I Stand with D.A.C.A., I Stand with Christ

He said to him, “ Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”
Matthew 22:37

Once again Christianity in America has failed to live up to my hopes and dreams. Or more acutely the white Evangelical conservatives in the south. I can only speak of the segment of the population that I am familiar with. I fully understand that what I hear online and on social media does not speak for Christianity as a whole. But the voices of those I hear far out weigh those who are speaking truth.

For most if not all of my life I have heard how America is this great “Christian” nation. Yet where is the love of Christ? Where is the grace of the Cross? The mercy of the Lord? The forgiveness of our Savior? The compassion of Jesus? The long suffering of God? The indwelling of the Holy Spirit? Where is the message of Christ going out to the world? Not here,not now. I have spent my entire life reading and listening to what God has and wants to do here on Earth. I can confidently say this is not it.

Playing a political game with the lives of 800,000 people is not ok. These young people came to this country as children and did not understand that they were breaking the law. Their parents willingly broke the law so that their families had the prospect of a better life. How can we hold that against these young people? Better yet how can the Christian justify this?

Far too many people I know have a split worldview. They would argue that this is not about the Bible, Christianity, or Jesus. They would say this is about politics and what’s best for America. I believe the Bible teaches us that the only worldview we can have as Christians is thru the lenses of the Bible. Every action, every policy we support or stand against, every part of our lives should be viewed thru the Bible.

We are to esteem others more highly than ourselves. We are to love our neighbor as ourself. To care for the widow and orphan. To welcome the alien in our land. To love those who hate us and would do us harm. We as Christ’s image bearers are to extend the love, mercy, and grace of our Savior to our neighbor, to the sojourner, to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

White Supremacists, BLM, & The Brokenness of Society

This world is clearly broken.

By this I mean the conservative Evangelical worldview that I was raised in. How did we come so far from the message of the Gospel? Do we even care? The message of love for the other falls on deaf ears. Instead I see all over social media hate intentionally and unintentionally being blasted at the other. Jesus came to redeem the unworthy, love the unlovable, and set creation back on a path that leads to God, a path of LOVE.

What does any of this have to do with Confederate statues, white supremacists, BLM? It has everything to do with all of them. When we fail to love the other, we fail to love like Jesus. White Supremacy at its core has no room for love of the other. The message aspouced by neo-nazis and the KKK runs in direct objection to the message of Jesus. The message of the Cross. The message of LOVE. The message of these groups has no place in Christianity. The message in pulpits across the country should be denouncing this demonic, evil, belief. God created man in His image, giving infinite value to each and everyone of us including the other. There is no Jew or Greek in the kingdom of God.

Confederate statues by themselves are not bad, they are not evil. However, a large portion of our population look at them and are reminded of the hate for their ancestors. They are reminded of the hate for their grandparents and parents during the Civil Rights movement and segregation a time when they were told they were not equal. They are reminded of slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow, separate but equal, even when we those things were not equal. They are reminded of systemic racism in this country going back to the days it was founded. When a large portion of our population look at this statues they see a hatred of the other. No one is trying to rewrite history. These people are keenly aware of the History of hate towards them and their ancestors, that is not a thing that is easily forgotten. They do not see love, they do not see Jesus, they do not see the Cross, they see hate when they look at these statues. Would not the loving Christian thing be to simply remove them?

I wish I could rewrite history so these people would have never suffered at the hands of my ancestors. Is that such a bad thing? For those who say, if we do not remember history we are doomed to repeat it, I have this to say to you. If racism, more specifically systemic racism was not allowed to exist in our Christian worldview there would be no fear of repeating the mistakes of the past. If we viewed the other with Christ like love this is not an issue. The only way this is an issue is if we continue to allow racism to exist in the world. So I say to every civil authority where under your control one of these statues stand, remove them. Is your attachment so great that you can not see how the other feels? Can you not see how removing them is the better way to show love, to show unity?

BLM? Where is the problem with this movement? I honestly do not see it. The people behind BLM are not saying that only black lives matter, they are saying black lives matter also. It is well established that from the foundation of this country that white lives matter. No one is saying blue lives do not matter or that all lives do not matter. What they are saying is that since the foundation of this country that seemingly black lives do not matter. Slavery taught them that, segregation taught them that, systemic racism taught them that, unarmed black men being shot by the police taught them that, your response to these things taught them that. The other in this country is hurting, feels unloved, feels unvalued, feels hate from the rest of us. Show them love, show them how you value them, show them that to you they matter. Stand with BLM, change how society views and treats them. In doing so you may finally show the other the radical love of Jesus you profess to know, profess to believe in.

Society is broken and it is our fault. When we profess this nation to be a Christian nation but show no love for the other, we so it in the face of God who sent Jesus to die for each and every one us. When we show no love for the other we proclaim to the world that the message of the Cross does not mean anything.