Dear Friends,
I am probably not the only one who feels at a loss for words. Is there anything thoughtful—or helpful—to say? We are in a time of upheaval and confusion—racial tensions, urban riots, and a general coming-apart-at-the-seams. We want, and desperately need leadership and clarity. I don’t know that I can provide either, but here goes.
Demagoguery & Demons
We reap what we sow. We are a people addicted to ten-second cable news soundbites. We have long honored the loudest and most inflammatory voices (that’s who gets invited to the talking head programs), and then, when we suddenly need maturity and gravitas, there’s no one to be found. In our collective greed for the cotton candy of political spectacle, we’ve lost our appetite for good, healthy, solid food. We don’t even know what to do except more of what we’ve been doing. Al Sharpton—one of the most cynical race-baiters and grifters of his generation—is going to lead a march on Washington in the name of George Floyd. That’ll bring about unity and healing just about as much as Donald Trump weirdly waving a Bible around like some sort of unfamiliar totem for the cameras without bothering to explain what it is supposed to mean. [Make sure to check out the humorous video about this in the Miscellany section.]
We are faced with issues of social and moral complexity, and it seems we’ve just lost our abilities to handle such things. Elon Musk and his SpaceX crew know how to handle the complexities of firing a rocket into space, and then landing it on a barge in the middle of the ocean. Oh, yes; we have technical know-how. But we don’t seem to have moral know-how. How vacuous one must be to express outrage at the violence that killed George Floyd and then to celebrate the violence and destruction of people’s businesses and livelihoods. Not to mention the destruction of actual black lives in the process.
Demagoguery, by definition, is exploiting popular passions (i.e., whipping up those passions) for political gain. And everywhere we look, left, right, and even center, there is a demagogue standing there selling a slogan. “Black Lives Matter,” “All Lives Matter,” “Abolish the Police,” “Law & Order,” “Speech is Violence,” and so on. With a little thought, effort, and explanation, some of these might be said to have something meaningful to communicate (black lives do matter, for example; what one is expected to do with that information is quite another question). But very often meaningful communication is not really the purpose. These kinds of slogans are substitutes for thinking. They are a way to skip the hard work of actually doing moral theory; but a slogan conveys to a person a participation trophy anyway. Instant virtue can be very cheaply bought with a slogan, bumper sticker, or blacked out Instagram photo.
A society that thinks in soundbites and slogans is a society ripe for exploitation by demagogues with an agenda. And their purpose is manifestly not unity and peace. On both left and right is an effort to craft a melodrama—a neat and tidy story of good guys and bad guys, and the demagogue is there to divide us into our respective roles. Don’t get me wrong—sometimes there are good guys and bad guys, but they don’t always overlap nicely with the narratives we’re being sold. We must resist. The answer to our painful divisions cannot be the further stoking and maximizing of divisions. That is what the Marxists thought (think): the route to equality was through violent division. Burn it all down, and out of the ashes, like a Phoenix, will arise a new, just society. That is the alluring and unspeakably destructive lie. The violent protests (to be distinguished, difficult as that can be, from legitimate, peaceful protests) are not seeking justice; they are seeking anarchy. One of the best examples I have seen of someone actually thinking rather than sloganeering comes from theologian Carl Ellis, Jr., who warns that legitimate grievances are being co-opted by anarchists who care nothing about justice. Really: take the time to read that one.
I would go even further than saying the problem is just anarchists exploiting the situation. We are witnessing a demonic moment. Discord, bitterness, resentment, hatred, assault, destruction, violence, murder—these are, unequivocally, the fruitless deeds of darkness. This is a spiritual conflict disguised as a political one. And our political tools, while good and necessary, are wholly insufficient to address spiritual problems. Certainly there are laws and policies and practices that can be addressed; greater accountability in the police force, getting rid of “qualified immunity” for abusive cops, and so forth. But one does not pass a law to eradicate…racism.
I’m here to inform or remind you that in the annals of human history there is only one Spirit that has actually broken down the barriers of racism (Eph. 2:11-22). It is the Holy Spirit, poured out by the Risen Lord Jesus Christ on the Day of Pentecost, who reconciles every people, tribe, tongue, and nation to God and to each other through the good news of reconciliation. Its historical outworking has been slow and imperfect, as the history of slavery makes clear, but the Holy Spirit has been and continues to be at work nonetheless. The church has a crucial role to play, therefore, and I worry that we are not satisfied with the Spiritual gifts the Lord has given us.
Is the gospel enough? Is it enough to know and recognize one another as precious, blood-bought people? I wonder. I am seeing an alarming number of people who ought to know better suggest that there needs to be something…more. There needs to be some visual and public display to absolve collective guilt. Some kind of symbol, signal, ritual, or badge by which we might make known that we have been born again (“woke”), repentant of sin, righteous, and holy. Maybe it’s a Twitter hashtag. Maybe it’s a black Instagram screen. Or maybe it’s kneeling to a random stranger (or bully) and apologizing for the color of your skin:
This is a secular gospel with public sacraments. Godless substitutes for biblical repentance, justification, and sanctification. And we need reminding: God has given us the only symbols we need to identify our regeneration, our justification, and our sanctification.
Water, bread, and wine.
True reconciliation takes place among the baptized at the table of the Lord, in whom there is no Greek or Jew, slave or free, white or black, but are all one in Christ Jesus. There is no extra. No supplement. Any addition to the free gospel offered in Christ is a deadly subtraction. By all means, Christian brothers and sisters can have a conversation about race. We can and must try to understand one another. But if that conversation does not end at the Table—if, instead, it ends as it so often does with further demands that go above and beyond simple grace and forgiveness in light of the cross, the “bearing with one another” that the gospel requires, it is a worldly endeavor that in effect nullifies (as if it could) the objective work of Christ himself.
This Is A Moment of National Unity
I know that all seems depressing. So let me cheer you up. We are actually in the midst of a moment of national unity. “What!?” you say? Have you noticed? There is no one—nobody at all, anywhere—defending what happened to George Floyd. There it is, staring us right in the face, but we’re too distracted to notice.
Everyone is outraged at the death of George Floyd. If this really was a country as racially divided as some people desperately want us to believe, this would be impossible. Now, “George Floyd” has swiftly become an empty rhetorical container to be filled with all manner of political agendas, to be sure (I mean, Abolish the Police? Really?). But we’re all agreed that the actual George Floyd was unjustly killed, and that something needs to be done to prevent that from happening again. It is not everything, but it is something. We do share a common humanity, and I’m grateful that we can all see the same thing from time to time.
If there’s any takeaway from my rambling this week, let it be this: renounce the Devil and all his works. Guilt-tripping, division, discord, hatred, bitterness, resentment, destruction, violence, and murder. Turn to the One in whom reconciliation is truly found.
Miscellany
Make sure to watch this one all the way to the end because there’s a really surprising and poignant payoff. I, for one, didn’t know that how you hold your Bible could itself be an evangelistic tool, and I’m grateful for Mr. Malcolm Corden’s fine example.
Here is an excellent article by my friend Thaddeus Williams on the topic of Social Justice and the Gospel. It will have to do until his highly anticipated book on the subject arrives.
This gave me a chuckle:
Last night we finally finished the Great 2020 Quarantine Read Aloud: the entirety of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, read by yours truly, always performed in character with myriad voices. We started near the beginning of March, so it took…however long that is. Oh—it’s a good story. Highly recommended.
Do you remember a few years ago when Andrew Peterson released his music video for “Is He Worthy?” He got in hot water for… the lack of racial diversity his choir. I wrote an essay about it for the Journal of Christian Legal Thought (starts on page 17). But I bring it up here because it’s a great song about our great hope of reconciliation in Christ. And if you happen to have different skin color from the people in the choir, then I suggest diversifying the choir by singing along.