Non Biblical Origins of a Christian Nation

Nation- A people who share the same lies about their past, hatred of their present neighbor, and illusions about the future.

Ernest Renan

The myth that America was founded on Christian principles is so embedded in the psyche of our nation that questioning it's veracity is considered blasphemy. Many patriotic Christians point to biographies, autobiographies, and the Constitution instead of the Bible to validate this claim; what they disconnect is the fact that most Revolutionary history was written from the perspective of politicians and generals. It doesn't take a very smart person to understand that history told from the top down doesn't reflect the views of the average person. The native, the slave, the housewife, or the poor would have a different view of the same events based on their social positioning. This isn't a relativist argument. If we can't look at the past objectively, how can we look at our present condition with all of the emotions associated with our individual beliefs, critically?

One book you rarely hear a sermon preached out of is the book of Habakkuk. Fire and brimstone pastors can find parallels between our times and a litany of Old and New Testament prophecies and genealogies, but you never hear Habakkuk 2:12-13 which reads as follows:

12 Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity! 13 Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity? (KJV)

Hermeneutics aside, scriptures that call into question the moral (or immoral) origins of our nation are, as a rule, excluded from Christian discourse by many pastors. The fact that so many churches avoid the evils visited upon those on the underside of American history is telling. If my reading of the gospels is correct, no nation could be righteous if they don't care for the people Jesus taught his followers to care for. America was founded on Christian principles if you negate the way we acquired the land, and gloss over the way we treated our neighbors. What if some of our current social ills are a product of our origin story? In heaven the son doesn't suffer for the sins of his father, but we're on earth and the scars and wounds our forefathers left us have real world consequences.

The last few weeks have been a Rorschach test for America. Person A sees the Confederate flag and it represents x while their neighbor looks at the same flag and sees y. Depending on where you live Black Lives Matter means hatred of whites, and white silence to the atrocity in South Carolina is perceived as indifference. All week long I've read articles and commentaries about scheduled flag burning events; some of these comments meet the legal threshold for premeditation. The anger in those comments is real. Sadly, the same people making these threats over the flag can't muster the same anger for the black churches that have burnt down. While some will spending their Fourth of July worrying about flag burning, I have friends (pastors and deacons) who will spend the next few nights sleeping in the sanctuaries of their churches. 

Renan was more right than wrong in his definition of a nation. How can we understand a past we have limited access to if we are to fragmented to understand our current situation?

A Message To Black Lives Matter

Civil Rights Activism is tricky it takes courage to challenge the status quo and change social parameters. Far too many of your contemporaries see your efforts as crass, and your motivation as self serving. It will probably be 10 years before the critics understand your movement, and 20 years before the establishment tries to rebuild the images of you they're currently tearing down.  I support the measures you've used to keep your message from being ignored by the corporate media. #blackbrunch, die-ins, blocking traffic, and even hijacking political events have all been effective. My message to you is to continue practicing the kind of non threatening passive violence that has kept your movement relevant for over a year. Passive aggression takes longer, but what other options do you have? There are militant voices on the edges of your movement calling for an escalation that has the potential of starting an unwinnable war. Anyone who tries to convince you that armed insurrection should be part of any strategy to resolve the problems you're articulating is trying to co-opt your movement. 

When I talk to young brothers and sisters about Black Lives Matter they're full of excitement, but very few really know what to expect from the movement. Some are looking for inspiration and purpose: your movement gives them something positive to belong to. Some are looking for marching orders: they understand the social and economic realities they face, but they don't know what to do about it. While others in your movement just want some souvenirs and a story to tell. The reality is: many of you supporters will be disappointed. It's easier to assemble a group of like minded people in a city to hear a message than it is to turn that message into a sustained movement in our communities. Social movements are hard. Social media might be the best and worst things to happen to Civil Rights. Technology has made getting a message out easier, but too many members of this generation are keyboard activists. Once they share or retweet a message they feel like their job is done. BLM needs more sandwich board activists. 

The boycott is a perfect nonviolent violent weapon I would like to see phased into your overall strategy, but the reality is: I don't know what your strategy is. What's the overall goal? Are you seeking federal legislation to create a national register for law enforcement infractions? Are you committed to the decriminalization of soft drugs, Are you calling for a stimulus in the form of infrastructure spending? The underlying causes of inner-city crime and over policing need to be rectified, but we need to do the harder work of changing the perceptions of blackness. I agree: Black Lives Matter, but what's next? I'm 6'1 and 235 lbs I know all to well how to move docilely through society. The reality is: no piece of legislation is going to make me any less threatening to someone who has weaponized my black skin. I salute the progress you've made in a short time. You have our attention, but what's the next move?

Memes: The End of Original Thought

For me, the saddest thing about Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of social media is the constant use of memes. Too many people have given up on thinking. I understand sharing a meme that's funny, clever, or has a sentimental feel, but to completely outsource your thinking to someone with a meme generating app is troubling to me. The majority of the social, political, and economic based memes I see are blatantly false and designed to be click bait. Information is easier to get now than ever, yet too few are willing to invest the time it takes to read peer reviewed journals, attend talks and lectures, or -at the very least- think for themselves.

The amount of scrutiny social, scientific, and economic theory faces before we (the general public) ever get a chance to engage it is enormous, yet all of that hard work can be negated by someone with an app and a high speed Internet connection. I scroll my news feeds and timelines and read some of the most factually inaccurate psycho babble you can imagine. If video killed the radio star then Internet memes killed original thought.

The popularity of Internet memes is a sign that the war on intellect and critical thinking is working. The political and media organizations that invested in systematically misinforming our fellow citizens have won; scholarship, and intellectualism are the sacrificial lambs to the altars of dogmatism and ignorance.

Immanuel Kant wrote an essay titled, "What is Enlightenment". The most powerful quote reads as follows:

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance. They are the reasons why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I have a book that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on--then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me.

Kant wouldn't be surprised by our present condition. The ability to mislead and distract has always been the most effective and efficient way for the ruling class to control the demos or proletariat.

The Multiple Lenses of History

Photo from Lewisburg, West Virginia 

Tim Wise defined lynching as, "the extra judicial killing of any person". There was a period in this country where every 2 1/2 days a black man, woman, or child was hung from a tree. I write these words knowing that I'm the second of my parents children born without a legal challenge to my rights as a human being. My parents went to segregated schools. The history many of my patriotic friends want me to understand happened during the civil war; the history I can't get them to talk about is much closer. It took the south seventeen years to fully integrate schools after the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision.

I grew up in the south. We learned which houses weren't friendly at an early age. Black lawn jockeys, "porch monkeys", and rebel flags meant one thing: stay out. My childhood was full of interactions with people in Bath County who were less than nice to me. Fast forward 30 years and I've watched some of those people wither and die; while some are shells of their former selves: caught between sickness and death with no hope for life. A sad truth of their suffering was the enjoyment I got out of it. I know that's the worst kind of schadenfreude, but it's the truth. I pray that my heart will be softened.

I live in a county that employs one black person. I went to church and school with the black kids who scored the touchdowns, sang in the choirs, played in the bands, and eventually fought in the wars. How does our community thank them? When they come home from college or war they're cut off from opportunity and offered the same jobs on the plantation (a resort that will remain nameless) they had in high school. I know decorated war heroes who carried 75 lbs backpacks in a 110 degree heat in Iraq and Afghanistan while dodging bullets, only to come home and be denied opportunities to work in law enforcement and security.

The Confederate flag symbolizes all of these feelings for me. I understand phenomenology well enough to know the difference between projection and perception, so miss me with all of your how the flag makes you feel sentiments. I'm able to look someone in the eye and understand how proud they are of great-grandpappy's service to the south. I encourage all of my friends who want to wear their stars and bars to fly your flag proudly, just don't waste your time trying to explain to me how the flag doesn't have racist connotations.

Our culture places an emphasis on raising our kids with strong religious roots. If, you believe that teaching kids morality can sustain them throughout their lives, then is it a leap to think someone who was taught they were less than a person could harbor any of those feelings years later? I know black men who've never dated a black woman. Many of these brothers will tell you black women are beneath them. What kind of brainwashing does it take to make someone look at their own people as being less than? I know bourgeois middle-class black folks who have a deep disdain for their own people. How, in good faith, can a person on one side of their brain believe teaching a kid something good can shape their lives for the better, but disconnect the fact that the psychological scars of Jim Crow can last just as long?

Again, the Confederate flag doesn't bother me; with or without any external signifier: I know how to recognize a racist. We're at a point in race relations where a catastrophic terrorist attack by an external enemy might be the only thing that could unite us. The longer we're forced to focus on ourselves, our past, and its impact on the present the more likely it is we burst apart at the seams. We've gotten so good at denying reality that when the blinders are ripped off and we have to see what's around us we huddle protectively in our corners until the next senseless killing, riot, or incident of police brutality happens. It's saddens me to accept the reality that it's easier to refocus our hate than to get rid of it.