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In the first three stages of systemic injustice, we witnessed the progression of denigrating a minority group...

• starting with a single majority population member fundamentally misunderstanding a member of a minority population

• then expanding that to a corporate level, where emerging leaders in the majority misrepresent and nurture a suspicious view of the minority

• ultimately leading to a fully formed, prejudice-based narrative expressed in the public maligning of the minority.

The final three stages of systemic injustice is where the majority now moves towards the basest of oppressive human desires.  

The majority community begins to collectively limit the minority group's rights and/or access to political (e.g. voting) and cultural voice, economic and educational opportunities, and in some cases physical movement--that is, the places where the minority can live, socialize or even go to the bathroom.   The goal is to effectively neuter the minority so that it doesn't have the ability to effect systemic changes and causes the least amount of distraction from the kind of culture and lifestyle the majority desires.  There still might be an aversion from using obviously racist, misogynistic or ethnocentric language, so any victories by the majority over attempts by the minority to regain fundamental human rights will be celebrated as the preservation of things like "cultural identity" or "religious liberty".

Here we go AGAIN!

Initially the hope of the majority community might be to make the living conditions for the minority so undesirable that they will choose to leave ("self-deport").  But at some point, there might have been a realization of the utilitarian value of the minority as a subservient class that helps preserve their most ideal living conditions.  Here the majority can exploit the minority for cheap labor, often in industries that the majority personally finds unenviable.

A place has been reached in the majority's mindset where the minority is nothing more than cattle, the kind of which inflicting physical pain in order to maintain their obedience might be required.  But it often goes beyond this to a long-latent fear of and anger towards these sub-creatures who dare consider themselves worthy of the same status and privileges that the majority enjoys.  The majority group now expresses this in physical abuse, often enjoying a sick sense of pleasure while they beat down the oppressed.

So disgusted by the mere sight of them, the majority now forcibly removes the minority group to a remote place and then, with the exception of the few required to oversee the operation, forgets they even existed. For those who find no temporary usefulness in forced labor camps, the "The Final Solution" is implemented.  This is the scene of internment or concentration camps and mass graves.  The moral-less majority here demonstrates a shocking disconnect between the evil they are embracing and the dignity and righteousness they assume they embody.  The tragedy of this moment is horrifically portrayed in "The Girl in Red" scene from Stephan Spielberg's film, "Schindler's List"...

So we end where we started.  How did we get here?  How did it come to this?  I'd like to conclude with a few brief thoughts on what I think essentially went wrong at each stage and in doing so give suggestions for how we might at each point resist systemic injustice.

• STAGE ONE: It never ceases to amaze me how it all seems to come down to "The Golden Rule" or "Love thy neighbor as thyself." The well from which systemic injustice flows might as well be called False Assumptions and Unforgiveness. Rather, had the individual representing the majority simply treated his minority neighbor "as thyself", the road to systemic injustice would have been short-circuited. Was there a true offense committed by your minority neighbor? Apply forgiveness because it sure as Hell won't be too long before your minority neighbor will have opportunity to 'return the favor' and forgive you. You both, after all, are human. Was there no moral offense but just a misunderstanding of your differences? Apply an inquisitive mind and plenty of time over coffee, tea or whatever customary comfort food your minority neighbor enjoys. Then both of you can sit back and enjoy life as it ought to be.

• STAGE TWO AND THREE: In both of these stages the key concepts are that of voice and proximity. The rising voices of majority leaders who are spreading suspicion and slander, if not publicly challenged, will pave the road of systemic injustice. And yes, I said they need to be publicly challenged. Timid and fearful behind closed door conversations done under the guise of "respect" for "community leaders" will do nothing to slow the advance of systemic injustice. Meanwhile, in these stages minority voices are drowned out and suppressed. It is imperative that minority leaders be heard, summoning the courage to be loud when others are telling them to "know their place." And members of the majority who see through the ignorant and bigoted rhetoric of their community leaders need to leverage the power and position they have simply due to their belonging to the majority to demand a platform be given to minority leaders. In all of this, proximity is vitally important. Systemic injustice gains momentum in these stages only when minorities are kept at a distance from the majority. Minority members must show extreme resilience in humanizing their emerging oppressors and majority resisters must do all that they can do to introduce and broker genuine relationships between the two communities.

• STAGE FOUR: In this stage, the engine of systemic oppression is beginning to take over. In other words, injustice is being systematized though laws and the suppression of minority opportunities in popular culture, the economy, and in education. It will only continue to get worse unless their is wide-scale and well coordinated resistance by both the minority and by members of the majority who stand with them. The tools they will need to use include political campaigning (for leaders who will oppose the advancement of systemic injustice), civil disobedience, litigation and economic withdrawal. The first and last of these, what we can call the power of the ballet box and the buck, are perhaps the most effective and I will discuss them in greater detail in future Rage Against the Machine articles/podcasts.

• STAGE FIVE AND SIX: I approach these last two stages with a sober reverence for the courageous nobility of those who have suffered and died from such atrocities. It is here that human beings are reduced to a pure survival instinct, the two options being "fight or flight". It is not my place to morally judge the decisions that oppressed minorities make between those two options. For majority sympathizers, we can only hope to be counted worthy to stand along side and suffer with these, the bravest of human souls. In such cases, may history judge them the true heroes and those who joined with them from the majority a mere footnote to their sacrifice.

May we all resolutely hold to and act upon the belief that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. expressed when he said that... 

If you haven't read or listened to my Buttery Fingers review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, you should.  In it you learn about my parent's first step towards the full indoctrination of their children in all things Star Wars where at the ripe old age of three as I sat on their lap to watch on the silver screen this pop-culture phenomenon.  A year later, in 1978, George Lucas and his emerging merchandise empire teamed with the Kenner toy company to truly cement the Star Wars magic into the psyche of young impressionable minds like this then little boy in San Rafael, California.

Over the course of Christmas and birthday booties, I would amass during the late 70's and early 80's my collection of pure, plastic mediums of galactic imagination.  Locked in combat with my older brother and friends, these instruments of childhood warfare would slowly show the toll of repeated battles.  Scratches. Lost weaponry.  Even the occasional loss of a limb.  It was brutal, but such is the cost of the great conflict between the Dark and Light side of The Force.

As childhood faded into adolescence, my imagination would slowly shift from toys to girls.  Play time diminished as chores increased.  Then one day as I was pulling weeds in the back yard I came across a badly sun-bleached Luke Skywalker action figure.  A smile probably crept across my face as I enjoyed a brief moment of nostalgia...and then I tossed into the trash the pathetic remains of this once glorious paragon which had been crafted by the hands of the marketing gods.

Oh how I now wish I had cherished at least a few of these relics of my childhood, retaining at least one untarnished Luke Skywalker safely frozen in cardboard and cellophane wrap.  If I had, I could sell him right now for as much as $3,000 on E-Bay!

Idol worship is a serious deal in the Bible.  I don't think it is an accident that the first two of the Ten Commandments prohibit anyone or thing from assuming the throne upon which only God can reside.  Students of Scripture know that the sustained worship of false gods and idols was, next to committing injustice on the poor and oppressed, a key cause in Divine discipline on the Biblical nation of Israel, including their exile from the Land. 

In this and the next article (Part 2), I'm going to argue that Evangelical Christians, particularly the American Evangelical community, have a serious problem of idol worship.  I’m going to use the term "idol" more broadly to identify ideas and ambitions that American Evangelicals, in practice, place ahead of their stated priorities.  In short, it is a list of hypocrisies.  I will identify four idols that parallel and flesh out the four defining characteristics of modern American Evangelicalism which I previously shared in The REAL Quadrilateral.  So if you haven't read or listened to that piece yet, I highly encourage you to do so.

Some may fairly ask, who am I to make these kinds of serious accusations?  In my intro to this website, there is a section where I share some of my reasons as to why I should be a voices that is qualified to speak to the pros and cons of American Evangelicalism (scroll down to the section headed with the question, "Why take your precious time to read this blog?").  But I suppose you could narrow it down to the fact that I was a member of the American Evangelical community for pretty much my entire life until very recently. I feel Like I could run off a list like the Apostle Paul did in verifying his qualifications for critiquing the conservative Judaism of his day (see Philippians 3:2-6): in Sunday school my whole childhood, of the American people, specifically of the white tribe, an Evangelical of Evangelicals; in regard to theology, a graduate of two Evangelical schools and a professional pastor and leader in Evangelical organizations for 18 years; as for zeal, proclaiming guilt on all those who didn't believe as we do; as for perceived righteousness "based" on the Bible, at least as far as most knew I was a model of to be followed.  So based on this background, I hope it would seem reasonable for me to speak to these idols of American Evangelicalism.  I know them well because I once worshiped them.

Before I share the first idol (the next three coming next week), let me recognize that there have been historically, and even in the present day through those whome I might call a "righteous remnant", some very noble strengths and contributions from American Evangelicalism.  At its inception, which inspired The Great Awakenings of the 1700’s, the movement advanced a much needed passion for personal conversion versus the impersonal religiosity and mere cultural Christianity that had previously dominated the religious landscape.  And those who seemingly relish in slamming Evangelicalism should remember the critical role that the movement and its leaders played in the Abolition movement along with challenging worker oppression with the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.  In my time working for World Relief, which serves as the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, I worked with many who carried on this amazing legacy in standing with uniquely vulnerable immigrant and refugee communities.  

Let me briefly note here a book that I highly commend, The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America, written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Francis Fitzgerald.  It has even won some general praise among Evangelical historians and I believe it is a must read for any Evangelical student and leader who wishes to seriously examine their faith community's history.

Even with the positives, a few of which I just described, I believe that the American Evangelical community is plagued with idol worship.  Here is the first of them...

Though few will openly state it this way, there is an assumed "upper hand" or advantage of intellectual superiority.  And why not?  When you can, at the end of the day, pull the card of Divine Revelation, that seems like an undeniable "winning hand".  There is a huge difference, however, between the personal religious conviction that God can communicate with human beings and a commitment to the humble journey to know and experience this revelation, and that of the ego that says or implies with over-inflated confidence that I can definitively exegete and almost comprehensively declare "universal truth".  The latter is a border-line claim to omniscience when in reality it is willful ignorance or lazy thinking cloaked in pseudo-intellectualism and dogmatism.  On the intellectual side of Evangelicalism, you can see this idol in the circular philosophy of Presuppositional apologetics.  Outside of the academic types, this pops up in a near allergic reaction to any attempt at nuanced thinking.  The popular retort?  "God said it.  I believe it.  That settles it."  What is actually being admitted is, "What other people have told me the Bible is and what it says is what I choose to believe and that settles it."

But as I mentioned in The REAL Quadrilateral, Evangelicals are fooling themselves if they think that the Bible is the only thing upon which they are basing their judgments.  If anything, I would argue that external, cultural factors are far more determinative of the beliefs, values, and behaviors of American Evangelicals.  This is especially true if you are white.  Here is where nativism, or to be exact the Gospel of America, has proven to be a true guiding principle.  Married to a sense of "manifest destiny", assumed ethnocentric superiority lays the foundation for another idol that we will talk about in Part 2.

One final observation related to this idol is that most Evangelicals much prefer to debate from a distance than dialogue in person.  They would rather talk about people (Muslims, homosexuals, liberals, etc.) than with them.  And here is where I wonder if the idol of superiority perhaps is masking a deeper insecurity.  While I am not a psychologist, that might help to explain the emotional angst that surfaces whenever anyone chooses to question their status quo.  Even if that isn't the case, a prevailing inability to talk directly to people you disagree with is a telltale sign of assumed superiority.

Continuing my series on the war in Iraq

We begin to explore some foundational concepts and the first three stages of systemic injustice.

Examining the quality of social media dialogue

Testing Bebbington's historical thesis to today's reality

Fatherhood

Profiles in Courage