We are living in a day and age in which America is once again facing the age-old questions of innocence and transgression, especially within racial relations. Modern day America is troubled in spirit as we grasp for a response against those considered the transgressors, or how to defend (or perhaps, to identify) those considered innocent. The realities of transgression or innocence is being depersonalized and applied not only to individuals, but now to groups of people. As we do so, we are quickly resorting to an archaic form of scapegoating in which racial or identity-groups (among others) are to blame or to be cast as the innocent. It’s a strange form of ancient paganism, hovering above the floating values and teachings of the Christian doctrines of sin and innocence.
As a result, America is falling into a dangerous zone of tribalism. The very real American history of the grievous treatment of the black community in America is being surfaced in ways that should regretfully have happened a long time ago. From black Wall Street to the redlining segregation policies buried in the New Deal of FDR and much, much more, these events have been out of the American psyche and out of the public conscience, cast away in some sort of Nietzschean attempt to simply “forget” and move on without pausing to ask the hard questions of – how can we be honest about our American past, and how is our world today shaped by past events, and how can we actually grow and change and learn from it all? The inability to see American through the eyes of all people groups in America is still woefully out of our education and perspective. As New Testament scholar and author Dr. Esau McCaulley recently said (my paraphrase), “We were taught American history primarily through the perspective of stepping off the Mayflower. We were not taught to also view American history from the eyes of a slave, stepping on American soil from the ship of a slave trader.”
TS Eliot once said, “Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future.” Is the death of George Floyd somehow connected to ancient, and also not-so ancient, American history of racial struggles in America? And will the death of George Floyd reverberate into the American future? If Eliot is right, his death was not in a time-vacuum, or an event in complete isolation from the past, and it will impact the future. Events in the past directly or indirectly contributed to it.
Yet to step forward as a nation, we must consider our present response and how it will impact the future. The present response from all sides in this very public and politicized event is begging the question, “how is justice fairly applied to all Americans?” To apply justice requires the identification of those who are transgressors, and who are innocent. Yet here is where lines seemed to be blurred and placed on groups rather than individuals. Those who are minorities and have been, and are, being oppressed are quietly being cast into the party of the innocent, while other groups who have traditionally not been oppressed are quietly being cast as transgressors.
These modern forms of group-think and identity politics is beyond these perhaps overly simplified racial terms, however. Without any real clear direction to guide this complicated endeavor of identity politics, casting blame on whole groups of people, while casting claims of innocent on whole groups of others, rages on in other places as well. For example, Democrat versus Republican has become another umbrella in which these identity wars are fought as both sides continually make the case as to who is the transgressing party and the innocent one.
The reason why I am so fascinated with this conversation is the very clear Christian undertones behind it all. None of these current cultural wars would exist without the influence and presence of Christianity in our American society.
I, as much as anyone else, desired adequate justice against the injustice committed against George Floyd, against the over-reactive force often committed against black Americans where de-escalation tactics and other non-lethal force could be used. I fear, however, that the oversimplification committed by notions of identity politics and the resultant tribalism on both sides of this fence (yes, people who identify on the right are often just as guilty) is an upside-down effort from a noble desire to rid America of injustice. How do we cast out this sin-laden goat of injustice into the American wilderness and unto the hands of Azazel once and for all?
The major problem lies in the rejection of the Christian doctrine of original sin. “For there is no man who does not sin” (1 Kings 8:6). The stain of sin will never fully leave our American soil. Injustice will always be committed. Racism will always exist. People will sin against one another. It will continue, and it can never fully be purged from the human heart. Yet we've embraced the doctrine that sin is a reality even on a societal level, and must be punished.
Can justice ever be fully satisfied in our nation? As satisfying as it was to see justice done against Derek Chauvin, there still is left a hole of emotion as we consider the lifeless George Floyd. It still appears that the justice done is not quite fitting to the crime committed.
Here is where Christianity becomes the only real tangible answer to heal the heart, and also society: all human efforts of the administration of justice against one another will simply not be enough. It is almost as if we need a divine scapegoat, someone who was truly innocent, someone bigger than a human being who can somehow take on the sins of the world on their shoulders and provide an eternal payment for all injustice committed.
Step in the cross and the death of Christ. He has completed payment for all sin, and in a way, as humans suffer from sins of injustice and oppression on this earth, they share in the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 4:13). What hope of true satisfaction against transgression can we find on earth? How can we empathize with those who suffer? As we pursue the purest form of justice we possibly can on our American soil, what is lacking in our empathy, and also in our application of justice, can be found complete in the sufferings and death of Christ.
Also, the has been another historic Christian event that also can be considered a doctrine, only fully realized in a spiritual reality through the Holy Spirit, that has been forgotten in America: the resurrection. There is hope even for the worst of sinners, the bleakest and most evil and oppressive people on earth. For those who lie and cheat and steal, those who murder others, those who commit adultery and consider themselves as superior over and against others, for those who leverage their wealth and privilege against the under privileged in our society – there lies the real hope of transformation. Even for them, there lies hope of renewal, of growth and change. It is why we mourn when young men, and in a far too high number, young black men, receive life-long consequences for crimes committed in their youth. As crime must be punished, does our punitive justice system have a vision for the rehabilitation and growth of young men who do commit crime?
Do you see a foolish 19-year old boy as the 40-year old changed man he could be? The resurrection provides compassion even within our desire for justice. One cannot help but think of the prodigal son returning to his father's embrace after his own youthful fallout.
The doctrine of the resurrection in a common-grace application states that perhaps there is hope in growth for humans, that even though we are sinners our character and behavior and motivations and loves and values can grow and be changed overtime. This is the Christian term often called “discipleship” or the fancier term, “sanctification.” Love guides us to such conclusions, whereas hate can lead to our current problems.
As a pastor I believe that only in Christ can eternal consequences of sin be paid for, only in Christ can we actually experience a physical resurrection like he did in the day he returns, and only in Christ can today by faith and through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit can a heart be truly changed and made new. However, in a manner that theologians call “common grace,” I believe a society can share in the blessings of these Christian doctrines and teachings by in a lesser even outside of faith by loving our neighbor as yourself. We can do so by way by constantly dwelling in the tension of adequately applied justice against crime, efforts given to prevent and reverse injustice wherever it is found, to even help those who oppress or who are oppressed and expect that we can grow and change as people while we pursue the Christian vision of equality of men over and against tribes, gender, races and people groups. As a society, we must learn to treat one another equally, with love and grace, refusing to scapegoat entire people groups or fall into purely self-defense thinking or meet violence with violence.
As the Reverend and Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. so masterfully said, “I look forward to an America when people will be judged not by the color of their skin but the content of their character.”
In conclusion, the trial of Derek Chauvin and guilty verdict did not end or satisfy this conversation. The problems will continue. I pray that these Christian realities will surface once against in our relations with one another, as we seek to grow together as an American people, laboring together to make this country better for all of us, and not just some of us. I hope and pray that the American Church can find itself as an example of this, and can lead the way.