Why I Do Not Support Protests or Boycotts

What is the goal of a protest? What is the goal of boycott? Is it to persuade an opponent of the truth of your position? Or is it to compel your opponent, via the use of coercion, to accept your position regardless of how they judge the merits of it? As a Christian, I believe that we should only use persuasion against ideas that we oppose. Coercion consists in bodily punishing or compelling someone to change their thinking—it uses external pressure to change something internal—and in that it insults the dignity of a human being. For this reason I do not support boycotts or protests.

There have been a number of protests the past couple of years. People have protested against Scott Walker’s reforms, greed on Wall Street, and President Obama’s health care initiatives. Likewise, there have been organized or threatened boycotts against supporters of gay marriage as well as opponents of gay marriage. Regardless of whether or not I agree or disagree with any of these positions, I think that protesting or boycotting or in any way punishing someone because they have a different opinion than you is insulting and inappropriate.

Why is the Inquisition so noxious in our minds? We rightly hate the idea of using force to change someone’s mind. We justly hate the inquisition because men used torture and death to force people to agree with them and killed those who refused to acquiesce? Yet how is that any different from what we are doing today, outside of the fact that we’ve grown more humane and sophisticated in our methods? Instead of attacking the body, we attack a person’s livelihood. For example, a person can be a CEO of a company, like Mozilla, and be forced to resign because they supported an unpopular initiative years ago. If this is not tyranny, then what is? A tyrant seeks to control a person completely. What is more personal to a person than their opinions? How can we claim to be a free society and force a person out of a job because we dislike their opinion on a particular subject matter? 

But how can this be tyranny? It’s not a king or aristocracy, it’s the people making these demands. We must keep in mind that the tyranny of the majority is always the worst. Tocqueville recognized this. In any monarchy or aristocracy, there is always internal conflict. Nobles are resisting each other and the king, and the people are always a check on both. But when you destroy the nobility and the monarch all that is left is the people. And they can fall into a monolithic group think that destroys free thought and its expression.

Take another example. Recently the owner of a professional sports team was banned from the league and will be forced to sell his team for offensive comments that he made in private.[1] Make no mistake, what this man had to say was offensive and reprehensible. But instead of punishing him, shouldn’t our goal be correction? I am not sure what that would look like, but to punish a person because of what they think, even if those thoughts are ignorant and hateful, seems to insult their inherent dignity as a human being created in God’s image. Our goal should be persuasion. We should try to persuade with the truth and correct and reform people.

Someone can ask, what value is his speech? He’s an old racist, why should we allow him to spout his racist views? I am in no way a supporter of racism in any form, but sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease—like the doctor that advocates decapitation to cure a headache. If we limit free speech in order to destroy hate speech, we may in fact be putting ourselves in a worse situation. If we set the precedent that some thoughts and ideas have no value and therefore should not be expressed, we set ourselves on a slippery slope. What other ideas should we not express? What is acceptable today may not be acceptable tomorrow. And as we begin to limit expression, we limit thought. As we limit thought, we limit imagination and potential, we limit our humanity. That is why our goal must be persuasion and not coercion.

But we can only believe in persuasion if we believe in the truth. And we live in a postmodern society that does not believe in the truth. If there is no truth, then all that remains is power. Nietzsche and his disciples recognized this very clearly. And that is why we have protests and boycotts in the place of well thought out speeches and editorials. As we no longer believe in truth, all that remains for us is power. So instead of trying to persuade, we coerce and compel.

If I ever say anything ignorant, offensive, or even hateful, I hope that someone will love me enough to take the time to correct me and draw me from error and lies into goodness and truth. I hope someone would care enough about me to work towards my reformation and redemption and not condemn me to remain lost in my folly and ignorance. Truth does exist and I hope someone would take the time to persuade me to accept it. For after all, the truth does and will set us free. 

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[1] If you think this doesn’t have the seeds of totalitarianism in it, consider Orwell’s 1984. In that work citizens were routinely punished for “thought crimes,” that is for thinking things the state deemed to be inappropriate. Students and coworkers, parents and children, husbands and wives were all expected to inform on each other for the expression of any type of unorthodox thought. We don’t inform on each other, we simply record and post. And then we punish those who have opinions that we don’t agree with. Again I am in no way condoning this man’s opinions and beliefs. As a Christian, they are anathema to me. But I hate the principle of punishing a person for their ideas or the expression of them.

*Added: I should mention that I absolutely uphold the right to protest.  I should also mention that I believe that protests against unjust actions (as opposed to beliefs) are morally justified.  We can and should use force to counter unjust actions (though the amount of force we should use is obviously up for debate).  I am also skeptical regarding the efficacy of protests.  They can bring about significant and good changes in the law (e.g. civil rights protests ended segregation) but real change requires a change of mind (we have to want and be willing to integrate, something we have yet to do). 

In the News

A man who shot two burglars that had illegally entered his home is being charged with first degree murder.  (He is certainly culpable for his overreaction, but 1^st degree intentional homicide is an unwarranted charge.  These two criminals had broken into a number of other homes, including his on two recent occasions.)  Our tradition clearly states, a man’s home is his castle.  As Locke understood, we all have natural rights.  We lay down these rights to form civil society.  I have a right to judgment when I am wronged, but I lay down that right to a governing official if I want to be a member of civil society.  But when the government cannot or will not act—e.g. someone pulls a gun on me in a deserted alley or my home is getting burglarized and the perpetrators are allowed to walk free, then I have a right to act to defend my natural rights.  Anyone that threatens my right to life has thereby forfeited their right to live and I am justified in taking their life to protect my own.  I am not saying this is how we should act (for as Christians we lay down a number of our rights), I am merely stating that we have these rights.       

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2250208/Byron-Smith-Homeowner-shot-dead-Nicholas-Brady-Haile-Kifer-taunted-girl-died.html

In Madison a man that beat one man to death and beat another significantly (in two separate instances, both occurring while he was on parole) has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.  He will be a free man by the time he is as old as I am.  Just a few months ago I read a case about a man that got over three decades for impersonating a teen online.  He was 20, but said he was 16 and convinced a number of underage girls to send him lewd pictures of themselves.  This is obviously wrong, but I cannot understand how this man, with no criminal record, got sentenced multiple decades longer than a man with a criminal record who beat someone to death.  

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/crime_and_courts/man-gets-years-for-beatings-that-killed-one-injured-another/article_3a66e5ef-6eac-57b0-b93c-40dfd124cde5.html

Meanwhile, Madison police are launching sting operations against drivers and riders using ride share apps.  The price for giving someone a ride—a $1,300 ticket.  

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/crime_and_courts/police-lyft-uber-drivers-cited-in-ride-sharing-sting/article_8cf054ff-7c55-5448-8cff-eee89da884f2.html

I can’t figure out how on earth this activity could be illegal in a free country.  We have two consenting adults doing something private that hurts no one.  How is that illegal?  You could use an app to set up affairs—that would and does cause far more societal harm, yet that is legal.  You can chain, whip, or beat someone, you can cover them in excrement or dip them in blood and so long as they consent, that is legal.  Yet you cannot offer to give someone a ride in exchange for a few bucks?  If the government can prevent us from doing this in order to protect an organized, monopolized business interest, then in what sense are we a free nation?  We’ve traded real freedom for the illusion of freedom—we’ve reduced all freedom to the right to take off our pants.  We certainly are living in a Brave New World.  

*Added: My understanding of these applications was faulty.  Apparently Lyft and these other groups hire people drive others around.  When people ask for rides, Lyft assigns passengers to drivers.  This is a taxi company acting without a permit and the tickets, though possibly excessive, are warranted.  

Natural Law and Sexual Ethics (A Rejoinder to Aaron)

So first off, when I say that God is neither male nor female I should clarify that He is not less than male and female but more.  As humans are divided into both male and female sexes and are made in the image of God we must assume that God contains within Himself both male and female genders.  (If I remember right, St. Thomas believed there were seven genders, but only two for physical beings.  God embodies all but only expressed two of them in His physical creation.)  

So souls, made in the image of God, are either male or female.  Building off of Aristotle I believe that the body gives expression to the form found within the soul (that is, as there is purpose in creation I believe the bodily sex given to us by God reflects the gendered soul He has placed within us).  Given this, sex is not just a bodily act, but a connection of some sort between souls.  So we cannot look to physical matters alone (i.e. the fact that God does not have a body) to determine the morality of a sexual act, we need to look beyond it.  

 

So what does sex signify?  It is the union not just of two bodies, but of two souls and out of this union (this love of souls) comes life.  Obviously not every act of sex produces life, but life is produced by sex.  What is more, in the act of sex we in some way imitate our relationship to and connection with God.  This is why so many Pagans personified and worshiped sex (e.g. Venus, Asherah, etc.).  It is also why God has revealed Himself to us as Father and Husband (as opposed to Mother and Wife) even though He transcends our binary gender divisions.  Like a husband, God comes to us from the outside, He is the Ultimate Other.  It is He that from beyond space and time unites Himself to us, becomes one with us, and implants His life within us.   

How does this apply to sexual morals?  Bodily homosexuals cannot produce life, but that isn’t my main concern (though many fixate on this even though many straight couples are infertile).  My concern is that homosexuality, metaphysically, cannot imitate the Good that God intended it to imitate.  

Likewise sex, in imitation of God’s love for us, is supposed to be lasting.  Fornicators do not intend their commitment to last (at the very least they do not take the idea of commitment seriously enough to make a public declaration of it).  What is more, as sex produces children and children require a family for their own good (and society requires families—they are the building blocks of stability), sex outside of marriage is an inherently selfish act.  You are putting your good above that of your children and fellow citizens.    

God instituted sex not just for pleasure or to connect us to others (which is what homosexuals are limited to), and not just to produce life (which fornicators can do).  He also created sex in such a way as to imitate a metaphysical truth.  Sex is the bodily form or imitation, the reenactment on a lower level, of a spiritual truth.  When we engage in sex apart from this, we violate the rules of Reality.  

Another, though I think weaker way of looking at it goes something like this.  When man fell, we lost not only our ability to do good, but to know the good.  Therefore ethics, though they can be partially understood via reason, cannot be perfectly known via reason (Luther: Reason is the devil’s whore).  Because of our weakness we require revelation (I’ve been reading a lot of Barth lately…).  This revelation is most clearly found  in the Bible, but all cultures share it to some degree (e.g. see Lewis’s argument in The Abolition of Man).  Morality is not a conclusion, it is a premise that we can accept or reject (see Alasdair MacIntyre on this).  Few, like Nietzsche, reject all of it, most want to accept part, but not all (or they want to accept all of it, but limit it to their family, like the mafia, their race, like the Nazis, their class, their nation, etc.).  But if part is bad, and our reason fallen, how do we determine what part is valid and what is invalid?  We cannot and in picking and choosing we undermine the whole system.  As human nature does not evolve or progress (we are still violent, envious, greedy, lustful, etc. all that has changed is the object of our sins or our sophistication of doing them or we have progressed in one area while declining in another—e.g. we are less cruel but more cowardly) there can be no such thing as moral progress in the sense of a new or innovative morality.  We have but one moral system and we must accept wholesale or reject it all.  In accepting all we accept the fact that marriage is limited to one man and one woman for life in marriage (as that is the teaching made clear in the Bible).       

So I think we can tie Christian sexual ethics into a notion of Natural Law.    

The Basis of Morality

So the basis of morality in our society seems to be whether or not something hurts someone. Christians seem to have adopted this way of thinking. Because of this they have no way of understanding some of God’s commands, because they do not see how violating them harms anyone. For example, regarding gay marriage or cohabitation, or even, say, smoking marijuana, many students ask the question: how can that be wrong, you’re not hurting anyone? Most know that God has prohibited these things, but they can’t understand why. But because they have been shaped by their society and think that harm is the basis of morality, they think that God’s commands against these things are arbitrary. And though none of them say this, I think that if you believe God is arbitrary you are ultimately going to think he is either foolish or mean for keeping us from things that would make us happy for no good reason. And if God is foolish or mean, why trust in and obey him? This is a relevant discussion. 

Now I know that some Christians (I heard this all the time growing up) have co-opted this belief and say that every sin is wrong because every sin harms God. I think this is bad theology as it demeans and belittles God. I know there are great debates about whether or not or to what extent God suffers and I just don’t see how it’s possible for God to be God and for him to suffer pain at every single sin that every single person commits. So I think the basis of morality needs to lie outside of harm.

Now I do believe that every sin is the destruction, the perversion, or the bending of something good, so every sin does in fact involve harm. I believe that every sin harms the sinner and the community in which the sinner lives. I don’t however believe that this is why something is wrong. I don’t think that something is wrong because of what happens from it, this is consequentialism. Consequentialism doesn’t work because it is impossible to judge the morality of something based on its consequences when we often don’t know what those consequences would be. The only way we could be consequentialists is if we were omniscient, and we are not. Our inability to judge morality on our own is why God provided a revelation.

I think morality lies in whether or not someone breaks the Natural Law. There is a Natural Law (or order) built into creation, known partially and imperfectly through our conscience and reason and revealed more completely and perfectly in the Bible. This Natural Law reflects God’s character. When we sin we break this law. And like any law, when we break it we suffer harm, whether or not we recognize that we are suffering harm. This Law, and not the consequences of breaking it, is the basis of morality. Given the fact that we are shaped by our society and share its blind spots, there are always going to be parts the Law that seem unnecessary to us. This is where faith comes in. We have to believe that God is good and that he knows what is best for us and that his commands are not for his good alone, but also for ours.

Don't Follow Your Dreams

From early childhood, even before we are understand what it means, we are told to follow our dreams.  The fact is: this is very bad advice.  Generally speaking, you should not follow your dreams.[1]

Why is that?  We are all fallen, every one of us and every part of us.  We not only do bad things, we want bad things and Christian and non-Christian alike we are masters at convincing ourselves that what we want is good for us and others, regardless of the facts.  

As Christians we claim to live God-centered lives, but the fact is our dreams for the most part show that we are living self-centered lives.  We have the same dreams as those without God—we want fame first and foremost, but we justify this by claiming we will use our influence to spread the Gospel.  

Want proof?  When is the last time you heard someone say: I want to bring the Gospel to an unreached people.  Or, I want to start a business so I can provide a community with needed goods, services, and jobs.  How many hopeful pastors do you know?  Have you ever heard someone say, I wish I could devote myself full time to the study and teaching of God’s word?  

I know of plenty of people that practice hours a day in order to dribble quicker or throw a ball more accurately.  These aren’t bad pursuits, but they are secondary.  Athletic, artistic, and even intellectual pursuits are of some value, but not absolute value.  And in many cases, the time we spend on these pursuits could be much better spent.  

For example, there are thousands of languages without a translation of the Bible, but how many Christians do you know that are studying Greek so that they can translate the Bible into one of these languages?  Our dream should be to advance the kingdom of God, but instead we dream about advancing the kingdom of self.  

Now it is by no means wrong to be famous and I wish there were more Christians in high and influential positions.  But this dream is beyond the grasp of most and for the most part attaining this dream (or even pursuing it!) comes at too high a cost.  

Think about the time a person needs to devote to becoming a professional athlete.  Again, this isn’t a bad thing, but are there not better ways that time could be used?  Think the type of charitable work you could do in that amount of time?  You could learn to be a doctor, you could study the Bible, you could better yourself in a number of ways and in so doing be better equipped to share the Gospel with others.  What is more the influence you have as a social worker or as an honest judge will be far greater than the influence of any celebrity.  

Instead of dreaming of being famous, we should dream of being parents, of being teachers and nurses, accountants and pastors.  We should dream dreams that others centered and serving and not self-centered and self-serving.  These people impact lives in far more significant ways than any athlete or actress.    

Instead of instinctively following whatever dreams you may have, take a step back and try to have a dream worth pursuing.  When you’ve found one worth having, then pursue it with all your heart and for the glory of God.      

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[1] The longer you are in Christ and the more you are formed by Him the more your dreams will be shaped by Him and His dreams will become your dreams.  So to the extent that you are in Christ you should follow your dreams.