None of us is above reproach and none of us is beyond redemption. That is a core truth of the Christian faith. And it is a truth that is undermined every time we execute someone.
Let us tell our children the truth about what happened this week at the Capitol: white supremacists and domestic terrorists, deceived and deluded and power hungry, attempted to violently overthrow the government. They faced very little opposition.
Presidential pardons of soldiers and US Government contractors guilty of war crimes, billions of dollars in benefits for the rich and powerful tucked away in the 5,000 + page Congressional Relief Bill, and Federal death row executions grieve me deeply, demonstrating the ongoing relevancy of the words of OT prophets: 'Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away . . . '
It is to this group of social outcasts that God chooses to make an announcement of astonishingly good news—good news in which God declares a true peace that subverts the ways of the Empire.
Yes, I am talking about white supremacy, but the kind comfortably ensconced in a leather chair smoking a cigar. I am talking about xenophobia, but the kind safely domesticated behind a white picket fence. I am talking about homophobia, the kind that scapegoats before an audience of well-dressed parishioners.
81% of White Evangelicals voted for Donald Trump to Make America Great Again. But it was not Christianity that got him elected. White American Folk Religion (WAFR) did. This ideology, not Christianity, is the oxygen burned in the spiritual fire of the United States.
Some individuals who have fled countries internally disrupted by bloody violence have warned that what they see taking place in the U.S. is troublingly similar to what they saw happening in their own countries. Warning lights are flashing
Whatever motivated the shouts and signals from so many vehicles, it became clear to me in that moment that even if I knew nothing else about Jesus, I would rather be with the people of peace gathered on that corner than with the angry masses calling for death.
Gun violence was a national health crisis long before COVID-19 hit us, is still a crisis amid the pandemic, and, unless we take action, will remain a crisis long after.