Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Christian Piatt

Home
Progressive Christian
Michael Brown, Iraq, Putin, Gaza: How to Reconcile the Brokenness?

Michael Brown, Iraq, Putin, Gaza: How to Reconcile the Brokenness?

Last updated on: August 14, 2014 at 6:33 pm by Christian Piatt

Michael Brown, Iraq, Putin, Gaza: How to Reconcile the Brokenness? 2014-08-14T18:33:37+00:00 Christian Piatt

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A soon-to-be college-bound Michael Brown is shot by Missouri police, reportedly while holding his hands above himself in surrender, and while unarmed. The resulting protests turn violent, leading ultimately to police setting up barricades, complete with snipers, tear gas and flash grenades. Local stores are decimated and scores are injured in the resulting tensions.

Not long ago, Eric Garner, another African-American man, died of suffocation while being submitted to a choke submission hold by a New York Policeman.

Last year in North Caroline, a black man was shot ten times by a policeman. And all of this is in the shadow the Trayvon Martin, whose tragic and unnecessary death, is still fresh in our minds and hearts.

As cited on the Economist website, it’s enough to elicit a grim question from Delores Jones-Brown, director of the John Jay College on Race, Crime and Justice. “People are asking,” she says, “Is it open season on us?”

Meanwhile, half a world away in Iraq, ISIS continues to wreak havoc, and the United States has resumed an airstrike campaign after a decade of military force trying to maintain a tentative peace in a fractured nation. Hardly a day goes by when we don’t have reports of more Israeli and Palestinian blood spilled over the historic Gaza conflict, and Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to – in the words of a recent TIME Magazine article – “create problems only he can solve.” All the while, he stokes resentments between east and west not seen since the Cold War, seeking, too, to weaken the cohesive strength of NATO and to drive a wedge between the United States and its allies in Europe.

What’s happening to us?

In fact, despite the swell of division and resulting violence, part of the issue is that we have such a sharply tuned and inexhaustible news cycle that places every tragedy, from St. Louis to Ukraine, right before us, morning and night. But this isn’t to say we’re not experiencing an unusual spike in our interracial, intercultural and international conflicts.

So what do we do now?

Longtime peace activist and author of “Reconcile: Conflict Transformation for Ordinary Christians,” says he experienced an epiphany while doing peace work in Costa Rica. An anonymous caller threatened to kidnap and kill his daughter, which made the otherwise political work he was engaged in starkly personal. To that point, he had understood the well-known verse from John 3:16 “primarily used as a formula for salvation.” But after this experience, he says he reads it now with fresh eyes. He then saw in the verse the profoundness that, “a parent gave a child for the restoration of and reconciliation with an enemy. This was the part that jumped out – it speaks to the quality of love for an enemy as the core marker of God’s example then emulated in Jesus. This quality of love embodies the nature of discipleship.”

In my book, “postChristian: What’s Left? Can we fix it? Do we care?” I point out that the “good news” of the Christian Gospel is one of liberation, rather than victory. “A conqueror obliterates or oppresses the enemy. A liberator removes the enemy’s power over its victim, with this result: both oppressor and oppressed must find a way to coexist, living side by side in a world where they can no longer be content to label their enemy as “other.”

We appreciate the Biblical image of the lion and the lamb lying down together in peace. But the issue, more often than not, is that we see the “other,” whoever it may be, as the lion. But most likely, they see a similar threat in us. Are we both lions? Both lambs?

Often times, though we don’t care to admit it, we’re some combination of the two. And until our own inner lion and lamb can find peaceful coexistence, it’s close to impossible to help realize it in the broader cultural context. I go on in
“postChristian” to say, “both see the “other” as lions, preying on their identity, seeking to destroy something they hold dear. But if the lamb is liberated from the fear of being destroyed by the lion, the two must now engage in the hard work of learning how to live side by side. It no longer matters who is viewed as the predator and who as the prey.But it’s not fair, we say. We want justice, and all we’re given is peace! No wonder we killed Jesus. Would it really be any different today?”

In a recent interview, I asked Lederach how we even begin to engage this seemingly overwhelming task of peacemaking, especially when so much around us seems to be unraveling. “Start with things close at home and close at hand,” he says. “Don’t miss opportunities when they emerge – like a Sunday School argument. Notice how you listen and how you express things you feel deeply. Give yourself the gift of a meeting once a week or month with someone who is not like you, does not see the world the way you see it, and with whom probably disagree. — a lifetime gift of being in relationship with the “other.”

It may seem small, even futile, to take on such apparently minor practices when larger needs are so obvious. And yet, until we’ve done the real, hard work of realizing the “lifetime gift of being in relationship with the other,” these cycles will inevitably repeat themselves, despite our best efforts.

It starts small, one person and one relationship at a time. And with God’s grace and our committed effort, it grows into something more beautiful than we could possibly imagine in our present reality.

Previous Post

August 12, 2014

Five Reasons post-Christianity is Good for Us

Next Post

August 16, 2014 Is Christianity Keeping People Poor?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category atonement belief bible Bill O'Reilly Buddhism CCM children christian piatt christianity Contemporary Christian Music current events derek flood Easter education Everyday Sunday faith faith and culture Frank Schaeffer great commission Haaz Sleiman Hobby Lobby Homebrewed Culture humor ISIS Jesus John Paul Lederach Killing Jesus LGBTQ marc driscoll Mission Year Music My Jesus Project Nat Geo parenting politics popular culture postChristian prison reform Ray rice religion republicans sacrifice sexuality theology Uncategorized video violence wild goose festival World Vision young adults

Select a Month December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: King Josiah found the Book of the Law hidden in the temple during repairs.

Select your answer to see how you score.

TRUE FALSE