Full Contact Christianity

Coming back to the George Floyd incident, here’s the scenario that’s keeping me up at night: Suppose there had been three armed combat veterans in the crowd. Suppose they decide they didn’t fight terrorism overseas to let this nonsense happen at home, and they take it upon themselves to do something about it, right now. They spread out, draw their weapons, and demand that the officers get off him. What next? With their own pistols in weapon-retention holsters, the officers on the scene don’t stand much of a chance, and they have to know it. Maybe it ends without bloodshed. Maybe somebody stupidly goes for a gun, prompting a very brief shootout. The veterans may well get shot by other officers, and are probably going to prison…but then, maybe not. What happens if the jury refuses to convict? We’ve had some limited instances of that kind already (think the Bundy ranch standoff back in 2014). The day an incident like that goes viral — and if we keep going like we have been, it will happen eventually — we will be crossing a wide line that there’s no easy way back from. After that, the police force becomes an occupying army; principled civilians become the resistance. People don’t call the police for fear of what predatory (or simply scared) officers will do to them. Police don’t respond to some calls because of what might be waiting in ambush. Criminals thrive, and prudent people on all sides become ready to shoot first for their own safety. I don’t want to live there. Do you? When that kind of confusion grips a nation, it is a divine judgment (see Judges 7:22, 2 Chronicles 20:22-24.) If we come to that point, none of us will be able to say we do not deserve it. We are a government of the people. Every officer who puts on a badge, does so in the name of every person of voting age in that jurisdiction. Anything that officer does is done in our name, and we pay him to do it. They are not doing these things; we are doing these things. So “let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?” (Jonah 3:8-9)

Let’s talk about George Floyd.

I wasn’t there. I’ve watched as much video as I can get my hands on, but that only goes so far. I’ve been present at scenes that would look very different if you started the video a few seconds sooner. I’m acutely conscious that I don’t know what I don’t know. At the same time, there’s no denying what we do know: a man was on the ground, cuffed, and a police officer knelt on his neck. Not by accident or in the middle of a fight, for a moment to get the cuffs on. Not to hold him down because he was a danger to himself or others. But long past any point where it might have been necessary or reasonable, long past the point where he lost consciousness, long past the point where the paramedics on scene asked him to move so they could check Floyd’s pulse, the officer was still kneeling on his neck. 

We must have effective police protection; we don’t want to live in a society where the criminals run the streets unmolested. At the same time, we also don’t want to live in a society where…

• a police officer with no reason but a personal grudge puts an old man on a domestic terror watch list, and consequently ruins his reputation and his business (jurisdiction near me; I personally know the man)
• a retirement-aged ex-con has his legitimate business destroyed by constant harassment from police officers determined to drive him out of town (one of the officers in question told me the story)
• a pastor, pulled over in a routine traffic stop, has thousands of dollars–a cash gift donated to support his ministry to the poorest of the poor–stolen from him via civil forfeiture (the pastor is a friend of a friend)
• police officers arrest a man at his place of business, beat and torture him for hours (jurisdiction near me; I personally know the man)
• a young woman pulled over in a late-night traffic stop on a deserted road is cuffed to her steering wheel and raped by the officer (jurisdiction near me; the woman is a friend of a friend)
• a young man, known to be unarmed and threatening no one, was attacked, beaten, cuffed, choked, repeatedly threatened, and died in custody (jurisdiction near me, I know a family member)
• a young man, badly injured in a motor vehicle accident, lying on the pavement screaming in pain, was repeatedly kicked and told to shut up by responding officers. He was left lying in the roadway for nearly an hour before finally getting ambulance transport; he died of his wounds (two of my friends were involved in the accident and witnessed the incident)
• a police officer, arresting a mouthy but compliant drunk man, stood him up next to the open back door of the cruiser, then (after looking around to be sure there were no witnesses) kneed him in the groin. As the man collapsed, retching, the officer shoved him into the back of the car for transport to the station (the officer’s partner was a teacher of mine and told me the story)

In all eight of the above cases, nothing bad happened to the officers in question. No investigation, no charges filed, not so much as a news story. To repeat, we don’t want to live in a society where criminals run the streets unmolested. Especially if the criminals in question are wearing badges. [EDIT: This is no longer true in the sixth case above. It did make the news, personnel involved were eventually brought to trial; juries found some of the individuals involved guilty of a mixture of misdemeanor and felony offenses, and acquitted others.]

Remember, I’m not a reporter or Internal Affairs investigator; I don’t sit on a civilian review panel or work for Amnesty International. I don’t go looking for this stuff. I’m a middle-aged citizen; the cases I listed above are just incidents I’ve happened upon in the course of 25 years of ordinary adult life. The victims include white, black, Asian, Arab. While race is perhaps a factor, this is about power without accountability. The badge gives power over citizens of every race, particularly if they’re poor; that power can often be abused with impunity.

Consider Minneapolis as a case in point: before George Floyd, we had Philando Castile and Justine Damond. Is race a factor? Obviously; Castile’s killer was acquitted and plainly shouldn’t have been. It took the killing of Damond—a blonde, white, yoga instructor visiting from Australia—to get the first-ever conviction of an on-duty police officer in that jurisdiction. (And I suspect her identity as a foreign national was key to getting that conviction.) Is race the only factor? Clearly not, or Damond would still be alive.

The problem isn’t that most police officers are bad. The problem appears to be that we aren’t weeding out the bad ones effectively. The wide discretion that comes with the job attracts a certain number of violent predators, and our system of checks and balances is failing. We’re using “Most officers are good people” as an excuse for failing to deal with the bad ones. How’s that working out?

Peaceful means of change are available and can work, but only if the majority gets involved. That needs to happen, because the alternatives are not attractive.

Effective action requires repentance in multiple dimensions. The uninvolved majority must repent of inaction and willful ignorance of the evil things that are being done in our name. We must also repent of our willful ignorance of the ugly realities that must be dealt with to keep the streets safe. For most of us, a police officer accused of misconduct could say, “Look, you just don’t understand what it’s like out there, what it takes to keep you safe!” — and he’d have a point, wouldn’t he? If we’re going to provide effective review, then we need to understand. It’s one thing to pay cops to arrest bad guys; that’s fine. But it’s morally bankrupt to pay cops so we don’t have to know. It’s past time to stop coddling ourselves. 

Meanwhile, many protesters need to repent of doing things that are cathartic, but not effective. If your point is that everybody, including police, should respect other people’s basic rights, looting a bunch of stores is not the best means of making your point, you know? One of the basic tenets of classical Christian just war theory is that the violence must be used toward a clear, attainable, and righteous end. Tackling the officer off George Floyd’s neck might meet those criteria, personally hazardous as it would be; walking out of a burning Target with a TV and a new pair of Nikes does not. It’s too much, too late, and aimed in the wrong direction. But it’s a lot easier, isn’t it?

We also have to stop demanding that Someone In Authority swoop in and fix it. We are a government of the people. We are in authority, whether we want to be or not. So let’s do the thing. It’s time to clean house. Where there’s a problem, recall the elected officials in the relevant chain of command. Give their replacements 6 months to show some progress; recall anybody who isn’t helping. Make it clear that we don’t want an inquisition; the job is to attract good officers who want to work with other good officers, and weed out the rest. Lather, rinse, repeat until we get results. Having participated in recall efforts, I can tell you that this is going to be a lot more work than sitting on our collective butts at home and ignoring the problem. It’s going to be more work than setting cars on fire and looting the local Target, too. Thing is, it can work. Isn’t it time we did something effective?  

It is our responsibility to change what must be changed. So “let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?” (Jonah 3:8-9) We have peaceful means of change in our hands. Let’s use it before it’s too late.

Let’s talk about shame.

In today’s psychotherapeutic culture, we have a rich conceptual language and vocabulary for internal states. When I mentioned shame two sentences ago, you probably thought about an internal feeling of shame. Over the past few years, we have also begun to speak again about shame as an external experience, something that someone else can do to you. (Hence the discussions of fat-shaming, slut-shaming, and so on.)

Once upon a time, public shaming was how societies regulated themselves, to a degree unheard of today. Under that system, there was  no vindication except public vindication. The shame was public; the vindication had to be as well. When the psalmists called on God to defend them, they were asking God to definitively, publicly forcing their enemies to bow the knee and admit that they were wrong.

That was what it meant to be vindicated by God.

And conversely, if that didn’t happen, you were shamed. You could know you were innocent, but that did you no good; everyone else thought you were guilty and treated you as guilty. Avoiding this ugly fate is what “let me not be ashamed” (a common prayer in the psalms) means. No one sat serenely, calmly assured in himself that he hadn’t done anything wrong, even though every one else believed he had. No, they did what Job did: Cry out to God to show the world their righteousness!

Before the cross, this was just common sense. Jesus destroyed the entire system of public shame. By being convicted and shamed by the system, He definitively demonstrated the injustice of of the system. If it can convict God Himself, the system is irretrievably flawed.

What God did next introduced both a new form of vindication, and a new way to live. 

God vindicated Jesus in such a way that the chief offenders didn’t have their faces rubbed in it. It wasn’t in any way unclear — Jesus rose from the dead — but neither was it entirely public. It’s true that “these things were not done in a corner” as Peter said in his sermon, but at the same time, Jesus did not conquer His enemies and make them grovel before His feet. The twelve disciples did not ascend twelve thrones and rule Israel. The risen and victorious Jesus did not march into Caiaphas’ house and Pilate’s court and force them to admit that they had failed in their duties.

If you wanted to know whether God had vindicated Jesus, there was enough evidence that you could be sure. And if you didn’t want to know, you could pay off the guards, as the Jewish leaders did, and just go on with your life. You could kick against the goads, as young Saul of Tarsus did.

By this semi-visible approach to the resurrection, God the Father introduced a new kind of vindication in the world, where you can be definitively, decisively vindicated by God in the eyes of heaven, and you can be sure of it even now on earth…and yet no one will be forced to acknowledge it. This form of vindication forces the earthly powers to reveal whether they are seeking the truth or not. It makes them tip their hand, and that’s a beautiful thing. 

Our challenge is to live in the confidence that we have been vindicated by God, even if others refuse to acknowledge it — to ignore the social proof and trust God. This is the example Jesus sets for us, and Paul explains.

Trust that God will vindicate you visibly at last, but if Jesus can wait until the last day, then so can you. 

I have been reluctant to add to the din around COVID. There’s too many people pooling their ignorance already, and even the experts are rapidly changing their minds about various key details like how it spreads, how fast, and the best ways to stop it.

Let’s begin by accepting that we actually know very little. Most of the expert recommendations at this point are based on theory — sound theory, sure, but theory, not actual clinical studies of this disease. The experts have a general idea of how diseases like this behave, and are making their best guesses (which, let’s face it, are likely to be better than my guesses, but they’re still guesses). It’s a new disease, and we have to study it.

This is one of the central insights that let to modern science in the first place: You can’t just sit in a chair and extrapolate from first principles; God made the world with an endless capacity to surprise us all, even the experts. The clinical studies to confirm/disconfirm the guesses will come, if someone cares to fund them, but good science is hard, and expensive, and takes quite a bit of time. Like experience, it tends to arrive shortly after you need it. 

Whether you should trust the experts, and which experts, and how far you should trust them, is a question for another post. (Likewise the question of whether you should trust giant media companies to select your experts for you.) The only thing I’ll say about that here is that you should do a quick idol check: if the paragraphs above bothered you because they implied that the experts might all be wrong, you need to look at that. The Tacoma Narrows bridge fell into the gorge; the Challenger fell out of the sky; thalidomide fell into disrepute. These things did not happen because of a change in fashions; the experts were catastrophically wrong about the way the real world behaves. If you look to experts for your security, you’re going to be disappointed.

You’re going to have to make decisions in the absence of complete information. You do that every day, but now you’re being forced to admit it. God is reminding us that the realities of James 4:13-17 are always with us:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”

The question of the day is, shall I wear a mask when I leave home? For some of you, your public health authorities are answering this question for you. Assuming you have a choice, here are seven things to think about:

1. Remember that good ethical decisions are founded on facts, and a number of the salient facts are in question. Someone disagreeing with you on a point of fact (and therefore doing something different) doesn’t make them a bad person. “Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls.” (Romans 14:4)
2. Uncertainty does not justify selfishly ignoring others’ safety or carelessly ratifying the latest trend in public panic. If the primary driver of your decisions is your personal convenience or reputation–repent. God sees your heart; you can’t use the public uncertainty for cover with Him. Love your neighbor; esteem others better than yourself. Make your decision from that place.
3. If you believe that leaving home without a mask is a foolish risk to your family, or recklessly exposes your neighbors to danger, then wear a mask. Don’t violate your conscience.
4. If your neighbors are terrified and wearing a mask would make them less afraid, it is permissible to accommodate them by wearing a mask, even if you think it’s stupid. Think about it: if you were taking a meal to a shut-in with a pathological fear of blue shirts, would you wear a blue shirt? Of course not. If the need of the moment is to get the man some supper, then change into the green shirt, and deliver the food. Keep your priorities straight.
5. It is not loving to coddle pathological fears forever. At some point, a therapist, a minister, or a good friend should show up at the shut-in’s door in a blue shirt, and help him work through it. How and when to do this is a matter for much wisdom and prayer. This is to say, there will come a day when you go out without a mask. Unless you’re the very last person in your city to take off the mask, someone is going to be uncomfortable with your decision. Let them be uncomfortable.
6. If your primary reason for wearing a mask is that you can’t handle people looking askance at you, then take it off. Bowing to peer pressure and fear of public shame are unworthy of a follower of Jesus. Anything you do, in your whole life, needs a better reason than that.
7. Listen to God about all of this. Make your decision prayerfully. And having made it, be bold! God has not given us a spirit of fear.

 

 

Once upon a time, David led Israel into sin. In response, God judged Israel, but He offered David a choice of which judgment he would rather have. The story is in 2 Samuel 24:11-15.

Now when David arose in the morning, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, “Go and tell David,`Thus says the LORD: ‘I offer you three things; choose one of them for yourself, that I may do it to you.'” So Gad came to David and told him; and he said to him, “Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or shall you flee three months before your enemies, while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ plague in your land? Now consider and see what answer I should take back to Him who sent me.”
And David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Please let us fall into the hand of the LORD, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into the hand of man.”
So the LORD sent a plague upon Israel from the morning till the appointed time. From Dan to Beersheba seventy thousand men of the people died.

The 2016 presidential election was just such a choice. Either major candidate would have lost if they’d had to run against anybody else. Can you imagine Trump beating Obama, or Bill Clinton, or Al Gore, or heck, even Walter Mondale? Can you imagine Hillary beating Reagan, or Bush — either one — or even Bob Dole? I can’t. They only had a chance because they were running against each other, and the vast majority of the country would have preferred neither one of them.

God offered us a choice between Jezebel and Belshazzar. It’s not like there was a good option; we were getting the candidates we deserved. 2020 is shaping up to be more of the same.

David didn’t “betray his principles” by having a preference among the bad choices available to him. Neither will we, as long as we remember that every choice we’re being offered is a judgment, not a salvation.

Alistair Roberts weighs in on the way the term “biblical” has been exploited as a brand. Well worth your time.

 

Here are four very small books about how we interact with the world in which we find ourselves. I recommend all four highly.

Metropolitan Manifesto by Rich Bledsoe

Christendom and the Nations by James Jordan

The Theopolitan Vision by Peter J. Leithart

Theopolitan Liturgy by Peter J. Leithart

 

Having left more than a few places, and on a variety of terms, I have a few thoughts to share about what it looks like to leave well.

• Fighting
  • Most of us find it easier to be angry than sad. When we’re hurt, we default to anger.
  • It’s easier to go out fighting than to just go out wounded. Therefore, you will be tempted to find things to fight about.
  • I have seen massive division and destruction come from succumbing to this temptation.
  • Part of what’s wrong with it is that when you’re finding things to fight about, you will rarely pick the real issues. You will pick the fight you think you can win — or at least the one where you can do the most damage to the other side. And there is no surer road to irreconcilable differences than fighting about things that are beside the point and ignoring the real issues.
• Learning the wrong lessons
  • We often learn the wrong lessons. Be willing to reconsider the lessons later. It might feel right now, and there may be some truth to it — but the lesson may need to be modified later.
• Throwing Spears
  • Read Tale of Three Kings. Don’t be a Saul or an Absalom.
  • Understand that your organization may actually value and reward Saul/Absalom behavior. Sometimes it’s accidental, but you’d be surprised how often they know exactly what they’re doing.
  • Determine ahead of time that you will not accept that from yourself, regardless. Membership in an organization is not worth your soul.
• Severing Ties
  • You need not be hesitant about cutting ties to the parts of the thing that are no longer your business or aren’t productive. “Not my circus, not my monkeys” can be your mantra…internally.
  • Externally, there’s no need to be snarky about it. You can just say, “I’m not sure who’s responsible for that now – why don’t you ask around and find out?”
  • You aren’t required to sever all ties, even if they want you to. Personal relationships don’t just evaporate because the organizational relationship has changed or ended. Keep your friends.
  • You will be surprised at which friendships stay, and which ones evaporate.
  • When a friendship you were counting on evaporates unexpectedly, it’s okay to be hurt — that’s completely natural. But don’t force it, and don’t go to war with the person that hurt you. It’s a waste of effort, and it won’t get you what you want anyway.
• Loose Ends
  • The more professional the organization, the less this is a factor — the contents of your desk are boxed up by security while HR is giving you the bad news, you’re escorted from the building, and that’s that.
  • In less formal situations, there will often be phone calls later — “Hey, where are the _____?” Or “How did you do _______?” When you get that phone call, don’t be a jerk.
  • That said, those calls can be painful. Try to set it up so you don’t have to deal with that later. Tie up the loose ends. Transfer responsibilities. Tell someone where to find the key to the paper towel dispenser. Then when people call you, refer them to that person: “You’ll need to check with ______. I don’t know what he’s done with it since I’ve been gone.”
• Tell the Truth
  • You and the other actors involved did what you did. Own your part of it, and let the others own theirs. If they canned you, say so. If they had good reason, admit it. If you think their reasons are nonsense, say that. If they never gave a reason, you can say that too.
  • Hide nothing. Gossip thrives on secrecy and the appearance of secrecy. Defuse it with total openness.
  • Don’t hide your feelings either. If it’s painful, say so. If you’re kinda relieved, admit it. Don’t lie.
  • Care for the People…including the ones responsible for the separation. You don’t get to ignore the golden rule, even if they did.
  • Organizations are totally dispensable; they are vehicles that travel a certain distance in time and space, and then fall apart. Don’t feel at all bad about dropping or walking away from an organization.
  • People are another matter. People are eternal, and are of incalculable value. Don’t make the mistake of treating the people as gears in the organizational machine. Treat them as people, no matter how you were treated.
• Changing Relationships
  • Some of the relationships you had were built entirely on you representing the organization. Those relationships will go away or transfer to someone else in the organization. If you were a barista, your customers won’t come to your house to get coffee from you instead of the shop. They won’t even follow you to your new shop — they had a relationship with the shop, and your personal identity was largely irrelevant.
  • Some of the relationships were more personal, and they will endure. You may be surprised which are which.
  • The relationships that endure will change, because the rhythms of the relationship have changed. The transition changes when you see each other, in what context, how often, and so on. That will change the relationship, often in unpredictable ways.
• Unintended Consequences
  • Take a long look at what you’re being spared here. In what ways has the separation liberated you?
  • Don’t assume you know what the separation means for the future. Many things change.

I’m hoping to turn all this into a booklet one day. Let me know what you think — if I fleshed it out, is this something you would buy, read, give away?

“The truly wise talk little about religion and are not given to taking sides on doctrinal issues. When they hear people advocating or opposing claims of this or that party in the church, they turn away with a smile such as men yield to the talk of children. They have no time, they would say, for that kind of thing. They have enough to do in trying to faithfully practice what is beyond dispute.”
-George MacDonald

I want to affirm that MacDonald is offering up some real wisdom here. I also want to say that this is wisdom, not law, and as with all wisdom the crucial skill is knowing when to apply it.

There’s no time like the present, but look before you leap. The more, the merrier, but three’s a crowd. The clothes make the man, but don’t judge a book by its cover. The pen is mightier than the sword, but actions speak louder than words. All these proverbs are true in the way that proverbs can be true, and MacDonald’s advice is right up there with them. When to do which? That’s the question.  

To MacDonald’s point, there certainly are niggling doctrinal disagreements that just don’t matter. It’s fine for first-year seminarians to talk them over for the sake of the mental exercise, but how many angels can dance on the head of a pin is not a question that should divide brothers.  

My concern with bandying about a quote like the one from MacDonald, above, is that people come away with a sense that it is always wisdom to remain airily above the fray. Couldn’t Luther just go back to his prayers and agree to disagree with the Pope? What was Athanasius thinking, making such a pill of himself? Would it have killed Paul to just let Peter sit where he wanted at the church potluck? Did Jesus really need to go out of His way to pronounce woe on the Pharisees?

These men were addressing false doctrines that do real injury to God’s people, and in such cases, a wise man answers Jude’s call to contend earnestly for the faith.

Anybody can hate error because it is wrong. It takes real wisdom to hate important errors because they’re injurious, and leave the unimportant ones for a casual chat over coffee someday. May God make us wise.