A Proposal to Reduce Hateful Speech

As I said in my sermon on Sunday, “Hateful words spawn hateful deeds and violence….  The shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill on Saturday proved that we cannot afford this kind of talk anymore.  It is too dangerous, it has real-world consequences, and it literally kills people.”

I see a great deal of hateful speech on Facebook and other platforms for communication, much of it motivated by politics.  I suggest the following strategy for us all to confront and challenge hate.

From my time in Ghana, I’ve come to appreciate how Christians and Muslims work and live together with mutual respect and care.  In the days after 9-11, some Islamic extremists tried to incite hatred against Christians in Ghana.  The Christians did not have to respond or react to it all, because the Muslim leaders immediately and strongly condemned the hatred that these extremists displayed.  May we follow their example in our political disputes.

It’s natural for us to condemn hateful speech coming from the other side of the political divide.  Doing so, however, only fans the flames of anger and division.  Instead, let’s police the extremist language coming from our own political tribe.  Conservatives, call out the hateful rhetoric of the alt-right and other right-wing extremists.  Progressives and liberals, oppose dangerous words coming from the far left.

It’s much easier to notice and point out the excesses of people with whom you disagree.  It’s much more productive, and advances the cause of peace and justice, to correct those who share your overall perspective.

This is one way in which we can honor those who died on Saturday, by doing our part to improve how we debate and disagree with each other.

Christian or Church-ian?

Peanut butter and jelly.  Salt and pepper.  Bread and butter.  Milk and cookies.  Macaroni and cheese.  Pancakes and maple syrup.  Spaghetti and meatballs.  My goal is not to make you hungry, but to think about things that naturally go together.  Some less delicious combinations include lock and key, socks and shoes, needle and thread, nuts and bolts.  I’m sure you can come up with many more examples!

However, we’ve lost the connection between two other things that go together as naturally as pencil and paper: church and faith.  From the very beginning of Christianity, it was impossible to imagine one without the other.  Those who put faith in Christ were part of the church.  And those who were in the church put their faith in Christ.

On the one hand, the experts tell us that increasing numbers of people claim to be able to live out their Christian calling individually.  They want no part of the complicated, demanding, and sometimes frustrating issues that come working together with other people.  These believers are quick to point out the many obvious flaws with “organized religion” and claim that they don’t need other people to follow Jesus.  While we do have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, that relationship constantly draws us into relationships with others who call him Lord.  By my count, Scripture offers about thirty “one another” commands: what we are to do together, and how we are to treat each other.  Without any exception in the Bible that I can find, when God calls someone he calls them to share life with others.

On the other hand, however, are the people whom I’ll call “Church-ians.”  They care deeply about their congregation and their fellow members.  These are the faithful who attend church regularly, give sacrificially, and show up at all the special functions.  They want the building to be good repair, the pews and Sunday School classes to be full, and the church accounts to run in the black.  As commendable as such values may be, they are merely empty husks if they are not motivated and empowered by a love for the Lord. 

Just as the Bible encourages to live out our faith in community, it also condemns empty deeds of religiosity.  Isaiah railed against those who come near to the Lord with their lips, while their hearts are far from him (29:13).  Jeremiah mocked those who celebrated in the temple of the Lord while their lives were utterly divorced from his teaching (7:1-11).  Jesus himself offered a tongue-lashing against those who maintained and promoted religious institutions and practices but utterly missed the mark when it came to love and devotion (Matthew 23:13-39 and Luke 11:37-52).

If you count yourself as “spiritual but not religious,” I challenge you to investigate how the Bible teaches us to live out our faith together.  And if you are devoted to the health and well-being of the church, I challenge you to consider what motivates that devotion.  Either way, you will discover a joy of living that’s better than hugs and kisses, healthier than soap and water, and more inspiring than the sun and moon.

Biblical Authority?

Most Christian groups claim the Bible as our ultimate authority for understanding God and his will for our lives.  But we don’t always act that way.  I’m not speaking about the fact that studying the Bible is more like a good idea than actual practice for many of us.  That’s true, unfortunately, and for decades pundits have bemoaned the decline of Biblical literacy in our churches.  There is another, subtler issue at work in the way we study the Bible, when we actually take the time to crack it open and read it.

Philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer compared the way we read the Bible, or any other book, to how we play a game.  You have to play a game by its rules, or you just won’t get the point of the game.  For example, you can’t tackle someone during a basketball game, and roll a six in Monopoly and move five spaces.  In the same way, when you read the Bible you need to enter its world, so to speak, to get at its meaning.

That’s harder to do than it sounds.  We often come to the Bible with our own ideas, values, and priorities, to find out how it answers our questions.  But if the Bible truly is an authority for us, we ought to go one step further and allow the Bible to teach us what really matters.  The questions and issues that we think are so important may not really matter for the way that the Bible describes life and faith.

For example, many people wonder if we will recognize our loved ones in heaven.  We miss them terribly and hope to be reunited with them.  The Bible, however, is frustratingly vague about this issue.  Apparently that’s not a big deal in heaven, no matter how important it seems to us here on earth.

Many churches consider homosexuality to be a foundational issue upon which Christians must take a stand.  Congregations have left denominations over this issue, and many churches include it on the “What We Believe” page of their website.  However, this topic is barely footnote in Scripture, only mentioned a handful of times.  If the Bible truly is our guide, why would we get bent out of shape over something that it treats so trivially?  And why do we blithely ignore other concerns that the Bible discusses often and in great detail, such as economic justice for the poor and observing the Sabbath?

Such fascination with arcane trivia in the Bible jumps into overdrive when it comes to questions about Christ’s return.  “End-times” topics such as the mark of the beast, the rapture, and millennialism arise from brief, and my opinion often misunderstood, allusions in Scripture.  They are certainly not the central themes in the Bible’s description of our future hope.

I’ve even heard people say that the key to understanding all of Scripture can be found in an obscure verse in Genesis that describes how the “sons of God” had children with the “daughters of humans” and gave birth to the Nephilim.  God did not give us Scripture as a puzzle or mystery to solve.  His desire is for us to submit ourselves to the Bible’s own priorities and values, and reflect on how we can live them out in our lives and in our world.