Timing can betray your heart’s attitude
What I am feeling right now is anger. I think this anger is justified. I think it is the same kind Jesus displayed when he met injustice done in the name of God in religion.
See, I follow a group on Facebook called “Presbyterian Memes”. “Follow” should be qualified here as how Facebook describes you liking one particular post or page and them sending you all their postings. Real following involves a lot more than that, but I am getting sidetracked here. I “follow” them because I am a member of the Presbyterian flock myself and even though this group and its members are from the US, I find it important and good to stay in the loop with how my fellow Presbyterians across the border thinks. Following memes are actually a very effective way to do that. Many a true word is spoken in jest.
So, this morning the group posted not a meme but a request. Less than 24 hours after the brutal racist and unjust murder of George Floyd by four police officers. It piously called for prayers for the perpetrator, complete with a text where Jesus ask us to pray for our perpetrators and enemies in the famous Sermon on the Mount. My blood boils. Why?
Because if you pay a little attention the timing of this post betrays the attitude of heart behind it. Without posting about what an atrocity this murder was and how it dishonors God. Without a call for sympathy and prayers for the victim and his family. Less than 24 hours, showing a total disregard for the depth of pain this family and people of color feel about this, there is this seemingly pious plea for the murderer. I do not buy it. In fact, I think this is a subtle and therefore dangerous way to divert attention from an injustice that brings into question the integrity of the gospel we proclaim as Christians.
I feel that should you be a pastor or just a Christian and especially if you are an American one, that you should clearly and vocally speak out against this atrocity in the name of justice and faith. And if you cannot bring yourself to do that, silence is at least a way to not do any further harm, cowardly as it may be. Do pray for the perpetrator as Jesus called us to do but do it behind closed doors as Jesus also instructed us to do. Do that instead of selling yourself as pious whilst diverting attention from something that should have been the focus of everybody’s attention a very long time ago. Don’t use religion and the Bible to divert. Use it to engage.
Tim Keller, a Presbyterian himself said in a recent interview that today the gospel needs to make emotional sense before people opens up to it making rational sense. Truth needs to be spoken in love and that includes speaking appropriate truths at the right time. Calling for prayer for the perpetrator without a word about the injustice or of empathy to the victims simply isn’t that. It angers rather than making emotional sense.
Gabriel J Snyman
May 28th 2020