Ferguson, Repentance, and Noble Lost Causes

Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD.
    Lord, hear my voice! 
Let your ears be attentive
    to the voice of my supplications!   Psalm 130:1-2

There are a lot of depths out there right now. From the terrorist force ISIS to the situation in Ukraine to the Ebola epidemic to the situation in Ferguson, there is much in the world to shake your head about and wonder what to do. Of course when it comes to doing, we Americans are enamored with the quick fix, and we imagine we can fix things with a different plan, a new leader, a new formula, or a few air strikes.

When problems are far too complex for quick fixes, we tend to declare them intractable or deny them altogether. And so the situation in the Middle East is one where "They've been fighting for centuries and they'll be fighting centuries from now." But in Ferguson, MO it's simply a matter of a few "thugs and hooligans" because racism is no longer that big of a problem.

In his remarkably short, second inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln reflected on a war in which both sides read the same Bible and prayed to the same God for aid in defeating the other. And he wondered if the Civil War was not God's punishment on both North and South for the horrible sin of slavery.

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

Lincoln understood that the grievous sin of slavery had brought terrible and lasting consequences, ones for which quick fixes provided no real remedy. Firmly in that context did he conclude his address with a line often quoted, but not always connected to the quote above, which it immediately follows.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

 I have to believe that Lincoln's assassination just a month later greatly impeded efforts to achieve a just and lasting peace.

I grew up in North and South Carolina in the 1960s and 70s. I did not really witness the Jim Crow era but my childhood was still very segregated. And the Civil War I learned about had nothing to do with America's atonement for her original sin of slavery. Instead it was a noble, lost cause. Even in the North, this sentiment often went unchallenged. And obviously, there is no need to repent of noble, lost causes.

Repentance is fundamental to Christian faith. When Jesus begins his ministry his first public words are, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." The good news Jesus brings requires a repenting, a turning from old ways, which naturally requires an acknowledgement that these old ways were the wrong way. But that never really happened with America's sin of slavery. Especially in my native South, this failure allowed us to replace slavery with institutions nearly as bad. Our unwillingness to confess and repent allowed the continued treatment of African Americans as less than fully human. It allowed white pastors to preach that segregation was ordained by God. And it continues to allow white Americans to underestimate, ignore, or deny the advantages and privileges we enjoy and the disadvantages and hurdles faced by African Americans to this day.

I do not know all the "facts" in the shooting of Michal Brown by a Ferguson police officer. But I do know that the Ferguson police have engaged in plenty of questionable behavior. I know that being young, male, and black puts one at considerably more risk of being confronted and killed by the police. And I know that a lot of whites would like to deny that this is so.

A fuller repenting of slavery by white Americans and especially by white southerners would not fix the racial problems in American, but it could change the dynamics. The failure to repent, to admit that the Confederate cause was not just a lost cause but also an evil one, is a refusal to acknowledge our sin. This shields us from blame for circumstances that emerged because of that sin and absolves us of a duty to help correct the problems. Our inability to repent denies that we or our forebears could have been part of a monstrous evil, and so it keeps us from recognizing the need to turn from the ways of our past in order to move toward the good news Jesus proclaims - a new day when all peoples and races and clans are one family, a new day with none of the "us versus them" divisions that we are so good at perpetuating.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD.
    Lord, hear my voice! 

Amidst all the troubles in the world, it is easy to despair that God is not paying much attention, that God is ignoring our cries and pleas. But it seems equally plausible that a bigger problem is our inattention and our ignoring Jesus' plea to repent, to turn from our ways and embrace his.

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