Monday, January 12, 2015

I am Not Charlie: a Christian response to the killings in Paris

Officials join hundreds of thousands of people on a Je Suis Charlie march in Nice, France
I was deeply troubled by news of this week’s killings of journalists at Charlie Hebdo, France’s satirical newspaper, by two French Muslim brothers of Algerian descent, Chérif and Saïd Kouachi. I’ve been haunted by footage I saw of these gunmen’s shooting of a police officer in cold blood on a Parisian street where our good friends live and where we regularly stay. The horrific killing of four hostages in the Jewish kosher grocery store by another jihadist activist, followed by the French police’s shooting of all three gunmen, has made this a traumatic week for France and the world.

Should we be surprised by these killings? Offense, resentment, and shame carried by many young Muslim men and others on the margins today incite rage. In this case, the rage is directed against the dishonoring gaze and mocking words of journalism that appears to consider nothing sacred, except free speech. I am not at all saying that these victims had it coming to them or that the perpetrators are in any way justified. Rather I am inviting us to look at this from another perspective.

In the twenty years of my chaplaincy ministry in our local jail and in prisons around the world, I have witnessed the consequences of the exercise of free speech over and over. Exercising your freedom of speech to say whatever you want in a prison context (and many other places too) is possible, but it is not advised, especially if your words increase offense and lead to a sense of powerlessness and shame when the offended one may not have an effective way to respond. If you disrespect someone’s mother, girlfriend, or even fellow gang member, you will likely pay the consequences at some point.

Cartoons of a naked Prophet Mohammed published by Charlie Hebdo, as well as images of the victims of Israel’s recent bombing of Gaza or America’s tortured detainees add to many Muslim people’s experience of being disrespected by the powerful status quo. Chérif and Saïd Kouachi sought to vindicate the honor of Mohammed (and his followers).

Many second generation immigrants, like Chérif Kouachi and his brother (who was orphaned and then raised in France’s foster-care system), experience tremendous alienation growing up in Western European countries as disaffected minorities, and they seek refuge in their identity as Muslims. Chérif Kouachi was reputed to have been first radicalized in his early twenties when he saw images and heard reports of American soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison.

The tremendous violence unleashed on Palestinians by Israelis has radicalized many young Muslims. Attacks on Muslims in Iraq, Syria and Yemen by Americans and their coalition through bombing raids, drone attacks, incarceration and torture is radicalizing many more. And Western media that dishonors Islam or justifies violent actions against it only adds salt to the wounds.

People all around the world have reacted to the massacre at Charlie Hebdo by identifying with the slaughtered journalists, who have come to represent freedom of speech. Masses of mainstream Westerners with signs “I am Charlie” or “We are Charlie” (“Je suis Charlie”; “Nous Sommes Charlie”) are effectively cloning en masse those viewed by Muslims as dishonoring and mocking Islam (see this article).

When many in France and around the world choose to first and foremost stand in solidarity with those champions of freedom of speech such as Charlie Hebdo (the French value of freedom or “liberté”) rather than prioritizing pursuit of communication and mutual understanding with Muslims (the value of brotherhood or “fraternité”), they further dishonor disaffected Muslims, provoking them towards deeper frustration and resentment and increasing violence.

So how might followers of Jesus respond to this escalation of hatred and violence? Jesus warned his disciples: “You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end” (Matthew 24:6). Jesus expects his listeners to be aware that history is heading toward increasing tension and to resist the natural tendencies toward hard- heartedness or violence.

“Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:12–14). Anyone listening to Jesus is told to not be fearful, but to get on with the highest priority work—announcing the Gospel of the Kingdom. What is this Gospel?

It most certainly does not include Christians identifying with or justifying swift and effective retaliation, increased surveillance, growing suspicion, incarceration, hatred against Muslims, or fear (nor justifying jihadist violence and justified). When James and John ask Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans who refused them entry as they traveled toward Jerusalem, Jesus rebukes them, saying: “You do not know of what spirit you are of.  For the son of man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them” (Luke 9:55–56).

Those following Jesus need empowerment by the Holy Spirit to love our neighbors, to love our enemies, and to actively pursue understanding and reconciliation. This includes first taking the log out of our own eyes through confessing our sin and renouncing our violence. We must refuse our natural proclivity to judge the other, and to seek instead understanding with Muslims or anyone we label an “offender.” Honest communication can happen only when we build relationships.

Now we have an opportunity—to refuse to let our love grow cold or be overcome by evil, but to pursue Spirit-guided ways to overcome evil with good; to refuse to let the light of our Gospel be overcome by the darkness, but to shine brightly, so that all can see the light of the face of Christ—the world’s Messiah Savior.

Now is the time to pray for the families and communities of the dead and for the people of France, for God’s comfort and peace. Prayers for peace for the larger European continent are critical at this time, as anti-immigrant political parties are on the rise everywhere, and the scapegoating Muslims and Jew is likely to increase.

In contrast to the shaming gaze, we must seek to look with the compassion of Jesus, who sees the crowds harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd, and then exclaims: “The harvest is plenty but the workers are few: beg the Lord of the harvest to cast out workers into the harvest.”

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Epiphany reflection: Recognizing the time of our visitation


Angel David, Tierra Nueva’s Honduran director, has been my friend since I met him in his village of Mal Paso 32 years ago. We talk several times a week about life, Tierra Nueva's coffee farm, and the Bible studies he’s leading.

“Roberto, this story about the magi is beautiful,” he tells me in an unusually animated voice. “We’ve been studying Matthew 2 in the communities, and people love it.”

I ask him what he found most interesting.

“The magi don’t bow down and give gifts to King Herod when they meet him in his palace,” he replied. “They bow before Jesus, a baby from a poor family that nobody important recognized.”

In a country where class divisions separate profesionales (anyone with a high school diploma and above) from gente humilde (humble or poor people) and campesinos (peasants), the magi’s awareness of the high value of Jesus, the humble one, gets people’s attention. In the days of Herod the King they came ready to pledge their allegiance to another, hidden king.

Angel David’s interest piqued mine, prompting me to revisit the story with our two pastors in training, Julio and Salvio.

The story opens with the magi coming to Jerusalem asking: “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? We saw his star in the East and have come to worship him.” They expect the people in Jerusalem to know about the birth of their king. But King Herod and all Jerusalem were agitated by the magi’s quest for the King of the Jews. Herod, a puppet king of the Jews under Roman occupation, gathers together (Greek synagoall the chief priests and scribes, asking for intelligence on where their Messiah was to be born.

The religious leaders offer their Bible knowledge: Bethlehem is the place. This information facilitates Herod’s later slaughter of all the baby boys two and younger, though the OT Scripture cited in Matthew 2:6 referring to Messiah from Bethlehem describes a commander who is shepherd over God’s people.
“All the chief priests and scribes of the people” they are called. Do they belong to the people (and earthly human powers) more than to God? Or are they betraying the people by complying with the king rather than acting as shepherds. The outsiders, pagan magi (sorcerers, astrologers, astronomers), appear to be the only ones paying attention to God, who is guiding them to the true King.

Today our prophetic vocation is continually at risk of being co-opted by cultural and political forces. Noteworthy in this story is the leaders’ intellectual knowledge of where the Messiah was to be born, combined with their total ignorance that the King of the Jews (their king) has arrived. The pagan outsiders are more in touch with the Spirit. Later, Jesus will address the city of Jerusalem regarding its’ impending destruction “because you did not recognize the time of your visitation (Luke 19:44ff). Do we, too, risk missing our visitation?

King Herod calls for the magi, asking for the exact time of the star’s appearance, and then sends them to Bethlehem on a mission: “Go and search carefully for the child; and when you have found him, report to me, so that I too may come and worship him.”

The magi do not need help from the king or the religious leaders. They “went their way,” and did not search carefully or find Jesus as a result of their inquiry. The star goes before them until it stops over where the Christ was.” Upon seeing the star, the same star they had seen in the East, guide them right to the child king, the wise men rejoice “with exceedingly great joy.”

They are never abandoned in their search, but are personally guided to God’s Messiah. They are not guided by religious leaders or politicians, but by stars that God had created to mark “signs and seasons, days and years” (Genesis 1:14). They, together with the humble shepherds alerted by angels, are the select few witnesses of this first Epiphany. This realization brings them great joy.

When you experience God communicating personally with you to guide you the truth, this results in rejoicing exceedingly with great joy, a quality of joy I long to experience in 2015 and beyond. 

Jesus himself is described as being filled with this joy when he says: “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.” (Matthew 11:25). Deliver us, oh God, from the wisdom and intelligence of this world that keeps us in the dark regarding who you are and what you are doing.

When the magi enter the house and see this child who is the true King of the Jews, they fall to the ground and worship him. As Angel David observed, they do not offer their gifts and homage to Herod, the official king of the Jews. Rather they present gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the unrecognized child king, who later dies—rejected by the authorities and the people—between two thieves as “King of the Jews” (Matthew 27:37).

The magi embody the subversive worship of Jesus as King that refuses allegiance to the powers and the people, putting total trust in God’s revelation to discover the good and to avoid evil designs. Rather than reporting back to Herod as ordered, “having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod,” the magi leave for their own country by another way” (Matthew 2:12).

Today I feel inspired by my friend Angel David and by this story to join the magi on “their way.” I want to be led by God’s unusual means to discover and rediscover Jesus, the King of the oppressed and of all people.

I pray for mercy not to be trapped inside the “all” of the religious leaders, who had intellectual knowledge and an audience with the powers, but who missed their time of visitation, the appearance of Jesus. I pray for a movement of Christ followers who are alert to God’s guidance to go “another way,” the way indicated by God, who leads all who are willing to pay attention back to their lands to bear witness to Jesus and his beautiful Kingdom.

Consider attending Towards A New Theology and Practice of Liberation, April, 2015, Paris http://peoplesseminary.org/news-events

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Freedom Not Incarceration

This week marks twenty years that I have served as chaplain to inmates in Skagit County Jail. Embodying and communicating God’s grace and love to prisoners in jails, prisons and immigration detention centers through one-on-one visits, advocacy, Bible studies, and worship services needs to grow in quality and reach in North America and around the world. At the same time, I see the need to expose and counter the lie that incarceration is necessary or redemptive the way we now practice it. 

Protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, and around the nation express outrage fueled by racial profiling and mass incarceration of African Americans and other people of color that has been systemic in the American justice system. Gang activity thrives in prisons and is exported to the streets here and abroad. The fruits of imprisonment are resentment, hatred, vengeance, and exponential violence and death.

Now America is reaping what we have sown nationally and around the world. Recent news that seventeen of Islamic State’s top twenty-five leaders were imprisoned together by US captors in an Iraqi prison in southern Iraq (Camp Bucca) reveals how prison provides an ideal environment for nursing hatred, organizing resistance, and plotting revenge.

The execution of Western hostages by Islamic State demonstrates the wound of shame inflicted by the United States’ post-9/11 incarceration and war-making policies. Western hostages were dressed in orange prison uniforms and handcuffed at their executions, evoking Guantanamo Bay prison clothing and treatment.

The recent release of the CIA torture report documenting the use of clandestine prisons and “enhanced interrogation techniques” (torture) gives us a glimpse into the evil practices underlying widespread hatred against the United States. These practices have continued in more sterile form. The extensive use of drones by the Obama Administration to target and kill America’s enemies is leading to hatred and revenge killings now, and it will lead to an increasingly bitter harvest of chaos and death in the future.

I am continually struck by the clarity of Jesus’ agenda regarding prisoners and enemies. Jesus offers no apologetic for incarcerating, interrogating, torturing or killing. He came to proclaim release to the prisoners (Luke 4:18), echoing his Father’s commitment throughout the Old Testament to bring the oppressed out of slavery and into freedom. Jesus came to save us for our sins, not to punish us. Freeing rather than incarcerating prisoners requires a vast commitment to holistic transformation.

Last week we met with the Skagit County jail chief and lieutenant to discuss ways that Tierra Nueva’s jail ministry can have more access to inmates. We were encouraged by the jail chief’s plans to include rehabilitation programs and greater pastor access to inmates in the new jail.  We clearly need to reform our current jail and prison systems.

In the face of a recent poll showing that 59% of the American public supports the use of torture, I feel called to pray and work for true justice and peace, for God’s Kingdom to come, and for a movement of faith-based reconciliation. Now is the time to proclaim Jesus’ mission of forgiveness and love of enemies, as well as his offer of abundant life for all, including offenders. Now we must seek to not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21).