Barber at DC Rally
The Rev. William Barber II and the Rev. Liz Theodaris are leading the New Poor People's Campaign for a national moral revolution in America through non-retributive means.
By now, thousands of words have been written about the incident in which presidential press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked by owner Stephanie Wilkinson to leave Wilkinson’s northern Virginia restaurant The Red Hen at the behest of employees uncomfortable with serving the Trump Administration’s spokeswoman. The episode troubled me so much that I posted my ethical quandary on Facebook, where a surprisingly polite and profound conversation of many perspectives ensued.
I’m grateful for all the viewpoints my friends gave, because they showed what a complex ethical problem we’re facing in both church and society these days. What continues to vex me – and many other Christians of my acquaintance – is this: How do we reconcile Jesus’ instructions to do good to our enemies with our baptismal vow to resist evil in whatever form it presents itself?
I find this ethical dilemma compounded by my own personality; by human behavioral standards, I’m what’s known as a “hot reactor.” In “fight, flight or freeze” situations, I opt reflexively for “fight.” I’d have been among the first to grab my musket at Concord and Lexington. I’d have been first to storm the Bastille in the French Revolution. I’d have been one of the iron-jawed angels force-fed by police to keep me from dying for women’s suffrage. Even now, despite age and disability, if there’s a demonstration against the injustices of our current era, I’m there whenever possible.
So why the angst over this instance of retribution directed toward the public spokeswoman of a political system turned oppressive? Because the better angels of my nature are telling me that retributive action is not the way of Jesus.
I find this spiritual discernment hard to accept. It hurts to see what is happening in America. Like the prophet Jeremiah, “all my bones shake” at the sight of bullying, oppression or injustice. I want to hit back. We want to hit back, especially now when so many people around us are being hurt by the actions of those in political power.
Many agree with a retributive strategy, such as New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg: “…Liberals are using their cultural power against the right because it’s the only power they have left, and people have a desperate need to say, and to hear others say, that what is happening in this country is intolerable.
“Sometimes, their strategies may be poorly conceived. But there’s an abusive sort of victim-blaming in demanding that progressives single-handedly uphold civility, lest the right become even more uncivil in response. As long as our rulers wage war on cosmopolitan culture, they shouldn’t feel entitled to its fruits.”
Therein lies the rub for me. I enjoy the fruits of our “cosmopolitan culture,” but my dominant culture isn’t “cosmopolitan America”; it’s the God-culture taught by my rabbi, Jesus. If Jesus had been a baker, he’d have baked a wedding cake for anyone who asked. If Jesus came upon someone hungry, as he often did, he fed them. If they were thirsty, he gave them water. In Jesus culture, we return good for evil; in so doing, we renounce evil, we resist it and refuse to be conquered by it.
But Jesus didn’t stop there. Every gesture that met a human need also included the “why” – the news that God loves us and wants us to have wholeness of life, a divine vision of shalom for all creation. The strategy of retribution, whether it’s shunning, civil violence or outright war, carries great danger for Christians, for it tempts us into becoming the evil we’re trying to resist.
We aren’t in this life to “win” it, and that’s what retributive actions reinforce – the winner-take-all strategy that is a favorite of those currently in political power. We Christians have at our disposal a strategy far mightier than tit-for-tat incivility. When we stand courageously and non-violently against injustice and oppression, we call upon the power of love to disarm hatred (make no mistake, political liberals are just as capable of hatred as are political conservatives).
Martin Luther King Jr.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
I think these days of those who’ve employed this strategy successfully. Gandhi, who won independence for India through provocative non-violent non-cooperation with British rule. Martin Luther King Jr., who led his people across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma to civil rights, and then into a “poor people’s campaign” against poverty and militarism. And now, people like the Rev. William Barber II and the Rev. Liz Theodaris are leading a new Poor People’s Campaign for moral revolution in America.
Of all the responses to my Facebook post, the one I like best was from my friend, the Rev. Thom White Wolf Fassett, former top executive of the General Board of Church and Society. Thom wrote: “I’d have baked the [wedding] cake [for a gay couple]. I’d have served the dinner. Then I’d have sat down and delivered my sermon.”
Let’s bake the cakes. Let’s serve the dinners. Let’s march and vote. Most of all, let’s not miss any opportunity to deliver the sermon.
Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011.