{"id":110937,"date":"2024-07-01T02:00:37","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T06:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/?p=110937"},"modified":"2024-06-25T16:49:18","modified_gmt":"2024-06-25T20:49:18","slug":"the-pca-general-assembly-lament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2024\/07\/the-pca-general-assembly-lament\/","title":{"rendered":"The PCA General Assembly & Lament"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Last month, I traveled to Richmond for the Presbyterian Church in America\u2019s General Assembly. Otis Pickett,<\/a> the University Historian at Clemson University, asked Dr. Malcolm Foley<\/a>, Dr. Greg Perry<\/a>, and I to present on a panel about our recent book By the Rivers of Babylon: Lament and Justice in African American History.<\/a><\/em> I had some reservations. <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

For one thing, for the past several years I have not attended the PCA church where I am a member. (I have very happily been communing at an Anglican fellowship). For another, recent kerfuffles<\/a> did not make the PCA seem like an especially hospitable setting to talk about Black history\u2014or really to learn anything. But Otis, if you know him you know, is persistent and his unwavering heart for the brothers and sisters within that denomination convincing. \u201cThese are your people,\u201d he said. They are, in fact, for better or for worse. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>It\u2019s not the first time Otis has convinced me to go to General Assembly. The last time, in 2015, we spoke to a packed audience about racial justice to great enthusiasm and excitement. Then, we could imagine a different sort of PCA, a different sort of church, one that truly loved God\u2019s word and loved all of God\u2019s people and creation. It felt hopeful. We were breaking through. And then, 2016 arrived, and with it the mean impulses normalized and even sanctified. It\u2019s been disheartening and scary. So this time we were not going to talk about \u201cPresbyterians and Race Relations\u201d with a spirit of repentance and hope. Instead, we talked about lament. It wasn\u2019t a packed house this time, there was no pervasive spirit of optimism. But I trust the Holy Spirit was present. And there were many, many good (mostly) men and women there: folks who grieve where the PCA and evangelicalism are at present, faithful, honest shepherds. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Otis grounded us in the need for lament, personally and communally, while Greg offered a case study and praxis for church lament. (Malcolm ended up not being able to make the trip). My comments, on lament and anger are below. Let me know what you think. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

Thank you, Otis, it\u2019s so good to be here with you and Greg, Malcom in absentia, and all of you. I\u2019m grateful to the Lord. And humbled, because this afternoon I am going to talk with you about the second aspect of lament\u2014complaint or questioning\u2014anger, really. And no not the online vitriol, the pushing and shoving, the simmering resentments we experience all too often right now in American life. But the godly, holy kind. In their book Cry of the Soul,<\/a><\/em> Dan Allender and Tremper Longman call this righteous anger. \u201cRighteous anger,\u201d they write, \u201cwarns, invited, and wounds for the greater work of redemption. It is full of strength\u2026permeated by sadness that is rich in desire and hope.\u201d (66) This anger is not a sin as Psalm 4 reminds us: \u201cBe angry and sin not.\u201d<\/p>\n

And here again, the historical Black experience has so much to teach us. It has so much to teach us because, as Soon-Chan Rah simply puts it, \u201cLament is the language of suffering.\u201d (Soon-Chan Rah, Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times<\/a><\/em> 22.)<\/p>\n

We often think of suffering laments as whispers in hospital rooms, weeping on couches drenched with tears\u2014and as we\u2019ve heard it is\u2014 but sometimes it is hot: fast, desperate words or a seething silence or impassioned questions. We think of David, we think of Job, of Hannah. The psalms\u2014Jesus\u2019 prayer book\u2014offer a permissive model here. Before God, these, too, are beautiful laments, laments that draw us to action filled with hope.<\/p>\n

Too often in our current cultural moment, anger is misdirected: our helplessness and fear come out as vicious violent attacks on one another, a frustration with strangers, shortness with loved ones, online screeds. This anger refuses to turn to God, but rather, Allender and Longman write \u201cfeels righteous is taking justice into our hands\u2026we become vigilantes.\u201d I think we see this so much right now, in our churches, homes, and communities. Or\u2014our anger is suppressed. (Barely). Ignored, theologically packaged up to make sense. As a pastor-friend of mine says: If you stuff your anger, it just comes out sideways.<\/p>\n

But biblical wisdom directs us, as the late Tim Keller admonished, to pray our feelings, including anger. Take it all, the unspeakable, and be human before God, let the Holy Spirit groan on our behalf.<\/p>\n

In this way, the outpouring of wrenching pain before God is transformed, as Rah writes, into an \u201cact of protest.\u201d The lamenter,\u201d he continues,\u201d is allowed to express indignation and even outrage about the experience of suffering.\u201d (45) Lament is not an expression of neat theodicy, but wailing, screaming, pounding fists on pulpits. It is raw\u2014 both and personal and communal, even, as Kathleen O\u2019Connor points out, \u201cnational.\u201d This shared lament usually comes in response to historical injustice and serves as a collective balm and a catalyst for change within a theological frame. In the American context, we see this nowhere as clearly as within the Black Christian tradition, particularly within the long Black freedom movement.<\/p>\n

*A Note: There is some danger here that we inadvertently sacralize historical Black suffering. <\/em><\/strong>It is not a spectacle for observation, nor does it provide any absolution. Even as we lament, <\/em><\/strong>Rah cautions, \u201clament is not simply the expression of sorrow in order to assuage feelings of guilt and the burden of responsibility.\u201d (206) We must be cautious to observe respectfully and responsibly.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

What can we learn from Black historical lament? During enslavement and Jim Crow, of course, and even today, Black expressions of anger were quite dangerous, even deadly. (And forget vigilantism or enacting premature justice). But before the God who Hears, and in community\u2013the church\u2013 Black Christians grieved before God: questioning, complaining, groaning with centuries of accumulated sorrow.\u00a0How long, Oh Lord? They lamented \u2014they raged, even\u2014and their suffering transformed into a powerful, righteous movement for justice and redemption. Laments of complaint, we see, lifted before our God, can become just action to build the Kingdom of God. Let\u2019s look, briefly, at an example.<\/p>\n

A Historical Example<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>During the civil rights era, as in generations before, Black Americans were murdered by white supremacists and their hideous idolatries. This afternoon I want to see what we can learn from the tragic story of James Chaney<\/a> (the book chapter included Emmett Till and Jimmie Lee Jackson as well). As most of you know, James Chaney was one of the so-called MS 3, killed during Freedom Summer, that heady time in 1964 when young people, Black and white, set out to fulfill the promise of democracy in America, to embody the beloved community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tragedy of our racial history,\u201d Rah, again, asserts, \u201crequires the lament of the funeral dirge.\u201d[i]<\/sup> It is the place of honest lament, a space that \u201cdoes not allow for the denial of death nor\u2026culpability in that death.\u201dIn this case, the dead bodies, the fact of Andrew Goodman, Mickey Schwerner, and James Chaney\u2019s slain corpses, cannot be denied, nor the forces that killed them.[iii]<\/sup><\/p>\n

Unlike Schwerner and Goodman who had come from northern cities, Meridian Mississippi was Chaney\u2019s hometown. He lived there when he saw in JET magazine the mutilated corpse of Emmett Till, he attended a segregated school there, he joined the NAACP and CORE as a high schooler. Then, on June 21 1964\u2013almost 60 years ago\u2014the first day of Freedom Summer, Chaney went, with Goodman and Schwerner to Mt. Zion Methodist, a church in Neshoba County that had hosted a Freedom School and subsequently been burned to the ground. The charred church was a fiery reminder of the deranged determination of some white Mississippians to protect the white supremacist system. It was also a trap. Leaving Mt. Zion in a blue Ford station wagon, the three civil rights workers were detained by police, for some purported automotive infraction, and taken to the Neshoba County jail in\u00a0Philadelphia. Local Klansmen alerted, the kids were released only to be immediately kidnapped and murdered. As Fannie Lee Chaney, James\u2019 mother simply put it,\u00a0\u201cJ. E.,\u201d\u00a0as she called her son, left one day and\u00a0\u201cnever came back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forty-four days and a federal investigation later, Chaney\u2019s body was unearthed. In his autopsy report, Dr. David Spain stated:\u00a0\u201cIn my extensive experience of 25 years as a Pathologist and a Medical Examiner, I have never witnessed bones so severely shattered.\u201d\u00a0The broken body was prepared for a funeral, held on Aug7 1964. And here we bear witness to the dirge, the lament of honest anger.<\/p>\n

It was a warm Friday evening when the mourning community gathered at the stone First Union Missionary church. The service began with a prayer, a theological anchoring calling out to \u201cGod, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come\u2026Thou the creator of all mankind and the Judge of all men, Oh God, who comforts the hearts of all mankind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, David Dennis of CORE,<\/a> clad in a denim work shirt, stood to offer remarks. \u201cSorry,\u201d\u00a0he began,\u00a0\u201cbut I\u2019m not here to do the traditional\u00a0thing that most of us do at such a gathering.\u201d He was angry, righteously so. \u00a0\u201cWhat I want to talk about is\u00a0really\u00a0what I really grieve about,\u201d\u00a0he continued, light blue eyes sharp,\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t grieve for Chaney because,\u00a0in fact,\u00a0I feel he lived a fuller life than many of us will ever live.\u201d Rather, he went, he grieved for\u00a0\u201cpeople who don\u2019t care, those who do care but don\u2019t have the guts enough to stand up for it, and people busy up in Washington and other places using my freedom and my life to play politics with.\u201d\u00a0Voice clipped with anger, Dennis gave full expression before God to the people\u2019s honest lament.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m getting sick and\u00a0tired. I\u2019m sick and tired of going to memorials. I\u2019m sick and tired of going to funerals.\u201d\u00a0He continued,\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m\u00a0not\u00a0going to stand here and ask anybody in here not to be angry tonight. Yeah, we have love in our heart\u2014we\u2019ve had it for years and years in this country\u2026\u201d\u00a0He trailed off, repeating in a quiet murmur,\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m\u00a0sick and tired of that.\u201d\u00a0From the pews, a woman\u2019s voice called back to Dennis,\u00a0\u201cI am\u00a0too!\u201d<\/p>\n

Another woman sick and tired was Fannie Lee Chaney. About a week later she spoke, standing in front of Mt. Zion Methodist.\u00a0\u201cWell, you all know that I am Mrs. Chaney, the mother of James Chaney,\u201d\u00a0she intoned\u00a0evenly,\u00a0\u201cYou all know what my child has done. He was trying so hard and he had two fellows from New York\u2026\u201d \u201cDid you all know they came here to help us?\u201d\u00a0she continued, voice rising,\u00a0\u201cThey died for us. They died for\u00a0us. Now, is we gonna let this be in vain? I can\u2019t let my child\u2019s work go in vain\u2026\u00a0Don\u2019t let those children\u2019s life go in vain. They dead. Don\u2019t let their work die\u2026You all don\u2019t know\u2026It\u2019s hard. It\u2019s hard. But every time there is something about freedom\u2013I go.\u00a0I got to go\u2026And here I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

In showing up, in voicing her anger in honest lament, Chaney insisted that God hears and cares.\u00a0And she called others to not only to grieve with her but to do the holy, faithful work. To go, for freedom. Vengeance belongs to the Lord, but righteous anger, communal lament, offers us the promise of energy and peace for repair and healing.<\/p>\n

So: What do we see?<\/p>\n

#1: Complaining and questioning Lament is honesty before God, a sign of faith. Our unfiltered, anguished, incoherent our, sick, tired hearts go to and before our God, who loves us and bends His almighty ear to hear. Psalm 62 reminds us: \u201cTrust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.\u201d Wow. Thank you, Lord.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t ignore it your anger. As Cole Arthur Riley, puts in it Black Liturgies:<\/a><\/em> \u201cAnger is an acceptable form of grief. You don\u2019t have to make your emotions palatable for those who are unmoved. Rage isn\u2019t the curse; Apathy is.\u201dOr, from Allender and Longman: \u201cOnly the absence of anger is noteworthy as an indication that something is terribly wrong.\u201d We weep, we rage, we care. And care for one another.<\/p>\n

#2 This lament may begin alone but can also be brought into community: with one another and for one another. Fannie Lee Chaney joined in lament with Dr. Carolyn Goodman, Andrew Goodman\u2019s mother. They stayed in touch, forever bonded by trauma and loss, comforting each other and pushing for freedom.\u00a0As her son remembered: \u201cThey carried a burden for a long time,\u00a0knowing that your sons were murdered and the murderers were out on the streets going free\u2026Strong women\u2026They were able\u00a0to endure, and continued to have faith. They never lost faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

#3: Lastly, this angry lament before God, with one another, propels us to action. To the work of love. So let\u2019s remember the church filled with those mourning James Chaney\u2019s murder 60 years ago. Let\u2019s join them\u2014grieving Chaney, yes, still, George Floyd, Ahmad Arberry, Breonna Taylor, the young men and women of our communities, our own losses. Perhaps it will inspire us, as is has our Black brothers and sisters for so long\u2014to righteous anger, persistent faith and holy action in our day.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month, I traveled to Richmond for the Presbyterian Church in America\u2019s General Assembly. Otis Pickett, the University Historian at Clemson University, asked Dr. Malcolm Foley, Dr. Greg Perry, and I to present on a panel about our recent book By the Rivers of Babylon: Lament and Justice in African American History. I had some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4702,"featured_media":110940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8728,5499,199,368],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ansley-lillian-quiros","category-civil-rights-movement","category-presbyterians","category-race-2"],"yoast_head":"\nThe PCA General Assembly & Lament<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Last month, I traveled to Richmond for the Presbyterian Church in America\u2019s General Assembly. 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