Tag Archives: Christianity

Responding to Terrorism: Ted Cruz’s Fear or Jeff Flake’s Community?

Following yesterday’s terrorist attacks in Brussels, the United States presidential candidates all released statements denouncing the violence, offering condolences to the people of Belgium, and taking the opportunity to briefly lay out their counterterrorism plans. Gov. John Kasich, Sec. Hillary Clinton, and Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote clearly and reasonably. Donald Trump responded as Trump always does with a mixture of demagoguery and self-aggrandizement. While his positions are not necessarily unforeseen and novel, we should still be surprised by their xenophobia and utter lack of compassion.

The most shocking response came from Sen. Ted Cruz, who stated, “We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.” Reporters noted in the brevity of this statement Cruz didn’t offer many details. His campaign has since doubled-down saying his call is no different than targeting other things like, “drugs, gangs, human trafficking, and organized crime.” Read those statements again. Cruz and his campaign have likened being Muslim to engaging in criminal activity. For a candidate to call for law enforcement to secure Muslim neighborhoods while making religious liberty one of his core issues is hypocrisy. Cruz seems to care for religious liberty so long as one shares his views of Christianity. Further, Washington Post Fact Checker found Cruz’s statements about the effectiveness of NYPD’s program spying on Muslims almost entirely wrong. The program didn’t yield information that led to a single case. It only created distrust between Muslim communities and the police. Cruz’s response is the most shocking because he is supposed to be an alternative voice to Trump’s fear-mongering, yet on this matter and others, little daylight exists between their positions or rhetoric.

Cruz decides to meet a truly frightening event in Brussels with even more fear. This is a natural human reaction and Cruz gives voice to our baser instincts. Good leaders empathize with people’s thoughts. They name our fears. But they don’t lead us in a race to the bottom. While good leaders understand our fears, they call the people to something greater. A good leader would remind all Americans that our Muslim neighbors are as much a part of this nation as anyone else. A good leader would seek to strengthen ties with Muslim communities, to welcome them to the table, to listen to their voices, not isolate them under the peering eye of surveillance. Rather than fostering courage and neighborliness, Cruz wants non-Muslim Americans to let their fears overtake them and drive their decisions.

In his call yesterday to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods, Cruz betrays his commitments as an elected official and as a follower of Jesus. As a senator and candidate seeking to be president of all Americans, no matter their religious affiliation, Cruz ought to reject the very actions he is now calling for. He should seek ways to work with Muslims to root out extremism just as other community policing efforts have used the resources of communities to root out violence from their neighborhoods. More importantly, for someone who touts his Christian faith, Cruz should follow Jesus’s call to treat others as he wants to be treated. Our Christian history is one of governments persecuting us because of our faith. It is a deeply Christian practice to extend the same freedoms of conscience and religion we want to people of other faiths.

Contrast Cruz’s (and Trump’s) response to these attacks to Sen. Jeff Flake’s (R-Arizona) visit to a mosque in December 2015. In his address to his neighbors, Flake highlighted values and practices shared between his Mormon faith and their Muslim religion—reverence for the Almighty, acts of service, fasting. When much of the country was still reeling in fear from the ISIS-inspired attacks in San Bernardino, Flake displayed great leadership and fostered community. He extended welcome to his Muslim neighbors and received their welcome as they hosted him and his family at the mosque. In the face of fear, we can be like Flake and seek friendship as we denounce violence. We can strengthen civil and religious ties for the common good. Flake gave us a real picture of leadership and hope for a healed community. Cruz offers us only more division and more fear.

Michael Brown, Ferguson, and the Church Risking Irrelevance to the Gospel

Many evangelical Christian writers have responded to Michael Brown’s death at the hands of a police officer and the subsequent protests and civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. I appreciate how they let the gospel of Jesus Christ inform their views of these events. The African American leaders of my denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC), wrote a response emphasizing their commitments to reconciliation and to standing in solidarity with those who suffer. Dominique Gilliard, a pastor in the ECC, gave an interview to Amy Julia Becker on Christianity Today’s “Thin Places” blog in which he offers some broad strokes advice on how Christians can be agents of reconciliation. He says, “To foster reconciliation and healing within churches and the broader culture, Christians must be humble, repentant, and longsuffering. This process begins by having candid conversations about race, history, and injustice.” Mark Labberton, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, offers some other steps Christians can take to address the reality of systemic racism in our nation with the truth of the gospel. Christians need to educate themselves, listen from those who suffer, stand in solidarity with them, and act for justice. Morgan Lee of Christianity Today reports key findings from research on white and black evangelicals’ views of race. The results sadly show their views are moving further apart, with 69% of white evangelicals now believing, “one of the most effective ways to improve race relations is to stop talking about race.” But we should be careful not to think all talk of racial reconciliation is a white and black matter or the events in Ferguson only effect white and black people. Eugene Cho, another ECC pastor, writes churches cannot ignore what happened in Ferguson and must instead address it head-on, for, “The integrity of the church is at stake because when it’s all said and done, it’s not a race issue for me, it’s a Gospel issue.” Thabiti Anyabwile, writing at The Gospel Coalition, also argues the costs for churches to ignore these matters are extremely high. He challenges evangelical churches—really, white, conservative evangelical churches—to respond to racism or face becoming irrelevant. It is not the irrelevance to the larger culture that concerns him, but irrelevance to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Anyabwile writes:

Around the country evangelical leaders participate in “racial reconciliation” conversations and repeatedly ask, “How can we diversify our church?” or “How can we attract more African-American members?” Why would diverse groups want to belong to an evangelicalism that does not acknowledge their diversity where it hurts when it matters? You want diversity in your membership roles? How about forgetting your membership statistics and further diversifying the picket lines and protests thronged by the disenfranchised in their just fights? We don’t want to be your statistics—whether wrongful death statistics or church membership statistics. We want a living, breathing, risk-taking brotherhood in the gospel lived out where it matters. Until evangelicalism can muster that kind of courage and abandon its privileged, “objective,” distant calls for calm and “gospel”-this or “gospel”-that, it proves itself entirely inadequate for a people who need to see Jesus through the tear gas smoke of injustice.

Looking through the New Testament, particularly the letters of Paul and the book of Acts, we see two great themes: the fulfillment of God’s promises through Jesus Christ and the reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles in the new covenant. In other words, the majority of the New Testament concerns itself with grace and race. In Ephesians 2, one of the great chapters of Scripture, Paul describes the power of the gospel to take people who were dead in their sins and make them alive again in Jesus Christ. The first part of the passage contains one of evangelicalism’s favorite statements, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” (2.8-9, NRSV) But we often stop reading around verse 10, even though the argument continues. Paul goes on to show how this new life affects the relationships among Jewish and Gentile believers in Jesus. Ethnic and cultural distinctions, while still important, are no longer barriers to fellowship. Just as Jesus Christ made reconciliation between God and people possible, he also makes reconciliation between ethnic groups possible.

Ephesians 2 is not unique in the New Testament. Rather, it fits well with other passages that show the good news affects more than just our relationship with God. Paul does not see reconciliation with God and reconciliation between races as separate objectives—they are the same mission. Notice how explicit Paul is when he talks about ethnicity and race. Paul does not believe, “one of the most effective ways to improve race relations is to stop talking about race.” He seeks to improve race relations by bringing the tensions and conflicts into the light of the gospel. The New Testament does not discuss race relations in the abstract. Rather, the conversations are very real, very earthy. The New Testament contains passages on how we share a common table, what ethnic markers we place or do not place on our bodies, how we worship God together, etc. The discussion of racial reconciliation in the New Testament assumes many of the early congregations comprised different ethnicities.

How can we white evangelicals say our congregations are faithful to the New Testament witness if we do not discuss and pursue the dual themes of grace and race? I wonder if we don’t give as much attention to the second half of Ephesians 2 because we do not worship in diverse communities and our privilege in the larger society means we don’t have to think about race on a daily basis. Perhaps we white evangelicals don’t pay attention to the biblical emphasis on ethnicity not because we find that topic uncomfortable, but because we find the New Testament’s teaching on the subject irrelevant to the issues our congregations face. The real issue is, however, that our congregations risk becoming irrelevant to the New Testament. If our faith communities do not wrestle with the challenges that come from diverse people groups sharing life together, whole swaths of the Bible will not make sense to us.

As the events in Ferguson show us, we need racial reconciliation not merely so we can enjoy one another’s musical traditions in a worship service. The gospel places demands on us to stand with those who suffer and seek justice on their behalf. Racial reconciliation cannot take place only within church walls, though we obviously have a long way to go on that front. The gospel compels us to take risks and walk with those who seek justice. Anyabwile is right to offer the challenge to let go of our membership statistics for faithfulness to the gospel of Jesus, which stands beside the oppressed.

I appreciate Anyabwile’s post because he reminds us having uncomfortable conversations about race is not enough. Christian communities cannot be satisfied with honest, gracious dialogue. Those conversations are absolutely necessary, but not an end to themselves. If our conversations about race do not lead us to prayer and to, “further diversifying the picket lines and protests thronged by the disenfranchised in their just fights,” then our conversations are merely theoretical exercises. Theoretical exercises will not help establish the vision of the African American Denominational Leadership of the ECC of “a church and society where reconciliation and justice are indispensable norms.” These leaders rightly remind us it is the cross of Christ that will break the wall of hostility. That is, Jesus’ actions and not merely his words create peace and justice. As followers of Christ, we must remember Jesus’ example and allow our theological reflections lead us to action.

We have to ask how have our communities of faith addressed the events in Ferguson? What has been the conversation? How have we prayed for peace and justice? What actions have our congregations taken? How has this event catalyzed our commitment to stand with those who suffer?