Though I have long been familiar with the story of Emmett Till and his murder, I am once again deeply moved in revisiting it this morning. Thanks to my dear friend Stephanie Ahn Mathis for sharing this video with me. It is to our shame if we put this story out in the recycling with the rest of our "no longer usable" refuse.
The real travesty in the Emmett Till case (and so many like it) is not that a boy was murdered, but that people of otherwise unquestionable faith did not speak out in horror at the way that child was treated even before a hand was laid on him by “good” Christian people. So they condemn their own faith and profane the name of their sacred Master by their silence. And by their unwillingness to acknowledge what a sin called racism has done to the cause of Christ and his Great Commission over the past half century since Emmett Till’s murder the year I was born.
What stresses me most is the attitude of Christians for whom their faith apparently had nothing to say in contradiction to those attitudes - and in this what was considered the heart of a Christian nation. It is Christians and their church, particularly the American, white and evangelical church we are talking about. Yet for all the changes in this truly great nation, white evangelical Christians have said little of their role in this story and many others like it. The whole Jim Crow era, the whole aversion and violent opposition to the Civil Rights movement, not to speak of the antebellum age, could not have happened without the entrenched involvement of Christians and the American church.
People today say all this is in the past (meaning “drop it!”), but the only way to put it in the past ("under the blood," theologically speaking) is to repent of it. And where, tell me, is evidence of that repentance? Ignoring and forgetting are not signs of repentance, at least not in the evangelical churches with which I am familiar. Nor can we say that others (meaning non-believers or at least non-evangelicals) are guilty of the same. Since when do we stand before our Judge and point a finger at others as our alibi? In fact, the Book we claim to follow says judgment begins at the house of faith.
What stresses me most is the attitude of Christians for whom their faith apparently had nothing to say in contradiction to those attitudes - and in this what was considered the heart of a Christian nation. It is Christians and their church, particularly the American, white and evangelical church we are talking about. Yet for all the changes in this truly great nation, white evangelical Christians have said little of their role in this story and many others like it. The whole Jim Crow era, the whole aversion and violent opposition to the Civil Rights movement, not to speak of the antebellum age, could not have happened without the entrenched involvement of Christians and the American church.
People today say all this is in the past (meaning “drop it!”), but the only way to put it in the past ("under the blood," theologically speaking) is to repent of it. And where, tell me, is evidence of that repentance? Ignoring and forgetting are not signs of repentance, at least not in the evangelical churches with which I am familiar. Nor can we say that others (meaning non-believers or at least non-evangelicals) are guilty of the same. Since when do we stand before our Judge and point a finger at others as our alibi? In fact, the Book we claim to follow says judgment begins at the house of faith.
I truly thank God for the fact that in large part (if not entirely), we as a so-called Christian nation have left the old ways. But if I slap you hard on the face and then stop slapping you, is that enough of a “sorry” in your book? I sincerely doubt it – and I have no intention of actually testing my theory, because I know it will not be enough. So, just the fact that this travesty of justice might not (emphasis on “might not”) be possible in our contemporary America is not sufficient evidence of repentance accomplished.
Moreover, where is our shame that the voices calling us to repentance have mostly had to come from outside of the white evangelical community? Some will respond with evidence of a johnny-come-lately and seemingly token repentance. Sincere may be those handfuls of examples, and I in no way question their sincerity, but are we not also to apologize for such tardy and minimalist responses to such grave sins? And are we not to acknowledge that these few cases can in no way speak for the vast remainder who have yet to repent? For representative repentance, biblically appropriate as it is, does not make up for lack thereof otherwise.
Moreover, where is our shame that the voices calling us to repentance have mostly had to come from outside of the white evangelical community? Some will respond with evidence of a johnny-come-lately and seemingly token repentance. Sincere may be those handfuls of examples, and I in no way question their sincerity, but are we not also to apologize for such tardy and minimalist responses to such grave sins? And are we not to acknowledge that these few cases can in no way speak for the vast remainder who have yet to repent? For representative repentance, biblically appropriate as it is, does not make up for lack thereof otherwise.
There is much, much more that can and should be repented of, the murder of unborn innocents being the ever-present example. But in our lack of repentance (and I use the word “our,” for I do not excuse myself from my own community of faith), there is to be found the seeds of our own present undoings. If we wail at the world we now find ourselves in, it is only we who brought it about that are to blame. If America is losing its “Christianness” as so many believers protest, it was only ours to lose, for the threat to our own private Christendom was not from without in the lands of Communism and Islam or whatever terror du jour we might conjure up, but only in ourselves when we fail to heed our own Master’s words to love our neighbors as ourselves.
That threat to our faith was not and has never been someone or something else, but has always been when we refuse to turn to God and repent of our ways. There are other sins worthy of repentance, to be sure. Yet racism, whether directed toward African-Americans or Native Americans or Asian-Americans or – and the list goes wearily on – yes, racism tops the list of unrepented tasks when it comes to the American church.
We do not yet understand how much this beam in our own eye has affected our vision of the present, how much it distorts our politics, our polity and our prayers. For to have unresolved issues with our brothers and sisters at the altar is to make that altar of no effect in all the other realms of life.
And so I look at this video of Emmitt Till and weep, not for Emmitt or his mother long gone on to their rewards. No, I weep for those of us who remain, not merely in the land of the living, but also in the land of the unrepentant, people who have no discernment of their right hand from their left and so who continue to wander in darkness, the morally blind following the morally blind.
I give thanks to God that some liberals and pagans in our far-off nation’s capital, or so it is said, had the foresight to condemn us to a Black History month in perpetuity if for no other reason than to keep the finger of God pointed at us for our hardened hearts, until at the least we shall repent and discover Martin Luther King’s vision of being free at last. Until the hour we realize that today’s challenges are attached to the roots of yesterday’s buried, unresolved sins.
The series "Victims, Lawsuits and Justice" will return next month.
