Tear Down Your Cynicism

It is Holy Week, the last week of Lent. I haven’t written about it much, but I hope that all off you who read this (the dozen or so actual people and not the bots) have been having a fruitful time of reflection and reorientation during Christianity’s yearly fast. For me, it has been a time of finding the dead things in my life and letting them have their grave. Some have been painful, to which my wife has bore witness, and some have been reinvigorating. None have been easy, but that is the path of Lent. 

One of the hardest things to let die this Lent has been my cynicism. I will speak only for myself, but I am sure I am not the only one who has these thoughts. Cynicism has been almost a way of life for me over the last few years. After the elections of 2016, it threatened to become a worldview, replacing my own faith in God with the reality that no one really cares about anyone else, and so I shouldn’t either. I had to do it because life was becoming just too painful otherwise. 

Too many tears for those who lived in fear.

Too much heartache when violence claimed another life.

Too much despair as people watched their hopes dashed by systems of injustice and dehumanization.

On Ash Wednesday, as I helped my wife with “Ashes-to-Go,” my cynicism’s transformation into a fortress was almost complete as I started to see the news of the massacre in Parkland, FL. I just knew that we would have to grieve again only for society to move on without any change. There would be the images of tears, huddled bodies crying out in pain, families torn apart by carnage, and then we would forget. Just one more scar on the heart turning it more to stone as we expressed our collective inability to care enough about life to endure the inconvenience of gun control.

Then, just a few days later, I was sitting on the couch reading the news when an alert came that  some of the students were making speeches so I pulled up the live stream. Before the night was over, my face was streaked with tears and the fortress was beginning to crumble. I heard Delaney Tarr speak with courage about her newfound conviction. I was wrapped by Emma Gonzalez’s tearful declaration that they would no longer suffer “b.s.” Emotions flooded over me, but I was still sure that nothing would change. I remember how Sandy Hook had pulled at our heart strings. I still remember the parents pleading. I remember where I was when the Charleston shooting happened, and hearing President Obama sing at the memorial service. I even remember watching the news of Columbine, and then watching as the Assault Weapons Ban lapsed just five years later. 

My emotions were deepened, and I appreciated that. 

In the end, though, our policies would not change. 

News started to come of a church in Pennsylvania having a service of blessing for AR-15s.

The NRA started to spin up the social messaging. 

When the town hall happened, my wife and I watched together on the couch. As people who work as youth ministers, we cringed when Cameron Kasky went after Marco Rubio. We thought he was being too much the teenager we knew in our youth groups who thought they were just smarter than the adults. It took us awhile to recognize that what he was actually doing was teaching us that we do not have to put up with politicians not giving straight answers to straight questions. It chipped at my cynicism, but I still knew we were just going to move on and not do anything. That is just how things work in our country when it comes to guns. Maybe that Australian church sign was right; we do love our guns more than our children.

But last Saturday finally tore the walls completely down for me. Before, I had spirited conversations with friends about gun control, but those were just for us. Our society would not change. Hearing the voices on the stage in DC as I stood on Pennsylvania Avenue, however, fully broke me. 

I wept and sang.

I heard the voice of Hope.

When Edna Chavez bore witness to the violence of south LA, when Naomi Wadler bore witness to the bodies of African-American women who are ignored, and when D’Angelo McDade preached the Gospel, proclaiming, “I stand for peace!,” I finally found hope. I hope you will follow the links to YouTube to watch their speeches. It will be well worth your time to hear the eloquence and courage of those who are going to lead us. For that is exactly what is about to happen.

Ever since the Parkland students began to speak out against the uniquely American violence that had arrived in their lives, verses of Scripture started to appear online. Often, it was “And a little child shall lead them.” Isaiah’s image of the redemption that comes from God is a powerful reminder that the trajectory of Creation was always intended to march towards peace. For me, however, another verse began to seep itself into my soul. A prophecy of God’s redemption from a later prophet, warning the people of pain to come and grab to follow.

   Then afterward

    I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;

your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

    your old men shall dream dreams,

    and your young men shall see visions.

Even on the male and female slaves,

    in those days, I will pour out my spirit.”

Joel 2:28-29

When they spoke from that stage, we heard prophecy.

Not the cheap, fortune-teller, but the words of God for the people of God.

As we move through the last week of Lent, on our inevitable march to Good Friday and the death of Jesus, we must tear down our cynicism. Paul tells us that, “faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” Cynicism is not in the Bible.

Religious Language in Social Conversations

Over the last few weeks I have been writing about our social conversations and relationships to firearms. Some of those posts people have read, and others are not as popular. However, this supposed to be a blog about faith, and as such, I am going to start shifting more directly towards how our faith can engage in these conversations. Often, it can seem that what is said by faith leaders is no different from what we may find in other social commentary. 

What’s the point of our faith if it sounds no different from everything else?

Are we really different?

In some of my recent conversations with people around gun culture, I have noticed a large influx of religious language. I should say right now that this post is not directed at any one person, so if you read this, I am not trying to “slam” you. Since these fruitful conversations about guns, I have begun to notice how the same use of religious language is reaching into other areas of social and cultural debate. While I appreciate that people feel a deep connection to faith, the tenants of faith do not help us when we are trying to find a better future together.

What do I mean by faith language?

When it comes to topics like guns, taxes, climate change, or racial reconciliation some framing of the words, “I believe…” is used. There are negative framing as well, but I am sure all of you reading know that. However, it is not helpful for us to be discussing beliefs when it comes to social influences and trends. 

It is becoming a cliche for an opponent to gun control of climate regulation to say, “I don’t believe [blank] is happening, or will work.” 

That’s fine. You don’t have to believe in climate change. 

But climate change is not a religious tenant, and so its existence is not contingent upon your belief. 

The second amendment is not made more sacred by your belief in its transcendent, existential power. 

By using religious language, such as “I believe…,” the conversation is stymied. Debating beliefs is difficult because beliefs can be esoteric, counter-intuitive. As a Christian, I know that to be true. I mean, for goodness sake, we are about to celebrate a man raising from the dead who walked on water, and healed lepers from disease. Reality does not necessarily jive with beliefs. Actually, beliefs break reality, and for my faith that is a good thing because it calls me to see God as beyond myself.

When it comes to debating social issues, beliefs don’t help.

We need to be talking about reality, not searching for the other-worldly. 

Commentators call this era “Post-Truth.” That may be true when people in every strata of society call things “fake news.” Truthfully, this has more to do with comfort than truth. We want things to be a certain way, and the world to work in a way we expect. When things go differently, instead of adapting to the world, we ignore what upsets us and call it fake. Reality is no longer something to experience, but instead an expression of faith and belief.

I should stop and recognize that it is a deep expression of faith to chose tenants of belief over real experience.

But it does not help us address our social conflicts.

All that to say, you can believe what you want, but it your belief does not change reality.

We Don't Have To Wait On Jesus

As the public conversation continues around guns and legislation, though lawmakers at the Federal level have explicitly said they will do nothing, there continue to be comments from well-meaning people of faith that are unhelpful. Recently, I have witnessed a large collective of offerings around the theme, “Only Jesus can fix the evil we are experiencing.” Such a statement is one theologians would call “eschatological,” meaning it is focused on the return of Jesus as the end of all things. These thoughts display a reliance on the active work of God in order to save us from ourselves, and highlight a need for God’s grace.

While it should go without saying, I must offer the usual framing before I get to my real argument. I recognize that we are a creature in need of God’s grace. I affirm that it is the work of Jesus in my life that has brought me into a reconciled relationship to God, not against any necessarily overt work on my part but as a product of my self-centeredness which is easier than seeing the world through God’s eyes. I proclaim, as a Christian, that I affirm the reconciling work that will happen when God “makes all things new.”

However, the comments like I highlighted in the first paragraph, are lazy.

In words such as those, no matter how meaning, they betray a nihilism inherent to evangelical thinking around guns and violence. They implicitly affirm a view of the world where human beings have no agency over evil, and no recourse but to endure pain. They are the logical extension of “thoughts and prayers;” words that have come to be a signifier of a cynical worldview that nothing can change, and so there is no reason to try. While they are attempting to affirm the power and place of God in the world, they do so by neglecting the actual witness of Scripture, and history of our faith. 

The Bible is never cynical.

The Church is rarely helpless.

The texts from which we draw our faith pain a vibrant image of a God, and a people, on the move. The people of the Torah were not nihilistic in their search for God’s promises. The writers of the Wisdom literature preached more than simply waiting out the dark valleys of life. The Prophets were not resigned to the neglect of God’s people. Jesus did not endure the abuses of the religious and political orders of his day. And Paul did not allow the Church to remain callous towards the suffering of those around them.

While I will note that Jesus told us we would suffer for our faith, indiscriminate and faceless evil was never on the table. Jesus healed lepers, raised the dead, protested materialism in the Temple, and ridiculed the religious and political elite. The text does offer an image of doing all these things from a position of weakness, but never allows complacency on the part of those who call themselves by the name of Jesus.

Because of that, the Church has spoken out against injustice again and again. Christians created an entire movement to reform social orders during the late part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries. Church communities were the rallying point for the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Many Church leaders were vocal opponents to Apartheid in South Africa, leading international divestment movements to put pressure on the government. 

Today, we face a similar calling. Though there are numerous movements to be a part of in our society all vying for justice, this is one to which I am speaking. I do recognize that the struggle against evil in the world is a never-ending conflict, we can not be cynically complacent. God did not create guns. No firearm was ever lowered down on a cloud in a ray of sunlight for human beings to take up. We made that gun. Humanity can do something about the proliferation of violence. There is no good reason why we can not do something about them now.

There might be political reasons.

There might be reasons of tradition.

But not of these reasons are necessarily good reasons. 

Human beings have a great deal of agency in their own existence. While many believe that we are living in a time that is more dangerous than ever before, and decry that people do not leave their homes unlocked any longer, this is not true. In fact, there is a great deal of evidence that we are living in the safest time the world has ever known. This shows that we have done a great deal to make the world a better place. It also lets us know that we can do more.

We can do something about guns. 

Conversations of Mental Health are a Dangerous Ruse

We must admit that there is no way to understand how someone can have such a low view of human life to commit mass violence against others. This level of violence and evil is, and should be, unimaginable. These feelings of outrage and disgust that we are experiencing in the aftermath of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are useful in how they can motivate us to do something as a society when faced with such horrible actions. Such violence as we have seen that can indiscriminately take the lives of other human beings leaves us speechless.

However, to casually describe such actions as the work of a “crazy person,” or proclaim that the simplest response is to address “mental illness,” is nothing less than an attempt to abrogate any responsibility from our own collective actions, or inaction, onto an illness we can only treat, but not cure.

Our society holds a powerful stigma against those, like myself, who have been diagnosed with a mental illness. We fear mental illness on a primal level. It scares us to think that there are influences in the world that can capture our thoughts and actions without our consent. Mental health is a mysterious thing. It happens in the recesses of our mind, a mysterious place in itself. 

We all experience weird thoughts that come unbidden.

We all experience those moments where thinking just will not end, keeping us awake with trivialities.

Because these experiences are so universal, we find ways to cope and respond. Many find some form of meditation, even though we may not call it that. Counting sheep, doodling, sitting in silence, yoga, or breathing techniques are all a form of meditation to try and refocus our minds. In our Christian communities, prayer and Scripture are themselves forms of meditation. They buoy our sense of connection to God and help calm us as we confront the uncertainties of life. 

Sometimes, with good intentions, our communities can present unhelpful responses to our suffering. I remember being told to “have more faith,” when I felt depressed, questioning my calling, my place in the world, or my own self-worth. I remember trying so hard to lean into those words and trust God in bringing me through those places. When it did not happen, my depression got even worse. 

Why would God ignore me?

If I am supposed to be called to be a minister, shouldn’t God respond to my prayers?

It turns out, that there were ways to cope with my mental illness. Therapy has been the miracle I always prayed for. For others, they need the intervention provided by prescribed medications on top of their times in therapy. For me, that work is some of the most terrifying. You have to look inside and confront the dark places that scare us. Thankfully, therapy means you do not have to do it alone, and that the person walking with you, to whom you are telling your most intimate secrets, must keep your trust. They will never tell a soul what you said, unless compelled by a court order.

This brings us back to a conversation around gun reform. Currently, our social discussion of how to respond to horrific gun violence has been to enact reforms around treatment for mental illness. As I said above, it is unconscionable to us that someone can commit such a horrific act of violence like we have seen in Las Vegas, Parkland, FL, Sutherland Springs, TX, San Bernardino, CA, or Newtown, CT. Pundits and politicians will typically call the gunman “unbalanced,” “disturbed,” or “crazy” as they attempt to express a narrative for what is happening around us. For some, it is an attempt to compassionately address the suffering of perpetrators. For others, it is an attempt to shift the focus of conversation away from restrictions on firearms access.

For both, this is a much more complex conversation than anyone recognizes.

In truth, it can create more victims than it helps.

The complexity of addressing mental illness revolves around transparency. HIPAA (Health Information Portability and Accountability Act) created a system to protect all sensitive information concerning a patient’s various diagnoses. While creating a secure system for that information to be transferred between providers (such as primary care and specialists), protections were put in place so that outside actors (pharmaceutical companies, employers, and thieves) could not access your sensitive information. Included in that collection of protected information is any mental healthcare you have received. All this information is protected by law, can only be accessed by you or your doctors, and is not released without a specific court order.

In order for reforms around mental health to help prevent future gun violence, obtaining information in order to prevent potentially violent people with mental illness from accessing firearms would require an overhaul of the privacy protections afforded to individuals around their health information. Either that, or we would have to utilize the court system to obtain orders for public release of a lot of people’s mental health records. I want to acknowledge that there is a possible slippery slope argument to be made that a future could exist where no one’s health information is private, but I also want to acknowledge that such an argument is a logical fallacy and will not help us in a real debate. Needless to say, this kind of reform is incredibly complicated.

Likewise, the conversation itself is problematic because it does not address the inherent social stigma that surrounds mental illness. The current predilection for calling mass shooters some form of mentally ill by using slang terms is unhelpful. By characterizing people who commit gun violence (mass shootings included) as mentally ill, we perpetuate the stigma that people with mental illness are inherently violent. In fact, research shows that this is opposite to our reality. The end result, most likely, would be that the level of gun violence we see would not be reduced by laws targeting mental illness. Instead, more people would forego any form of treatment for their mental illness, putting them in more danger of harming themselves. 

I know, from first-hand experience, that mental illness can powerfully alter life’s trajectory. Likewise, mental illness brings with it the possibility that the person most likely to become the victim of violence is me, not someone else. Therefore, it would behoove me to seek treatment for my own well-being which requires me to have sympathy for myself. In fact, it is sympathy for myself, and empathy from my therapist, that has been the most beneficial in my own journey towards wholeness.

These proposals are not based in empathy, but fear.

Creating laws that are based in our collective fear of mental illness is the opposite of empathy.

It will only push people like me further away from the connections I need to thrive.