Category: General

What does it mean to be “inclusive”? I am part of a team that is working on a major proposal. My little piece of it deals with a “culture of inclusion.” This is supposed to be more than just a checkbox, how-many-women-and-minorities kind of thing. It is supposed to be a pervasive culture where every voice is valued. At the same time, I’m the advisor of a campus ministry that is attempting to be more inclusive. So I’ve given a fair amount of thought to the philosophical, theological, and ethical foundations of inclusion. Maybe that’s overstating it, but anyway, it occupies my thoughts.

A recent column discussed one of the challenges of being overly inclusive. One of the hallmarks of progressive Christianity is avoiding orthodoxy, but that can end up draining away all meaning from the title. That is, there are people who claim to be progressive Christians who do not believe in the divinity of Jesus, or who do not believe in his bodily resurrection. Where is the line?

Let’s go back to basics. Once, the only people who mattered in the Western world were white men. We were the political leaders, scientists, theologians, engineers, everything. Gradually, and certainly incompletely, that has changed. Now at least some other voices are heard: white women; Blacks, Asians, Latinx, and other races and ethnicities; and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Usually those voices are given far less weight than white men, but now it’s more than zero.

As it turns out, people who are not straight, cisgender, white men actually know stuff, too. How about that! Not only do they have something to say, something to contribute to “their” people, but also to society at large.

The foundation of inclusion is humility. A humble person realizes that they don’t know everything. A person can be confident and still humble. That is, they could be confident within some realm of expertise, while recognizing their limits. For example, I had a conversation with someone at another university recently who is putting together a research team. I could confidently say that I have expertise in solar energy and microgrids, but he asked about several other topics that are outside my bailiwick. Or for another example, I recognize that the six courses I’ve taken through the University of Dubuque’s program for certified lay pastors are not even equivalent to a single semester that an M.Div. student takes. I’m only marginally qualified to preach and lead a church—confident enough to try, but humble enough to listen to mentors. Going back to the column regarding heterodox (even heretical) beliefs, humility means listening to modern voices, but not imagining that all of our inherited wisdom is wrong.

A group, organization, community, or society has a culture of inclusion when that humility extends to the realization that knowledge, wisdom, and inherent worth are present in unexpected places. A person doesn’t need to be an insider to be valued. A person doesn’t need to look or act like the rest of the group to have a valid opinion, or to have an insight that others don’t have.

The opposite attitude is assuming that someone who is “other”—Black, or female, or gay—and successful must have cheated. Exhibit 1: the birther conspiracy about President Obama. Exhibit 2: Kamala Harris must have had an affair with Willie Brown and used him to get ahead. It is unfathomable that these two Black people were successful on their own.

Everyone is a product of both their innate capabilities and their environment, including the opportunities they were given. The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to assume other people’s misfortune is due to their personal failings, while our own misfortune is due to bad luck or other people’s bad intents. To expand on the concept a bit, there is a tendency to assume that outsiders’ misfortune is due to their group’s failings, while insiders’ misfortune is due to bad luck or nefarious groups. Thus many whites believe that inner-city Black poverty is because their culture lacks a work ethic, while rural white poverty is caused by globalism and evil foreigners. A humble person would realize that the real world is messy and complicated, and that perhaps they should listen to actual Blacks and other people of color talk about their struggles against systemic racism.

I leave you now with a hymn by Marty Haugen, Let Us Build a House. I love his work—both lyrics and music. This particular version is an anthem that also incorporates “Come Build a Church” by Ken Medema.

August every year is a time of new beginnings. This year, for the first time, I have both of my kids out of the house and off at college; Jesse started class already, and Sam starts in a couple weeks. Rolla K-12 schools (which no longer impact me directly) and Missouri S&T both start classes Monday. This past week was Opening Week, an orientation for incoming freshmen.

This is a fall like no others. Both Pitt (Jesse) and Brown (Sam) are starting the semester online, with plans to eventually have some in-person classes, such as labs. UNC Chapel Hill had students on campus for just over a week before sending them home. Missouri S&T is starting out hybrid; for my class, the in-person classroom only accommodates about 40% of the students, the rest of whom will be online.

Anxiety has been climbing for years. The CDC data are eight years out of date, but other sources indicate that the upward trend has continued. On top of that trend came the pandemic, protests against racial injustice, and partisan warfare over fundamental voting rights. Young people (and older people, too) are right to be anxious about the future.

In a workshop today, Rev. Rodger Nishioka encouraged us to use a disruption framework to understand the COVID-19 pandemic. That is, our lives have not simply been interrupted, after which we would go back to the way things were. Instead, our lives will be fundamentally changed. Even if we have a magical vaccine next month, the fear and distrust will remain; new ways of communicating, behaving, and planning our lives will remain.

And yet in the midst of all this uncertainty, I have reason for hope. Why? Well, there are a few proximate causes. First, Common Call Campus Ministry, and the rest of the partners in the Campus Ministries Association, had an awesome Murder Mystery event for incoming freshmen. Many students had a chance to hear what we’re about and expressed an interest in learning more. Second, a project I initiated, to provide some education and other resources for the LGBTQ+ community in Rolla, suddenly has some momentum behind it. Third, I suddenly have a few new research project opportunities on campus—no money in hand yet, but movement in the right direction.

More fundamentally, though, my hope comes from my past experience with adversity. Eight years ago, Rhonda had MS, but it hadn’t taken over her life yet. Then from December 2012 to sometime in 2014, she went through pure hell with facial pain, and the rest of us went through it with her. Yet we came out the other side, damaged but strengthened. I know my relationship with my kids is different now than it would have been otherwise. They had to grow up fast but rose to the occasion and are better people because of it.

Hope is not some rose-colored-glasses, wishful-thinking good feeling. True hope comes from adversity. When I was young, I was over-confident in my abilities and intellect. It took a little bit of failure to make me appreciate the need for hard work to back them up, but also to realize that a little bit of failure is OK. It’s OK to try something and fail, as long as you keep trying. It’s OK to encounter some setbacks, some roadblocks, some unsolvable problems. Maybe my life didn’t turn out the way I expected it to, and the path I took was not the straight path to success I would have chosen. Looking back, though, I realize that the problems I encountered along the way made me who I am, and that there is a good future for me somewhere out there, even if I can’t see it yet.

²⁸ Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
    and his understanding no one can fathom.
²⁹ He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.
³⁰ Even youths grow tired and weary,
    and young men stumble and fall;
³¹ but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:28-31

Hope comes from being weary, being weak, and even falling, yet continuing on. God gives me strength. This fall, I don’t know what will happen, whether Common Call and the LGBTQ+ program will take off or the pandemic will crush them. Yet I know that no matter what, I will learn something, and come out better on the other side, as I have before, with God’s help.

According to Great Man Theory, history is defined by the actions of men (always men, not women) who both had innate greatness (skill, intelligence, charisma, etc.) and encountered situations that both developed and called for their particular capabilities. A couple of examples spring to mind: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Washington had a set of life experiences that made him into a great general, as well as the temperament to lead a republic instead of a monarchy. Would the United States of America exist without him? Lincoln also had life experiences that somehow prepared him for the presidency, along with the wisdom to surround himself with great statesmen. Would the Civil War have been declared had he not been elected? If so, would another man have succeeded in saving the Union? These questions are, of course, unanswerable. All we can say is that Washington and Lincoln were presidents who had certain achievements.

Humanity has been blessed and cursed over the millennia with good and bad leaders. They have both molded and reflected the conditions of their times. In most cases, we can only judge leadership in retrospect, long after the fact. In 1862, with the nation divided and war raging, would anyone have rated Lincoln among the great presidents? Probably not. There’s also the problem of leaders who did a good job at achieving terrible ends, such as Josef Stalin.

We are right now in the midst of a sea change in national and world affairs. In the 1980s of my youth, the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union defined international relations. Discussions of economics revolved around the growing threats of Japan as a technological powerhouse and Mexico as a manufacturing powerhouse. By 2001, the Cold War was over; China was emerging as an economic and political adversary; and Islamic terrorism was the dominant national security threat. As these external relationships shifted, domestic politics and the economy shifted as well.

Indeed, America in 2020 faces different, and generally more serious, political, economic, and interpersonal challenges than we did 20, 50, or 100 years ago. We have COVID-19, racial strife, a collapsing economy, and low levels of trust. We need great leaders at every level: national, state, local; in government, industry, the marketplace, education, and religious institutions.

What makes a great leader? The Bible is full of examples of good and bad leadership.

¹⁴ “Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. ¹⁵ Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

¹⁶ Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods; ¹⁷ for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight. He protected us along all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed; ¹⁸ and the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”

Joshua 24:14-18

The recurring theme throughout the Old Testament is that great leaders obeyed God’s commands and bad leaders did not. Yet it was not simply that the leaders themselves followed God; rather, it was the example they set. Great leaders like Joshua praised God and reminded everyone that they should also praise God and follow God’s commands.

The days of theocracy are long past. The US is not a Christian nation now, if it ever was. Rather, we are united by our civil religion, encoded in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Great leaders now are those who elevate the principles of these founding documents and inspire others to live according to those principles, at least in spirit.

Reading the Declaration of Independence reminds me that no matter what I may think of a particular politician, the principles underneath our institutions are still inspirational: all people are created equal; among our rights are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness; that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Old Testament leaders like Joshua, David, and Solomon were complex men who often fell short of God’s desires for them and for their nation. Yet they were held up as examples because they measured themselves against God’s commands. Similarly, great American leaders make many mistakes, but should be judged by how they inspire our nation to live up to our ideals. Do they inspire us to treat all people as our equals, or to treat some people as our inferiors because of their race, ethnicity, national origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation? Do they seek the consent and support of all Americans, or use loopholes to achieve power by other means?

Other organizations have different founding principles, against which leadership should be measured. For example, Missouri S&T is a land-grant university, established under the auspices of the Morrill Act, “to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life.” Obviously we have evolved since then, but at a very basic level, Missouri S&T exists for the sake of liberal and practical education, which are essential to the prosperity of a democratic society. All leaders must be measured by how well they inspire the faculty, staff, and students to achieve a better tomorrow through education. Land-grant universities should not be measured by their success in football or basketball, nor by their wonderful dormitories and recreational facilities for students.

I am at a stage in my life and career where I find myself increasingly in leadership roles. My hope, my prayer, is that I will be true to the principles of the organizations that I lead, and that I will inspire others to follow me.

If all goes according to plan, my youngest will move in to their dorm room Tuesday to start their freshman year next week; my own classes will start August 24; and my oldest will start in early September. The nice thing about working at or attending a college is the rhythm of it: the sense that everything starts fresh in the fall.

This year is different from all previous years in ways too numerous to mention, but the same in one big way: young people around the country, and around the world, are beginning not only a new academic year, but also a new chapter in life. Each academic year is a different stage in the process; there’s a qualitative difference between starting your freshman year and starting your junior year.

I am also the advisor to Common Call Campus Ministry, which is a member of the Campus Ministries Association. Common Call is a progressive Christian ministry sponsored by my church, Christ Episcopal, and Hope Lutheran (ELCA). CMA is a collaboration among many ministries of various denominations, ranging from Catholic (Newman Center) to Assembly of God (Chi Alpha) to Mormon (LDS Student Association). We all have very different theology. I think my church would recognize the baptisms given by most (except LDS), but most would not recognize ours. Yet it’s important for us to work together, to visibly display the unity that is in Christ.

My hope, my prayer for my own children, for the students in Common Call, for all young people, is that they find a path to God. The mark of maturity is when you convert the received faith of your youth into your own faith—maybe the same, maybe different. I grew up United Methodist, and the rest of my family is still United Methodist (including my sister, a pastor whose church we’ll be attending shortly). When I was in college, I drifted away, for various reasons but mostly because I didn’t think I needed God. Some years later, when my kids were born, I realized how much is beyond my control, and how much I do in fact need God. When I ultimately re-joined a church, I ended up Presbyterian—different from my youth, but not so far removed.

Do I think my own kids, and students I encounter, should be Presbyterian? Sure. But if they end up Episcopalian, United Methodist, Catholic, Jewish, or Buddhist, so be it. We each have God inside of us, the Holy Spirit dwelling within that connects us to all humanity across time and space. Despite God’s immanence, we are ultimately unable to fully understand the divine. Our human institutions and explanations are approximations, limited views of the infinite.

⁸ Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. ⁹ For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; ¹⁰ but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. ¹² For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. ¹³ And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:8-13

The closest we can come to understanding God is to love. Love ourselves, love our family, love our friends, love our community, love all humanity. I pray today that young people everywhere will know God by knowing God’s love, and that I can do my part in sharing that love with those I encounter. Amen.

Yesterday, I led a church float trip on the Current River, Cedar Grove to Akers Ferry. We had some teenagers, some middle-aged, and a couple of octogenarian women, whom I will call Alice and Sally for their privacy. It worked out best for Alice and Sally to be in a canoe with me. The river was up: we had a lot of rain Friday, so by the time we got on the river, the flow was 430 ft3/s. (I’m writing the number down so I remember how much is too much.) But I thought we would be OK. And most of the time, we were.

About 40 minutes into the float, the river took a hard right turn. In trying to fend off from a tree, I tipped the canoe. Alice and Sally hung on to the canoe until some people on a gravel bar right there charged in and grabbed them. We all got to shore and managed to recover all our belongings. Sally has kind of fragile skin and got a couple of big cuts. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a first aid kit. But a guy who was there helped out with a torn-up T-shirt and some Kleenex. He bandaged her as well as he could. We decided to have lunch.

After we all recovered, we got moving again. We were fine for more than an hour, then another time, the river took a hard right turn. This time, a branch sticking out grabbed the canoe. The branch, the thwart, my paddle, and my leg were all tangled up together. Alice was thrown clear; someone on the gravel bar jumped in and grabbed her. After I got my leg untangled, the canoe started floating away. Lots of people jumped in and grabbed all our stuff, and two big guys carried Sally ashore.

This time was more serious. Alice had a little scrape; Sally had several, on both arms and both legs. Fortunately, someone among that group was a nurse with a good first aid kit. Also, there was a group of students there from the Missouri S&T Satellite Team (Jill Davis, Donna Jennings, Matt Russell, Kyle Bruer). Jill, a Ph.D. student in aerospace engineering, also had a good first aid kit that she contributed to the effort. People kept piling towels on Alice and Sally (whether they wanted them or not!).

Now the question was, how to get home? Even assuming the rest of our group could help somehow, they were gone. I didn’t realize until later that we were very much the last boat in the group. If we could make it to Welch Spring, we could perhaps ask the ranger there for help. But how to get there?

That’s when Jill jumped in to volunteer. Their group was in kayaks. Kyle would tow hers, and Jill would take the bow position in my canoe. We got Alice and Sally settled down in the bottom of the canoe, and we were off.

It was a pleasant float from there. There were hardly any tight spots, and Jill was accomplished enough to guide us through the few we encountered. When we got to Akers Ferry, she had to run to catch the bus to Jadwin Canoe Rental with the rest of her group. Once Alice & Sally had clean, dry clothes on, and some fresh Band-Aids, they were fine. They even came to church today! Although Sally did need further medical attention at the urgent care clinic after church. We did lose a canoe paddle and a driver’s license, but that’s pretty good for such extreme conditions. Sally lose one shoe, but then some guys found it further down the river and returned it to us!

What was amazing and gratifying to see was the sense of togetherness on the river. There was a realization that we were all in this together, and we all had to work together to care for those who were in trouble. Lots of people acted spontaneously when they saw us dumped out, our belongings floating downstream. The guy who helped bandage Sally the first time gave me clear instructions about what to watch for and what to do. (The other guys on the gravel bar also helped by offering moonshine!) The nurse who did most of the work at the second spot was very kind and caring, and took her time to make sure both women were dry and warm, and that all of Sally’s injuries were accounted for. There was another woman at the second spot whose face I can still see—the anguish in her eyes over the idea that we would need to continue on, and the fear for Alice & Sally’s safety. There was a group there that proposed to be our escort down the river, before Jill volunteered. And of course Jill’s willingness to cut short her trip and help us out, and her companions’ willingness to tow her kayak and otherwise pick up her slack.

I think people are basically good and basically want to do the right thing. Modern civilization has given us many opportunities to NOT do the right thing, though—to ignore the suffering of people around us, or literally to not even SEE suffering people. Too often, people in need are just nameless, faceless “others” who must deserve whatever comes their way. But when confronted by someone who is clearly in need, people want to help.

Oh, and also, Jill is an accomplished student who has won a prestigious award and a fellowship, and Donna also recently won a prestigious award. They are a credit to their department and especially their advisor, Dr. Hank Pernicka. It has been my privilege to work with these and other students on the Satellite Team over the past decade.

The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian in Community

I have been volunteering regularly at The Mission for a bit over two years now. For those who are not familiar, it was started several years ago by Vineyard Rolla, and still operates out of rented space in their building. (Their pastor also serves on the board of directors, so there is still a close relationship.) It was originally formed to fulfill a specific need: the high cost of laundromats made clean clothes a luxury for some people in the community. Soon after, showers were added to help the homeless for whom clean bodies were also a luxury. Over time, services grew to include snacks, then hot meals, then overnight shelter during the winter. I started as an overnight volunteer, then when spring came in 2018, I began cooking lunch on Fridays, a day when there previously had not been services. Since then, Saturday meals have been added so that The Mission now operates seven days a week.

In January 2018, The Mission hired its first full-time staff member, Ashley Brooks. The number and roles of staff have grown since then. Not only do they care for people’s immediate needs, but also they facilitate connections to other services and other organizations so that people can begin to work their way out of homelessness and poverty.

The growth has been entirely organic. Of course there is strategic planning, but for the most part, the people in charge (board of directors, staff, and volunteers) watch what’s going on and what the needs are in the community, and respond in a caring way. It’s a hard job, mentally and emotionally. Most of the patrons are at a low point in their lives; when they get past that low point, they no longer need the services provided, so they don’t come around much. Often the patrons have untreated health issues, both physical and mental, that nobody at The Mission is really qualified to treat. I volunteer for just a few hours a week—I can’t imagine being a full-time staff member always burdened by the troubles of the patrons.

The Mission’s success is based on love. As I said, there is strategic planning, but always in response to the needs of the community. The alternative is to imagine what the community might need and build something that would fill that imagined need. That would be self-defeating. It would be like the apocryphal story of Marie Antoinette thinking that peasants without bread could instead eat cake. As Bonhoeffer said, caring more for your own vision will destroy the community you want to help.

I have three or four other projects in my personal life to which this principle applies:

• My home church, First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. We have an aging congregation and an aging facility that does not really serve our needs. The building is all stretched out over a hill, so that there are too many stairs for people who have mobility issues (let alone the distances involved!). I think the sanctuary was designed by a sadist, or else someone criminally insane. But I suppose none of that matters if the congregation continues to shrink due to the age of its members.
• The church where I preach, First Presbyterian Church of Cuba. They have similar, but worse, membership challenges. They do not have an installed pastor, which is why I am able (and needed) to preach there.
• Common Call Campus Ministries. This is a collaborative effort by FPC Rolla, Christ Episcopal Church, and Hope Lutheran (ELCA). We have struggled to maintain active operations. In the past few years, we have twice been reduced to a single student member. We have more than that now, but not much. I struggle to know what students really need and how CCCM can provide it.
• The LGBTQ+ community in Rolla. For a few years now, I’ve had ideas about ways to serve this group. It is essential, though, that my voice is the quietest in many cases. I am not queer myself, so I don’t really know what is needed. A small group of us are working on an event tentatively titled LGBTQ+EDU, targeting October 3. It will be educational, targeting prospective allies in the community and hopefully catalyzing further activities. For example, we have talked about having monthly follow-on events. I would ultimately like there to be a queer community center in town, but that’s further down the road. Like The Mission, we need to grow organically. We need to have a group of people who are connected to each other, at least tenuously, with identified needs that we will fulfill, rather than just a “build it and they will come” attitude.

In a larger sense, the Black Lives Matter movement has some of the same challenges. It is essential that the loudest voices are Black. White people need to grow in their love of the Black community, and Black individuals, and to listen to what they are saying. We are the ones who need to change, but we don’t know how. We need to listen and learn, rather than assuming Black people are exactly like white people with darker skin, with the exact same experiences, needs, and desires. White people cannot simply imagine what Black people might need, in some patronizing way. We need to see the world and ourselves through their eyes.

Love, true love, requires humility, a recognition that other people are different in ways we do not know and cannot even imagine. Each person is loved by God for who they are, so we must also love each person for who they are, not who we think they ought to be.

A couple walks into a bank to ask about a new construction loan. The loan officer welcomes them back and discusses the options. The loan officer asks a few questions, such as the equity in their current home, their household income, and their credit. They give answers and are taken at their word to get things started. They leave with an estimate and a few forms to fill out, but are assured that the bank will find a way to help them out.

This, to me, is the way life should work. It is essentially my story from spring 2019. People are taken at their word until proven otherwise. For example, the bank did not issue the loan until running credit checks, seeing my W-2, doing appraisals, etc. However, the basic presumption was that whatever I said was essentially true.

As you read the story, what did you picture? If you’re like me, you pictured the loan officer as an older white man, the couple as a white man and woman.

The term “white privilege” is thrown around a lot lately, with predictable backlash. Mostly, from white people whose lives don’t feel so privileged, whether due to their level of education, their socioeconomic status (especially in their youth), or their geographic location. I recognize that I have a lot of unearned privilege, beyond whiteness: cisgender, heterosexual, well-educated in both a top-tier public school system and a private university. So perhaps acknowledging my white privilege is easier than for individuals who didn’t have such an easy start to life.

I think perhaps the better way to see it is that “privilege” is “normal.” That is, for people like me, systems work the way they are supposed to work. In fact, the educational, legal, banking, and other systems in America were designed for people like me. Now, I still had to work to get where I am and make the most of the opportunities, but I was afforded those opportunities as a matter of course.

For people who are not like me—whether due to race, ethnicity, language, gender, or sexual orientation—the systems do not function properly. Individuals within the system sometimes act from their personal biases, such as a police officer seeing a Black person as inherently more untrustworthy and prone to criminal behavior than a white person. Sometimes, individuals just get into certain habits due to their experiences and environment, such as a homeowner in a white neighborhood being surprised and fearful when they see a Black person unexpectedly walking down their sidewalk, but who might not be so surprised or fearful if they encounter a Black person in a store.

More often, the systems themselves are set up with implicit assumptions that do not accommodate changing demographics or other differences. For example, often, forms only have two options for gender—male and female—implicitly excluding someone who is nonbinary. Some forms ask for information about a child’s father and mother, implicitly excluding gay parents. Colleges assume that a student can expect financial support from their parents; in some economically depressed areas, the expected family contribution really ought to be negative because students are supporting their parents.

In other cases, causality is not so easy to determine. There are clear racial disparities in basically every societal measure—economic, educational, criminal. COVID-19 death rates are higher among Blacks than among whites. Is their higher death rate due to economic disparities, differential treatment by medical professionals, underlying chronic health conditions, or biological factors? My guess is that we can exclude biological factors, and the other three are all culpable in ways that cannot be easily disentangled. Differential treatment by medical professionals stems from training, experience, and implicit bias, but also from economic and geographic differences that lead Black patients to different hospitals than white ones.

“Privilege” doesn’t mean “an easy life.” It means that the rules of life are designed to work for you. It means that your inherent, immutable characteristics do not automatically exclude you from certain opportunities. Or when they do, and you rightly take offense, it is so unusual that people rally behind you, rather than simply acknowledging the exclusion as the way things are. Privilege isn’t something that should be abandoned by those that have it; it’s something that EVERYONE should have.

This Independence Day, I’m thinking about our national myth. That is, the vision of the United States of America as a glorious democracy, colonized by those seeking religious freedom, born of revolution by noble heroes who believed that all men were created equal against a tyrannical king, and purged of the sin of slavery by a leader who sought true equality. A close reading of history reveals most of that preceding sentence to be false, exaggerated, or at least selective memory.

I’m currently listening to an audiobook about Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island. First the Pilgrims came to Plymouth, who sought to establish a new theocracy, separate from the Church of England. Next came the Massachusetts Bay Company, founded by Puritans who saw themselves as still a part of the Church of England but with differences of opinion over the “right” way to worship and believe. In both cases, there was a pervasive connection between church and state, with compulsory church attendance (punished by fines), voting rights tied to church membership, and government legitimacy deriving from divine favor, not the consent of the governed. Williams’s compact governing Providence was the first in the New World—whether in English, Dutch, Spanish, or Portuguese territory—omitting reference to God. Williams himself was thoroughly religious, but believed that civil government had no authority regarding the “first table” of the Ten Commandments, that is, the first four Commandments dictating Christian duty to God. This was a revolutionary concept, and fairly unique in the colonies. Our First Amendment separation of church and state was primarily a way to accommodate Anglican, Presbyterian, Catholic, Quaker, and other Christian sects, each of which would have preferred to see their denomination raised to dominance over the others.

The public conversation these days is reckoning with the mixed record of our forefathers on racial equity. Let’s set aside the Confederate monuments, which memorialize people who were traitors, losers, and opposed to our supposed belief in equality before our Creator. Let’s talk instead about people like Washington, Jefferson, and even Lincoln, who have more mixed legacies. Washington and Jefferson led the creation of a nation that had far more freedom than its predecessors, while at the same time owning slaves and participating in all the worst aspects of slavery, including rape (e.g. Sally Hemings, a product and victim of white owners’ exploitation of their Black slaves). Lincoln’s primary motive was to save the Union, and he ultimately realized that the only way to do so was to end slavery.

The question these days is whether to literally put these men on a pedestal, that is, to honor them with statues, monuments, state and city names, etc. For answers, let’s look at the history of Israel as recorded in the Bible.

Genesis 12-50 is devoted to Israel’s ancestral history, from Abraham down to the Israelites first moving to Egypt. These are the men and women who founded a great people, the equivalent of our patriotic forefathers. The account as we currently have it was assembled centuries after the fact by redactors who combined a variety of stories into a cohesive account. The overarching message is that Israel is a chosen people, specially blessed by God. So one might think that the patriarchs would be described in glowing terms. But that’s not what we read.

Abram twice tried to pass off his wife, Sarai, as his sister. Even after God entered a covenant with him, renamed him Abraham, and promised him a son by Sarah, he did not trust in God and concocted a scheme that ended with him sending his slave, Hagar, and her son, Ishmael, into the wilderness and near-certain death in order to protect Sarah and her son, Isaac. Isaac’s son Jacob, who was renamed Israel and whose sons defined the twelve tribes of the nation of Israel, is a particularly deceitful character. He cheats his brother, Esau, out of his inheritance, and his father-in-law, Laban, out of a disproportionate share of his flock. His favoritism to two of his sons resulted in Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers. Joseph is at times deceitful himself, perhaps taking revenge on his brothers over their mistreatment of him.

These are not impeccable, glorious heroes. These are just men who are trying to make their way in the world. The women in these stories are no better—Sarah was the one who conceived of the plans regarding Hagar and Ishmael, Isaac’s wife Rebekah helped Jacob steal Esau’s inheritance, and Jacob’s wife Rachel stole her father’s household idols. What makes them all worthy of honor are their roles in founding a nation devoted to God.

People are complicated. Only one person in all of history lived a spotless life, Jesus. The rest of us have our good days and bad days. Some of us are able to rise above our sins against God and neighbor to help their community or nation more nearly approach the Beloved Community that Martin Luther King, Jr., described.

Speaking of Martin Luther King, Jr., he was another complicated person with his own failings, a fact often pointed out by those who would defend America’s Founding Fathers with whataboutism. But a person should be judged by the totality of their life, the totality of their legacy. MLK was a powerful force for racial justice and equality, a man unfortunately lost before his vision was realized. Lincoln saved the Union and ended slavery. Jefferson was, on the whole, an excellent statesman, from his authorship of the first draft of the Declaration of Independence through his presidency. Washington was possibly the only man who could have been an effective President at the time he was chosen, and was a good enough general to defeat our British opponents.

Let us celebrate the good that these men did, not by ignoring the bad parts of their lives, but by acknowledging that they were humans like the rest of us who were able to rise above their sins to produce the flawed, but promising, nation we have.

Over the past few decades, five presidents have needed to address well-publicized incidents of race-related police brutality, starting roughly with George H. W. Bush and Rodney King in 1991 and still continuing today. (George W. Bush’s terms in office were surprisingly devoid of such incidents.) Each president has sought to comfort a hurting American public. Archetypal was the elder Bush’s responses, first to the initial incident:

Those terrible scenes stir us all to demand an end to gratuitous violence and brutality. Law enforcement officials cannot place themselves above the law that they are sworn to defend.

It was sickening to see the beating that was rendered and there’s no way, no way in my view, to explain that away. It was outrageous.

George H. W. Bush on March 22, 1991

And then to the rioting:

The wanton destruction of life and property is not a legitimate expression of outrage with injustice. It is itself injustice. And no rationalization, no matter how heartfelt, no matter how eloquent, can make it otherwise. …

None of this is what we wish to think of as American. It’s as if we were looking in a mirror that distorted our better selves and turned us ugly. We cannot let that happen. We cannot do that to ourselves.

George H. W. Bush, in an address to the nation on May 1, 1992

It seems we follow a standard script. Outrage at the original incident, handwringing over what we could possibly do, headshaking at some people’s inappropriate responses, then back to business as usual. Somehow, 2020 seems different. The outrage has spread around the country, and indeed around the world. Aside from George Floyd, a number of other incidents have come to light at the same time. Media have exposed some of the worst reactions of police: instead of seeking to serve and protect, too many have adopted a warrior mentality and tried to dominate the protesters.

But perhaps the most telling difference has been the reaction of President Trump. In between the normal compassionate-sounding prepared remarks he delivered at press conferences, he tweeted:

I can’t stand back & watch this happen to a great American City, Minneapolis. A total lack of leadership. Either the very weak Radical Left Mayor, Jacob Frey, get his act together and bring the City under control, or I will send in the National Guard & get the job done right.

These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!

Donald Trump, via tweet on May 27, 2020

This was just the beginning of an increasingly hostile attitude towards protesters, peaceful or violent. In response, Americans broadly—including white Americans—have realized that behind all of the soothing rhetoric over the past thirty years, Black subjugation has continued apace, with brutal policing enforcing the racial divide that has been baked into our society by 400 years of laws and policies.

 Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

John F. Kennedy, remarks on the first anniversary of the Alliance for Progress, 13 March 1962.

For fifty years, Black Americans have continued the struggle for real equality after legal barriers were technically removed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Their simmering anger occasionally erupted into protests and riots, but was quickly settled down by promises to change. Change never came. Now everyone is realizing that asking nicely and playing by the rules is never going to achieve real progress.

In Ancient Greek, there are two different words for “time.” The conventional word is chronos for sequential time, quantitative time. Kairos means something more qualitative, something like “timely.” The proper or opportune time for action. I believe the Trump presidency has created the conditions for change. America is under extreme stress right now, between COVID-19, political polarization and realignment, and economic spasms. Race has long been in the background for many, many social and economic issues in America, and suddenly it has been thrust to the foreground. White people are finally connecting the dots.

2 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, ² and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

⁴ “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

…

¹² After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.

¹³ When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. ¹⁵ So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶ To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” ¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

John 2:1-5, 12-17

As one might expect, Jesus had an excellent sense of kairos. Yet sometimes conditions forced his hand. I don’t know why first he said that his time had not yet come, but then agreed to go along with what his mother asked. Perhaps to indulge her; perhaps because they both knew that it was indeed time, and she saw an opportunity. Whatever the case, he realized also that it was time to begin his public ministry, knowing that it would put him on a path towards crucifixion. He knew that he would come into conflict with powerful religious leaders and civil authorities, but accepted that as the price of justice.

Society is always lacking. There will indeed always be poor among us, and the powerful will always take advantage of the weak. In that sense, the time is always right to push for change. But sometimes, society becomes especially pliable, especially open to progress. Right now, I feel like the accumulated stress of the past 50+ years has broken forth into an earthquake. Time to do what we can to fix what has been, and is being, broken, and then to rebuild society in a better form.

When people say they don’t want to change what they really mean is they don’t have an incentive to change. Change the incentives and the behavior follows suit.

James Clear

Change is in the air these days. Between the fallout from COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protests, it’s hard to imagine January 2021 looking much like January 2020, even less like January 2008 when I started at Missouri S&T. While S&T claims that the fall semester will go on as usual—with the same calendar, just behavioral modifications TBD—I have my doubts. The lockdown of spring 2020 basically just bought us time. Medical professionals have learned a lot, but not enough. There is still no vaccine, only one anti-viral drug (which is in short supply), and just a little more knowledge about treating symptoms than before. I would not be surprised to see a major surge in COVID-19 cases in late summer.

The main tool we have available right now is behavior modification, not to treat the disease but to prevent its spread. Wash your hands, wear a mask, and keep your distance. There is some indication that these methods are all effective. For example, two hairdressers in Springfield continued to work while they had COVID-19 symptoms, but both they and their clients wore masks and otherwise modified their behavior. So far, there have been no new cases from that incident. So perhaps masks really can slow or stop the spread.

Keeping distance is much harder. Typical personal space in America for good friends is 1½ to 3 feet, much closer than the six-foot distance we have been told is necessary. Six feet is really a lot of separation. Stores now have spots on the floor to indicate proper spacing, but even still, a person does not appear to be in a queue when they are that far apart. Will we permanently change our perception of personal space?

Our church resumed in-person worship on May 24. People are all anxious to be back worshiping together, and it’s nice to be in the same room, but it’s just not the same. What people really mean about “returning to worship” is “returning to fellowship.” Those times when people chat, shake hands or hug, and just enjoy each other’s presence. We are not yet greeting one another with a holy kiss (1 Cor 16:20).

The people and organizations that will be successful in the long run are those who realize that going “back to normal” is impossible. Instead, each of us need to think about what is essential and what can be discarded or modified. Our incentives have changed. No longer does a business simply exist to make money; now it must also consider serving its customers safely.

Meanwhile, there is a sense that real change is coming in response to the Black Lives Matter protests. Every time one of these incidents provokes protests, there is a counter-protest. “All Lives Matter. Blue Lives Matter. We should have a national association of white people. I’m white—where can I get some of this white privilege you talk about?” That sort of thing. “Confederate statues are necessary to honor our history. The Confederate battle flag is just about heritage.” Uh, yeah—the heritage of owning Black people, committing treason, losing a war, and then winning the peace by using arcane laws and customs to maintain domination. Why do we have military bases named after losing, traitorous generals? By that logic, we should have a Fort Benedict Arnold.

The problem, though, is incentives. BLM protests have paid police on one side whose jobs are in jeopardy, and unpaid crowds on the other side. Eventually, protesters need to go back to work. Many white people are coming out in support now; ultimately, white Americans have little to gain and a lot to lose in tangible benefits, so their support may wane.

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Mark 10:17-27

There are two parts to the Great Commandment: love God and love your neighbor. Jesus correctly intuited that this rich man loved his possessions more than he loved his neighbor. He purportedly wants to earn eternal life, and yet the incentive of some future reward is insufficient to overcome the incentive of a good life now.

Are we witnessing a sea change in the incentives regarding race? Will society really change? Or will this just be another story that people tell as a reminder that nothing matters?