Deciding When to Call Evil by Its Name

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"We should be happy that [Jesus] did not say, 'Like your enemies.' It is almost impossible to like some people."      –Martin Luther King Jr. "Strength to Love"

Years ago, when I was still engaged in high-pressure journalism, I kept framed mini-posters around my office. A lot of them were sardonic and skeptical commentaries on the hard realities of life. One of my favorites was: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely. But it also rocks.”

Since then I’ve come to terms somewhat with the human lust for power, mainly because of the times when I failed to use my own power appropriately. It’s a paradox. I want the order that authority brings, but not so much order as to stifle creativity. I want civil discourse and I strive to keep United Methodist Insight a civil forum, but there are simply times when righteous anger burns so hot that civility is incinerated.

Such was the decision I made recently to publish a short letter that retired Bishop William B. Lewis sent to Insight, among other correspondents. Bishop Lewis was replying to President Donald Trump’s now-infamous remark about not wanting immigrants from “shithole countries.” In defending the people that he felt Trump had maligned, the bishop used uncivil language to describe the 81 percent of self-identified “evangelicals” who voted Trump into office. Along with many other religious and secular commentators, Bishop Lewis argued that this group of people has sold out its values for the sake of political power, and represents a great threat to both church and society.

The bishop’s language offended a reader, who posted two comments demanding that Bishop Lewis’ article be removed as “hate speech.” After some consideration, I decided to take down the bishop’s article. Here’s what I wrote to the reader in explanation:

“I trust that by now you have seen that Bishop William B. Lewis' column has been removed from United Methodist Insight's publication as you requested.

“I hope that this episode has given you some appreciation for how difficult it can be at times to walk the fine line between allowing people to express their legitimate anger at actors and events and judging the degree to which such expression becomes offensive to some. I have to wonder if your objection would have been so vehement had someone who self-identifies as 'evangelical' written in the same vein as Bishop Lewis about those he identifies as 'liberal' or 'progressive.'

“This is the complexity we face when judging actions and reactions in the public square. It's likely that the religious authorities of Jesus' day didn't like being termed a 'brood of vipers' when he preached against their actions from the south portico of the Temple in Jerusalem.

“Despite your objections to his language, Bishop Lewis' underlying assessment is correct: President Donald Trump proved himself an immoral, unqualified candidate before he took office, and we have the 81 percent of 'white, born-again evangelicals' to thank for putting him into an office for which he is morally, ethically and qualitatively unfit. The bishop's language is intemperate, but his argument is not, and it was on that basis that his submission was chosen for publication.”

That’s the choice we face today in so many ways. On the one hand, we’re trying to get past the vicious and vile rhetoric that has gripped the nation since the 2016 presidential campaign, and it’s not easy. One of the best signs I saw from the Women’s Marches over Jan. 20-21 was one held by a boy sitting on his father’s shoulders: “I’m not allowed to act like the president.” In our best moments, our internal censors or “better angels” can help us keep our most emotional language in check. Yet there are still times when the outrage at what’s happening in church and society is so righteously strong that we employ the same “brood of vipers,” “whitewashed tombs,” and “den of thieves” language that Jesus used against the oppressive religious authorities of his day.

Truth is, like the hundreds of brave women who are now coming forward to reveal and reject sexual harassment and assault, we simply sometimes must use language that some of us find foul. Truth requires that we use the words that most accurately describe our experience. Case in point: the 156 young women who testified at the sentencing hearing of Larry Nasser, who molested aspiring athletes as the team doctor for a gymnastics trainer. As a woman and a mother, it makes my flesh crawl to hear these strong, beautiful young athletes describe what that man did to them under the guise of medical care. Yet I would not for a moment deprive Nasser’s victims of the language they need to use to confront the evil done to them.

In the end, that is what’s at stake: one cannot use nice, sweet or even civil words to name authentically the evils that beset us these days. If children of light should have no communion with children of darkness, as scripture says, then we have to call them by their right names, ugly as they are. Once named correctly, evil loses its power because it can’t hide behind a façade of good words. That’s when we can tap into the higher power Christ gives us through our baptism to resist evil in whatever forms it presents itself.

Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011.