Abstract: This post looks at the Church’s promotion of individual rights over choosing to love our neighbor. It calls us to a journey of deeper trust that releases our “rights”. It calls us to practice justice that is experienced in the incarnation and cross of Jesus.
This global COVID 19 Pandemic has a lot of nuances that I am sure I will never fully understand. It is saturated with finger pointing, conspiracy theories, and fear-motivated agendas. What we are sure of is people are dying, and there are those among us who are at risk. Yet, one agenda that is being perpetuated by many church folk is our individual rights over the common good.
Now, I am fully aware of the beating our economy has received at the hands of the Pandemic. It will take awhile to recover, and maybe we will never recover. We all are felling it and we will continue to feel it. However, as people who search the Scriptures, is this not a time to practice what we preach? In Matthew 6 Jesus instructs us to clearly move away from worry, fear, and the temptation to hoard. Jesus basically asks us, “Do you trust me? (Matthew 6:25-34)”
What if the evidence caused me to conclude “No?” I am afraid that as I observe some of our church folk, that may very will be the answer. For many, but certainly not all, it is more about having the right to choose for myself with an attitude that communicates, “I am gonna dig my way out of this hole even if it kills some one else in the process or maybe even me.” Trusting God is challenging, it is uncomfortable, and it feels uncertain. Most of all, trusting God means our life is out of our control. This is the rub of our approach to individual rights. If we are in control, then there is simply no room for God. This is the heart of passages like 1 Chronicles 28:9 and Jeremiah 29:11-13. God has to have all there is of us, and if He does not it is because we are not willing to trust Him with the details of our lives.
Now, someone may read Matthew 6:25-34 and say, “If I am not supposed to worry then who cares if COVID-19 kills me. That’s my choice.” First, that is horrible eisegesis and a disservice to scripture. Eisegesis is the practice of imposing a meaning from outside the text that was not intended. Secondly, we know this is eisegesis because it is not taking a wholistic viewpoint of scripture.
We have a scriptural mandate to care for our neighbor (just a few examples: Exodus 20:12-17; Deuteronomy 24; 1 Kings 8:31-32; Matthew 19:19; Matthew 22; Mark 12; Luke 10; and Romans 13:10). When policies are destructive to all of life then we should take a stand. There is a time for civil disobedience. However, when policies are issued to protect life we should not only respect them, we should celebrate.
The sad thing about this argument of individual rights in the face of public safety policies is we have forgotten our calling to preserve life. Many would proclaim to be pro-life. I have really been reflecting on what this means. Are we not all made in the image of God? Thus, would that not mean pro-life for all? How, than, is a picture like this okay? (Photo courtesy of Fox 17 Nashvile, TN)
If we truly are pro-life, we are called to be for all of life. From the unborn to the undocumented, from the one whose a voice cannot or will not be heard to the most vulnerable still amongst us we have a responsibility to value and enhance life. Isaiah 1:10-20 demonstrates God’s burning anger at the people of Israel as they forsake their calling to encourage the oppressed, defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. Instead they are implored to learn to do right, and to fulfill justice (v. 17).
Here in lies the problem. We in the US, especially we, who are white-skinned (as am I), often feel so entitled that we do not know the difference between what we think we deserve and true injustice. I have very little knowledge of experiences myself, but I have lived in places and listened to friends tell me stories about how they and their families were marginalized, oppressed, tortured, and massacred. I have walked with people as they deal with the trauma of hatred and genocide. We get upset because oil prices are down. We get upset because we have to lower our standards of living. Or we are asked to consider how our actions might impact the life of someone else. Why?
We have bought into the myth of American exceptionalism.
To be sure, in America’s earliest beginnings it sense of exceptionalism focused on the nature of its institutions. America’s exceptional identity was grounded in the Anglo-Saxon myth. To reiterate, this myth stressed that it was the Anglo-Saxon institutions that best respected individual rights and liberties. This exceptionalism was initially expressed as a chosen identity. With the formation of America’s grand narrative, the two pieces of America’s sense of self come together: the Anglo-Saxon character and its ‘chosen’ nature. To be a chosen nation is to be an Anglo-Saxon nation. To be an Anglo-Saxon nation is to be a chosen nation.[1]
This has so many implications and we will talk about some of them in my next post, but ultimately what I want to focus on here is to adopt the notion that “exceptional” or “chosen” is ultimately to be entitled. We do not want anyone treading on our way of life regardless of who we have to minimize or eliminate in the process.
Scripture leads us to different places because it looks beyond our individual rights and toward justice for all. “To be in right relationship with the cosmos is to be protected against the nightmare threats of chaos.”[2] Thus, for us to be in right relationship calls us to lay down our rights for the sake of the other, especially the vulnerable and voiceless among us. These have many faces. God is not a respecter of persons; God is not a respecter of social-religious boundaries and constructs. God simply does not recognize them. So, why do we?
God’s justice is manifest in [God] working to pull down the unrighteous, expose the idols, show mercy, and achieve reconciliation in a new order which expresses human being’s dignity as the bearer of the divine image.[3]
The purpose of pro-life is we are all bearers of the divine image. Thus, we must seek justice for all. This can only occur when the church decides that she will embody the way of the cross over the constitution. “The love of God that comes through the cross demands an unflinching solidarity with the crucified ones. For the church to be anywhere else is to be in the crucifying crowd, and thus to betray the very memory of the one who died for, the memory of the one whom Christian churches are to bear.”[4]
As for the US Constitution, James Madison, the “father of the Constitution,” once said: “Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty.” One person’s freedom can encroach on another person’s right to live.[5] Quarantine is no fun. However, the church is in great danger of squandering an opportunity to be the Church. May we give ourselves to loving our neighbors so completely that we lay down our “rights.” Freedom in Christ is about losing our life rather than taking it.[6] Is the Great Commandment not more important than the First Amendment?
[1] Kelly Brown Douglas. Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books), 2015. 15-16. [2] Peter Berger. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. (New York, NY: Doubleday), 1967. 26 [3] Douglas. 197. Daniel Day Williams, “Love and Social Justice (ch. 12), In the Spirit and Forms of Love. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1981). [4] Douglas. 202. [5] Shaine Claiborne. “How the Way on Christmas became the War on Easter.” https://religionnews.com/2020/04/04/how-the-war-on-christmas-became-the-war-on-easter/ April 4, 2020. (Last Accessed April 22, 2020). [6] Matthew 16:25 and Mark 8:34-36