Response

God has created all the peoples of the earth to be one universal family. In his reconciling love, he overcomes the barriers between brothers and breaks down every form of discrimination based on racial or ethnic difference, real or imaginary. The church is called to bring all men to uphold one another as persons in all relationships of life: in employment, housing, education, leisure, marriage, family, church and the exercise of political rights. Therefore, the church labors for the abolition of all racial discrimination and ministers to those injured by it. Congregations, individuals, or groups of Christians who exclude, dominate or patronize their fellow men, however subtly, resist the Spirit of God and bring contempt on the faith which they profess.

The Confession of 1967, 

The Book of Confessions of the Presbyterian Church (USA)

Section 9.44 

So I sort of wanted to trot out something from The Theological Declaration of Barmen, where the German Evangelical Christian churches repudiate the Nazis and those complicit in their evil regime, but as it turns out it was the next chapter in the big book of Presbyterian beliefs that got my attention.  Because I have been watching the response to the latest eruption of fear, anger and violence.

Like many of my colleagues, I took a bit of a detour from my planned sermon to do a little breast beating and garment rending over Charlottesville.  The specter of racism still haunts our nation.  The increasingly toxic environment of our political life leaves us largely unable to actually talk our way through moments like the one we all watched in shock on Saturday. Politicians and public figures have really had a hard time with this one, because I think many of them are terrified of the whirlwind they have wrought.  It is not really a debatable point that our political discourse has been shaped by identity politics.  It has long since been more politically expedient to convince someone that you're on their side and you're like them than it is to try and represent a sort of leadership that is actually grown up, well-differentiated and healthy to the society it would govern.

Sure, some of the old school politicians can still dust off the uniform and comportment of statesmen every now and again, but they honestly like to win elections too, so the guiding principle has been to dive into the muck and pull the strings of some bloc of voters.  Promise the moon, lie if you have to, dance along the lines of difficult grey areas and try to stay in the good graces of your base; in most cases the constant barrage of the 24 hour news cycle and the notoriously short attention span of "the public," are on your side and if you don't mess up too bad, or leave photographic evidence, you can survive a misstep or some scam coming to light.

Sometimes you can't dodge though.  Sometimes people will see through your equivocation and your attempts to deflect the blame.  That's what happened to Donald Trump, who frankly mastered the shape-shifting, used-car-selling, ethos of modern politics the way Babe Ruth mastered baseball and Tiger Woods mastered golf (once upon a time).  But when something like Saturday happens, the lights come on and it's time for sincerity and real compassion, which he does not have in large supply.

The damning tape of David Duke, former head of the KKK, at the rally, saying, "We're here to fulfill the promise of Donald Trump," played so many times yesterday that it reminded me of MTV in the 1980's whenever Madonna put out a new video, except it was vile and not at all sexy.

This is clearly not a time to dodge the issue or try to deflect blame, even for a crass and amoral panderer like Trump, I see that just a few minutes ago, he held the obligatory press conference where he said all the sorts of things he should have said 48 hours or more ago.  He condemned Neo-Nazis, the KKK and vowed to bring justice to anyone who acted criminally.  Golf clap for Donny, the thing is his response doesn't shock me.  His first response to most things seems to only have two speeds: tepid equivocation or blind reactionary aggression. The tepid equivocation comes when he's not "sure of the room" so to speak, he's not sure what he can get away with, and he lacks a certain moral fiber to just know and set the proper tone.  He suffers even more on this front because Barack Obama was super good at the reaction part of his job, he could hold on to the sincere, serious tone of a president, while letting a few tears flow silently down his cheek, and he had all but the most unrepentant haters on his side. Trump, not so much, he can't even openly condemn Nazis and the KKK on the first try, he comes out with this thing about violence on "many sides," which even Ted Cruz thought was pretty slimy. Trump keeps losing more and more friends and influence, every time some little thing like this comes along.

It's death by a thousand cuts, at least that's what it feels like.

You know how when you were a kid and you got caught doing something bad and you said, "But Mom, Timmy was doing it too!" Yeah, that's equivocation, it doesn't work with your Mom, it doesn't work period, especially when people are dying in the street. This conflagration in Charlottesville deserves our lament, no equivocation, no excuses, just mourning and repentance, from us all, we're all in this together.  Which leads me to perhaps the hardest thing to say and do in this whole mess: Pray for my enemies.

I have to say that I don't really think that the campaigns to shame the white supremacists, putting their pictures up and pushing to get them fired from their jobs or ostracized from their schools are really going to work out so hot.  You are using the devil's toolbox with that one, and it doesn't have tools to do good and work for justice.  Trump's revenge-y speech today, also, not helpful. Those guys (and a very few girls) were out there on Saturday because they feel persecuted.  It doesn't really matter if they are actually persecuted, they have been sanctimoniously told to "check their privilege" probably one time too many.  They are the ones that get howling rage fits when someone mentions a safe space or a trigger warning, because political correctness is absolutely one of their triggers, even if they don't realize that.

One of the most important things I believe as a follower of Jesus is that only love can conquer hate, because hate begets more hate, violence begets more violence. Anger and hatred are secondary emotions, rooted in fear.  Those guys were wearing military gear and carrying guns because they were afraid, they were carrying confederate flags and swastikas because they were afraid, and because at some level those things that express anger and hatred seemed more powerful than simply being afraid.

In my mind they deserve pity.  Like my parents taught me when I was a kid, other than that they really should just be ignored, but not ignored like an infected wound that is allowed to fester, but ignored the way Martin Luther King ignored the White's Only signs or the way Rosa Parks ignored the command to move to the back of the bus.  Ignored and resisted, not ignored and tolerated.  The one thing that is true about this weekend is that if no counter-protesters showed up this would not be national news and Heather Heyer would still be alive. Does that mean we don't need to stand up to hatred and anger, certainly not, but understand that the escalation of the whole scene was exactly what the neo-nazis and such wanted, that's what terrorists always want: terror.

We have failed to understand this with Al Quaida and ISIS as well: they want us to come at them and bomb their cities and kill innocents, that's how their cause is justified.  The White Supremacists, wanted all those "SJW Snowflakes" out there in the streets shouting at them and throwing things at them, it just proved their point in their own mind: we are under attack and we have to stand up for ourselves.  They wanted Black Lives Matter, or even a bunch of Clergy out there protesting them, because that is a witness to the reality that their fear is contagious and spreading.

When I was little, I didn't believe that ignoring bullies would really help, but it did.  If I did not allow my goat to be got, if I didn't rise to the bait, the haters and the anger-mongers would go away.  As an adult, my ego can still sometimes get in the way of that simple lesson.  Let's save our outrage for defending the powerless, not bickering over a statue.  Let's save our courage to confront evil when there is someone in harm's way.  Let's stop the lynch mobs and the gangs that attack in the dark of night.  But by all means do not trade in the precious right of free speech in order to stop someone who disagrees with you from speaking.  In the light of day they are much less dangerous than if they are left to fester in the dark. If they want to march out and whine about a statue, let them, mark who they are, and do not let them pull you into their mud of hatred and anger.  They will not still be around when the men with hardhats come and pull down General Lee.