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Taking exception to exceptionalism

We are hearing a lot of things about what Osama bin Laden was. Perhaps we haven't heard this: He was the man that laid bare the soul of America, revealing some aspects we'd rather not see.

This was true with his devastating attack on Sept. 11, 2001. And perhaps even more so in his own death a decade later.

In both cases, at least from my overseas vantage point, we were exposed as a people who were perhaps just as vengeful, and (worse, in our minds) just as insecure as the people elsewhere in the world whom we call uncivilized and "savage" when they behave in similar ways.

The chants and jubilation, flag waving, crude sign flashing and giddy joy that spontaneously spread across America as news of bin Laden's death was released Sunday night and into Monday at first made me uncomfortable. I felt a bit ashamed that my countrymen were cheering death.

I wanted them to have a certain type of dignity and class ... that they would display what we believe is a special American respect for life. I wanted them to show that we were not like the people who danced and cheered in Somalia when a downed pilot's body was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in 1993. ... or like the hate-driven extremists and militants around the world who rejoice in the death of their enemies.

What people do

I was uncomfortable until I realized that my countrymen were being perfectly normal human beings. They were responding like people who have been hurt by tragedy and injustice do when they get a measure of revenge or justice against their persecutors. 

They were responding like people who have been belittled and humilated do when something gives them back a bit of their sense of dignity and honor. 

They were responding like people do everywhere in the world in similar circumstances;

Problem is, we aren't supposed to be like people everywhere.

I was uncomfortable because I had been programmed to believe, like most Americans, that we were different. Exceptional, some say. 

We are a nation founded on principles like none other, so the thinking goes. We follow the rule of law. "We are a Christian nation," so we value life and justice. (speaking of faith ...).

We believe we are more generous, more brave, more forgiving, more industrious, more peaceful, more democratic, more principle-driven, more law-abiding ...

And because of all these exceptional things, the logic continues, we became the most powerful nation on earth. God blessed America. 

Looking in the mirror

Seeing yourself as distinctly different from the rest of the world allows you to distance yourself from their pain and anger. It allows you to write off their suffering and needs as less basic and legitimate than your own.

But the logic falls apart when we are obliged to see how much we are like other nations and peoples ... when we are obliged to see how unexceptional we are. And if there is one thing that bin Laden may have done for us is to hold a mirror up to our faces. He has shown us -- if we care to pay attention -- what we really look like.

I saw it yesterday. Fists and teeth clenched, "We got that SOB," one baseball fan screamed as he left the ballpark Sunday night. Another, at Times Square in New York, waved his American flag with a wide-eyed frenzy that one might have mistaken for an anti-American protest in Palestine or Iran. 

Others just cheered and chanted "USA, USA, USA ... " as if we had just won a hockey gold medal at the Olympics. 

But this was no game. This was life and death.

Not only was it about bin Laden, but also about the 3,000 people who perished in the attack in 2001. Still more, it was about the hundreds of thousands of people who have died since that time. Soldiers, militants, civilians. Americans, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis ...

Bin Laden and others like him killed, as people do around the world, because they come from a lineage that had felt injustice and humiliation and that had come to blame America and the West. They sought vengeance and justice through blood and death. 

While few of us would argue about the justice and utility of bin Laden's death, the cycle continued Sunday night. This was not a reason for joy. There was no victory. It was another turn in the sad cycle of death that certainly did not end when his body was dumped in the ocean.

But for millions of Americans this has been a time to celebrate, a time for restored pride -- just as September 11 had been a decade earlier for some who had resented Western world domination. 

Look in the mirror.

View from a distance

Sometimes things are clearer when we take a step back. 

Since Sept. 11, 2001 I have been keenly aware that there is something different about following world events from outside the United States. I came to understand long ago that there was something I would never quite share with my countrymen who, from that side of the Atlantic, had lived through the shocking destruction of the twin towers in New York.

After September 11, when we felt threatened and weakened and humiliated, we began to act like other nations we once looked down on. We were vulnerable and afraid. 

And so we became less democratic, less law-abiding, less concerned with human life, less Christian, if you will  ... 

As our soul was laid bare, our true core beliefs became more and more visible: power and force and the wealth it takes to get them -- not laws, justice, relationships and cooperation -- are what makes one right and safe in this world. 

Maintaining power and keeping our safety, then, was all that mattered, no matter who we had to detain illegally, torture, bomb, invade ... no matter how many innocent civilians might die ... no matter how many soldiers would be sent off to war.

We had to win. We had to get this man who had made us feel weak and who had continued to threaten us and humiliate us with his grainy videotapes from supposed mountain hideouts.

Why it matters today

Again, we are not worse than any other people. But we do have more power and thus the ability to act out our core values. And if we don't understand who we truly are, how can we begin to figure out how to navigate the confusing conflict between our interests and our values we are facing in today's quickly changing international environment?

How will we communicate the reasons we will bomb and seek to overthrow one dictator trying to crush democracy while ignoring similar actions elsewhere. Will we keep talking about how special and virtuous we are? 

Will we be surprised when we're called hypocrites when we don't seem to care what happens in Burkina Faso or Ivory Coast?

Will we be surprised when the insurgents we support today turn against us tomorrow?

Will we continue wondering why no one else sees us as altruistic supporters of democracy and freedom for their own sake?

The sooner we see ourselves more realistically, perhaps even humbly acknowledging when we have taken part in injustice instead of clinging to and extolling ourselves with the self-righteous city-on-a-hill image we like so much, the sooner we may be able to construct true relationships of trust in those parts of the world where there are so few. 

If this is to happen, we need to take the blinders off. The first step is realizing that you and the rest of the world are not so different. So by helping us see ourselves more clearly, perhaps bin Laden, of all people, may actually help us become more like the nation we aspire to be.

Burundi's pure anti-socialist health-care plan

Speaking of health care, the subject came up as Olivier took me around the city yesterday.

Burundi's health care plan is perhaps one that pure capitalists would dream of. No government run program here. Everyone pulls his or her own weight.

"There is no insurance here," Olivier explained. "There's no public insurance, and no private insurance.

"When you get sick, you pay what it costs. If you can't pay for medicine, then you don't get the medicine.

"If you go to the hospital, they will treat you, but if you can't pay when they have finished, you can't leave. You have people who are still in the hospital months after they are healthy," he explained, noting that the hospital for these debtors becomes like a prison until they can pay.

Don't worry, you soft liberals, there is mercy in the culture if not in the system.

"When people truly are unable to pay, someone eventually intervenes," Olivier said. "Either family or church will come up with the money eventually.

"Sometimes the president de la Republique will personally intervene on someone's behalf."

Oh no! They just ruined a perfectly good health-care plan with government meddling! If we get rid of that part perhaps we will have the perfect counter proposal to Obamacare!

Obviously, I am being sarcastic, we have already talked about some of my thoughts on the health-care issue, but I would think that America as a nation with considerably more resources than Burundi can come up with something -- if reasonable people decide to really look for solutions -- between death panels and debtors prisons.

What does health care have to do with repentance and Burundi?

By the way, the American health-care reform debate may not seem like a subject for this blog on reconciliation. And it may seem strange for me to talk about it during my trip to Burundi.

But remember, reconciliation happens when forgiveness meets repentance. And, very little is understood about repentance, I have discovered. Not here in Burundi, not in France and not in my home country of the United States.

One aspect we hope to talk more about is the desire, when one truly repents and begins to be restored, to make things right. Even more is a desire to reject core thoughts that we hold or that have been held by our group or even our predecessors once we realize that these thoughts go against truth and justice.

Well, even in something like health-care reform we can see some of the signs of thinking that disciples may want to reconsider.

If you are in Christian circles in America you may not get a chance to hear differing thoughts on this and other debates, which can give the impression that there is only one, true Christian way to think about this.

Here are some others that you can add to your sources of reflection.

Brian McClaren writes many things I have been wanting to say in his Open Letter to US Conservative Christians. You should also check out what Jim Wallis has to say on the subject. McClaren also lists several faith-based fact-checking sites.

By the way, if you’d like to do some fact-checking about the health care debate, here are some faith-based sources that I believe can be trusted to avoid uncritical and inaccurate reporting about health care. I understand they will be offering correctives to rumors and misinformation in the months ahead.

http://blog.faithinpubliclife.org/
http://www.sojo.net
http://www.catholicsinalliance.org/

I, for one, would like to challenge all Christians to not forward ANY e-mail they receive that speaks of politics without first checking to see if the source is credible. People of faith (any faith) are easy marks for those who are looking to exploit the word-of-mouth machine.

We tend to believe what we hear automatically when it comes from someone we think is like us. Politicians, interest groups and corporations have long figured this out and some lobbying groups have come to specialize in preparing factless campaigns focused on conservative Christians. So all they need to do is get a Christian to forward their "facts" and it becomes automatically credible to the other Christians who will receive it.

Disciples need to be wise and not allow themselves, no matter what their political beliefs, to be used like this. The results can be more important than we think.

Here in Burundi, like in neighboring Rwanda, an overwhelming percentage of the population was Christian. But their faith did not lead them to repent of cultural ideas that had been handed to them through colonial rule and their own ancestors.

And when pushed to the edge, it was their beliefs in their own group superiority and need for vengeance and self-protection against the enemy that led to genocide in Rwanda and 11 years of ethnic violence in Burundi. All of this happened with churches participation at worst and silence at best.

And the result has been a young population that, while it has not turned away from the church in droves, is increasingly questioning the foundations of this faith that was not able to keep people from acting out of their worst nature.

When I watch the town-hall anger and read some of the hateful comments that I have come across on facebook and blogs (my wife was privy to some message strings on Obama and health care from some of her high school friends on Facebook recently that would make you think twice -- no, thrice -- about how far we have come on race relations in the US), I sometimes wonder what is possible in America. 

Are we so far removed from the people who took out machetes and whacked their neighbors when they felt threatened? Are we really that different? I would argue that we are not different at all. The only thing that protects us is what core beliefs we allow to govern us.

And right now, I am not sure that those core beliefs are in order.  

Abortion: When accusers repent

I recently had the privilege of speaking to a group of international students about the beliefs and convictions of Martin Luther King Jr. 

It was mostly a young group, familiar with the grand ideas of Dr. King, but largely ignorant of the context that produced him, or the historical importance of his message.

After the killing of abortion doctor George Tiller and the stirring of emotions it produced, I thought the same message might be useful for those who feel passionately about abortion.

LESSON FROM HISTORY

After showing the international students photos of lynchings and sharing examples of injustices that Black people faced in the  United States systematically over decades leading up to the Civil Rights movement, I helped them understand that many in America were on the verge of taking up arms.

Many believed that it was justifiable and necessary to begin "defending their rights" by physically fighting back. That's why the non-violent message of Dr. King was so crucial to the progress we have seen in America today. One need only look at Israel and Palestine today to imagine what could have happened in the States had enough Blacks started killing Whites in the name of justice.

King had understood and was successful in teaching his followers a key Biblical idea that I think is crucial for those who feel passionately about protecting the unborn.

THE MONSTER IN THE MIRROR

King stressed tirelessly the need to love those who oppressed you, even as you called them out for their injustices. He understood the teaching of Christ reminding people that they would be judged in the same way they judged others.

He believed and taught that it was crucial that they bless those who cursed them and pray for those who were mistreating them.

He understood what Jesus understood: that victims (or those who take up their cause) become so focused on the evil committed by their enemies that they forget that their own hearts are ultimately capable of the same wrong. 

That even as they call their oppressors monsters or dogs, they become guilty of the very same basic sin as the one they have come to hate.

They have violated the second greatest commandment of loving their neighbors as themselves. They have allowed themselves to believe that they are more worthy of love than is their oppressor. 

From that point one is able to decide that he or she is more worthy of life than the oppressor. And some can then decide to act on that logic.

Only when victims repent of their own arrogant belief in their superiority over their oppressors can they truly love that oppressor as Jesus exhorted his followers to do. And only when one chooses to love (or at least not to hate) can the cycle of revenge and destruction that we see so often be avoided. 

King was greatly transformed when he saw the power behind this teaching, and a nation was spared what might have become civil war at worst or a long battle with domestic terrorists at best.

SLIPPERY SLOPE

I read a quote from one woman reacting to Tiller's death by saying she would feel the same way had a rat been killed. If you pay attention, you'll notice people on all sides of any issue often portraying the enemy in less than human terms.

That's what Jesus seems to be warning his followers against when he says not only that killing our enemies is wrong, but insulting them is basically the same thing. But that if we didn't get a grip on what was happening in our hearts, it was only a matter of time before we became just like the monster we decry.

Even from a practical standpoint, if the goal is really to save the lives of unborn children, I would think that goal would  be served better by a rhetoric bathed in understanding and compassion (see Jesus with the woman accused in adultery) than with vitriolic condemnation (see Pharisees in same story).

When the accused feels that he or she is understood and that his or her point has been heard, that person is much more likely to hear what YOU have to say.

And, at the same time, you are much more likely to imagine what YOU would need if YOU were in that person's shoes. 

It all begins with the understanding, of course, that you really are in that person's shoes. With just a simple change in circumstances, the person you accuse could be you, or your son or your daughter.

No matter which injustice stirs us to indignation -- injustice against babies, against women, against people groups, against homosexuals, against animals -- we need to constantly remind ourselves that the value and dignity of each human does not end (especially if one claims to believe the Bible) when that person does something wrong.

I, for one, am glad of that.

Calling me out

It's Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the eve of the inauguration of America's first black president AND we're in the midst of another heated battle in Palestine while people are taking passionate stands on either side of the conflict.

How can an African-American blogger committed to contributing to the discussion of reconciliation between peoples be silent at a time like this?

He can't.

I've been out of commission while adjusting to a new job (alas, blogging doesn't yet pay, at least for me), but it is like the world is throwing me a big, slow hanging curve ball and I can't help but take a swing.

So in the next few days, whenever I can find a spare block of time, I will be attempting to offer some thoughts on how a reconciler might approach such an intractable situation. It's been disheartening to me to hear comments from so many Christians, when discussing the Israel-Palestine conflict, that fuel the fire of division and hatred rather than building toward peace.

I believe that we all -- regardless of our beliefs -- can and should be speaking in writing in ways that help build peace and reconciliation. And I think if we take a step back we will find that it is not as difficult as it may seem. 

And nor does it involve ignoring what we think are fundamental truths that cannot be compromised. 

We'll get into this in the next few days.

 And, in light of the inauguration, I'll share some of my hopes as a reconciler for the new preisdent.

For now, however, I need to get back to work. So I leave you with a video clip of hope. May we all be given a vision from the mountaintop that gives us hope for a tomorrow that will be different from today so that we can move without fear toward that new reality.

When two wrongs make a Wright

OK. What do we do with Jeremiah Wright?

While he has largely disappeared from the headlines recently despite some renewed political ads from the Republican side, Wright is an important part of the letter we've been examining.

Again, the writer makes a strong argument that should make any reasonable person stop to think about this pastor, his church and what influence it has had on Obama's thinking.

Obama tells us he has good judgment but he sat under Jeremiah Wright teaching for 20 years. Now he is condemning Wright's sermons. I wonder why now?

Obama said Jeremiah Wright led him to the Lord and discipled him. A disciple is one in training. Jesus told us in Matthew 28:19 - 20 "Go and make disciples of all nations." This means reproduce yourself. Teach people to think like you, walk like you; talk like you believe what you believe etc. The question I have is what did Jeremiah Wright teach him?

So he's going to point some things about Rev. Wright and his church that should make us wonder about the effect it had on Obama. Sounds logical. Except for the fact that we shouldn't have to wonder about what Obama thinks about race issues.

Not only has he written two books that touched on all of the factors -- including this church -- that shaped his views, but he also gave a 37-minute speech after the Wright ordeal originally crested back in March.

Why should our questions about what he might have thought about Wright over all those years matter more than what the man says now? His life and his campaign speak of building bridges between races and groups.

But still, let's look closer at what the writer shares because we can find some of the key issues that make it difficult for us to understand one another:

Would you support a White President who went to a church which has tenets that said they have a

1. Commitment to the White Community
2. Commitment to the White Family
3. Adherence to the White Work Ethic
4. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the White Community.
5. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting White Institutions
6. Pledge allegiance to all White leadership who espouse and embrace the White Value System
7. Personal commitment to embracement of the White Value System.

Would you support a President who went to a church like that?

Just change the word from white to black and you have the tenets of Obama's former church. If President Bush was a member of a church like this, he would be called a racist. Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton would have been marching outside.

This kind of church is a racist church. Obama did not wake up after 20 years and just discovered he went to a racist church. The church can't be about race. Jesus did not come for any particular race. He came for the whole world.

A church can't have a value system based on race. The churches value system has to be based on biblical mandate. It does not matter if itʼs a white church or a black church it's still wrong. Anyone from either race that attends a church like this would never get my vote.

Here we find a basic idea that bogs down reconciliation efforts today. It goes something like this. 1) All people groups and races are equal. 2) The only fair and moral way to respond to people groups and races, then, is to treat and judge them in the exact same way.

So, as the writer argues, if it would be racist and unacceptable for one group to do something, it must also be true for the other.

In a perfect world, this would be true. But the world is not perfect. And, when it comes to cases where reconciliation is needed, it is almost always true that the groups in question are not on equal footing.

Why is this important? Because when you study reconciliation, you see that typically those in the best condition tend to support a solution that involves forgetting the past and simply deciding that everyone, from now on, is equal and on equal footing.

We don't have time to get into all the reasons why this is not a fair or reasonable way to deal with past injustice. But again we understand it much more when we take a similar example from a different cultural setting.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE

So, a writer could reason like this:

What would you think if we were to create a nation in the middle of Africa just for White people? We will take the land from existing countries and establish this homeland. White people from all over the world will be able to come and have citizenship there.

Would that be considered racist and unacceptable? Not after WWII it wasn't.

The movement for a Jewish nation in Israel gained steam in part because more people realized that persecution and attempted destruction of the Jewish people made it necessary to actively work to preserve and protect their culture.

People recognized that there were special circumstances that required special action -- not equal action. Special circumstances created a problem; special action was needed to remedy it.

We're not here to debate how good a solution was found in the creation of the modern Israeli state. The point is, we can see a reason for unequal action in this case.

And I would argue that the description of Rev. Wright's church is not at all shocking if one understands the desperately frustrating context that blacks have lived in for most of American history (including a huge percentage still today).

CULTURAL FILTERS

As Obama explains in the speech embedded on this page, the anger, hopelessness and destruction of self-esteem brought about by constant reminders of inferiority from mainstream society brought many people and even churches to the conclusion that they had to make a special effort to combat those effects.

When one understands this, the idea of being committed to the black community, black businesses and neighborhoods, developing a black work ethic, etc. ... is not so shocking.

Though the parallel with the fictional white candidate with a church focused on the white race sounds logical when you are wearing a certain cultural filter, change your glasses and it doesn't ring true at all.

When one has the filter shaped by the frustrating black experience we mentioned above, Wright's church does not seem racist at all. Racism would exist if they were claiming that Blacks were better or more important than others.

What this church is doing seems no more racist than John McCain's campaign seems nationalist when it stresses "America First."

People close to black and inner-city culture tend to understand that this is a decision to concentrate on the advancement of a people group that is trying to catch up and re-establish a sense of value that years of slavery and segregation have worn down.

Rev. Wright any many other Christians moved to this approach in large part because they saw no sign of repentance or commitment from the majority culture church to do anything about the results of years of injustice.

BOOTSTRAPS

Many did something very American, actually. They decided they would have to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, if you will, as did waves of immigrants they had watched come to this country and advance to one degree or another.

Italians, Irish, Hungarians, Poles and later different Asian groups had pulled together in their communities and helped one another with the idea that they would be able to secure a better future as a group in America.

If you understand the effects of our national race history on black culture, your filter helps you understand why a local church would consider it consistent with its Christian understanding to lift up the people of its community.

You might also understand why those wearing this filter might sense a need to speak prophetically about injustices in the majority culture that might harm its people and others in the world.

They might even understand it even when these words go too far, or take on a tone that hurts more than it helps.

THE OTHER FILTER

But that is how it is seen from within the context.

The majority culture context has another filter.

It is a filter of bruised pride and frustration at being cast as the bad guy all the time even as it sees its grip on power sliding away. It is a filter of fear, wondering whether there will be revenge in store because of those past injustices.

It is a filter that tries desperately to detatch its people from the evils of the past so that they, too, can enjoy a strong sense of value again.

It is a filter that leads to a sense of injustice and victimization when confronted with the complaints of the other group. 

The majority of the American Evangelical church is culturally linked to the part of American society that sees through this filter.

And, as we have noted in earlier posts, though our writer is black he is still culturally linked to this part of the church as well as its filter. He is one black man with a certain cultural approach to Obama.

ANOTHER BLACK MAN'S REACTION

Now, let me share with you the reaction of another black man.

I don't consider myself radical or racist. I have a white spouse and attended a white church in the States before coming to France, where I still work in a largely white context. And none of the people I know would consider me radical or anti-white.

(If they disagree, they will be writing comments on this blog to tell me so.)

But listen to this: Nothing about Rev. Wright's famous "God damn America" speech shocked me.

I wouldn't have used the words because I am a bridge builder. But my filter leads me to understand the basic idea he was conveying. And had I been in the church that day, I don't think I would have stormed out in protest.

This does not mean I am comfortable with everything that Wright says and does. Not at all. But my filter, and perhaps it is similar to the one worn by Obama, does not see people as good or evil, but a mix of imperfection and perfect creation that makes up this maddening world we are hoping to see change.

Tomorrow, we'll hit on the overall topic of Christian fear of judgment to close this series. 

My world in 2008

Timeout from the letter.

I hadn't seen Focus on the Family's Letter from 2012 in Obama's America before starting this series of reports. Had I done so, I surely would have wanted to use it as my base letter.

But Jim Wallis has a pretty tough response from another Christian point of view so I won't bother adding to the mix.

Dobson's letter is a good example of the kind of thinking that develops when people isolate themselves and surround themselves with others who are like them.

But is sad for me to see how one-sidely political Focus on the Family has become. Has it changed or have I?

Surely we both have.

I have changed because I am surrounded by people who think differently from myself. I can't avoid it.

I realized it was useless to try when my Facebook friend list started growing and I realized I could no longer keep my extremely diverse circles from perceiving one another.

And nor did I want to anymore. If it's been healthy for me to be confronted with all of these people, the same could probably be said for all of them.

I know that this blog is read not only by my conservative Christian friends from Ohio and Chicago, but also by my aethist and agnostic friends from Paris. It is read by black friends and family from the inner city and the suburbs ... by white friends from every economic level ... by Arab and North African friends like Samia who shared her comment yesterday ... by gay and lesbian friends and socialist friends, even a few communist friends ...

All of these friends -- truly friends -- make it impossible for me to be closed in my thinking. They don't let me get away with that.

I must think about how I am saying things and how different people will understand what I am saying.

More than that, I have learned from all of them. I have learned that none of them are out to harm me. They all want basically the same things in life, even if they disagree about how to go about seeking it.

With that in mind, we can continue looking at the Brown letter. We've got three more days to get this done!

The gory truth? Considering abortion

OK. Now that we've laid the groundwork, let's touch on some of the specific concerns brought up by our letter writer. I won't be going into theological or moral debate or quoting Bible verses.

There are plenty of people doing that all over the Internet. You can Google them to find out what you want.

Our focus here is to show that everything depends on the way you approach an issue.

ABOUT ABORTION

The the writer goes on to talk about one of the results of being a horrible liberal, which the culture with which he identifies has determined is akin to being anti-God and anti-America.

There is a reason he voted No on banning partial birth abortion. There is a reason he voted No on confirming Justices Roberts and Alito. These two judges are conservatives and they have since overturned partial birth abortion. The same practice Obama wanted to continue.

Let's take a look at the practice he wanted to continue

The 5 Step Partial Birth Abortion procedures:

A. Guided by ultrasound, the abortionist grabs the baby's leg with forceps. (Remember this is a live baby)
B. The baby's leg is pulled out into the birth canal.
C. The abortionist delivers the baby's entire body, except for the head.
D. The abortionist jams scissors into the baby's skull. The scissors are then opened to enlarge the hole.
E. The scissors are removed and a suction catheter is inserted. The child's brains are sucked out, causing the skull to collapse. The dead baby is then removed.

God help him.
There is a reason Obama opposed the parental notification law.

This is of course a powerful image and one we should not avoid considering. We need to consider the reality of what we are doing.

I have been greatly challenged by the gruesome pictures of aborted babies and it is difficult not to be moved by them.

On the other hand, I have also been greatly moved by the stories of women and girls struggling with pregnancy. I, like many people, am torn by this and am sensitive to the passion on all sides of the issue.

BEING CONSISTENT

At any rate, does this gruesome description, or even the gruesome photos, make this a clear-cut case that no Christian should ever support abortion rights or support a candidate who does?

What if we handled war the same way?

One could describe the effect of a cluster bomb ripping through a child's kidney ... the searing pain, the slow, painful death. One could describe the mother holding her child in agony, helplessly watching the child die.

We could show equally disturbing photos of war victims.

(I Googled images of both abortion and war victims and decided against showing either here, though I have provided the links).

Someone who stands against the death penalty could describe what happens when someone is electrocuted:

Witnesses routinely report that, when the switch is thrown, the condemned prisoner "cringes," "leaps," and "fights the straps with amazing strength."

"The hands turn red, then white, and the cords of the neck stand out like steel bands."

The prisoner's limbs, fingers, toes, and face are severely contorted. The force of the electrical current is so powerful that the prisoner's eyeballs sometimes pop out and "rest on [his] cheeks."

The prisoner often defecates, urinates, and vomits blood and drool. "The body turns bright red as its temperature rises," and the prisoner's "flesh swells and his skin stretches to the point of breaking."

Sometimes the prisoner catches on fire, particularly "if [he] perspires excessively." Witnesses hear a loud and sustained sound "like bacon frying," and "the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh" permeates the chamber.

This "smell of frying human flesh in the immediate neighborhood of the chair is sometimes bad enough to nauseate even the Press representatives who are present."

During the execution, the prisoner almost literally boils: "the temperature in the brain itself approaches the boiling point of water," and when the post-electrocution autopsy is performed "the liver is so hot that doctors have said that it cannot be touched by the human hand."

The body frequently is badly burned and disfigured. There is considerable evidence suggesting that death inflicted by electrocution is anything but instantaneous or painless.

One could legitimately see images of war or an electrocuted man and still conclude that this destruction of life was a necessary evil of sorts.

So, once again we see that what seems so clear is much less clear when we take a step back and see from a broader perspective.

OPENING OUR EYES

When it comes to gory details, we tend to be exposed only to those supported by the group with which we identify.

And the powerful emotional strength of those details tends to push us to believe with even more passion that our group's point of view is correct.

This plays into the tendency we mentioned earlier to believe in a sort of divine endorsement of our point of view. How could God not see these images and feel what we are feeling?

A HIGHER VANTAGE POINT

Again, this is human. Everyone does it. People on the right and on the left. Anti-abortion people as well as Vegans and animal rights activists.

But again, I am addressing these posts largely to Christians because they claim to have access to something that goes beyond human reasoning. They claim to be able to tap into God himself.

If they are going to do so, however, they are going to have to step back from their culture group quite a bit more than they think.

They will have to humbly recognize that they are indeed human and prone to the same deception and narrow point of view as everyone else.

Then, they need to admit that they need help from above if they are going to see clearly.

Those who want to be peacemakers and reconcilers in this world have to take several steps:

* confess their own narrow-minded pride

* recommit to listening for truth from above

* commit to listening to others from different social groups, religions, countries, cultures, political perspectives and to consider all of these people as children of God like themselves rather than demonizing them.

If we can do this, we have a much better chance of seeing more clearly and in representing not only Christian positions but also a truly Christian attitude toward others.

Differently biblical?

So why did I spend two days talking about the influence of culture on our points of view?

Because the whole of the standard American Evangelical opposition to Obama and other left-leaning candidates is based on a series of assumptions, or established truths that this community has come to believe are non-negotiable.

Rick Warren, during the debate at his Saddleback Church, based many of his questions on this list of issues that Christians should use to determine whether a candidate can be supported.

We find some of these issues in the beginning of the letter we are examining.

The writer, in explaining that issues are more important than race for him, says this:

200 years from now I won't be asked if I was black or white. I will be asked if I knew Jesus and accepted Him as Lord and Savior. 

In an election there are many issues to consider but when a society gets abortion, same-sex marriage, embryonic stem-cell research, human cloning (to name a few) wrong, economic concerns will soon not matter. 

We need to follow Martin Luther King's words, don't judge someone by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

The basic idea here is that the writer's opinions don't come from culture but rather from Jesus and the Bible, independent of culture. As we have noted the past few days, the writer's views may be independent of race, but they are not independent of culture. His Biblical ideas line up with those of one part of the church.

And then he says that a person's character (remember the discussion on value from the other day?) can be determined by how he or she stands on these issues. The unsaid but clearly understood idea is that if one does not agree with the basic points being made, then that person's character is to be doubted.

THE BIG ISSUES

The key issues: abortion and other issues concerning the unborn and then homosexuality. Economic matters are dismissed as unimportant morally.

This is one point of view. It is the point of view of much of the Evangelical community. But it is not at all the only way of seeing things.

Jim Wallis, who writes at Sojourners shared his personal faith priorities for this election on his blog. You will notice in his priorities quite a different view coming from someone who reads the same Bible and believes in the same God and savior as the writer of this letter.

Wallis writes:

I am in no position to tell anyone what is “non-negotiable,” and neither is any bishop or mega-church pastor, but let me tell you the “faith priorities” and values I will be voting on this year:

• With more than 2,000 verses in the Bible about how we treat the poor and oppressed, I will examine the record, plans, policies, and promises made by the candidates on what they will do to overcome the scandal of extreme global poverty and the shame of such unnecessary domestic poverty in the richest nation in the world. Such a central theme of the Bible simply cannot be ignored at election time, as too many Christians have done for years. And any solution to the economic crisis that simply bails out the rich, and even the middle class, but ignores those at the bottom should simply be unacceptable to people of faith.
• From the biblical prophets to Jesus, there is, at least, a biblical presumption against war and the hope of beating our swords into instruments of peace. So I will choose the candidates who will be least likely to lead us into more disastrous wars and find better ways to resolve the inevitable conflicts in the world and make us all safer. I will choose the candidates who seem to best understand that our security depends upon other people’s security (everyone having “their own vine and fig tree, so no one can make them afraid,” as the prophets say) more than upon how high we can build walls or a stockpile of weapons.
• “Choosing life” is a constant biblical theme, so I will choose candidates who have the most consistent ethic of life, addressing all the threats to human life and dignity that we face — not just one. Thirty-thousand children dying globally each day of preventable hunger and disease is a life issue. The genocide in Darfur is a life issue. Health care is a life issue. War is a life issue. The death penalty is a life issue. And on abortion, I will choose candidates who have the best chance to pursue the practical and proven policies which could dramatically reduce the number of abortions in America and therefore save precious unborn lives, rather than those who simply repeat the polarized legal debates and “pro-choice” and “pro-life” mantras from either side. ...
• Every human being is made in the image of God, so I will choose the candidates who are most likely to protect human rights and human dignity.

I would urge you to read the entire post to get a better picture of his thinking, but you can clearly see that what our letter writer and so many of our Christian friends passionately see as the clear-cut proper Christian position is actually only clear-cut when we clearly cut ourselves off from broader points of view.

Wallis tries to help us see that while Obama's views on abortion or some other issue might be troubling to Christians, the Republican stance on a host of issues is not in line with Scripture either.

How does one decide that it is on abortion and homosexuality that God is going to judge the character of a person? I would argue that we decide based on our culture and who it is that is influencing us.

African-Americans and others close to the inner city (or perhaps people like me who have become closely acquainted with the effects of our foreign and economic policy in Africa and elsewhere) predictably are more likely to tune in to the Bible's voluminous references to poverty and justice issues.

Just as many suburban Evangelicals are able to overlook or downplay  these issues in favor of those that strike them as more pertinent, many other Christians may legitimately do the same with stem cells, abortion or gay marriage, for example.

Is it fair to label them as unbiblical or to challenge their character? I would argue that we should consider them "differently biblical" and show them some humility. Perhaps we should even listen to them and seek to learn about these issues that they see as vital. Perhaps we will actually become more biblical Christians in the end.

We'll get more into the specifics of some of these issues in the coming days.

A spin-free opinion?

Huntley Brown's letter has been circulated by many who seem to think that because he is black Mr. Brown's opposition to Obama on the basis of his faith has more credence or impeccability than would the same arguments from a white man.

Kind of like Colin Powell or Scott McClellan endorsing Obama, as Republicans who worked in the Bush administration, apparently carries more weight than, say, an endorsement from Ted Kennedy.

But we must all remember that no one comes to a point of view without the influence of culture. Mr. Brown is a black man, as am I. But his point of view is his own. He has a set of social circumstances all his own that have allowed him to come to his conclusions.

And, though I don't know Mr. Brown, his biography suggests that one shouldn't be surprised if his views might be aligned more with suburban American Evangelical thinking than that of many other black Americans.

As a native of the Caribbean and then as a student and professional largely in the white Evangelical context (Judson College, Billy Graham, etc.), I would expect one's views to be more in line with that context than that of, say, an inner city African-American.

I say this as a black man who also has lived most of my adult life in the context of the white Evangelical church. My home church back in the States is a white, rural Ohio church. And I work in the context of a para-church organization based near Mr. Huntley's home in the NW Chicago suburbs -- one of the hubs of Evangelical Christian thinking.

It's an area dominated, from the Christian perspective, by Moody Bible radio, Wheaton College and a host of successful churches like Willow Creek, etc. These all have one thing in common: they represent, to one degree or another, the standard white American Evangelical approach to theology and faith.

(Understand that when I stress the "white," it is not to say that there is something racist about this approach. It is simply to point out that it is an approach that is attached to a culture and its history. People from other cultures adhere to its point of view as well, of course.)

Mr. Brown and I are not less authentically black than blacks who live in the inner city. We are black. Period. But it is no surprise at all that our experience and point of view differs from many others African Americans from different backgrounds.

My point of view, originally formed in the Black American church and then altered by many years in a white Evangelical context, has changed even more after 13 years in France and various exposure to African and other cultures. So, though I may offer an opinion on Obama as a black man and as a Christian, that opinion is just as influenced by my cultural settings as anyone else's.

Being black, being Christian, being in France ... all of these things affect my views on this election. That is normal. Each of these factors has an effect on the others. I may think my faith is free of influence, but I have seen all-to-clearly that it is not.

Faith informs my blackness and my status as an ex-pat in France. But these factors also inform my faith and my interpretation of faith and its application to political positions.

RESPECT TO MR. BROWN

So this is no knock on Mr. Brown. As he stresses in the letter, he definitely is not judging Mr. Obama on the basis of his race. He is definitely making his opinion based on his perception of Biblical truth.

But we need to understand that his views are not more or less valid than they would be if he were white. The source of his views are not any more correct or incorrect than they would be had a white person given them.

Indeed, African Americans who attend suburban Evangelical churches tend to be much more likely to hold the same views of their suburban church brethren, just as white American Christians who live and worship in the inner city tend to see faith and politics much more like their inner city  brethren there.

I know three white Evangelical men, two of them accomplished theologians and writers within the Evangelical community. And guess what? Many of their views align more with the standard inner-city Black approach than with the larger, white Evangelical approach.

You can read about this in excellent books like Divided by Faith if you want more details. The data is pretty indisputable.

Mr. Brown, from what I can tell in his comments on the link above, is an honorable person who is seeking to honestly and consistently live out his faith and points of view. He didn't seek to have his letter used this way. So, in using it, I am not seeking to put him down in any way.

I will try to avoid using his name from now on because this really is not about him.

The point is for us all to learn that others may be honestly and consistently seeking to live out their faith while coming to conclusions that differ from a certain portion of the Evangelical Christian community.

Don't worry, we're getting to the meat tomorrow!!!