion.
I was asked at Theology on Tap the other day about what makes a person good. For me it is all a matter of how someone treats others around them. How do they treat their family, friends, co-workers, strangers, enemies? This is the true revelation of our theology, our faith, and the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Someone's view of the afterlife does very little to tell me if we can agree enough theologically to work together. How does someone treat their neighbor, and who do they regard as a neighbor is everything for me.
There's grace in this, of course. We will get things wrong.
I am wrong all the time.
I don't need to save the world. I just need to help.
-joshua.