Social Justice

Another Tragedy

Forgive me, words are failing me this morning. I have just seen in my Twitter feed and on Facebook yet another article chronicling the senseless death of yet another one of our young people. You can read about the tragic suicide of Jamey Rodemeyer here and here. Pay particular attention to the first two comments on the Buffalo News site. Neither shows much compassion for the victim, only the same tired arguments about “Christian values” being missing from our schools.

I am torn up over this. Why? Because I know that my own people—my fellow Christians—have a hand in these deaths. You may be wondering how I arrived at that conclusion. You may be thinking, “But I never bullied a gay kid.” Perhaps not. But by the attitudes and beliefs regarding homosexuality perpetuated by many conservative evangelicals, the church has indeed contributed.

Week after week, many Christians perpetuate myths about GLBT people. These include that “most” were sexually abused as young children, that their “issues” come from having an absent/weak father and overbearing mother, that they weren’t instructed as children to be “real” men or women, that they are promoting vile, destructive, and perverted lifestyles and activities, and that they are “abominations.” If you think that Westboro Baptist’s “God Hates F*gs” sign-waving is an isolated thing, try again. While most Christians would see that behavior as over-the-top, the sentiment isn’t unusual.

Day after day, Christians sit at work, at home, and in churches failing to do anything to stem the tide. By our silence, we allow the bullying to continue. We sit by and shake our heads at how kids have “become like animals” because we “teach them they came from monkeys.” But we do nothing to protect these youths who are desperate for acceptance and love.

My charge to you today is this: Do something! Do not sit back and watch this happen even one more time. Create safe space. Teach your children that no matter what your religious beliefs, it is not okay to harass another person. Be the love someone needs today. Help your children learn to stand up for kids who are being tormented at school. Do it yourself—refuse to listen to the misguided teaching at church about the origins of homosexuality.

Please, please listen and love your kids. Support them. Find it in your heart to lay aside your personal feelings. Jamey’s parents loved and supported him, yet he still took his own life. Imagine the pain of the kids whose parents could not accept having a gay child. Hear your children when they tell you that they are being bullied and demand that something be done to stop it.

Not even one more person should have to die to escape the pain.

Doing vs. Judging

Life, Social Justice

It’s so easy to sit in judgment of others when we see something we think is unfair.

My daughter and I were leaving a public place to go to an appointment. We weren’t in any special rush, but we did need to make it there on time. As we exited the building, I heard voices behind me. I glanced back and saw some kids sort of messing around near the door. I assumed they were coming out, so I held the door for a moment or two longer than we needed it open, in case they were also coming out. They did not immediately follow, so I let the door swing shut. I am sure I was not using my best manners, as we were on our way to the appointment and my mind was elsewhere. However, I was not being intentionally rude to the people behind us.

Apparently, the kids behind us had decided to come out after all, but I had let the door shut and they had to open it themselves. On the outside, on the sidewalk, was a man with his family. I was unclear as to whether they were coming or going, although I don’t think it matters. I also have no idea whether the people inside (on whom I had let the door close) were part of this man’s group. I do know that (and this is important) he was standing there not holding the door for anyone. When my daughter and I came out, he said, rather nastily, “There was a kid there! Didn’t you see that kid there?”

Now, I could have turned around and made any number of rude replies. I could have asked why he didn’t hold the door, or snapped that he obviously didn’t have all the facts. I could have been reasonable, and tried to explain what had happened. I could have politely excused myself and apologized for inconveniencing anyone. I chose to do none of those things, because it is inappropriate to be rude and neither of the other options was going to win his favor. Nor did I want to—the approval of a complete stranger is just not worth that kind of attention.

As this was happening, it occurred to me that we do this to each other all the time. We sit on our thrones and make pronouncements about what someone else is doing or thinking. People on welfare are lazy; Muslims are terrorists; LGBT people are perverts; immigrants are a threat to our jobs; people who are [insert some characteristic] are [insert a slur]. There are indeed people in this world who do exactly as we are judging. There are lazy people, terrorists, perverts, and people who threaten our jobs. But we have forgotten that categories don’t define behavior.

Along similar lines, it can be so easy to pass judgment on what we see other people failing to do without examining our own actions. The man who criticized me for letting the door close was standing there doing nothing himself. If courtesy is so important, why wasn’t he holding the door for everyone while he waited to enter the building? If serving the less fortunate is important, why do we pour so much time and money into ourselves? If our children are so important, why do we crowd them out of our lives with our own busy schedules?

I see that happen in ministry all the time. At one church I attended, there were a few people who would come up with what they perceived to be brilliant ideas for a new ministry within the church: College/young adult group, visiting the shut-ins, small group for children, prayer circle, and so on. These people would be excited about the possibilities, make recommendations, recruit people to their cause…and then back out of leading the ministry. When I asked one woman why she didn’t just take charge and make it happen, she said, “I’m better at coming up with ideas.” She sincerely believed that she ought to be able to expect someone else to carry out her ideas, that it was not necessary for her to lift a finger to help once she had shared her idea.

Still others see it as an opportunity to suggest ways for others to minister to them, rather than the other way around. In other words, suppose I wanted a ministry for Christian blog writers, so that we could use our craft to reach out to Christian bloggers in my city, a way to network and get support for our craft. In some people’s minds, that means that someone else should be doing the ministering–we bloggers are supposed to be benefiting from the support, someone else should be providing it. Therefore, they will not participate in setting it up, as it is meant for them.

The best ministries I’ve seen are born out of love and compassion for others. There is a need, and someone steps in to fill it. No one asks why, no one wants to know what he or she will get out of serving, no one demands someone else make it happen. Where do you see a need you can fill in your church or community?

Bullying

Bullying is bad.

Well, there’s a way to start a post with an obvious statement. But I think you know what I mean.

Today, my kid confessed that back when a kid was teasing him at school, this kid told him he should “just go kill yourself.” Nice, huh? I wonder where a seven-year-old learned that particular phrase. Thankfully, this story has a happy ending, at least for now. J is now friends with this boy. I’ve met him; he’s not a bad kid. He was polite, his mom is a sweetheart, and J has a great time playing with him. It seems strange to think this is the kid who spent a month teasing J. We were also fortunate that J’s teacher is good enough to spot bullying and didn’t tolerate it in his classroom.

Not all kids are so lucky.

This is the kind of thing that goes on every day, in classrooms all across the country. And it’s not limited to classrooms or schools. It happens on playgrounds and in other recreational settings. I’ve had to tell my kids on more than one occasion that they should stay away from certain kids on the playground because they are teasing other kids. My nephew has a couple of boys that live in his neighborhood and have picked on him in his own house. It took months before the whole situation came to light because they were just sneaky enough to do it where the adults couldn’t hear.

Which is, of course, what most kids do. They carry out their bullying in much more subtle ways than beating up another kid, and they do it where and when parents or teachers are not listening: Hallways, bathrooms, playgrounds; sly notes, whispers during lessons, even in a kid’s own bedroom, apparently. I can remember being called names for years, and even when I told my teachers, they either didn’t believe me or brushed it aside as “kids will be kids.” I was often told to toughen up or ignore the bullies.

These days, it’s also popular to sympathize with the bully. It’s true, we need to love our enemies. But often the victim is pushed aside in favor of offering “psychological help” to the perpetrators. This may come partly from the mistaken idea that bullies all come from broken homes or have abusive parents. While that is certainly true some of the time, it doesn’t explain everything. Some kids are just mean to others regardless. The kids who picked on me came from stable homes, for the most part. Which only made it harder, actually, because it meant that I took it to heart that there must be something wrong with me if the “normal” kids said so. In fact, I once had an adult suggest as much–that the other kids should be kinder to me even though I was “different.” (I was never exactly clear on how I was different.)

And what about when the adults are the problem? I’ve worked in schools and my husband is a teacher, so we’ve seen it happen. A teacher develops a dislike for a certain student and creates tension for that child. We’ve seen teachers discipline students over make-believe incidents. I recall one student who had stomach aches for an entire year because he was convinced his teacher didn’t like him. I tried to remain non-committal, but it was difficult, given that I knew for a fact that his teacher had expressed dislike for him. I recall another student who was mocked by several teachers who all claimed it was “in good fun.” I know some teachers who say rude things about the (lack of) intelligence of their students and who seem to have very little clue about developmental stages.

Sadly, it doesn’t go away as adults. It concerns me when I see this kind of thing happening. I have seen people publicly speak about how we need to be more patient and kind in out interactions with the world, such as showing patience with a slow clerk in the grocery store. Five minutes later, the same person is refusing to associate with certain types of people during social time after worship. Not everyone outgrows the stage where they see themselves as better than others.

There is no clear answer for this problem. Sure, I could pull my kid out of school and go back to teaching him at home. I will do that, if he’s ever bullied or harassed to the point of being miserable or not wanting to go to school. But I’d rather that he have a good public education without being victimized. Is that too much to ask?

Competitive Spirit

Bullying, Morality

I am not an especially competitive person. My husband is. We learned quickly how to make that work for us in our marriage. I think this is likely due to his easygoing and adaptable nature. I learned how to win graciously (I am definitely the type to let other people win if it will make them happy, despite the fact that I’m not a people-pleaser). My husband learned how to lose graciously (he wasn’t much fun to be around when he was on the losing end, particularly when watching professional sports).

Something that has been nagging at me lately is the way loving, generous, kind Christians can turn into rather hateful beasts when it comes to competition, most often related to professional sports. I often hear comments (or see them in print) that are in sharp contrast to Christ-like behavior. They range from name calling to derogatory comments to declarations of “hate” for a rival team. People teach their children to express the same negativity. They make excuses for their behavior by saying it’s “all in fun.”

Really? You could have fooled me. Perhaps my definition of “fun” is vastly different from my friends and acquaintances. I don’t find it fun to attend a sporting event and shout obscenities about the other team every time they make a play. I don’t find it fun to make hateful statements about rival teams into a Facebook status update. I don’t find it fun to teach my children on Sunday morning to turn the other cheek, but qualify it Sunday afternoon at the ball park by teaching them that the opponents “suck.”

The thing is, I do understand friendly rivalry. As far as I can tell, this is actually how the players themselves view the game. After all, they could be playing for that team following a trade. I understand wanting to win and wanting to see your favorite team succeed. That’s what makes the game exciting. I even understand disappointment when it doesn’t happen. My husband and I have a joke that we can’t go see the Yankees play live, because they lose every time we do. The difference is that we keep a better handle on what comes out of our mouths.

There are three things we ought to keep in mind. First, minding our tongues is a pretty common exhortation in the Bible. Our words can hurt or they can heal. Even if we have reduced a sports team to an entity, it is still made up of people. I am sure that most professional athletes are used to it, but I can imagine that it is pretty tiresome to hear your team’s name twisted into a derogatory term, for example. We also might consider what our aim is when we speak that way. Is it to appear cool? Are we trying to show loyalty to our team? In either case, using nasty words and foul language about the other guy doesn’t further those goals. Simply put, it isn’t nice and it isn’t what the Bible tells us to do.

Second, we should, as Christians, always be in the business of considering the other person. Imagine how it would feel if you were at your daughter’s soccer game and the parents of the rival team members were calling your daughter and her teammates “stupid sluts”? (That shouldn’t be hard to imagine, actually, as it does really happen.) How would you feel? How about if someone shouted obscenities and told your son to “go home, you suck!” when he stepped up to bat at his Little League game? Is this the behavior we want to encourage? Aiming those comments at professional athletes is no more appropriate than aiming them at children. And failure to watch our mouths, even when it’s “all in fun,” demonstrates that we haven’t moved beyond foolish schoolyard bullying.

Third, what kind of example do we want to be for our children? If we expect them to play sports with respect for the competition, we might try doing the same with our favorite teams. It isn’t wrong for competitive people to go after a goal. Playing sports is a great outlet for that spirit in kids, and it can shape their ability to do the same as adults in other areas of life. But teaching our kids to hate their competitors isn’t a wise move and it doesn’t help them sharpen their skill in respectful rivalry. Like it or not, our kids are sponges for our words and deeds. Even when we think we are being “private,” kids pick up on our attitudes. We need to use care.

If we are called to be mindful of our speech in other areas of our lives, then it stands to reason we ought to do the same when it comes to our pastimes and pleasures, too. Today, let’s consider how we can lift others up with our words–even when they are our “enemies” on the playing field.

Bearing Rotten Fruit

Life, Social Justice

I earned my undergraduate degree at a small liberal arts Christian college in the northeast. There is a line in the Alma Mater that says, “Her fruit trees loaded down.” My friends and I were never able to sing this with a straight face. Most of us sang it in the singular, as the only known fruit tree was an aging green apple tree near the dining hall. It has occurred to me that collectively, Christians are often more similar to that tree than they realize. The fruit we bear is scant, sour, or unattainable to people outside the orchard.

We might be approaching the idea of bearing fruit from the wrong direction. It’s often seen as one of three miss-the-mark types: obligation, evidence, or opportunity. For some, “bearing fruit” is defined as no more or less than doing good deeds. If we feed the poor, clothe the naked, and visit the sick or imprisoned, we’ve successfully avoided becoming the morally bankrupt goats of Matthew 25. It’s something we have to do; it’s not optional.

For others, “bearing fruit” is the proof that we are real Christians. That might include some form of doing good deeds, but it is neither limited to such nor are such necessary as proof. It’s often nebulous, and might take the form of, say, not swearing at the driver who just cut you off. There’s an element of somehow becoming a nicer or better person.

Still others look at “bearing fruit” as some combination of doing good deeds and telling people how to be saved from Hell. I personally find this one more distasteful than the others. The previous two options are empty, but they don’t carry the weight of kindness with strings attached: “I’ll feed you, but you need to listen to a sermon while you eat.” I’m all for sharing the Good News, but the primary reason for helping people shouldn’t be in order to gain their undivided attention to our religious views.

Somewhere along the way, we’ve forgotten how to just live. We’ve forgotten to simply care for a need when we see it, born out of love for a fellow human. This isn’t just a problem among Christians. Governments, and politically-minded people, do it too. We argue over whether taxes should feed the poor and to what extent, failing to put real faces behind the very people we’re arguing about. The educational system does it, too. Those at the top and those in the trenches fight over what’s best for the students, while large numbers of kids are not getting what they need.

Maybe what we need, instead of more ministries, organizations, and methods, is to simply let ourselves be drawn in when a situation arises. Where will you see someone today who is hurting, sick, naked, or hungry? Let’s make a commitment together that we will be the love that someone needs today.

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