Thoughts on Ferguson

First, I don’t have a strong opinion about whether or not the non-indictment was just. Everyone seems to be set one way or another, but the whole things seems muddled to me. Granted, I haven’t followed the information closely, but at the same time the process doesn't seem like it has been transparent (which, admittedly, arouses my suspicions). Based on the little I have seen, it seems to me like there was enough evidence to indict him and send this over to trial, though I think it would have been difficult to get a jury to find him guilt beyond a reasonable doubt (however, this doesn't mean there shouldn’t have been a trial!) But I really don’t know enough to make a confident statement on this.

I should mention this too. I fully recognize that I am influenced by my position in this society. As a white, middle-class, middle-aged man I have experienced the police in completely different ways than poor, young, black men. In a similar way, as a man, I have never felt the vulnerability of being a woman alone with a man or experienced subtle workplace harassment. So I do recognize that my experience is not absolute—my lack of experience does not invalidate the experiences of others. All of us, because of accidents of birth, experience the world in particular ways. While I don’t think we are bound by them in the sense that we can never understand anything about another individual different than us, we have to know that our class, race, nationality, religion, etc. color the ways we see things. Knowing this we must try to see things from as many different perspectives as we are able.

With that caveat, I’d like to get to what interests me most: how we respond to injustice?

I think the worst response is violence. Now, I don’t think most of the violence has been from protesters. There are always people in every age and every society that want to cause trouble and will use any cover or opportunity to do so. A lot of them did that Monday night. I have nothing to say about them.

I want to discuss those that think violence is an appropriate response to injustice. I should qualify one thing here, when I talk about political violence I don’t mean here the use of violence to defend oneself or another, I mean violence used to overthrow or undermine the existing order. It is this approach that I take to be unwise. (I should mention here that I used to be more sympathetic to these people—lots of my friends in college were committed socialist activists—but the more I study history, the more I think this approach is dangerous and wrong.)

Violent rebellion seeks to overthrow the existing order. There is not a single example in all of human history where order was overthrown and justice and/or freedom grew. Both justice and freedom (two things the protesters want) need order. Any time order has been undermined, justice and freedom have declined. This is an unfortunate historical fact.

I’ll give you an example. I once read a book called Between the Norm and the Exception. It was written by two German/Jewish socialist law professors. They thought the Weimar Republic of the 1920s was unjust so they actively worked to subvert it. They succeeded, but in doing so they opened the door for Hitler and his pals to take over. Regarding their work and its consequences, they gave this example at the end of the book, and it really stuck with me. ‘Laws are like the rules of baseball. They are made by the powerful to protect the interests of the powerful. When the powerful and privileged face off against the weak and marginal, they win every time. However, getting rid of the rules doesn't help the weak. In a society without order, when a strong batter gets up, instead of hitting a home run and running the bases, he takes his bat with him and beats to death every infielder as he rounds the bases.’

Their point: a bad order is better than no order. Peter and Paul repeat the same point in the New Testament. Both say categorically we must obey and respect our government. They say this about a government that would execute them both unjustly and that at its highest levels was participating in every obscenity you can think of or imagine. Yes it was a bad state, but rebelling would only make this worse.

We see this time and again in history. The last few Tsars executed about 4,000 for political crimes over the last half century of their rule. That was unjust. You should not die for having an opinion and expressing it! So the Russians killed the Tsar and destroyed the old order. Under Stalin, about 4,000 people were executed every day for political crimes. This pace lasted for about a decade. History is littered with these examples. The French overthrew a bad king and got Emperor Napoleon in his place, etc.

This is why I feel strongly about political violence. Bad police are better than no police. Bad laws are better than no laws. Before we respond to injustice, we have to start by recognizing our absolute need for order.

Now, that being said, respect for the law does not entail that we must accept the law as it is. As Christians I believe we have an absolute duty to stand up against injustice. We can’t sugarcoat it or sweep it under the rug. We have a duty to strive for a more just world—even if we must sacrifice ourselves to do so. But we must do this as reformers and not revolutionaries. Our goal must be to change and improve and to work from the inside; we must not attempt to overthrow an existing order, no matter how corrupt it is at least this is the general rule. In cases of heinous and grievous injustices, like the type that occurred in the slave states in the south or Nazi Germany, I do believe that political violence was justified. The problem is, that in both cases, it was ineffective. The great evils they represented required armies under a lawful authority—it was Abraham Lincoln, and not John Brown, that eradicated slavery. In the case of slavery here in the US, reform took place within the system and it was only after many would not accept this reformed order that violence was used, and even then violence was only effectively used by the leader of that order.

However, the approach is going to be the rare exception. As mentioned above, political violence often creates a worse situation. But more than that, it is less effective at bringing real change. Think about this. The Civil War ended slavery, but a new racist order (Jim Crow) replaced it almost immediately. Violence brought change, but that change was superficial. Compare this with the deep and lasting changes that the early church wrought.

At the time of Christ, 50% of the people living in the Roman Empire were slaves. People regularly watched public murders for entertainment and infanticide was widely and regularly practiced. Within 500 years of the birth of Christ slavery, gladiatorial games, and infanticide were completely abolished (the latter two for good, the former for nearly a thousand years). They didn’t destroy an order, they transformed it. This approach was more effective and lasting, but it took far more time and work.

Even now I think we can foresee negative consequences to the looting and riots. Lack of jobs and access to the services that businesses provide are chronic problems in low-income areas. If you owned a local business, would you want to keep it in Ferguson after this week? Would you rebuild it if it was destroyed? If you were an insurance company, would you be eager to insure businesses in this area?

Ok, so what do we do? We don’t react violently, but we need to react. As mentioned above, we need to recognize injustice and fight it. While we do that I think it is paramount to recognize our need to forgive our enemies (that is the model of Christ on the cross and Stephan in the midst of his stoning). Second, we need to recognize God’s providence. God allows evil, but he always uses it for good. We may never see how he uses evil for good, but we need to have faith that He is in charge and that He will bring all things to a just conclusion. (We have lots of examples of this in the Bible—e.g. Joseph is enslaved and wrongly imprisoned. By these things God saves the lives of millions. Likewise, colonialism was horrific, but in its wake access to western medicine has doubled the life expectancies of people living all over the developing world.) Ok, once our hearts are in the right place, then what do we do? First, we need to diagnose the problem.

I was watching an interview last night with Lorian Johnson (I am probably not remembering his name correctly, but he was the friend of Michael Brown and the key witness of the shooting). His story seemed very credible, he appeared very honest and forthright to me, and I agree completely with his main point: this didn’t need to happen, Officer Wilson could have acted differently. At the very end of the interview his lawyer commented. He said, (and I paraphrase) ‘this happened because this cop did not see these young men as having valuable lives.’ In essence, they were targeted because of their race by a racist cop.

Now is this possible. Sure. Of course. There are a lot of racist people and I am sure more than enough of them become cops. But we can’t know if this particular cop was racist. We have no idea why he acted as he did. Maybe he was a coward. Maybe he was abused as a kid by his dad. Maybe he just got in a fight with his girlfriend and he was feeling angry and he projected his anger on a total stranger. Now, I don’t think any of these possibilities are likely, I say them simply to show we can’t know his motives (or anyone else’s, for that matter!)

But, let us say that we can know his motive, for the sake of argument, and let us say he was a stone-cold racist. We can remove him from his position. But the problem of racism is deeper than just him. What do we do? I was watching Benjamin Crump today and he said we need new laws. But what type of laws? We already have laws regulating police behavior. Well, then maybe we need better enforcement. But we took this case before a grand jury. Do we want to get away from our innocent until proven guilty standard, our trial by a jury of peers, etc.? I don’t think anyone is calling for that.

The fact is we have good (though not perfect or even great) laws in place. People may have exploited loopholes and abused the process in this case (a lot of it does sure smell fishy to me), but what do we do? We can remove those individuals, but the problem is bigger than them. Do we pass a law that says no racist people can be judges or police officers? That sounds like a great law, but how on earth would you implement it? How do you really know what is going on in a person’s head. You don’t and you can’t.

The point I am trying to make is not that we should do nothing, but that I don’t think legal reform can fix this problem. The problem of racism is deeper and if people are committed to this (or any other) hateful ideology, they will always find ways around the law to harass, bully, exploit, etc.

What we need is a societal sea change. We have this veneer of acceptance and tolerance, but it is shallow. (The shallowness of this is seen very clearly in a city like Madison!) It is shallow because it is grounded in nothing eternal. If we want the brotherhood of mankind we need to first recognize the fatherhood of God. Without this recognition we will always be dividing ourselves, creating ‘others’, self-segregating, and judging. We won’t do this in public—because that is not accepted in ‘polite’ society. We’ll give money to some NGO, have a token black friend, and pat ourselves on the back for being great and move on without a second thought. And nothing will change.

So how do we move past this this false progress?

I truly believe change needs to start in the church. Sunday morning cannot be the most segregated hour in the week. We need multicultural churches that don’t just tolerate differences, but that love and accept everyone in spite of their differences! The church needs to be a leader, a model in this. It has been the driving force behind every good and lasting reform. The Gospel breaks down all the barriers we create and only in the change that the Gospel brings can we truly overcome the dark and evil legacy of racism. Everything else will be a shallow window dressing. We may talk and look nice, we may ‘get along,’ but nothing fundamental will change.

This change will be slow, but it is the only way we can find the unity and brotherhood that we so desperately seek in vain. Laws cannot change the hearts of people. They may externally comply with the law, but given an opportunity (and laws cannot destroy every opportunity for wrongdoing) what is within their heart will come out. Only the Gospel of Christ can change hearts. And what we need above all in this country is changed hearts.