History Shows Little Mercy to Bigots

Martin Luther King Day in the USA
January 15, 2018

Dear Pastor Jeffries,

Grace to you, and peace.  I pray for you tonight, for your congregation, and for your ministry there in Texas.  May the Spirit's light shine brightly on you all.

Just recently, I've picked up a provocative book called Strangers in Their Own Land by noted sociologist Arlie Russell Hoschchild.  In her book, Hoschchild sets out to meet Tea Party activists in Louisiana and to listen carefully to their stories and concerns.  She wants to understand--and even to feel--what they feel: and how it is they organize so passionately against immigrants in their communities and environmental protections and human rights.  She's quite honest about her own left-leaning politics; but she believes the country benefits from deeper understanding of difference and compassion in the midst of conflict.  It's a noble effort, and quite illuminating on many fronts.

I too am puzzled by the anger on the Right, and especially the Christian Right.  I'm puzzled at how easily your preachers equate Jesus' gospel with Trump's bigotry.  How, exactly, do you come to that?  When Jesus says, "Let the children come to me," do you imagine he means: Let the Norwegian children come?  Do you somehow believe he means: Let the white kids come, let the white kids get health care, let the white kids have an education?  Is it possible--could our Jesus possibly mean: Forget about the African kids?  Send the Haitian kids away?  I have no time, I have no space in my heart for black kids and Mexican kids and gay kids and disabled kids?

But send me some more of those Norwegian kids!  Seriously?

Surely, Pastor Jeffries, you can't possibly believe in that kind of Jesus, right?  That Jesus has no Biblical credibility.  That Jesus is not found in the scriptures you folks on the Right so vehemently champion.  That Jesus is a fictitious white ghost--created by racists, bigots and decidedly un-Christian bullies.  And yet, you persist.  Trump's right, you say.  He's onto something, you say.  He's got the right stuff.

Arlie Hoschchild discovers that some Tea Party enthusiasts are demoralized by an economy that seems to punish hard work and decency in middle class communities.  I get that.  Working class Louisianans and working class Texans are surely paying a steep price in an economy that crushes hard working people (of all races) and rewards the greed of the very rich and the insanely powerful.  But let's be clear: That's not about Haiti.  And that's not about Africa.  That's about Donald Trump and his friends.  That's about the political class that prioritizes its own wealth, its own power, its own claim on government and privilege.

What Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are counting on--and what you are helping to execute--is a plan that convinces those same hard working folk that the real problem in America is immigrants.  The real problem in America is poor people.  The real problem in America is Haitians.  All these 'outsiders' are stealing America.  That's how it goes.  And it's time to take America back.  To make America great--and white--again.

Can we be honest, Pastor Jeffries?  That's a big stinking stack of dog crap.  That's what it is.  And it has absolutely no place in the spiritual life, in the moral imagination, in the missionary work of Jesus' church.  None whatsoever.  In fact, any church that takes discipleship seriously (and the Bible, too) simply has to resist.  There's just no alternative.  Again and again, the scriptures insist on God's care for the immigrant, and for the widows of war, and for the orphans left behind.  Again and again, the scriptures denounce nations that take these vulnerable folk for granted and judge them harshly.  Jesus stands in a long line of similarly concerned prophets.  So Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are on the wrong side of all that.  Thus saith the Lord!

In order to pull off their bizarre and bigoted strategy, Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz have to convince you and your fellow preachers on the Right that Jesus is a nasty, hateful, distrustful jerk.  They have to convince you that what Jesus really wants is a pure America of white folks, a 1950s America of nuclear families from Norway and Sweden, an America that never, frankly, existed.  And they have to convince you to ignore Luke 4 and Matthew 25.  They have to convince you to ignore Jesus' very first sermon in Nazareth, and his invocation of a new jubilee, setting captives free and bringing good news and liberation to the poor.  

I'm afraid you've fallen for their trap.  I'm afraid--based on your remarks last week--that your brothers in the pulpit have betrayed Jesus in the deepest way and gone after Trump and McConnell and Cruz instead.

All is not lost, however.  We believe in change, in the church.  We believe in repentance.  We believe in the power of grace to heal and turn the heart to new life and righteousness.  I pray for that in your heart tonight, and in the hearts of your friends on the Right.  I pray you'd return to Jesus, to his sweet and generous side.  I pray that his voice of love would find your heart, and open your heart to the sisters and brothers all around you.  The poor sisters and brothers of Texas.  The Haitian sisters and brothers, both in Haiti and all over the States.  The African sisters and brothers everywhere.  I pray, dear Pastor, that you would see--as Jesus does--that we are created in a magnificent web of mutuality and brotherhood, interdependence and sisterhood.  And it is in this web that we are made holy and even saved by the holy grace of God.  There is no other way.  Only by grace.  And only together.

Martin Luther King taught us all that, as Jesus did before him.  I don't imagine you and your friends put much stock in Dr. King's teachings.  I know Donald Trump spent the day playing golf--rather than honoring Dr. King's legacy.  But he does so at his own peril--because the price for ignorance and hatred is steep.  And history shows little mercy to bigots.

I pray for you all, Pastor Jeffries, for your church and your fellow pastors.  May the Spirit's light find your hearts tonight, and turn them sharply toward justice.  And then, and there, may the sweet joy of faith fill your souls with gratitude.  Because there is freedom there.  The true and everlasting freedom of God.

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Dave Grishaw-Jones
Peace United Church
Santa Cruz, California