Asking a wrong question

Of late I’ve seen complaints on social media about the lack of news coverage of Christians being slaughtered in places like Nigeria, Egypt and, most recently during Easter services (more accurately, as I understand it, Catholic Masses) in Sri Lanka.

In good Jewish fashion, I must ask these same people: How many people not of our party have we evangelicals stood up for? None, to my recollection. Maybe that's why no one is standing up for us.

It seems to me that, based on what I hear from friends and and in Christian media, is that the only real persecution that takes place is against Christians. Which is not only silly but inaccurate.

A problem is that evangelicals generally reject a theology of social justice, which would lead to a comprehensive and common sense of human suffering. It would seem to me that if we were really concerned about things we would stand up against injustice no matter the perpetrators or victims. That might be the reason that we get no love from the rest of the world.

Some decades ago Pat Robertson mentioned on "The 700 Club" about Christians being killed by Muslim gangs in Sudan, if I remember correctly. But he didn’t give the entire story — because, according to another report, it turned out Christians weren’t the only ones dying; animists were as well.

Contrast this to when the synagogue a couple of miles from me was shot up in October a local Muslim leader said, in essence, “We will protect you if you need us” amid offers of other help; indeed, local Muslims raised $100,000 for the temple. A few weeks ago, when mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, were attacked, Jews also stood up.

But to my knowledge, conservative evangelicals, locally as well as nationally, were silent on both issues (though my evangelical church did offer prayers before the October service).

It’s about more than money or notoriety, you see — it’s about standing up for and with others. I've long believed that if we Christians were really being persecuted for our faith we would be willing to identify with those also dealing with it. Trouble is, we almost never do.

Indeed, the one time we’ve seen sustained persecution against Christians in this country evangelicals ignored and even at times participated in that. I’m talking about the civil-rights movement, which came out of the African-American church — which means we’ve had Christians persecute other Christians. That came out of the divide in the church that has never been truly addressed, let alone healed.

Basically, it's the "do unto others" principle that Jesus taught but many of us ignore. If we want people, including the media, to stand up for us, perhaps we ought to stand up for them as well.

Conservatism — the real tokenism

When I was in eighth grade, the only full year I attended a particular school, I was to my knowledge its first African-American basketball player. But I also was elected homeroom president and invited to most of the parties (though, because of my shyness, I rarely went).

As a sophomore at an all-boys Catholic prep high school I scored not one but two roles, one singing, in the spring musical — which, I believe, the director selected to get me involved. Again, I may have been a pioneer there as well.

As a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh I was invited to pledge a white fraternity and, after being initiated, even ran (but lost) for executive board the next year.

In my late 30s, I was recruited to join the diaconate of the largely white, socially prominent Presbyterian church that I was attending at the time. And indeed, it was the second time I was invited.

Twelve years ago I joined a jazz orchestra, originally as just its baritone saxophonist, and I remain the only black member. Today, however, I'm also one of its arrangers.

A few years back I began attending swing dances again after taking about a 15-year break — I had stopped because I broke things off my then-girlfriend, as it was something we did as a couple — and over time a number of us have become somewhat of a family. I even write original music for one of the bands to which we dance. I'm the only person of color who attends regularly. (Just this week a new dance started to which I arrived late because I was at another dance, and one of my favorite partners, who knew where I was, lit up when she saw me and said, "You made it!")

Why do I bring these up? Because in all of these cases, I'm as deeply involved as anyone and my input is more than welcomed. In other words, in those situations I'm not merely a "token."

Of late some political conservatives have derided us African-Americans for remaining on the "liberal plantation" and have said, without evidence, that we would be better off supporting the conservative worldview. That's utterly ridiculous from our perspective for one reason: Most blacks remain connected to the Democratic Party in particular and "liberalism" in general precisely because our input is welcomed and we actually have a say in how things go.

If you believe I'm saying that we don't have similar pull with conservatism and in the Republican Party, you're absolutely right. We are never consulted as to what we believe the issues are or should be and how things affect us.

Folks like Candace Owens, Larry Elder, Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell are often dismissed as "sellouts," and for good reason — I learned 20 years ago that the political right will pay a large sum of money to any African-American willing to spout its line. (Indeed, back then the movement reached out to me.)

In other words, they're the "tokens," the faces of a movement placed for window dressing but without any power to cause change. And we're just not having it.

A couple of years ago the New York Times ran a story about African-Americans who began leaving white evangelical churches after the election of President Trump.  They believed, as I still do now, that churches should be integrated into one Body.

The trouble is that such churches never addressed the issues that its black members might have faced, such as racial profiling by police, and their tacit support for Trump, who has since demonstrated his racism, pretty much sealed the deal. It's why we have such division today.

My own church, praise God, has fought such "tokenism" in the time I've attended there. Citing Acts 4, it has actually sought to place "people of color" in decision-making positions, most notably as elders; indeed, one of our executive pastors is African-American. The message? "You have a stake in this as well." More to the point, our staff takes the time to listen to its membership.

This is true diversity, reflected in the outlook and history, not just the skin color, of the people involved. And that diversity seems to scare and irritate the political right, which has always struck me as pretty intolerant. It's why I, and other people of color, can't go there.

Pete Buttigieg: The end of the culture war?

In the late 1970s the anti-gay movement took hold in America, with singer Anita Bryant's campaign against anti-discrimination statutes in Miami. Eventually it became a key component of the religious right's "culture war," with conservative Christians trying to paint gays and their sympathizers as "anti-God" freaks out to destroy America's moral fiber.

Thanks to Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind. who is running for president, those days are likely over.

Buttigieg's resume, if you ask me, is pretty darn impressive. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard, won a Rhodes scholarship and also served in the U.S. Navy as an intelligence officer. He's a former Roman Catholic who now is active in an Episcopal church.

Here's the thing, however: He's married ... to another man. Indeed, he says that he decided to "come out" as gay when Vice President Mike Pence, whom he does know, pushed a "religious freedom" bill when Pence was governor of Indiana.

Some have suggested that Buttigieg's candidacy, which often uses the language of religious faith, would mark a dawning of a "religious left" that would challenge the right on its own turf. I get that to a certain extent, given that President Donald Trump has consistently violated Scriptural norms with his constant lying and adultery but still retains unwavering support from key religious leaders.

But, down the road, I suspect it will actually take religion and its role in public discourse off the table if used as the "will to power." The trouble is that the religious right has always used such issues for the sake of raising funds against the latest outrage; thing is, Buttigieg's presence — more reasonable and stabilizing — is putting the lie to the idea that supporting a gay man as a political candidate automatically makes you a radical. Indeed, he himself doesn't stress his sexual orientation.

That last item is what might doom the culture war. Basically he seems to be saying, "I'm gay — so what?"

I have never truly believed in gay rights and don't support same-gender matrimony. I would say, however, that Buttigieg's performance in the public square should tell us evangelicals that we've been barking up the wrong tree for some time now.

Saving evangelicalism from itself — finally addressing race and racism

Sunday’s New York Times contained an op-ed piece, “Can Black Evangelicals Save the Whole Movement?” by author Molly Worthen, who posits that African-American spiritual leaders are finally finding an audience in the broader evangelical community.

“Hear, hear,” I say. I submit that it was eventually bound to happen because of the Biblical admonition that whatever hurts one part hurts all of us.

Worthen, described in the tag line as an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, writes that the focus on diversity is finally going beyond hiring black staff and adjusting worship styles, good and necessary as they may be. We African-American evangelicals, due to our history, also read Scripture differently than the broader evangelical community, and what’s really required is a willingness on the part of said community to make room for us there as well.

My own denomination, the Christian and Missionary Alliance — which is about as theologically conservative as it gets — has begun to take steps toward real healing between races and ethnicities as a result. To be honest, I’ve been somewhat surprised that it’s happening, but I’m gratified.

It was probably the rise of the Promise Keepers in the late 1980s which caused a turning (though my own church had made the effort to diversify a bit before that). Part of that was founder Bill McCartney’s experience as a teen — he would tell you that, when it came to his football career, he experience “white privilege” in getting college scholarship offers that his black teammates didn’t. Later, while serving as head football coach at the University of Colorado, he became an advocate for his black players.

Be that as it may, a growing number of white Christians are beginning to empathize with their “siblings of color.” And not just on a personal level, either.

Worthen noted that Walter Strickland, a theology professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary who is African-American, has been advising congregations on how to address systemic racism. And he puts things in theological terms.

“There was the fall, and all we do now as God’s vice regents is influenced by that fall. So if we’re sinners in need of redemption, so, too, are all the things we create, like law, policy, procedure, practice. That right there is systemic injustice,” he said.

I’m keeping an eye peeled. If the church ever grapples with institutional racism it would go a long way in uniting the Body of Christ. That can have only positive effects — including the spiritual revival that many evangelicals say they want.