I used to love the United States of America. Back when I was a kid, half a century ago, there seemed to be so much promise. People were really starting, it seemed, to take seriously our national rhetoric about liberty and justice for all. Sure there were problems, but the good guys seemed to be winning. Dr. King had galvanized the nation’s conscience, the President was working hard to get civil rights legislation passed, we were tackling the problems of illiteracy, poverty, and unemployment, trying to ensure that all American citizens had the same starting advantages, so that we could all make what we could of ourselves.
True, there were problems. John Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy were all martyred for trying to bring the vision of a new America into reality. There was violence on college campuses, the nation was becoming mired in a divisive war abroad, and the national debated was becoming acrimonious. At the time, however, these seemed like unfortunate potholes on the road to progress. Decent people no longer felt justified in spouting hateful sentiments about blacks and women; support for other prejudices was also waning. Even gay rights were becoming a thing that people of good will were starting to take seriously.
What happened? For one thing, the Reagan years saw a backlash. The unholy alliance forged by Richard Nixon between the Republican Party and conservative evangelical religious leaders started to bear fruit, as prejudiced white people, with their new-found access to the corridors of power, began to have forums in which to spew their hatred—and what is more, all in the name of Christ. From feeling themselves to be a minority threatened with extinction, these hate-mongers began to relish their new-found opportunity to shape the national dialogue. In return, they pledged themselves to supporting the agenda of the biggest corporations and the greediest of the wealthy.
Laws began to be passed, allowing corporations to make obscene profits at the expense of their workers, for corporate executives to earn huge salaries and enormous bonus by busting the unions, eliminating the jobs of decent, hardworking Americans, and hiring foreigners to do the work at a small fraction of the cost—paying them wages that even in the economies where those workers lived were hardly enough to live on. The moral underpinnings of the capitalist system were jettisoned, so that anything that might restrain the unhindered acquisition of the richest of the rich could be eliminated. “Greed is good” became the mantra of the day, and the conservative evangelicals said nothing. (They apparently need to be reminded that in Christian theology, greed and avarice are mortal sins, not virtues.) Rejoicing in their access to political power, the conservative evangelical leadership began to fight back against the rise of equality for women and for racial and ethnic minoirities, and basically against any effort to get people to love their neighbors as themselves. We went from laughing at the Archie Bunker types to taking them seriously and giving them radio and television programs on which they could spew forth their hate-filled arguments.
So here we are today, trying to cope with the resulting moral mess. In particular, we are finding that policemen around the country appear to feel that the black-skinned citizens they are supposed to be protecting are not as important as the white-skinned citizens in their jurisdictions; and behavior that would get a policeman disciplined or dismissed from the force if exhibited against a white citizen is acceptable when directed against a black citizen. There are even those who support the police in this attitude when others try to call it into question.
This attitude is, unfortunately, nothing new in the United States of America. Black people have been scapegoats in white thinking ever since the racial difference began to be used as a justification for the institution of chattel slavery. (We like owning slaves, but we can no longer justify owning one another, but look! here’s a group of people who can’t fight back—let’s enslave them and invent a reason for its being okay.) The phrase “liberty and justice for all” remains just as much out of reach for a significant percentage of the population as it ever did. And the wealthy and most of our political leaders seem to like it that way.
Let us be clear: the deaths of these nine Charlestonians were an act of racially-motivated murder; worse, they were an act of terrorism equivalent to the most nightmarish deeds of the Ku Klux Klan. The young man who committed this act of terrorism seems to feel that white people are somehow under some kind of threat, a threat serious enough to justify the taking of lives in revenge. And anyone who is trying to direct the national conversation to the topics of racism and the regulation of assault weapons is being pooh-poohed and decried.
Let us be clear: the deaths of these nine Charlestonians were not part of some mythical “attack on Christianity” in this country; they were perpetrated by one Christian against other Christians. The motivation was clearly racism, not religion, and the intent was clearly to strike fear into the hearts of other black people. If a Muslim had perpetrated this attack, it would be called an act of terrorism, and terrorism is what it is—but perpetrated by a member of the white race against the black race, so we don’t think of it that way. And you know in your heart of hearts that if a black man had murdered nine white people, we would definitely be calling it an act of terrorism.
Let us remind ourselves of the eternal truths at issue here: firstly, God created all human beings—not just some—in his image. Second, our Lord told us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Third, he defined “our neighbors” as pretty much everyone else in the world. If a despised Samaritan can be considered a neighbor to a godly Jew, then black people are “the neighbors” of white people, women are “the neighbors” of men, foreigners are “the neighbors” of Americans. Whatever category we see ourselves as belonging to, “our neighbors” are the people of our worst nightmares—and we have to love them the way we love ourselves.
If you consider yourself a Christian, you have no choice in this matter; loving your neighbor the way you love yourself is what your Lord told you to do. If you believe that the Bible is literally and inerrantly the Word of God, then God is telling you: you must love your neighbor as yourself. On that day when we are called before the Throne of Mercy to render an account of our actions, it will not do to say, “But, Lord, they were blacks (or foreigners, or women, or gays, or drug addicts, or pedophiles), so what I did to them was okay.” No, the Lord of Love will want to know why we did not love them as ourself.
And Jesus said to them: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’
“Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’
“Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
—Matthew 5:31–46
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