CIVIL REVOLUTION: CONCLUSION

“If you want to make a society work, then you don’t keep underscoring the places where you’re different – you underscore your shared humanity.”* When all is said and done, may each of us be able to echo the words of Dr. King when it comes to spending our lives proclaiming, explaining, and demonstrating love for our neighbors:

Video: King - Serve with Love 

 


Music: Walk Me Home 

 


So in this quest, let each of us continually ask the three questions posited at the outset as we work at communicating with those who are “not like us”:

1. “What do I owe to the person who differs from me?” 

While we are not obligated to agree with that person, we do owe them love. As a result, we are to be good listeners, seeking to understand the person’s aims and asking whether there is anything valid in their position. 

2. “What can I learn from those who differ from me?” 

In recognition of their own fallibility, each interpreter should be prepared to learn that they are wrong and the other person is right. Seeking after truth is more important than winning discussions or protecting reputations. 

3. “How can I cope with those who differ from me?” 

Our goal is not to demolish our opponent but rather “to win him or her over to a new and, we trust, better understanding.”*

May the prayer of Father Ken Tanner be a clarion call as it seeks to bring unity, not uniformity, to our nation – no matter what issue is manifesting itself as a cancer eating at the very fabric of our collective community. But, as we move forward, we all must remember to not confuse acceptance of people with acceptance of opinion.

It was your delight, Father, to create the one human nature we share in a multiplicity of races. You taught us that all men and women share in the triune image you bestow on all persons. Yet forces of division fueled by fear, pride, ignorance, and hatred have plagued our minds and hearts from the moment we fell away from your divine community, waging a war from within and without against the colorful diversity and loving oneness you intended for humanity.

Founded on created equality, our nation’s actual history mars the beauty of our rich racial difference, and denies the full dignity of the divine image in us all; this chasm between our stated ideals and our brutish reality saddens, dismays, and angers us. Cause us to repent of participation in a culture that does violence to the wonderful tapestry of human faces; that tears, scorches, and rends the fabric of human unity. We are one human family under your thrice-holy and ever-enduring Love but our thoughts and actions portray allegiance to the lesser gods of bigotry, injury, apartheid, enmity, and racial supremacy.

Help us renounce apathy and silence wherever there is tolerance for an unholy, limited vision of humanity. Give us courage to speak and act in defense of those most at risk of hostility and harm. 

Come by your Spirit and shield all those experiencing injustice, cruelty, and savagery because of race. Come by your Spirit and defend those who protect the oppressed, who guard the dignity of your image in all humans. Bring swift justice to those who embrace threats, terror, and bloodshed; who worship violence and death. May these enemies of our common created goodness be visited by angels and converted to the cause of human flourishing revealed to us in your Son, Jesus Christ, in whom there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither rich nor poor, and in whom we, together with all creation, hope for universal reconciliation with each other by and in you and your All-Holy Spirit. Amen.**

The time is always right to do what is right. May the end result of our conversations be a collective “Hallelujah!” as civility and a love for all of humanity is restored so that new, stronger, healthier varieties germinate and bloom. “We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe.”*** 

Video: Black Panther U.N. Speech 

 


Music: Give Love 


 _______________

*Sebastian Junger, Tribe, New York, NY: Hachette Books, 2016, 127

 

_______________

 *Michelle Lee-Barnewall, Neither Complementarian Nor Egalitarian, Ada, MI: Baker Publishing House, 2016, Location 318 - Kindle

**Father Ken Tanner, “Pondering Charlottesville – A Prayer for Corporate Worship,” https://medium.com/@kennethtanner/pondering-charlottesville-a-prayer-for-corporate -worship=7d1c1b9868d, accessed 8/14/17

***The Black Panther movie, Marvel Studios, 2018

 

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