Segundo Galilea: The Power of Christian Contemplation

"Authentic Christian contemplation, passing through the desert, transforms contemplatives into prophets and heroes of commitment, and militants into mystics. Christianity achieves the synthesis of the politician and the mystic, the militant and the contemplative, and abolishes the false antithesis between the religious contemplative and the militantly committed. Authentic contemplation, through the encounter of the absolute of God, leads to the absolute of one's neighbor." 

- Segundo Galilea, from Liberation as an Encounter with Politics and Contemplation

Non-Violence: It's Not What You Think It Is

I hear a lot of voices advocating for non-violence without understanding what non-violence is. Non-violence is not passivity or a willingness to tolerate evil. Non-violence is a type of warfare that is waged strategically with weapons of the spirit. Proponents of non-violence must be willing to die in battle just as any other soldier in warfare. The basic thought of non-violence is that the love-ethic modeled by Jesus is the most powerful force in the human sphere, and perhaps in the sphere of the known material universe. If our ultimate goal is social change in the direction of genuine shalom then non-violence is the best and, perhaps, only methodology. Non-violence rooted in the love-ethic of Jesus finds its antecedents in the mystical elements of radical protestant reformation and Catholic counter-reformation. American transcendentalists and abolitionists began to shape these thoughts but it was Russian novelist, Leo Tolstoy, who began to shape these strands into a genuine idea. The idea of non-violence rooted in Jesus' love-ethic moved from being an idea to an actual practice through the work and genius of Gandhi who studied Tolstoy deeply. The non-violent strategies of Gandhi were handed on to Howard Thurman and other black American pastors, mystics and theologians in the 1930's. It was this moment that brought the various strands for social justice together in what we now broadly understand to be the Civil Rights movement. Non-violence should be distinguished from pacifism which generally avoids provocations and conflict while non-violence seeks out strategic prophetic acts that deliberately provoke and unmask unjust power structures. Non-violence should also be distinguished from non-violent communication and consensus building. Non-violent communication and consensus building are methods of communication that seek to build community within a bonded social set. Non-violent communication and consensus building are essential building blocks of a non-violent community capable of living out a strategy of social change through non-violence. However, practitioners of non-violence understand that they cannot be shamed into silence and non-confrontation when supposed allies seek to quiet them with the need to use non-violent communication. It is worth noting that non-violence is not the only path serious leaders for social change have followed. The Civil Rights movement split over the nature and limits of non-violence. Malcolm X decided against non-violence but later in life softened in his stance towards it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer began as a pacifist, moved towards non-violence, but late in his life struggled with the limits of it and ultimately rejected it. In America the greatest practitioner and most widely known proponent of non-violence was Martin Luther King, Jr. However, it has become something of an American pastime (especially among white Christian folks) to throw out a quote or two about how "Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that" without reckoning with how relentless MLK was in confronting hatred head on. If you listen to MLK's final sermons and speeches it is plain that he deliberately provoked and unmasked hatred to the point of his eventual martyrdom. King did not whitewash evil. He did not want everybody to get along while injustice and violence were the structures of society. He did not tell the marchers to stand down. Non-violence teaches us to keep getting up and keep getting our skulls cracked open while polite society shouts, "By confronting hate you are hateful. Hate can't drive out hate, only Love can do that!" Non-violence teaches us that through confrontation we unmask not only those who are filled with hate, but also those whose love has been stunted by cowardice, ignorance and selfishness. Non-violence teaches that through sacrifice and spirit-based combat there is a new humanity and a beloved community that is worth dying for.

For a deeper dive I recommend beginning where Gandhi started, Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You.

Get Radical

About 16 years ago my dear friend Jack Kooreman and I had a chance to ask our mentor and hero, civil rights leader Dr. John Perkins, what one piece of advice would he give as we were about to enter full time ordained ministry. I will never forget his answer, four words:
"Get radical. Get radical."

I have yet to truly get radical but I have been on a lifelong journey trying to get there since then. At any rate, if ever there was a time to get radical that time is now.
In his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" MLK put it this way:

The Beloved Community and the Healing of Whiteness

After re-reading the great essay, "Dylan Roof Is an American Problem," I'm meditating on how Dylan Roof's story and manifesto sheds light on the story of White America as we live in it today. (I will not share his manifesto on my blog, but it is very much worth studying if you are called to dive deep into the darkness). I strongly recommend reading the linked essay and if possible Roof's manifesto before reading my meditation which follows.

White America today is a young child lost in the haunted house of our unspeakable history, unable to find a way out. We created the myth of whiteness and the new Protestant Exodus. We used this myth unto genocide, slavery and oppression. And now we are terrorized and haunted by our own story. Our every impulse is to crucify the truth and create a mythology of greatness despite the fact that we cannot help but spiral into deeper and intensifying violence and degradation. Whether we fight against racism, fight for it, or simply stand by in confusion we are all of us horrified at what we've become.

We stand at a precipice. We are living in the middle of the changing of an age. Our urgent project is to dig deep within ourselves, to eschew our falsely constructed whiteness and to embrace our humanity. Our urgent project is lamentation, repentance, and the journey of humility to listen to brothers and sisters of color who have been patient with us beyond any reasonable expectation. For any who still identifies chiefly as 'white' the only path forward is to embrace what Jesus called, "Dying unto self." That is to say, taking off the old clothing of our false selves and putting on the new clothing of the new humanity Jesus promised we would find. This is a journey through the valley of the shadow of death of our old selves, loss of false identity, loss of false pride and false righteousness. This is a journey of honesty with our history and of dying to it.

We must not, however, give in to despair. We must fear no evil. There is a more excellent path, the path of a deep love-ethic and the community that embraces it. Dr. Martin Luther King and the great heroes of our nation pointed us to the beloved community. In the Beloved Community all true selves are welcome and embraced as beautiful image-bearers of the divine - particularly those who've lost all sense of ethnic identity through historical and lineal happenstance. You can enter as a member of a tribe or as an orphan of no tribe. All are equal and loved in the Beloved Community. As the old song puts it (even though now the lyrics sound quaint and more than a little cringeworthy): "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world." [Note: here's a wonderful write up of Rev. Clarence Herbert Woolston who wrote this delightful tune during one of America's ugliest racist eras]. Make no mistake, dying to a deeply held identity, even one as false and violent as whiteness, is no easy task. I have been trying to die to my false self in all its manifestations for many years now and I am often discouraged to discover I'm still just beginning. And even though I still haven't found what I'm looking for, there's a joy I've found knowing I've left the haunted house behind as I journey to discover the embrace of the Beloved Community all the while cheered on by a great cloud of witnesses.