Jesus Is Political Unless You're White

You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

“On a muggy June morning in South Carolina, a young black woman named Bree Newsome scaled the thirty-foot flagpole outside the state’s capitol building and removed its Confederate flag. As police and protestors shouted at her from the ground, Newsome, just thirty years old and wearing a helmet and harness, shouted back, ‘In the name of Jesus, this flag has to come down. You come against me with hatred and oppression and violence. I come against you in the name of God. This flag comes down today.’

This is an account of a hero recorded and repeated by Rachel Held Evans (RIP) in her book Inspired. Nothing seemed more pertinent to this topic than this.

But wait… This is the opposite of what Jesus said, right? Why resist this evil? Why deface public property? Why does Bree Newsome use the name of God to oppose evil if Jesus said not to resist evildoers?

The surface reading of the text, particularly for an American audience, even more so for a white American audience, reads as pretty straightforward. In layman’s terms, just be super nice all the time and things will probably end up being ok. Because, and though there are definitely exceptions to this rule, if a white person is “super nice” to an authority figure, a person of influence or power, they will most likely receive less of a punishment than a person of color. Often, this is actually in large part due to the fact that the authority figure is the same race as they are.

But Jesus is teaching to a Jewish audience. They aren’t the same ethnicity as their authority figure. And getting slapped? A complete normality for them on the daily. Getting sued to give up your coat? Happened all the time to the Jewish populace under Roman rule.

So then… Jesus is telling a marginalized group to comply even more with marginalization and sit there and take it? To play dead, and, to finish the implication, hope you can kill your abusers with kindness?

Kind of but not really.

Walter Wink, a theologian and biblical scholar heavily involved in the fight against apartheid in South Africa, explains it as such in his book The Powers That Be.

“Notice Jesus audience: ‘if anyone strikes you.’ These are people used to being thus degraded. He is saying to them, ‘Refuse to accept this kind of treatment anymore. If they backhand you, turn the other cheek.’ (Now you really need to physically enact this to see the problem.) By turning the cheek, the servant makes it impossible for the master to use the backhand then: his nose is in the way. It’s like telling a joke twice; if it didn’t work the first time, it simply won’t work… This act of defiance renders the master incapable of asserting his dominance in this relationship. He can have the slave beaten, but he can no longer cow him.”

Well, snap. That’s a completely different understanding then I was ever taught.

And it makes sense I never heard it this way. I have never been victimized at the hands of an authority figure based on my race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. I’m cis all the way, as American approved and affirmed as apple pie.

But I can’t abide this compliance with evil anymore. And it is because of Christ and His teaching that I can’t be silent anymore.

“Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: ‘In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

‘For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’’

And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Luke 18: 1-8

Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow. Isaiah 1:17

The righteous care about justice for the poor,
but the wicked have no such concern. Proverbs 29:7

This last line is particularly haunting. The wicked have no such concern for the poor. We can do some theological jujitsu as white Christians all we want, claiming our version of whoever the poor might be, but if we care about justice, if we care about righteousness, if we care about truly following Christ, we can’t be quiet while “about 1 in 1,000 black men and boys in America can expect to die at the hands of police, according to a new analysis of deaths involving law enforcement officers. That makes them 2.5 times more likely than white men and boys to die during an encounter with cops.” (Los Angeles Times, “Police Shootings are a Leading Cause of Death for Black Men”)

And we haven’t even dived into immigration violence.

Separation of families.

Violence toward and exploitation of women.

Etc. etc.

There is so much injustice in this world. There is so much darkness present all around us. Little of which, as a white man, I experience firsthand.

Because of this truth, I can’t explain away these realities experienced by my brothers and sisters with a snide tweet, a dismissive joke, or “orthodox” theology.

When my brothers and sisters of color bleed, I must bleed with them.

When my sisters are continually, bear minimum, overlooked, underpaid, and ridiculed, or, at the worst, openly abused and victimized, I must believe every detail of their stories and accounts.

When my brothers and sisters are snatched from their families looking for opportunity and a refuge from violence and corruption, I must work to shelter them and provide for them.

The list goes on and on and on.

It is because I am a Christian that I do this. It is my mandate to “to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1: 27

I have no way around this. I am glad that I don’t. All this religion stuff matters for nothing if I don’t learn to love those around me. And by those around me, that includes those that are marginalized by my government, those who are hated for the pigment of their skin, gender, orientation, or immigration status, those who are continually beat down, abused, and sometimes killed.

The apostle Paul agrees.

“For if I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:1-7, 8a

I used to think Jesus wasn’t political because I am privileged.

Now I believe Jesus is political because he was oppressed.