American Idol

Guest post by Jay Deskins, a Disciples of Christ pastor recently relocated to Tucson; a current Bethany Fellow.

It all started when a tyrant king ruled over the colonies of the East coast of North America. The early European Americans were unable to arm themselves in the protection of their land, liberty, and safety. The climax of this control was the Boston Massacre, March 5, 1770. A group of unarmed protestors were shouting down the British soldiers, who were sent to police the colonies, and began to throw stones and snowballs at the soldiers when the soldiers pointed their muskets towards the crowd and killed five of the crowd. Between that event and countless other stories of the oppressive government forcing itself on the homes, lives, and liberty of the civilians, it is no wonder that our country’s founders added the second amendment to the constitution.

However, now in the 21st century, we have similar situations. Unarmed people being shot and killed by a policing force, unwelcome seizures of property, and the rise of tyrants. And yet, what remains? The call to arms.

As a Christian minister, I can’t help myself in seeing that the American gospel of the second amendment is antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Guns have become the golden calf of American society; an idol worshipped, even above the words and promises of our ancient scriptures.

Idols are those objects that we create that become our focus. An idol is that which gives us hope. The golden calf of ancient Israel was created when Moses went up to Mount Sinai for forty days, and when the people feared the worst for him, they created a new god that they believed had liberated from slavery in Egypt. Out of fear, lack of focus, and lack of vision they created the calf.

An idol goes places where we think God will not. There are shouts for our schools to be armed because God is not allowed in schools. When our understanding of God is that of a divine presence that is far off and away, a conclusion can be drawn that we have to invite God to our world. But the fallacy here is that if our God is in all places at all times, then our God is absolutely present in school. Since when do we have the right to deny the presence of God?

In 2018, it is more clear than ever that we have built a new golden calf, and in it we have hope, we have promise. One that liberated us from the throws of the tyrant king, one that gives us great hope that will liberate us once again. One that gives us ultimate protection in the face of evil. One that, when the God of our faith seems absent, and that has been cast out of our public sphere, is always present. One that promises equality for all. But, this, this is not good news for us.

You see, the good news is this: the God of Christian worship is not one that calls for self-protection, rather calls us to give our lives. The God of Christian worship is not one that calls for the armament of God’s people, rather calls us to turn our weapons into tools for work. The God of Christian worship is not one that says an eye for an eye, but rather turn our cheek.

God calls us to build relationship, and we can’t do that when we place an idol between our neighbors, or between us and God.

It is time. Let us as people of faith reject this idol. This isn’t political. This is faith. Where is your faith?

Let us throw our idol in the fire, melt it down, put it in the river, and drink it. All of them.

Some Stories from Appalachia

by Abigail Conley

“They’ve got to come help those poor Appalachian people.” I remember the disdain in my mother’s voice as she said those words. I grew up in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. If you look at a poverty map of the United States, my county would be a lighter shade than those farther south or farther east, deeper into coal mining country. This was the place where coal was brought up on trains, then loaded onto barges to float down the Ohio River to Cincinnati.

As the trucking industry has replaced trains, the area has been bypassed. What were once company houses all along the river are now privately owned, though their outlines remain the same. Some Googling tells me that the population in that area was at its highest in the 1960s. My own thirty years of memory holds manufacturing and railroad jobs leaving, sometimes hundreds at a time, as recently as this year.

In high school, I participated in a leadership initiative funded by local businesses. “Leave,” they said. “Get an education. Then come back here. If our best people keep leaving, nothing here will ever change.” Looking back, I realize they had more vision than I gave them credit for. They saw we needed something. We’d do well to look at those somethings as progressive people, so here’s some perspective from someone who grew up in deep red, rural, white America.

Trust takes time. While Appalachia is a closed culture, this is generally true of rural areas. These aren’t places where someone can spend a few weeks or months, knock on doors, and get stuff done. People who have lived in a place for decades are still seen as outsiders. These are places where relationships reach back generations. There, I introduce myself by whose daughter I am. When I needed traveler’s checks in college, the fees were waived because the woman helping me knew my family. I couldn’t tell you who she was. It didn’t matter. There were generations of trust at play.

Drugs are one of the biggest threats. The stories I could tell you are horrifying. I remember an angry obituary a few years ago. One of the women in my high school class died in her mid-twenties. Her family took out their rage in the obituary, naming the “pill mill industry” and a few other things to blame. It’s true. Pharmacies pop up overnight, then disappear just as quickly. Oxycodone is nicknamed “hillbilly heroin” for a reason. These are places hurting from losing their children to drugs that they don’t understand. These are children turning to drugs because jobs are in short supply.

And yes, they need jobs. You’ve heard before that manufacturing jobs are drying up. That’s not just true in cities. The brickyards and railroads that used to be the good jobs are quickly disappearing in rural areas. My parents would love if I moved back there. I have no idea where I’d get a job if I did. Growing up, I never saw teachers as poor. These were coveted jobs because they meant good, steady paychecks and health insurance. Teaching would keep things afloat when the less steady but better paying jobs weren’t in season. A blue collar worker married to a teacher was common and worked out well financially. In the rest of the country, teaching is seen as underpaid and underappreciated.

Healthcare works differently.  Or at least most people wish it did. I went to the same doctor as my dad had gone to when he was a child. I think that doctor moved there when my dad was around eight years old. He was one of the people who wasn’t from there—and everyone remembered that—but had earned his place in the community. If you were sick, you just went to the office and they’d get you in. His prices were low enough that my parents didn’t even use their health insurance. In fact, later I learned that his prices were lower than an insurance copay. When he retired, the charge for an office visit was around $30. This was within the last ten years. I have no doubt he saw patients who couldn’t pay that much. I remember meeting him at his office in the night as a child, sick, before urgent care existed. At his office, he treated my sister for what was nearly blood poisoning, saving my parents a hospital stay he knew they couldn’t afford.

The first time I sat in another doctor’s office, I was overwhelmed. I’d never filled out paperwork nor seen my parents fill out more than a single sheet of paper. I’d never needed to find my insurance card. I’d never been somewhere that the office staff was unfamiliar. When we talk about health insurance and the Affordable Care Act, we’re already talking about systems that cause difficulties for these people. No one is inclined to sign up for more of it.

Guns really do matter. I don’t own a gun and doubt I ever will. That’s not true of anyone else in my family. Guns are for hunting. People care about how many points were in a buck’s antlers. Killing your first deer is a milestone. Some families rely on a freezer of meat for food. Also, in a place where police may not be able to get to your house within an hour or more, yes, guns are for protection, too. While there are some people who can’t imagine any gun control at all, there are easier conversations around guns for a large portion of this population. These are also the people who see guns as every bit as dangerous as they are, and treat them that way.

Paternalism never works. My mother’s offense that someone from outside would know better is real. We talk about that reality often with marginalized groups, worrying about being white saviors in black and brown communities. We talk about community empowerment, instead, and try to work with communities rather than dropping things we think they need. When we’re talking about white, rural and often poor people, we’re talking about people who are marginalized. They have to drive hours for services. They don’t have access to transportation. They live in old trailers instead of housing projects, but conditions are still bad. I fully acknowledge white privilege. The color of my skin means that no one assumes my childhood was spent living below the poverty line or questions whether I should be in certain rooms. That doesn’t change the reality that many of these people are struggling and existing systems don’t help them.

It’s easier to love some neighbors than others. I get that. Just this week, I officiated at the wedding of two lovely women. They’ve been together four years. They got married because they didn’t trust that next year they’d be able to. They got married because they were worried about one of them being deported. Most of us could tell dozens of stories of those neighbors who are more afraid now than they were a few weeks ago. Some of us could even tell stories of threats against those same neighbors. Still, Jesus says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” As people of faith, we must work as hard to create relationships with the neighbors who offend us, and learn to love them, too. We must learn to see the brokenness they’re experiencing and help heal it, too. Those of us who are most privileged hold the most responsibility for this work; we are the people for whom this work is safe.

It is my deepest prayer that God will help us along the way.

Why Not Be Dreamers?

by Kenneth McIntosh

The latest shooting—at a community college in Oregon—may have done what countless others have failed to do: re-ignite our flame of righteous indignation. Remember the movie Network where Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) gets Americans to shout out their windows “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” ? We should have reached that point when Sandy Hook occurred…and every bloodbath since then. Parents should be in tears that their elementary age children are now used to classroom drills preparing for carnage in their schools. Maybe, just maybe, our nation has reached a tipping point where “there’s nothing we can do” is unacceptable.

But even if we are now heartbroken and enraged, that still begs the question…how best should this issue be engaged? Conservatives claim that more mental health care is needed (but are unwilling to fund that) while liberals advocate gun permit restrictions. Both of those would be useful, and I’d happily vote for both, but I’m skeptical about seeing significant reduction in the slaughter. As long as there are as many lethal weapons as there are people in this country, people willing to kill are likely to have access to the requisite tools for murder. Furthermore, people who lack empathy and are highly aggressive are unlikely to enter the system for mental health care. The problem with killers isn’t being bipolar or having ADHD; the problem is a lack of normal human attachment, and most psychopaths are unnoticed until too late.

Which brings us –surprisingly—to a solution. In a recent article for CNN Doctor Sanjay Gupta writes “The epidemic of gun violence is treatable.” He notes an infectious disease doctor, named Gary Slutkin, who has analyzed homicidal violence by treating it as a spreading illness—and finding a solution in what he calls “interrupters.” Gupta explains, “Interrupters are trained health professionals who act as mediators and go to the epicenter of violent behavior.” As Doctor Slutkin says, “”You’re interrupting the transmission. You’re getting to the places where events are most likely to happen, with the right people who can get there,” said Slutkin. “We’ve demonstrated you can drop violence in neighborhoods, to the point where it would be a very rare event.” To put it in medical terms, these interrupters are a powerful antibiotic, effective in treating a tough infection. In this case, though, the infection is gun violence.”

Reading this article, Jesus’s words flashed into my mind: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” I liked Gupta’s and Slutkin’s ideas, but “interrupters” doesn’t sound very inspiring. “Peacemakers” describes exactly what trained interrupters do—they bring shalom into places of potential violence. It’s unfortunate that “pacifist” and “nonviolence” have so often been used to characterize Christian peace witness. Jesus’s word “peacemakers” is active rather than passive. Peacemakers make a pre-emptive strike for shalom. And it’s not what we’re against (non- violence) it’s about the positive reality we are creating.

We know the Oregon shooter posted his intentions the night before the killing on a social media site—what if there were interrupters on that site, able to intervene? What if schools at all levels hired interrupters to meet and counsel with students who seem withdrawn, lacking in friends? What if (rather than pack heat, as some are recommending) teachers were all trained in skills of increasing empathy between students?

And shouldn’t Jesus’s followers be in the forefront of such a movement? The one we claim to follow has called us to active pursuit of reconciliation. This is what Christians should be known for—this should be our forté!

And as I write this there are words popping into my head from another wisdom teacher. Yes, you may say that I’m a dreamer… but I’m not the only one. What about you? If this dream makes sense to you, why not share it on social media or talk about it with one other person. Who knows? It could become a movement.