Category: Grace

You v. me v. everyone else

In law school, one of my first reading assignments in constitutional law was Federalist No. 10, in which James Madison tackled the problem of factions in a republic. [Among other things, Madison believed that a large republic was preferable to a small republic because that would increase the chances of electing competent representatives. To put it mildly, Americans are putting that belief to the test in 2016.]

But back to factions: Our society is full of them. We’re divided into factions based on race, religion, political party, views on hot-button issues of the day, nationality, ethnicity, or whether you should put salt on watermelon (no, you shouldn’t). You name it, and we can find a reason to divide over it. Or as Bob Wiley told Dr. Leo Marvin, “There are two types of people in this world: those who like Neil Diamond, and those who don’t. My ex-wife loves him.”

From what I can tell, a lot of factions arise from one group’s fear of those who are not like them – those who are “other”. The “others” then react negatively toward the first group, and things spiral from there. Fear is usually not a productive emotion, as any Jedi Master can tell you:

 Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

– Yoda, The Phantom Menace

Factions go way, way back in history. In Old Testament times, the Jewish worldview was largely “Us against everyone else” because God chose the Jews to be his people – no one else followed God. Even after Jesus Christ’s arrival and the subsequent spread of Christianity, Paul had to deal with factions that immediately sprang up in some of the new churches he was ministering to.

Back to the present: After yet another round of violence over the past few weeks seemed to divide many of us into pro- and anti-police camps, the New York Times ran this fascinating story on something called “intergroup threat theory”:

When members of one social group feel it is under threat from another group, researchers say, this can heighten cognitive biases that distort how that group is perceived. That risks deepening social divisions and even, in extreme cases, escalating isolated episodes into conflict between groups.

So when we hear about something bad happening to someone in “our” group, and it was done by someone in an “other” group, our biases – our blind spots, our prejudices – kick into overdrive. As if we weren’t flawed enough already as humans, our identification with a group can throw us completely off-kilter when fear creeps into the picture. Other groups respond in kind (usually), and things just get worse from there.

But beware of the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression … the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever it will dominate your destiny, consume you it will.

– Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back

How do we counter our instinct to embrace anger, fear, aggression? How do we avoid the dark side when there is so much darkness all around us?

This may come as a shock, but I don’t have much faith in our elected leaders to help us on this point (sorry, President Madison). As the Washington Post’s Michael Gerson pointed out in a column last week, Robert Kennedy is not walking through that door:

In fact, there are people on the left and right who benefit from encouraging just enough division, just enough fear, to motivate their supporters, without tipping them over into violence. They are playing with fire in a parched and withered land.

Our leaders play with fire, but unfortunately we’re the ones who get burned. It’s up to each of us to refuse to get sucked into the trap of viewing everything around us through a faction-based lens. We need to resist generalizations, knee-jerk reactions, and the “oh yeah?” responses. We need to remember that we’re Americans, “with a capital A” as John Winger said. David Brooks made the same point more eloquently in a column last week when he discussed other factions in our society, including the nationalists/particularists against the globalists/universalists. I found his concluding paragraphs very compelling:

The fact is that both mind-sets have their virtues. The particularists emphasize the intimate love and loyalty that is the stuff of real community. The universalists are moved by injustices anywhere, and morally repulsed by inaction and indifference in the face of that suffering.

The tragedy of this election is that America already solved this problem. Unlike France and China, we were founded as a universalist nation. You can be fiercely patriotic and relatively open because America was founded to take in people from around the globe and unite them around something new.

Unfortunately, the forces of multiculturalism destroyed that commitment to cultural union. That has led to Trump, who has upended universalistic American nationalism and replaced it with European blood and soil nationalism in a stars and stripes disguise.

The way out of this debate is not to go nationalist or globalist. It’s to return to American nationalism — espoused by people like Walt Whitman — which combines an inclusive definition of who is Our Own with a fervent commitment to assimilate and Take Care of them.

It’s up to us to do this. Jesus said, “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44) Pray for those who harm us and upset us. Pray for those we view as “other”. And yes, pray for our leaders to somehow help us through all of this.

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Postscript: This weekend, my wife and I took a drive through the central Virginia countryside, and I put on some music from my iPod. (Yes, I still have an iPod.) One of the songs was “We May Be The Ones” by Paul Westerberg. (Yes, I like Paul Westerberg. And the Replacements. So there.) The chorus goes, “We may well be the ones/to set this world on its ear/We may well be the ones/If nothing, why are we here?” Listening to that got me thinking – Jesus definitely set the world on its ear in his time here. Two thousand years later, if we love each other, and pray for each other, and pray to find ways to get past the factions that divide us, I think we could very well set the world on its ear one more time.

Seeking justice, finding forgiveness

“What are kingdoms without justice? They’re just gangs of bandits.” – St. Augustine, City of God

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” – Jesus on the cross, Luke 23:34 (NIV)

As I start this post, we are less than 48 hours removed from what is reportedly the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. There are so many things to say about so many aspects of what happened; I can’t possibly cover them adequately here. I will try to get to one cogent conclusion.

I hear and read a lot of outrage, full of points and counterpoints:

  • The media is ignoring how this was an anti-gay hate crime.
  • The media is ignoring how this was a terrorist attack.
  • This wouldn’t have happened if we had stricter gun laws.
  • Blaming guns for extremist acts makes no sense.
  • The president didn’t mention Islamist violence.
  • This has nothing to do with Islam.
  • Why didn’t the FBI stop this from happening?
  • We can’t arrest every gun owner who says alarming things.

I am upset. I am upset that in this episode and others, hate is winning.[1] The perpetrator hates something or someone and does something terrible to show it. Amidst our grieving, we start analyzing why this happened so that we can take reasonable actions to prevent it from happening again. We disagree on root causes, and we disagree on actions, and we may end up hating those who disagree with us.

I do my best to view it from all sides – to separate the valid concerns from the ridiculous. This is complicated, and it is no cop-out to acknowledge that.

It is a cop-out, however, to do nothing. But I am not a legislator. I am not a member of law enforcement. I am usually not an activist, either. My political worldview is largely colored by my desire to be left alone by the government and by other people, and that approach does not lend itself to agitating, no matter how worthy the cause.

So what am I supposed to do to make things better in the face of these hateful murders in Orlando? I read a Facebook post yesterday that touched on three things that anyone (including me) can do to improve things. It was targeted at hate/fear based on sexual orientation, but the underlying principles apply broadly:

  1. Whenever you hear anti-_____ speech that you know is wrong, tell the person to cut it out.
  2. Don’t tell someone that their view of an occurrence, or a person, or anything else is invalid just because you haven’t noticed what they’re describing to you.
  3. Love people for who they are.

No. 2 is a toughie for me if I’m not intentional about it. I have led a relatively privileged and comfortable existence, and I am in the traditional majority when you look at sex, race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation. I’ve never been harassed for anything more serious than some hick-ish tendencies, some of which manage to persist today (like pushing my baseball cap way back on my head – yeah, my wife loves that one).

Pretty harmless stuff – a comfortable life, all things considered. So when I read on Facebook where one of my gay friends says he still gets called “faggot” on a regular basis at a particular street intersection in his city … it makes me think. How many times have I missed casual, or even blatant, acts of hatred because I wasn’t paying attention?

Anyway, back to those three things. All of us can do them, and we should do them. I have one other thing to add to the list: “4. Forgive people, no matter how heinous their actions.”

That one isn’t easy for me, either. Often it is not something I can do in my own strength, and it can be helpful to consider examples of extraordinary efforts at forgiveness.

One last example, and it was a memorable one for me. At the first church service I attended after the September 11th attacks in the U.S., the pastor prayed – and one of the people he prayed for was Osama bin Laden. I understand why now, but it stunned me then. If we can forgive Nazis, Hutus, and Osama bin Laden, maybe we can forgive Omar Mateen.

I wanted justice in 2001 – and I want justice now – but that hardly makes me special. All of us want justice (at least we think we do), but the problem is agreeing on what that means. How do we mete out justice to the Islamic State? Or the Taliban? Or the oppressive regime in North Korea?

Clearly, we have earthly means of achieving justice, such as the rule of law and military force, but those means are imperfect (e.g., the infamous Stanford rape verdict). The only thing that is perfect in this area is God’s forgiveness, and the only way for us to come close to perfection is to try to show that forgiveness to others.

Yesterday the editor of Christianity Today posted these thoughts on the Orlando massacre. The two main takeaways are (1) prayer, and (2) love for our enemies. To put those together, we need to pray to ask God to give us the ability to love our enemies.

And that’s what I’m getting at here. Forgiveness is hard. We want justice, revenge, punishment, retribution, etc. And there is often a time and place for some of those things, but we can’t allow them to swallow up the need to forgive. Therefore, I will pray to God for the ability to forgive others as he forgives me (and as I would want to be forgiven by others).

I feel like my thoughts have been very disjointed in this post because there has been so much more running through my head, but I hope the previous sentence meets my stated goal of one cogent conclusion – at least for me, and hopefully for you, too.

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Postscript: Although he didn’t explicitly mention forgiveness, listen to what Muhammad Ali said about how he would like to be remembered. Or read it here:

I’d like for them to say he took a few cups of love. He took one tablespoon of patience, one tablespoon, teaspoon of generosity, one pint of kindness; he took one quart of laughter, one pinch of concern. And then, he mixed willingness with happiness, he added lots of faith and he stirred it up well. Then he spread it over a span of a life time and he served it to each and every deserving person he met.

[1] According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of hate groups in the United States increased 14% from 2014 to 2015.

Good enough for God?

My church runs an Upward basketball league for kids. I happen to play (sometimes well, sometimes not as well) on the church’s adult basketball team. In exchange for the church paying the entry fee for the adult team, said adults will referee some Upward games.

I was slated to ref the 4:30 and 5:30 games this past Saturday. Knowing this in advance, I had also signed up to do two halftime devotions for the crowd, which is a regular feature of the Upward ministry. I thought I was going to do them at halftime of the 3:30 game and the 4:30 game, so I was taking care of some yardwork until it was almost time to leave. Imagine my surprise to find a voicemail on my phone from around 3 o’clock, wondering where I was since I had actually signed up for devotions for the 2:30 game and the 3:30 game.

Off to a great start, I hopped in my car and showed up in time to apologize to those in charge and to do the devotion for the 3:30 game. I then refereed two games and ended up doing two more devotions. Turns out we normally don’t do them for the later games because the crowds are smaller, but I was already there (and I’d screwed up earlier), so why not?

“Why not?” ended up being the starting point for my devotion. I talked about the reasons I could come up with to not referee the games, and I came up with three: (1) I’m too busy; (2) I have time but just don’t want to do it; and (3) I’m not good enough to do it.

The last excuse became the theme of my devotion: I’m not good enough. I’ve never had any training on how to be a referee. I do it only once a year. Yeah, I play basketball and know most of the rules, but I’m not going to be anywhere close to perfect. So I’m not good enough, and I don’t want to fail. I don’t want to hear comments from fans, coaches, or players about the mistakes I’m making. Those comments will just remind me that I’m not good enough.

But despite all of that, I did it. I refereed two games, and while my performance was far from perfect, the two games (one of which went into triple overtime) went off without a hitch. No screaming coaches or fans, and even a few compliments on my devotions.

Why did I do it? Well, the obvious reason is that it was the price of admission for playing on the adult team. But there is more to it – I did it because Upward basketball is a ministry; it’s another way to reach people and share some of God’s love with them. The ministry can’t run without volunteers. I wasn’t doing anything special. I was just being obedient and answering when God asked me to do something.

And you know what? I was good enough. I was good enough to officiate two rec-league basketball games involving 10- and 11-year-olds. That’s not something to shout from my front porch (I’m not climbing up on any rooftops), but it leads to what I told people on Saturday:

Many people hesitate to accept Jesus Christ because they feel like they’re not good enough. “You just don’t know what I’ve done,” they’ll say in what might be one of many excuses. Yeah, I don’t know what you’ve done … but God does. And he loves you anyway. He’s just waiting for you to love him back.

Is he happy with everything you’ve done? Of course not – but join the club. None of us who are walking into church on Sunday morning have spotless records, either. If we’re doing it right, though, we’re slowly getting better … better at loving God and loving our neighbors. We’ll still make mistakes, and we’ll hear about them (just like a referee hears about his mistakes … or gets to watch well-made YouTube videos about them), but we keep going.

I don’t how smart you are, or whether people like you, but I can say without question that you’re good enough for God’s love.[1] That’s one less excuse you have for not returning the favor.

[1] Even if you happen to be part of the Duke men’s basketball program.

The great gift of grace

One of the few things I vaguely remember from my Psych 101 class in college is the concept of attribution — it’s a term that applies to how we explain the causes of people’s actions and events in our lives. The example I remember the professor using is that when someone does something we don’t like in traffic, we immediately think “What a jerk”. Based on that action and our belief that only a jerk would do that while driving, we decide that guy is a jerk — that’s attribution.

The problem here is pretty obvious: We’re drawing a conclusion based on very, very limited information. He could have been driving someone to the hospital. He could have been unemployed for months and was running late for the first job interview he had gotten in weeks. Who knows? Of course, it’s true that the guy could be a grade-A jerk in all his affairs, but if we’re honest with ourselves, we’re cognizant of the fact that our ire is really directed at the action, not the person — because we don’t know the person at all.

Instead of reacting with “what a jerk”, maybe we can show the person some grace. Maybe we can remember the times we’ve inadvertently (or even intentionally) done something stupid while driving, or maybe we can just admit that in the larger scheme of our day, what the person did isn’t a big deal. In short, we can show the person some grace.

Grace is a great word. God’s grace is boundless. In short, he knows everything about us … and he loves us anyway. The challenge for me, and for all Christians, is to live a grace-filled life. What are the two greatest commandments? First, love God. Second, love others. Loving others often means giving them grace, even if I may not feel like they deserve it. “Love others” is not some code for “love only the people who are nice to you, and who you come across when you’re in a good mood, and who you think are respectable.” “Love others” means “love all others”.

Now, how we love someone in a Christlike way — especially if the person isn’t a Christian — is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. If someone is hungry, handing them a card with an inspiring Bible verse on it may be a nice gesture, but that’s not really what they need at that moment. That’s a very simple example, and most interactions we have with people are much more complex, but my point is that it takes some discernment to give people grace where they are, not where we think they should be or where we can stay in our comfort zone while being “nice”.

I suspect many people are turned off from Christianity because somewhere along the way, they met a Christian who didn’t show them the right grace at the right time. As one of my old pastors liked to say, “You may be the only ‘Jesus’ some people ever see.”

So that’s our challenge. Love others. Show grace. It sounds so simple, but in our human frailty, it’s a lot easier said than done. I hope that as we head into another week, we can be intentional about sharing grace … with everyone.