Several years ago I was asked to help resolve a dispute between three neighbors who lived in the same neighborhood. The two “defendants” (people being complained about) were members of my church, and as a elder in that church I was asked to be a part of the process. The “complainant” was a member of a sister church, and there was an elder from that church also participating. All of this was conducted in an effort to comply with Jesus’s instructions for dispute resolution in Matthew 18:15-17.
The gist of the complaint was, inter alia, that the activities of my church members, i.e. mowing the yard, kids playing in the back yard and/or in a swimming pool, hosting parties, playing musical instruments, etc. were disrupting the complainant’s peaceful enjoyment of his property. They were just too darn loud. We (the elders) dove deeply into the the facts over the course of several hours, and ultimately (and unanimously) determined that the neighbors were simply engaging in normal life activities, the noise levels were reasonable, the activities were conducted at reasonable times, and the whole thing simply reflected the realities of living in a neighborhood. (BTW, our “verdict” was supported by the fact that despite many calls to the police, the authorities never took any action on the noise complaints.) Any reasonable person would have come to the same conclusion. Sometimes you can just hear your neighbors.
However, from a strictly factual standpoint, the complainant was correct — those activities and noises did in fact occur. And from a strictly legal standpoint, he does have a right to the peaceful enjoyment of his property. He was right on both the facts and his rights. And that is what he kept arguing to us for many hours around a conference table. He wanted us, as church elders, to tell his neighbors to quit doing anything that infringed on his rights. We tried reasoning with him (would he really like his neighbors to quit mowing their yard? the kids to never play in their yard or pool? or to just do so in silence? etc.), to no avail. He was determined to enforce his rights. Finally (and, I confess, in a bit of exasperation) I pointed out that as Christians, sometimes we have to be willing to give up our rights in order to love our neighbors — in this case, literally.
I was reminded of that experience as I read this statement about the Mississippi flag written by Ligon Duncan, Chancellor and CEO of Reformed Theological Seminary, and this exchange of comments to my pastor Bob Flayhart’s posting of that statement on Facebook. I am 100% certain that the discussion in those comments reflect discussions occurring all over the country with respect to flags, statues, and other memorials and paraphernalia relating to the antebellum South, the Civil War, etc. And, when it comes to Christians, the problem is not that we often get the facts wrong (as a general rule, we don’t), or that we don’t have the right to free speech and so forth (as a general rule, we do). The problem is that we are letting the facts and our rights trump Jesus’s command to love our neighbor. And sometimes that means giving up our rights, even when we are factually correct and within our rights.
Look, I get it. I’ve spent 45 of my 53 years on this earth living and working in the South — primarily Alabama, but also Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. I was just telling my family the other day how much I love Southern culture — the hospitality, the accent, the food, and so, so much more.
[Sidebar: When I was working at a music store in Rapid City, South Dakota, I used to beg to be allowed to call the Peavey office to order our merchandise, because Peavey was headquartered in Meridian, Mississippi, and I just wanted to talk to someone with a southern accent. End sidebar.]
No, not all Southern flags and statues were created to foster an oppressive atmosphere for blacks. But a lot of them were. And no, not all Southerners are racist bigots or white supremacists. In fact, the vast majority of us are anything but. (I wish I could say none of us are, but we all know that would be, unfortunately, untrue.)
And no, I don’t want to bow to political correctness or “wokeness” — which have become cultural idols of their own. And I get the fact that there is a potential “slippery slope” to be vigilant against. Some battles are, in fact, worth fighting. But by the same token, I also don’t want to bow to the idol of Southernism, or nationalism, or conservatism, or even — gasp — Americanism. Because those things, too, can become idols. Even my own rights — rights guaranteed by the Constitution and Bill of Rights, rights for which good men fought and died — can become idols if I give them greater importance than Jesus’s instruction to love my neighbor, and with humility of mind regard one another as more important than myself. Even more important than my rights.
Just before he went to the cross — his last instructions to his disciples before his death — Jesus admonished his followers:
This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
If Jesus willingly laid down his life (which, by the way, I think we would all agree he had a right to keep) so that we might have life everlasting, how much more should we be willing to lay down our rights to a statue . . . or a flag . . . or a song . . . so that our black brothers and sisters, also made in God’s image, can live without the historical ghost of slavery, and the contemporary specter of racism, inequality, and white supremacy.
You want to know who’s rights the Lord cares about? The rights of the orphan and the poor, the widows and the needy, the unfortunate and the afflicted. I can find no place in Scripture where we are instructed to be preoccupied with our own rights. Proverbs 29:7 says, “The righteous is concerned for the rights of the poor, The wicked does not understand such concern.” It is not a stretch to say that many of our black brothers and sisters are “afflicted” when they are confronted with reminders of a past — an historical past that really did happen — that relegated them to the status of sub-human or worse.
What does it say about us when we fail to understand that?
I get what you’re saying. I agree with it. Some things seem to be going a bit far though. At what point does truth matter? I can understand the desire to tear down Confederate memorials, but tearing down the Emancipation memorial with Lincoln? Tearing down Ulysses Grant statues? What? I think the difficulty comes in where some activists seem to have a tenuous grasp with reality or keep moving the bar to see if they can control people or keep them off guard. It feels like some days we’re playing the Kevin Bacon Six Degrees of Separation in which any action is transmutated into “racism”. Unfortunately, like the boy who cried wolf, it is causing people to become numb to true racism. I can’t help but think there are people purposefully corrupting the protests to make sure people do not come together over George Floyd’s awful death. Christians will have to be wise as the serpent and harmless as the dove in these times. But mostly, we have to look in our hearts if we can love the person in front of us, and keep doing that over and over, day by day, and we try to become more like Christ. I know I’m going down that road, sometimes trudging, sometimes skipping. Sometimes happy, and sometimes resentful. If God can work through David, an adulterer and murderer, he can work through me to love people better.
John: I agree with you, but you bring up a whole different (and legitimate) point. You are addressing the removal of statues that, rather than being a celebration of the Confederacy, are in fact a celebration of the defeat of the institution of slavery. Obviously we should celebrate the abolition of that evil in our country’s history, and tearing down those statues is nonsensical at best. As I noted, there can be a slippery slope effect which must be guarded against. But despite isolated instances of that sort of behavior, I don’t think we’re in any real danger of that becoming widespread yet.
And sure, we both know that there are evil people and institutions out there which are going to capitalize on the protests to advance evil agendas. Something else we should be on our guard against.
You are setting a magnificent example for your children. Let’s get a beer!
You’re on. Name the time and place. Miss you brother.