Some thoughts on persecution

"You let them cut you? You let them hurt you?"

I heard those words in 1996 from a then-retired, now-deceased African-American pastor who was attending my largely-white church. He was infuriated when I told him that, when I was a student at a mostly-white Catholic prep school, the N-word was directed toward me on a daily basis and I didn't react. Part of that was because I acted as though I was one of them and simply didn't cower the way other African-Americans likely might.

In light of the recent celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, it's important to remember that, when you stick your neck out for the sake of truth, you might very well pay a price. And it was one I -- and he -- was willing to pay for the sake of racial reconciliation.

In his case, in the South it meant being arrested on trumped-up charges, irritants such as the cancellation of insurance and, ultimately, threats to his life. In mine, in the North it also meant rejection by "my side" of the relational fence -- being considered an "Oreo," a "race traitor."

The bigger picture, however, is not about the abuse we had to take; rather, we both kept our eyes on the prize in that we truly believed that reconciliation was the right way to go. Dr. King has not lived to see the fruit of his labors; I'm blessed in that I have -- today I'm even friendly with some of the people who tormented me in those days because I think they finally understood what I was about.

I would say that we American evangelical Christians who complain about "persecution" at the drop of a hat really should chill out. For openers, Jesus said that such would happen -- "if they hate you, remember that that hated Me first" -- and we don't want to make Jesus into a liar, don't we? That said, we need to ask ourselves if we're deliberately picking fights to make ourselves look like martyrs; trouble is, the only thing we do in the process is look codependent. Lose friends, families and jobs? That's what you signed up for when you began following Him. There is a time to fight, but there is also a time to suffer. I understood the difference.

It was in understanding that larger picture that I was able to respond to the minister: "They didn't hurt me!"

Just another holiday ....

Another Martin Luther King Jr. Day has come and gone, and I admit I was stunned to notice that a number of retail establishments used the day to promote sales. Or perhaps I shouldn't have been, because that seems to be the American way.

This may surprise many of you, but despite my longtime admiration for him I was never enthused about making his birthday -- he would have been 83 yesterday -- into the holiday that it has become for just that reason. I feared that it would be just another day off and another reason for people to sell stuff. And I find that a tad sacrilegious.

For openers, what was Dr. King's occupation? That's right -- a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is not for sale at any price. Moreover, he helped to lead a great social movement ignored by many of the Christians of his day and reviled by others but nevertheless was used by God to destroy Jim Crow in the southeastern United States.

And while I understand that God used Dr. King to transform an entire region of the country, let us never forget that God did it. Yes, he had help -- from churches, secular organizations, Congress, the Supreme Court, helpful Northerners and Jews -- but let's keep in mind that the miracle that the civil-rights movement tried to enact represented the pulling down of a spiritual stronghold. Because racial segregation, simply put, was sin and ought to have been considered as such.

So even though much of the church was late on the scene, we Christians ought to remember him as an influential Christian leader. (To its credit, the Episcopal Church has long recognized him as one of its "martyrs.") Indeed, this is one day which fills me with the desire to worship God -- after all, it was through the movement that I first understood the Gospel.

That's why I'm disappointed that even Dr. King's memory has been sold out for the sake of trinkets. Rather, the churches should be packed in gratitude for what God did through him.

David Barton -- in denial about race and racism

Do you ever wonder why so few African-Americans vote conservative? David Barton should remind you. The modern conservative movement has never fully accepted its complicity in maintaining racist ideology and in fact has consistently tried to run from it, and Barton doesn't help matters.

Barton, head of the WallBuilders organization, which can be kindly described as giving a right-wing Christian spin on American history, and who once headed the Republican Party in Texas, has no training as a historian. Rather, from WallBuilders you get the kind of agitprop that distorts history and causes division. Earlier this week a friend forwarded me a number of his papers on black history which proved either irrelevant or misleading.

Let's take an entry on Richard Allen, founding bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. According to Barton, "Allen began to preach regularly at the St. George Methodist Church in Philadelphia. He suggested that Blacks should have a separate place of worship apart from Whites; and although his suggestion was at first resisted, his forceful preaching attracted such a vast number of Blacks to the church that when objections were raised, Allen's idea of a separate congregation was finally accepted."

However, Barton fails to note that the vestry of St. George had voted to build a segregated section of the church and that he had led a walkout in response. And that was hardly uncommon; black churches were established in the first place because black parishioners were abused or neglected in white ones.

In an entry on black voting rights published in 2003, Barton consistently mentions -- without perspective -- that the Democratic Party was the chief agent of racial segregation and discrimination (that was true only in the South). He's correct in saying that the Republican Party was founded specifically to take down chattel slavery -- but wait a minute. By the 1880s, with slavery gone and Reconstruction abandoned, the GOP had left its anti-racist past behind.

Moreover, what became known as the "New Right," pushed by William F. Buckley Jr. and developing appeal mostly in the West, was proving increasingly influential in the GOP in the 1960s, so much so that it was able to get Barry Goldwater on the ticket as its presidential candidate in 1964; Goldwater, who publicly opposed the civil-rights movement, was later denounced by Martin Luther King Jr. as "the most dangerous man in the country" at the time. Two years later, Richard Nixon enacted the GOP's notorious "Southern Strategy" which reached out to white Southerners by emphasizing, among other things, the national Democratic Party's commitment to civil rights (which was recast as "big government"). Slowly they began to trickle into the GOP but came full-scale with the election of Ronald Reagan -- who also opposed MLK Jr.

I wonder why Barton never mentions King and the civil-rights movement -- which of course came out of the black church and even to this day informs much of the African-American community -- in his writings. Perhaps because it clearly came from the political left and thus causes embarrassment to those on the right who want the exclusive franchise on religious activism. But that's a shame, especially considering his partisan view of history which leaves out much of the truth.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech

Rather than delivering commentary, I thought I would be good to publish it in its entirety as it was delivered 48 years ago today.
____________________________________________________________________

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Hating Jesus

The Huffington Post recently published a piece "Why Evangelicals Hate Jesus" by California professors Phil Zuckerman and Dan Cady; they write that "White Evangelical Christians are the group least likely to support politicians or policies that reflect the actual teachings of Jesus. It is perhaps one of the strangest, most dumb-founding ironies in contemporary American culture."

I don't have any reason to believe that they write from an avowed Christian perspective, but they have it right. And here's why: Much of the American evangelical world is focused more on "pie in the sky" and that a "personal relationship with Jesus" doesn't really change their lives all that much. And as much as we talk about "magnifying" and "glorifying" Him, the truth is that we don't spend all that much energy, let alone thought, on obeying Him. In fact, I would say that a lot of us appreciate His "saving grace" but refuse to accept Him as absolute, unconditional LORD.

An insult? Maybe. But if Jesus truly were LORD of our lives there are some things we wouldn't do. First, our mission would be focused not on changing the culture around us so that we can live in it (and hope to avoid spiritual warfare in the process). Fewer of us would live in the country or the suburbs, realizing that we truly need to be "salt" and "light" in the very places that need a true Gospel witness. We wouldn't be concerned with such inconsequential things as property values and being in the "right" neighborhood. We wouldn't have all these independent mega-churches with no accountability to any larger body. We wouldn't have so many racists in our ranks, and we wouldn't complain about "persecution" from the world. (Indeed, most of what we call "persecution" we actually provoke through our own arrogance.) Above all, Jesus calls us to sacrifice for His Kingdom, which runs counter to our culture.

Whether you agree or not with the professors' interpretation of what Jesus taught, much of evangelical Christianity has completely missed the intent of Jesus' Gospel: Reconciliation -- not only with God through the cross of Christ but also with each other. It's not just about "personal salvation" or "personal holiness"; we're "saved" as part of a larger Body to do work that bears witness to His reign, now and in the future. The way we relate to each other should be different. The way we look at the world should be "But for the grace of God ... " But we often end up as Pharisees, poring over the Scriptures basically to buttress our own prejudices. No wonder we as a church are weak.

I don't think that it's any coincidence that, spiritually speaking, the strongest church we've ever had in this country was the African-American church in the South in the 1950s, which did all these things because, even though it didn't have (and in fact, couldn't get) the theological training that white churches did, it sought to obey God. The civil-rights movement, which came out of it, actually began as prayer and revival meetings in such churches, and at the appointed time God raised up a prophet out of Atlanta via Montgomery, Ala. named Martin Luther King Jr., who is still hated in some "Christian" circles for causing change. (But that's part of the risk -- and now virtually everyone knows that he was ultimately right.)

There's a reason that Jesus said, "Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for My sake will find it." Jesus is not a value-added commodity to ensure an after-life; He is life itself. And if we evangelicals truly found and committed to that ... well, watch out.

Reconciliation -- a mandate, not an option

I had the honor of delivering my testimony at church two weeks ago; I had asked to do it in recognition of the birthday celebration of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which officially was the next day, because he initially sparked my interest in the Scriptures. King, of course, was despised in his day in some circles and ignored by most evangelicals for not being sufficiently pious and focusing on "soul-winning."

When I first "encountered" him in the fifth grade, however, I realized that he was onto something. Really, really big that most people that most "religious" people, especially in that day, were missing. And what was that?

The very heart of the gospel -- reconciliation.

Now, most of us evangelicals have believed and taught that the primary focus of the Christian life should be studying the Scriptures and living one's earthly existence as "godly" as possible and, at its end, being accepted into heaven. The trouble is that, in such an atmosphere, faith becomes privatized and cultural and doesn't really cause that much change in the culture.

On the other hand, if you see the Gospel as being about reconciliation, it clearly has all kinds of ramifications for not only the individual Christian but also the church in general and the surrounding culture.

You see, if you focus on reconciliation, you're assuming a breach to be mended, starting with fellowship between man and God broken by man's sin, his inability to do anything about that and being in danger of perdition without a remedy. And this is where we get the first part correct, because Jesus did give His life on the cross so that we could come to God and establish that fellowship that He intended.

But there's more.

You see, that propensity toward sin also leads to a disconnect with other people, whether in or outside the church. Whether a church or denominational split, an over-reliance or lack of focus on theology, a disdain for others for being "less than" or an emphasis on such things of the world as money or political power, there's no shortage of ways in which even God's people can suffer from broken fellowship with each other. One thing of which the church should always be ashamed is that the civil-rights movement, which came out of Southern African-American churches, pitted one set of Christians against another set of Christians, which sabotaged our collective witness. (It's especially galling in light of Jesus' two great commandments, my paraphrase: Worship God with everything you have and do right by others.)

Thing is, God has called us believers in Jesus to belong to one family, one church, one nation under His rule, and that means that we will need to put our differences, pride and anger aside to focus on that spiritual goal. Fortunately, He will help us do that if we allow ourselves to be transformed.

The early church had no choice in that matter because it was a culturally and ethnically diverse underground movement with few friends that was targeted for extinction by the political and religious authorities of that day. Put another way, following Jesus quite literally cost some folks everything, including their lives; thus, they learned to suffer together and became "one in heart and mind." And while it did have to deal with some factionalism in its ranks, still its membership clung to Jesus -- and to each other.

Things, of course, are different today; Americans live in a nation built in part on freedom of worship. But since the church has become part of the "establishment" it has fallen prey to the same fault lines as the rest of the world -- race, economics, social class, ethnicity. That's why we need to focus upon reconciliation -- if all we understand is the way our little clique does things we miss the lessons that other groups, churches, theologies, denominations can teach us about Who God is and His eternal purpose.

Former South African president Nelson Mandela brought out this point in a 1995 speech he made honoring the late Bram Fischer, an anti-apartheid activist of Afrikaner stock who originally believed that black and white should live separately, albeit as "equals." In rebuttal, a veteran member of the African National Congress, Mandela's party, told Fischer, "If you place the races of one country in two camps and cut off contact between them, those in each camp will begin to forget that those in the other are ordinary human beings, that each lives and laughs the same way, that each expresses joy or sorrow, pride or humiliation for the same reasons. Thereby each becomes suspicious of the other and each eventually fears the other, which is the basis of all racism."

We're at that point now. It's time that we allow God to come in and heal the breach, so in His Name, let's reconcile.

Misunderstanding the 'dream' of Martin Luther King Jr.

Today is the official commemoration of the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and, since he is no longer living, he is subject to the normal hagiography as to what he really stood for.

You see, it's easy to look back and realize that he was right two generations ago. However, back then it was far from clear.

Much of the disinformation comes from the political right. Some insist, with no evidence, that King was actually a Republican and thus would have supported a conservative worldview. In 1964, however, he endorsed Lyndon Johnson for president and, after the election, referred to Barry Goldwater as "the most dangerous man in the country" up to then. (It should be noted that Ronald Reagan dismissed him upon his death.) Others, quoting his "I Have a Dream" speech, said that he would have opposed affirmative action when he was actually among its earliest supporters. In fact, King said that "we can't solve our problems now unless there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power" -- a comment that today would no doubt get him labeled as a "socialist" (indeed, during his lifetime he was often denounced as a Communist).

Lest you think I'm picking on only conservatives, we need to remember that many blacks have been somewhat suspicious of King's Gandhi-influenced nonviolent philosophy. I can imagine the consternation on people's faces when he referred in his sermons back in the 1950s to "our white brothers" [say wha?!]. Even as recently as the 1990s many believed that, had he survived that bullet in Memphis in April 1968, he would have finally rejected nonviolence and and taken up arms. But in making such assertions, it's obvious that those folks never really listened to him in the first place -- armed struggle is precisely what his enemies wanted because they figured they could win that battle. He also said that he was willing to die for justice, a stance that would be nonsensical to the average person but consistent with his commitment to the cause. (I believe now that he's lionized in the black community today because, and only because, he got the desired results.)

Anyway, let's not forget the bigger issue. First and foremost, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is reconciliation -- yes, God with man through the cross of Christ, but also men to each other. This should hardly surprise, especially considering that Billy Graham, a friend and early supporter of King (and one of the few evangelicals who was), has been preaching the same message since the 1950s. We evangelicals generally have the first part down but usually completely miss the second because, frankly, we're often as functionally materialistic and power-hungry as the world we denounce.

While instituting the "beloved community" that King talked about might indeed require a wholesale restructuring of the political and economic order, he also understood that it also calls for an inner transformation -- commonly called "repentance." What both sides often miss, but King did not, is that both are needed.

Some years ago my pastor preached on Psalm 133, which reads:

¹ How good and pleasant it is
when brothers live together in unity!

² It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron's beard,
down upon the collar of his robes.

³ It is as if the dew of Hermon
were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the LORD bestows his blessing,
even life forevermore.

Now, it should be noted that David wrote that psalm while watching people heading to Jerusalem to worship -- after his son Absalom's rebellion. In other words, it represented a place of healing after the nation of Israel was divided politically.

This is not to say that we should overlook our differences, which is simply impossible. Rather, I believe that we should look at our opponents not as implacable enemies that must be conquered but as whole persons in their own right created in the image of Almighty God -- and that we're not worthy of worship.

And that's the heart of King's dream.

Truth and reconciliation

Lately I've been rereading several sections of "A Testament of Hope," a collection of writings and speeches of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who as most of you know has been a major influence on my Christian life. And in the process, I was reminded of an important truth: There can be no reconciliation without truth.

During his day, King was often accused of divisiveness and creating problems that didn't exist -- comments like "Our Negroes were happy until those outsiders came in and started causing trouble!" Unfortunately for them, King's critics were so shut off from reality that they didn't realize that the unjust system that they were defending with their lives actually caused resentment towards them.

Any serious Christian should understand this. After all, before you can reconcile with God through Jesus Christ you have to recognize that you have made shipwreck of your life -- which can be can be hard to admit when you see things as going well. Consider your first reaction when you're confronted with your sin -- you probably defended yourself because, frankly, the idea that you were wrong is unpalatable.

One of the first worship songs I learned on the Georgia Tech campus 30 years ago was "Come, Let Us Reason Together," based on Isaiah 1:18. However, consider what he wrote before that:

¹⁰ Hear the word of the LORD,
you rulers of Sodom;
listen to the law of our God,
you people of Gomorrah!
¹¹ "The multitude of your sacrifices —
what are they to me?" says the LORD.
"I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure
in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
¹² When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?
¹³ Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
I cannot bear your evil assemblies.
¹⁴ Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts
my soul hates.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
¹⁵ When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even if you offer many prayers,
I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood;
¹⁶ wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds
out of my sight!
Stop doing wrong,
¹⁷ learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.
Now, is God being "divisive?" No, He's telling it like it is -- at the risk of offending his audience. And sometimes confrontation is necessary in the process.

Some years ago I made the following analogy to a friend of Armenian heritage. Now, the Armenian people have historically had issues with the Turks, and let's say that the Turks came to the Armenians and said, "We wish to reconcile with you, but we don't want to admit to anything we did wrong, nor will we change our attitudes about you." Ridiculous, right? Yet that's just what some people are proposing because admitting that they were at fault causes them discomfort.

One of the demonstrators protesting the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. in 1957 admitted a few years ago on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to the black students who were trying to enter the school, "We were ignorant." A woman demonstrator said tearfully that she later taught her own children to act differently. Wonderful moments, to be sure -- but which could never happened without confrontation.

Abortion, eugenics and ideology

About a quarter-century ago, I noticed that the car of one of my then-church's sextons sported this bumper sticker: "American abortion -- Hitler would have loved it!"

Not long afterward while playing basketball in the church's Parish Hall, I told him, "Hitler wouldn't have given a damn" -- which I knew to be true. If you don't believe me, here's a quote from the man himself: "The idea that a woman's body belongs to her is absurd."

The issue came up for me during a discussion on "Obamacare" on another blog where one of the other posters accused "Democrats," especially those who support abortion rights -- I don't, by the way -- of supporting the extermination of certain racial groups due to innate "inferiority." When I first heard that years ago it sounded ridiculous -- and, upon examination, it turns out to be.

Rather, it represents yet another campaign from the political right to marginalize those who don't agree with all of its tenets, shifting the blame from its own policies to its opponents. More to the point, this is one situation about which it's just plain lying.

As I mentioned, elective abortion is often linked to the notorious German dictator who caused World War II, but the truth about what he believed, said and did doesn't square with the legend. Hitler had actually banned abortions by "Aryan" women while encouraging or forcing them on those of "darker" hue. One of the reasons Germany conquered other nations was so that "Aryans" could populate them, even going so far as to encourage them to marry women in, say, Scandinavia.

However, the people who hold analogous views today are are on the right, not the left. I got a glimpse of that in the 1980s when Pat Robertson, of course no liberal, said on the "700 Club" that evangelical Christians should increase their birthrate. It's also a concern of white racist groups such as neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and (I believe) the Council of Conservative Citizens.

One long-time anti-abortion target is, of course, Planned Parenthood, whose founder, the late Margaret Sanger, has been painted as a vicious racist and Nazi sympathizer who supported forced abortions.

Sanger, however, actually wrote during WWII: "All the news from Germany is sad [and] horrible and to me more dangerous than any other war going on [anywhere] because it has so many good people who applaud the atrocities [and] claim its right. The sudden antagonism in Germany against the Jews [and] the vitriolic hatred of them is spreading underground here [and] is far more dangerous than the aggressive policy of the Japanese in Manchuria.."

She also wrote, "The campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value but is practically identical with the final aims of eugenics.... We are convinced that racial regeneration, like individual regeneration, must come 'from within.' That is, it must be autonomous, self-directive and not imposed from without."

Doesn't sound like she believed in the concept of a "master race," let alone using political means to produce it.

And here's a shocker: In the 1920 book "Woman and the New Race," which came out at a time when abortion had already been illegal for a generation, Sanger wrote, "While there are cases where even the law recognizes an abortion as justifiable if recommended by a physician, I assert that the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed in America each year are a disgrace to civilization." (Keep in mind also that she died in 1966, a little over six years before Roe v. Wade.)

All this forces me to question the motives of people who accuse PP and similar organizations of placing abortion clinics in black neighborhoods for the purpose of racial "genocide." Here in Pittsburgh, PP's office is actually Downtown -- my bus to work goes within a block -- where few people actually live, most of those white. Also, three abortion clinics are located in East Liberty, an impoverished city neighborhood also largely black; however, two of them have been there since at least the early 1980s, when it was "in transition" (and probably long before that).

But as I was saying, the folks who have tended to promote "eugenics" as culture or policy have come from the right. It wasn't "liberals" who fought to preserve slavery. It wasn't "liberals" who implemented Jim Crow laws. It wasn't "liberals" who exploited migrant Asians on the West Coast in the 19th century. It wasn't "liberals" who strategically placed bombs to intimidate (or even kill) civil-rights figures or called Martin Luther King Jr. a Communist. It wasn't "liberals" who displayed signs saying "Hang [Nelson] Mandela" upon his release from a South African prison.

And if you need any more proof, consider that one of PP's largest benefactors is billionaire right-wing financier Richard Mellon Scaife, publisher of the Tribune-Review and best known for funding the "vast right-wing conspiracy" against President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

This kind of mischaracterization may be a reason why the anti-abortion movement hasn't gone anywhere since 1973. If we believe we have "truth" on our side, we'd better get our facts straight.

Moving toward -- ?

In an early chapter of his book The Way of the Wild Heart, John Eldredge describes several ways that men react to their fathers. One sample, which closely correlates to mine, was the following: "An evil man. May God deliver me from his legacy."

At a 12-Step recovery meeting I attended earlier tonight, I realized something: I've spent much of the past four decades running from my father. (Never mind that he's been dead for over 15 years.)

In retrospect, that started early. He derided Martin Luther King Jr. because of his commitment to the Christian faith; I became not only a Christian myself but also an admirer of King and supporter of his attitude of nonviolence. He resented the white race; meanwhile, most of my friends are -- and almost all of my dating partners have been -- white. He wanted me to study engineering; when that didn't work out I turned to writing, which displeased him.

But even my conversion, nearly 30 years ago, and subsequent discipleship were driven in large part by not wanting to be like him. I received Christ as Savior and LORD the day after he informed my brother and me that my mother had threatened to leave -- and I knew why. Just over four years later, when she made good on that threat and I moved out with her, I went into counseling and entered 12-step recovery because of a specific situation that showed me that, even though I was a believer, I had not changed sufficiently to be able to live effectively on life's terms. (The Program, based on Alcoholics Anonymous, has actually helped me to be a better Christian.)

Basically, I understood how not to live. But -- what's the alternative?

I think that illustrates one of the problems with the way Christianity is "sold" in this country -- primarily as a way to avoid eternal punishment. While that is certainly a fringe benefit of "salvation," I'm no longer convinced that doing so represents God's intent. He created ancient Israel to separate a people for Himself to live by His law in order to glorify Himself and bless the rest of the world; He sent his Son Jesus for the same ultimate purpose. In other words, His intention was always positive.

That's the challenge that I -- and every serious Christian -- face. When Paul instructs believers to "crucify the flesh," he was referring to the process of suffocation that eventually brought death to a physical body. That said, the "flesh" has to be replaced with something else rather than just killed. Which is why spiritual discipline is so important.

I'm not sure what that means exactly in my present state. I know only that a "negative" view won't help me personally, let alone help to establish the Kingdom of God as far as I have influence. May I -- and we -- live more positively.

Misguided activism

This month marks the 25th anniversary of a pivotal moment that helped to determine my views on activism. More accurately, it showed me how not to go about it.

On Easter Sunday 1984 two groups of pro-labor activists -- the lay Network to Save the Mon/Ohio Valley and the Denominational Ministry Strategy, comprising pastors -- disrupted the later service at Shadyside Presbyterian Church, a prominent congregation I had joined just weeks before. When I arrived there a little late a tall, heavyset man dressed in flannel shirt, workboots and jeans was shouting at the congregation amid the singing. The offficiating pastor allowed him to deliver his message, which was full of invective toward members of the congregation who were involved in upper management of steel companies that were shutting down operations, putting many of those men out of work. Many of us greeted them afterwards, a close woman friend taking me by the elbow as we made our way forward.

That wasn't the end of it, however. Over the next couple of years the groups, among other things, placed dead fish in safe deposit boxes in certain bank branches, insulted the pastor the church later called (as if he had anything to do with it) and bombed with skunk oil attendees of a post-Christmas pageant reception in the fellowship hall. I'm sure that, to many of my church fellow members, it felt like a constant siege. The activists were certainly committed to the cause -- one of the Lutheran pastors affiliated with the DMS, who ended up going to jail, had his ministerial credentials revoked.

But the groups' ultimate demand, to take the church's entire endowment, then about $6 million, showed their real colors. The message: "You owe us." In other words, they cared only about getting what they wanted no matter how it affected other people -- just what they were accusing the execs of. Well, they didn't get a penny from the church and the effort eventually petered out largely because of justifiably bad press.

Since then I've witnessed other similar demonstrations, specifically the anti-abortion Operation Rescue in 1988 during which two people I personally know were arrested for blockading abortion clinics. Civil-rights marches were still also taking place for reasons I don't even remember right now. And so on, and so on ...

Amazingly, all these groups claimed the "nonviolent" mantra of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whom I've studied for years. I saw immediately, however, that there was no connection between them.

King would never had insulted the other side, much as he personally would have liked to, because he knew full well that the opposition was trying to draw him into a tit-for-tat that would have sabotaged any moral authority he had. He also even invited his enemies to join them, witness conversations he had with jailers in Birmingham, Ala. who were complaining about the very same "system" that had imprisoned him.

That spirit of gentle confrontation didn't exist in the Network/DMS; their goal from the start was to humiliate the "enemy." Instead, the campaign against SPC became the church's finest hour, as its leadership consistently conducted itself with grace and humility. Indeed, I'm sure that some of the people reading this have all but forgotten about those demonstrations.

And that's the point. There's a way to confront perceived injustices -- with communication and relationship, not just making demands.

'Liberty' run amok

Today, the city of Pittsburgh said goodbye to three policemen who were shot to death Saturday morning by a 22-year old gunman.

Taking place on Tuesday will be a "Tax Day Tea Party," a protest to be held here -- and, I'm sure, around the nation -- and sanctioned by the national Libertarian Party against "inefficient government."

The two are related.

For Richard Poplawski, now in custody for their murders, subscribed to a similar anti-government ideology based more on fear and resentment than on any historical perspective.

Well, perhaps that's not entirely true, because American political culture from the start was informed in large part by contempt for the English crown courtesy of immigrants from Northern Ireland -- known popularly as the "Scots-Irish" -- beginning in the 17th Century. Individualists to the core and quite militant, they have always maintained at least a suspicion toward any authority, whether economic, political or social, that doesn't answer to them. That has historically caused problems for the efforts to maintain a sense of justice, especially toward those whose rights have been abridged by law or custom.

Let's take the Civil War, which we often teach was fought to end slavery especially in the South. However, in the section of the country known as Appalachia, where many of the Scots-Irish settled and still live, slavery was non-existent and in fact resisted to a point where the state of North Carolina was considering seceding from the Confederacy over it and what is now West Virginia actually did so. Yet, the South had no shortage of soldiers because, according to that narrative, the real issue was "sovereignty" and the enemy was in Washington, D.C. (Try finding a statue of or streets or buildings named for Abraham Lincoln in the South, even today.)

The civil-rights movement similarly faced resistance, particularly because of the "sovereignty" issue; it turned bloody because Southerners, again, felt it was their sacred duty to fight the central government, which they considered the instigator. Some conservatives even tried to link Martin Luther King Jr. to Communists (a ridiculous charge on its face but understandable given that culture).

You see, in that atmosphere the pursuit of "liberty" at the expense of justice -- which is occasionally secured only by changing laws and customs and in which the "state" is often involved -- can lead to the kind of carnage we witnessed in Pittsburgh on Saturday. It is no accident that the Poplawski's victims were police; after all, they were agents of the "state" (in this case, the city of Pittsburgh), which in his view sought to curtail constitutional liberties almost by definition. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that Poplawski subscribed to right-wing "conspiracy theories" and was an ardent opponent of President Barack Obama, whom he felt would eventually abridge his interpretation of the Second Amendment.

That's the connection to the "Tax Day Tea Party." Government, of course, runs primarily on taxes, and what better way to limit government by, in the words of anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist, "starving the beast" of revenue? It's come to the point where many libertarian-oriented conservatives consider taxation "theft" and others insist that we can't "tax ourselves into prosperity." That argument falls short, however, when you consider that libertarian economic policies over the last three decades have led directly to the mess we experience today. Hate to disappoint, but government intervention is, for all practical purposes, necessary at this point.

It's easy to talk about "rights," important as they are; it's something else to talk about responsibility to society and one's fellow man. At some point we need to consider if our shortsighted focus on our own has actually sabotaged the rights of others. Thanks to Poplawski, three men have been deprived of their right to life, and if this "tea party" has any effect the government will be deprived of its obligation to restrain evil and administer justice. And without justice, no amount of "liberty" will make this a sane place to live.

A message to my conservative friends

Those of you who subscribe to a conservative ideological agenda and have tangled with me over the years probably consider me unnecessarily argumentative and unwilling to back down. I'm sure you look at me funny and think, "How can someone who calls himself a Christian believe what he does? Doesn't he believe in Christian unity? Doesn't he understand that we're only fighting for Biblical values?"

Well, there's a specific reason why I get in people's faces. Aside from my basic disagreements with the conservative agenda, mentioned elsewhere on this blog, there's another issue: My upbringing -- more specifically, my earthly father.

You see, I was raised by a man with no real moral center and who believed that life was about meeting his needs, refusing to deal with folks wouldn't feed his ego and convinced he was always right. Deeply resentful toward people whom he feel wronged him, he subscribed to the wisdom of the world, that you should make as much money as you can as soon as you can regardless of any calling or spiritual commitment and whom you hurt in the process -- in short, he was, in practice, a Marxist who subscribed to the Machiavellian principle "the ends justify the means." When I first heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ as a pre-teen it was certainly a distinctive message from what I was hearing at home. And when I did respond just before graduating from high school nearly 30 years ago, it was for that reason: I wanted something different from what I realized was the nonsense I grew up with.

Less than a year later I saw my first deviation -- the following January, while a student at Georgia Tech, in an independent evangelical church in an Atlanta suburb I attended with other students. The pastor before then had been recuperating from major surgery and had been out of the pulpit for several months; when he returned he started preaching conservative politics from the pulpit, especially against the Soviet Union, and punctuating each point with Hebrews 12:29, "[F]or our 'God is a consuming fire.'" At that time the church publicized an anti-Equal Rights Amendment rally (I was an ERA supporter) and improperly endorsed then-presidential candidate Ronald Reagan (consider when this was and who was in office at the time). My spirit became uneasy because this didn't sound like the Christ I had pledged to follow, but it would take just one visit to a downtown church just off campus, where I ended up staying, to understand just what the problem was.

You see, there was no love in the first church -- for Christ, people or God's creation. It was all about fear about losing privileges, power, position -- the very opposite of Jesus' good news to me. And looking back now, the second church was warm and nurturing, while the first church was kind of cold. Just like my household.

Dad also had considerable racial resentment as well; I can't tell you how many times he used to refer to the "white man" -- of course, in a negative fashion -- which also began to turn me off. Granted, there were historical injustices perpetrated on African-Americans and I would later learn the specifics; however, growing up I had become an admirer of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. -- whom Dad didn't care for -- who decided to choose a different path, and I later became an early advocate of racial reconciliation in the evangelical church. (Oh, those two churches in Atlanta were white.)

That said, I would eventually learn that the ideological right has had its own issues with race and racism that it has never faced. In an interview with the New Yorker, Pat Buchanan, than an aide to President Nixon (whose whole political career was based on resentment), related a 1971 memo in which he recommended, among other things, that "bumper stickers calling for black Presidential and especially Vice-Presidential candidates should be spread out in the ghettoes of the country ... We should do what is within our power to have a black nominated for Number Two, at least at the Democratic National Convention" because doing so could help to "cut the Democratic Party and country in half; my view is that we would have far the larger half."

Reagan, however, would bring that to a whole new level, as he would ride some of those anti-black resentments all the way to the White House. Indifferent to the civil-rights movement and dismissive of King, during his 1976 campaign he referred to "welfare queens driving Cadillacs" and kicked off his 1980 campaign in Neshoba County, Miss., near where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964, stating that he favored "states' rights" (read: "I would have opposed desegregation"). In fact, his "big government" shtick actually had a racist tinge to it, as guess who was perceived as benefiting from it? That pandering to racists might explain his endorsement from a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia, saying that "the Republican platform could have been written by a Klansman." That's why I'm not a Republican.

But I digress. Anyway, in August of 1983 Mom, fed up with Dad's tyranny and fatigued by fruitless attempts to change the situation, decided to leave the marriage. Dad tried desperately to get her back but wouldn't change his outlook or way of dealing with things, so Mom filed for divorce, which was finalized in January of 1985. (She would later marry a more solid, stable man I referred to in another entry.) But even then he refused to humble himself and admit his failings; he remained resentful toward her to his death in 1993 from complications of his alcoholism.

What's the conservative analogy? Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

According to David Brock's book "Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative," conservative activists went so far as to file suit in Federal court in Little Rock, Ark. in 1992 to have Clinton removed from the ballot -- because they knew he would probably win. And all during his presidency the political right, especially its media, hounded him, sabotaging his program and spreading unsubstantiated rumors about his corruption. Eight years later, after having failed to knock off Bill, they decided they needed to sabotage his wife, Sen. Hillary, then the junior U.S. senator from New York, on her road to the White House; a number of folks I talked to said that they would cross over to the Democratic primary to support Obama to keep her out. It never occurred to them that Obama would himself become a viable candidate.

There's a saying, however, that "those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Two years ago the Washington Times published a story with the false assertion that Obama had attended a radical Muslim seminary in Indonesia, and a number of people also filed suit to have Obama removed because of questions about his citizenship -- again, because they knew he could win. It was the political equivalent of getting back at a rival for "stealing his girl" -- never mind that she willingly left with him.

And there's still considerable resentment over Obama's victory -- I chided a man at dinner a couple of months ago for blaming the media for trashing vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin during the campaign; he became angry when I told him that she didn't need their help. There's also a Facebook group called "Nobama in '12" -- they're not even going to give him a chance?

One more personal note: Just weeks before my parents split I read the wedding announcement of a woman I had desired in high school. That situation, of which I'll spare you the details, was quite acrimonious to say the least, and for quite some time I blamed her for that.

But after Mom left the LORD spoke to me, saying, "Consider your part." You see, He showed me that the dynamics between her and me were similar to my parents' marriage, which I already knew why had failed. Also reeling from the trauma of flunking out of school for the second time, I went into counseling, began attending 12-step recovery programs and fell in with a group of people who helped me get back on my feet. After years of healing I extended her an olive branch and we later apologized to each other; we're still in touch even though we'll never be close friends. (I can honestly say I harbor no bitterness toward her today.)

You see, it was through that experience that God revealed to me the depth of my sin. Because I had already believed in Jesus Christ I knew intellectually that it was already forgiven; that said, sin was still affecting my life in ways I wasn't aware of at the time. Because I've worked through all that in my own life, I see that in others.

My situation reminds me of a rumor I heard about one of my favorite music groups -- I don't know for sure this is true, so I won't identify it -- that had fired a talented newer member for being high on stage. Members of this band, like many others, had previously abused drugs and alcohol but eventually came to their senses and were not about to tolerate something like that again in their presence. In the same way, having dealt with my own issues, I recognize hatred, resentment and bigotry when I see it. So if you want to be that way ... don't do it around me.

The myth of 'compassionate conservatism'

I recently joined the social networking site Facebook and looked around for people I might be acquainted with. In the process I found the page for one woman I've known since the 1990s from the Christian singles community here in Pittsburgh; in the slot for "political stance" she had marked "compassionate conservative."

That took me back to eight years ago, when then-president-elect George W. Bush described himself as the same and promised programs that would reflect that.

Here's the problem with "compassionate conservatism" -- it doesn't really exist. I'm not at all saying that conservatives cannot be compassionate, at least on an individual level; however, "compassion" cannot be shaped into an ideology.

To be truly compassionate a person must "have been there" -- or at least be willing to "go there" -- and also help to determine a person's real needs and how to address them. Committed conservatives, on the other hand, focus on how to do that while still maintaining its agenda of shrinking political involvement. Put another way, "compassionate conservatism" focuses on what it wants to give and how it does so, sabotaging its stated intentions.

The concept of "compassionate conservatism" flows from the suspect narrative that "Great Society" programs instituted in the 1960s have actually hurt the poor, and it proposes that such diaconal remedies be taken over by private charities, generally churches. In fact, President Bush pushed a bill that would have hopefully done just that.

Moreover, as envisioned by Marvin Olasky, editor of the ultra-conservative World magazine and a journalism professor at the University of Texas who had advised President Bush when he was governor of Texas, under such a program the government would pay churches to do ministry -- and hopefully, in the process, convert the poor to his version of Christianity, making people more "moral" so we wouldn't have to worry about them anymore.

However, such things as job training and college grants paid for by tax dollars have actually done more for the poor than anything conservatives have attempted; you don't have a black middle-class outside the South without them. But those programs were cut in the early 1980s when Ronald Reagan, the first modern conservative president, was in office.

More important, "compassionate conservatism" wrongly assumes that the poor are poor primarily because of bad choices on their part; in fact, however, many simply don't have the opportunity to better themselves because of lack of resources and, eventually, hope.

Beginning in the 1950s, for openers, federal policy helped to create, for example, the disparity between rich and poor by making loans available to folks to buy new homes in what are now suburban areas, and the interstate highway system was built at that time to make center cities easily accessible to people with wheels. Those basically emptied out most cities of wealthier whites because economic and political clout -- including, of course, jobs -- left with them. Furthermore, those loans were somehow not made available to African-Americans, so center cities became blacker and poorer; the lack of economic opportunity in part due to racism caused families to split because Dad often had trouble finding good work, creating dissension at home because he then could not exercise his God-given authority as the head of the household.

In other words, we're looking at a problem that had its basis in political decisions that conservatives themselves often benefited from (because suburbs are generally conservative). And in fact, "compassionate conservatism" as practiced was designed to get the "rich" to keep their money and cultural power in the process. No real compassion there, only institutionalized hypocrisy.

Also keep in mind that the civil-rights movement, which conservatives generally ignored or opposed, was not at first about rich vs. poor (that came later). The Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala., where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was pastor when the legendary bus boycott broke out, actually was a high-class congregation comprising the professional and mercantile class of that city; yet its members regularly felt the sting of segregation.

You see, in this case true compassion seeks not just relief from immediate circumstances but a restructuring of society to make sure that people have a chance to make their own way down the road. If there is a barrier that keeps a friend from getting a job or into a school, the compassionate person will not only commisserate with that friend but will work to have that barrier removed. "Compassionate conservatism" simply doesn't address those barriers, which is why no one's talking about it today.