TRUTH IS THE FIRST CASUALTY.

by Cara Meredith.

“In war, truth is the first casualty.”

Although Aeschylus first penned these words twenty-five hundred years ago, their veracity remains as accurate today as then. For wherever the battle resides, within anti-government rebel groups overseas, between the cozy walls of suburban living rooms, or in the midst of an established nation still unequivocally divided by issues of race, we must be party to ripping open the wounds of truth no matter the pain.

The unfortunate passing of Michael Brown, an unarmed eighteen-year-old black teenager shot and killed by a white police officer, is both tragic and unnecessary. As Christ-followers, if we find ourselves more concerned with the explanatory details of the death’s validation — calling Brown “unarmed,” claiming that alleged convenience store robbery warrants a body receiving six bullets, or entirely dismissing the events that followed in Ferguson, Missouri purely as “race card” tactics — we miss the point entirely. Because when death has the last word, we are not supposed to defend it. We are instructed to mourn and to weep, to lament and to wail over the brokenness and pain present in our world today.

Because when death has the last word, we are not supposed to defend it. We are instructed to mourn and to weep, to lament and to wail over the brokenness and pain present in our world today.

Saint Paul tells us just this, “mourn with those who mourn, rejoice with those who rejoice”. It is in bearing one another’s heartache that we are moved towards justice and compassion. But if in the midst of suffering and grief we emerge unchanged, clothed not in resurrected newness, then we’ve failed to embrace the Kingdom of God. Instead, we’ve pushed truth to the wayside, sweeping war’s greatest casualty under the rug in an attempt to facilitate a false and obnoxious form of peace. We have done a disservice to the one we claim to follow, to him who is True Peace.

As men and women, as black and white, we must confront and expose the lies that separate and divide us head on. For confrontation must happen if justice is to prevail. What then does healthy inward and outward confrontation look like?

What then does healthy inward and outward confrontation look like?

In their book Divided by Faith, co-authors Michael D. Emerson and Christian Smith exhort that racial reconciliation is God’s imperative, further suggesting a three-step process in moving toward wholeness. They write, “racial division, hostility, and inequality are the result of sin. Christians’ work is to show God’s power by reconciling divided people. For true racial reconciliation, then, believers of different races must ‘admit, submit, and commit’”. Emerson and Smith adopt that phrase, “admit, submit, and commit” from the civil rights activist, author and minister John Perkins, a black man from Mississippi who was arrested and tortured by white police officers in 1970.

Each one of us can join in the battle cry by first admitting that racism exists, we can acknowledge that racism remains not a part of our past, but continues in present-day America and around the world. We can look at the statistics, and we can see that our black brothers and sisters are more likely to “end up economically challenged, planted in jail, or shot dead.” And we can confess that the segregation, the injustice and the lack of regard for human dignity based solely on the color of skin is not right.

Next, we can submit by seeking to forgive and reconcile. In the Old and New Testament, there are fifty-three references to the word “forgive” alone. As followers of The Way, we therefore have a moral imperative and responsibility to forgive, no matter what side of the fence we find ourselves on. Because, writes author and theologian Mirasolf Volf in Exclusion and Embrace, “…the very idea of forgiveness implies an affirmation of justice”, even if forgiveness itself remains not a substitute for justice.

The very idea of forgiveness implies an affirmation of justice.

Regardless of motive, we enter into the act of forgiveness, because by doing so, we promote justice: we ask forgiveness for our own racially-motivated past sins, and for the sins of our fathers and mothers. We practice forgiveness for ignorance and assumptions, and for the lack of racial equality in our cities, states and country. We seek to own our part of the tragedy of racism still present in our nation today, and in that process, reconciliation is birthed. Additionally, to reconcile means “to restore friendly relations between,” or to “cause to coexist in harmony, or to make or show to be compatible.” Did Christ, the Great Reconciler, not come to comfort the brokenhearted and to free prisoners? He came to level the playing field, and he came to set every heart free; he came to bring about justice and reconciliation to all, whether Jew or Gentile. Might we go and do likewise.

Finally, in the three-step process we are directed to commit to building relationships across ethnic lines. This may not be pretty, and it may not be easy, but it will be necessary. Take, for example, the idea of healthy confrontation within the boundaries of a marriage relationship. Dr. John Gottman has studied relational dynamics for years, focusing his area of study on marriage and couples issues; in his book, The Marriage Clinic, Gottman states that regulated couples handle conflict in an open and cooperative manner. They exhibit increased positive emotions and a respect for each other’s opinions. While the racial divide in America cannot be solved as easily as Gottman’s observations might suggest, we can learn the following from him: conflict within relationship is inevitable…but it’s okay.

And so the journey begins: we enter into relationship with another, with someone whose face is a different color from our own, whose socioeconomic status may not match ours. We acknowledge that it will take time to learn to be in relationship with a person who isn’t just like us, but in the midst of simply trying, we learn that he or she is, quite actually, more like us than we initially concluded. We seek to understand more than to be understood, because we realize that letting go of self is a necessary means toward resolution. And as we enter into friendship with another, seeking to be learners of culture and experiences, of stories and values, we submit, one to the other. In an open and cooperative manner, we welcome each other in, with dignity and respect for emotions and opinions, for humanity’s sake.

The truth is this: the death of teenager Michael Brown and the events that followed in Ferguson, Missouri have exposed the racial tension that exists in our country. We can’t continue to brush aside issues of racial inequality, lack of democratic freedom and socioeconomic divisions, but in order for reconciliation to reach its fullness, the sins of the past and of the present have to be uncovered.

The sins of the past and of the present have to be uncovered.

More than ten years before his death, Martin Luther King, Jr., the cornerstone of the Civil Rights Movement, delivered a poignant and striking sermon entitled “When Peace Becomes Obnoxious.” In it, King expounded on the profound words of Jesus who said, “I came not to bring peace but a sword,” in the latter half of Matthew 10. He clarified that Christ’s peace remains not a peace that fails to confront life’s real issues, and that “a sword” does not designate a physical weapon. But instead, the activist preached (of the Son of God),

Whenever I come, a conflict is precipitated between the old and the new, between justice and injustice, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. I come to declare war over injustice. I come to declare war on evil.

Peace, and I imagine King shaking his fists, sweat dripping down the sides of his forehead, his passion evident and exposed, represents the power of the Kingdom of God, because peace is the presence of justice. As we search for the face of the Almighty, let us seek his peace. As we stridently move towards equality for all, let us fight for justice. And like the One who fought for us, may we not lay down our sword until real peace is achieved.