August 27, 2010
Faith Matters: Hullabaloo
Amid all the hullabaloo surrounding the disposition of developing an Islamic community center near Ground Zero, something quite sinister has been emerging within our national character, something that’s always present, I suppose, but in happier times often hidden in the weeds of our collective psyche. I’m referring to our seeming innate tendency towards a defensive, menacing tribalism when feeling insecure, vulnerable. Reasonable people can have an energetic debate about matters of our common good representing a variety of viewpoints. And strongly disagree. But this knee-jerk tendency for broad-brush mischaracterization of an entire human community—in this case, Muslims—has many ancient and not-so-ancient antecedents that all turned out badly.
When Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson spouted off about God’s punishment of the United States for our manifold sins in the form of Hurricane Katrina, I cringed when considering that their ideologies and warped theologies were serving as the public face of my beloved Christian faith, whipping around the world in the instantaneous news feed. Famed mid-twentieth century biblical scholar William Barclay, when confronted by a fundamentalist who claimed God took Barclay’s son in an accident for Barclay’s theological sins, remarked, “Your God sir, is my devil!” Broad-brush blame-making enemy formation never advances the interests of our common good. Indeed, it can’t help but misidentify the many, many persons—generally the majority—who do not subscribe to the views of the news-makers including terrorists and their ilk.
Perhaps you’ve seen or read the story about the small group of supposed Christians in Gainesville, Florida at The Dove Outreach Center who plan to dishonor the memory of 9/11 by burning copies of the Quran, inviting others to imitate their efforts to defame Islam. Now once again a small outrageous and ostensibly “Christian” group was given international prominence by appearing in the likes of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and CNN. How do you imagine that plays on Al Jazeera as representatives of Christianity?
Seems to me that followers of Jesus need to be especially brave, especially alert to any retreat into our lesser selves, our baser motives. This is hard work requiring a relentless personal honesty and willingness to admit our own fear and blame-making tendencies. Here’s a great example of one church doing just that; just a few blocks away from the Dove Center, Trinity United Methodist Church intends a much different sort of event, “A Gathering for Peace, Justice and Hope.” Read the Pastor’s elequent letter to his congregation outlining a thoughtful, faithful response to their near-neighbor’s bigotry.
Christ Church advances a mission to love God and neighbor above all else. At most times this mission runs against the grain of fear, ignorance and arrogance. But honestly, as followers of Jesus, imperfect though we are, do you see any other way forward that’s consistent with the highest ideals of our faith?