Bigotry--the malignancy of America...

It's frustrating. Being on vacation half a world away when something sickening like the KKK/Alt-Right/Neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville occurs, and being away from the pulpit, is making my stomach churn. I was thrilled to hear that my colleague, the Rev. Karen Slusser, addressed the malignancy that is bigotry, racism, and extremism during her messages and the pastoral prayer during worship services at St. Paul's this weekend. Knowing her, her theological views, and her integrity, I'm not surprised, and am grateful, knowing that she spoke for both of us. Still, I have to say a few things.

Malignancy may not be a strong enough label for what is happening in the creepy corners and dark shadows of The United States of America right now. Having lost family members to cancer, and having spent thirty-plus years as a pastor supporting those struggling with such awful stuff, it may be a fair analog, though. You see, a diagnosis of cancer makes one's stomach churn and mind race to find a "new normal," but for those who are told, "You have cancer," there really is no "normal." And, if you are one of the fortunate ones whose malignancy goes into remission, there is still the residual fear that this dastardly disease could, at some point, reoccur. The best "cure" for the anxiety raised by this disease is a strong, practical faith that inspires hope, and surrounding oneself with a host of cheerleaders and supporters who will walk with you and "fight the fight" alongside of you.

So it is with racism and bigotry. Even as the faceless malignancies that may attack our bodies seem to us, evil, so those who lurk in the shadows and in the underbelly of American society who secretly (or as in the case of the Charlottesville rally, not so secretly) hold to anti-immigrant, anti-minority, anti-anything without white skin, or in some cases anti-anything not testosterone-soaked male, embody a palpable evil in our midst. And so they invoke the stomach-churning anxieties, and the continuing fear that, even after a couple generations of the "chemotherapy" of Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., the Civil Rights Act of 1964, not to mention a bloody civil war and a world war against the Nazism, the disease has left what we thought was a period of remission. Here it is again, threatening our very way of American life. The "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled-masses yearning to breathe free" life. The "melting pot" America. The America as defined by the Constitution of The United States of America. Bigotry and racism are a cancer, and they are back, and they will ravage the American body and destroy the American spirit.

Like many cancers, this "disease" never fully left us. It had been thrown into remission by a maturing society, the efforts of many, including people like Dr. King, and rendered less deadly by the growing diversity of the nation, causing neighbors to meet new neighbors who don't look like them, discovering that they are caring people like themselves, loving their families, working to make a living, and worshiping God in their own context. The cancer of bigotry was present, though, in isolated cells in the deep south, sure, but also in the minds of some well-educated white people who were fine with diversity as long as it didn't threaten their dominance and privilege, but who were not so comfortable with the advent of true equality in the land. It was even to be found in the hearts of young people raised in quietly racist families which continued to tell ethnic jokes around the table and to speak racial epithets while watching TV news stories or reading the newspaper, all as their children listened. When the Bible said: You shall not bow down to false idols or serve them, for the the Lord your God is a jealous God, visiting the sins of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation...(Exodus 20:5), this is what it was talking about. But what has been the trigger to reawaken this fearful and life-killing disease in the body of our nation?

How many rally speeches did you listen to from the candidacy of Donald J. Trump? I don't know if President Trump is a racist bigot, and it isn't really germane to my point here. The fact is that he pushed many "bigot buttons" during these speeches, and his very campaign slogan, Make America Great Again, was seen by some as a "dog whistle" calling out the shadow-lurkers who believe that America was great when it was run by white men, when white men dominated their families and the "little woman"--and ethnic minorities--"knew their place." There were people who believed the Trump assertions that immigrants stole their jobs, rather than admitting that advances in technology or declining markets for the product they built or mined, did. Make America Great Again meant for way too many people a country far less diverse, far less equal, and with far less opportunity for those who aren't white. Candidate Trump parlayed the repressed anger of white people on the fringes, whipping it into a froth, and making myriad patronizing promises to this group to get elected. (Please note that I understand that some voted for Trump because of a long-standing loyalty to the Republican party and its typically conservative values--some in my own family, in fact. But Donald Trump would not have been elected without the "rally crowd"--the "Trumpers" who bought his line about making America "Great" again.) And as to the President's condemnation of the radical, bigoted  forces which marched hood-less and proud in Charlottesville this past week? "Crickets," as the young adults say today, meaning there WAS none. In fact, this President blamed "both sides" in a statement that his White House staff has had to retrace and cover for, in the light of harsh criticisms from leaders of the President's own party.

I'm a Christian pastor, and I have to say that it is sad that I must so often defend my faith against persons using it to advance a bigoted, racist agenda. It was enough to have to defend it against those who use it to assault LGBTQ children of God, or who denigrate women pastors. (I guess this could be called the "new apologetic"?) I'm also weary of those who distort the scriptures by holding to the letter of the law and denying the spirit of the law, which is the redemption of humankind through Jesus. The writer of the letter to the church at Galatia stated emphatically, There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male or female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ. (Galatians 3:28) I believe this with all of my heart, and this is what I preach. And I believe the you are all one in Jesus Christ truly means all, beyond even those listed. 

Friends, it is time, yet again, to stand up to those who attempt to make anyone a second-class citizen of this nation because of the color of their skin, their national origin or ethnicity, their sexual orientation, their gender, or their religion. My congregation has adopted a Vision Statement that says, We will be a diverse, inclusive church, loving others according to the teachings of Jesus, and working for justice and peace in our world. Maybe we could advance these principles, with slight modification, as a nation? We will be a diverse, inclusive country, loving each other according to the teachings of our better angels, and working for justice and peace at home, in our nation, and in the world. Now that's a transformation I can wholly support. In the meantime, beloved, let us pray and work for a country conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men [ALL people] are created equal. Shalom.