The Perils of an Unfinished Job

God said, "You must drive them out completely” (Exodus 34:11-12, Numbers 33:51-55, Deuteronomy 9:3). But they didn't listen - and neither have we. 

It's always struck me as a harsh criticism. Yet one thing for which God repeatedly (see the Book of Joshua and Book of Judges) takes Israel to task is their failure to completely drive out the original Canaanite inhabitants of the promised land. As if it wasn't enough to invade, conquer, and "mostly" drive them out. As if this wasn't already one of the most disturbing concepts in the Bible. 

The Canaanites were probably similar in appearance to the Hebrews. Their culture would not have felt utterly foreign and they spoke related (Semitic) languages. A number of them even ended up in Jesus' family tree. To be a Canaanite was not so much a matter of race or ethnicity, but of ideology and allegiance. 

This was a culture in which child sacrifice was routine, in which sex slavery was a part of religious worship, in which there was no concept of justice - only the strong dominating the weak. It was a society so thoroughly rotten, so far gone, that it could not be saved. Individuals could flee it, and anyone could join the people of God no matter where they were from - unlike Trump's America, ancient Israel was a nation of open borders in which anyone could join or leave - but Canaan was irredeemable. Thus, the command to finish off that gangrenous society.

But the people of God failed. They tired of fighting, and the enemy seemed contained. They wanted peace and prosperity. So they didn't finish the job. And over time, the vile oppression of Canaanite society seeped into Israel and corrupted their entire nation - from the government, to the temple, to the home. 

We also, in this country, have failed to finish the job. As Theon Hill said in a Christianity Today essay, "The Centuries-Old Habits of the Heart," 

At key moments, Christians have advocated for the abolition of slavery, death of Jim Crow, and the end of mass incarceration, but the commitment to equality has consistently languished over time. Our lack of sustained commitment to biblical justice keeps the soil of racism and white supremacy fertile for the James Fields Jrs and Dylann Roofs of American culture to grow into domestic terrorists. ... We paint a picture of gradual progress on racial fronts since the Emancipation Proclamation but fail to acknowledge that the Compromise of 1877 injected new life in white supremacy, giving racists an unparalleled opportunity to execute violence against people of color for decades.

White Christians repeatedly walked off the job before it was done. And just like a patient who fails to finish their course of prescribed antibiotics, each time the pathogen of racism mutated into a new form and returned virulently. That's why we are in the situation that we are in today: generation after generation, we failed to complete the task before us.

As a Christian who happens to be a white American, I own this. None of my ancestors (or my wife's) ever even lived in a slave state, but we inherited this unfinished job.

After years of dealing with a recurring sin in my life, I went to see a Christian counselor. I told him, "I thought this would just get better with time. But instead of going away, it's getting worse! That's why I'm here."

His response? "Of course it got worse. That's what sin does. We're never stagnant, we're always moving in some direction."

We thought racism would just get better on its own. But instead, in reaction to a rapidly diversifying country, it is getting worse. I used to take refuge in demographic statistics, reassuring myself that in 20 years this nation will look more like my children and less like me. Now I realize that was naive. Because the response of racist people to growing diversity is not gradual acceptance, but rage.

I genuinely hope that this generation will finish the job and completely drive out white supremacy. May we dispense with the nostalgia and the national mythologizing and the self-justification, give no quarter to evil, and kill the dragon of racism - once and for all. 

Pro-Life Quiz

 A multiple-choice test, for those who are pro-life:

A woman comes to the pregnancy counseling center where you are volunteering. She is Mexican, her visa expired last year, her boyfriend abandoned her, and she is 7 months pregnant. What do you do?

A) Advise her to have an abortion, to prevent the birth of an "anchor baby."

B) Report her to immigration and hope she is deported before giving birth. Surely she and her baby will be fine on the streets of Juarez or Tijuana.

C) Help her through the pregnancy, pretending to care for her and her baby's well-being, then arrange for her to be arrested as she leaves the hospital with her newborn infant. Unfortunately, her child cannot be deported, so they are both held indefinitely in a prison-like detention facility.

D) Help her to choose life, and continue to help her and her baby after birth.

Temperature and Pressure

The signs of a coming persecution of Christians in North America are growing more ominous.  Not necessarily of the kind that Islam has inflicted upon Christians for 1400 years, or even the kind that Atheism perpetrated from the French Revolution through the Soviet era and into North Korea today, but persecution nonetheless. Presently we merely face opposition. Many indicators point to something worse.

I believe this for three reasons. First, as a charismatic – i.e. someone who believes that God has not changed since the Bible was written – I must take it seriously when multiple proven spiritual leaders  report a similar word from God, and with similar reluctance. Second, it is apparent from the debates over same-sex marriage and private funding of abortion-inducing drugs – to name just two examples – that our culture is becoming increasingly intolerant of those who practice their faith outside of Sunday (or Saturday) morning. Our current President has repeatedly emphasized that he believes, not in freedom of religion, but "freedom of worship." If truth is the first casualty of a shooting war, religious freedom is the first casualty of the culture wars. Third, recent research by sociologist George Yancey has revealed that many White, wealthy, well-educated Americans harbor extreme hatred towards Christians.

But if history is contingent, then persecution is not inevitable. And if God is sovereign, persecution has a purpose. One positive side effect of persecution everywhere in the world is increased unity in the Body of Christ.

The fights for the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage have drawn evangelicals and Catholics together in America, in a way few imagined beforehand. A document like ECT would never have been crafted in the days when Christianity held an esteemed position of cultural superiority. And only when the cultural Left began to strike back, did an even broader coalition issue The Manhattan Declaration.

But the Reformation is not the biggest divide that we face, at least not in this country. Theological controversies did not nearly tear this nation in half at a cost of over 600,000 lives.

We Americans have short memories. We forget that Dr. King was assassinated less than 50 years ago, that 40 years ago it was still permissible to refuse a job or mortgage to a black person, that 15 years ago dating a person of another race would get you expelled from Bob Jones University.

It took the events of the last 6 months to remind us that we are still reaping the bitter harvest from 400 years of racial injustice. A quick glance at our criminal justice system and the gross disparities in sentencing prove that the past isn't past. Or, if you prefer something more visual, a quick glance at this map.

It's often said that Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week. It's a damning indictment of the church in America. But to focus on fixing this, is to mistake treating a symptom – one that is ugly but not inherently harmful – for curing the disease.

The African-American church is a truly original cultural expression of Christianity, a fusion of American evangelicalism and African cultural values in the crucible of slavery and discrimination. It has sustained an entire segment of American society through darker days than most of us can imagine, and it gave birth to Gospel Music and the Civil Rights movement. It has enabled millions of American Christians to live and even thrive as a persecuted minority – something most of us do not know how to do.

As an Anglican, I also worship in a church that is very distinctive and guards its own traditions. If most White people find my church strange, despite having no significant traditions of their own to leave behind, why would my Black brothers and sisters abandon their churches en masse to come to mine? And as much as I love the music that wafts from the Baptist church across from my house, I won't leave the church that embraced my family and rescued our faith.

The racial wounds of our nation, which mar the Body of Christ, will only begin to heal when white Christians step out of their comfort zones and stand up for their African-American brothers and sisters. Fellowship is good, but unity results when we stick our necks out for our spiritual family. We need to be outraged over the injustices that they experience – over a 17-year-old shot to death by a vigilante for walking down the sidewalk wearing a hooded sweatshirt, or a father of 6 choked to death for selling cigarettes on the street corner, or a 12-year-old gunned down with no warning while holding a toy gun – so  outraged that we can't keep silent, that we are compelled to act as if it were happening to "our own" children. Because in the truest sense, it is.

We need to be equally outraged when Hispanic families are torn apart in order to uphold arbitrary, selectively-enforced and ill-motivated immigration laws, or when Hispanic immigrants are treated as an invading threat instead of people coming to America for a better life (as our own ancestors did).

The recent statements from evangelical leaders, in wake of Eric Garner's death and the non-indictment of the officers involved, are an encouraging step in the right direction. As are the efforts of the Evangelical Immigration Table. But these are only the  beginning. We have much further to go, and if we shrink back then God will force us onward no matter what it takes.

As a chemical engineer, I know that when two things don't want to combine, I have two options. I can give them something in common to unite them, such as soap which has the chemical characteristics of both oil and water. But if that doesn't work, I can always increase the temperature and pressure until even the most intransigent molecules are forced to unite.

If we don't take the initiative to unite with our African-American (and Latino and Asian) brothers and sisters, God will turn up the heat of persecution and apply the pressure of hostile opposition until the broken Body of His Son is fused into one.

Where The Sidewalk Ends

I love the mountains, while The Lady longs for the ocean. She was raised around Jews and Italians, me around Kansas farmers. I hate hot weather, she hates cold weather, and we both hate being stuck in traffic. We're both frugal conservatives who can't stand corruption and government waste . Our children are black (closer to brown, actually) and we love diversity.

Therefore, we chose to live in the western suburbs of Chicago, so that we could both be equally miserable.

For many people, buying a home involves a long search process. We looked at precisely 1 house and signed a contract within two weeks. About two months later, back in India, we awoke to the news that we were the owners of a 105-year-old home in Wheaton.

It was a counterintuitive choice. What could be more stereotypical than evangelical Christians moving to Wheaton? (My best friend's wife mockingly asked us if, "God told you to move to Wheaton," which is funny because I don't think God told them to move to the northern suburbs of Cincinnati). Four years before, The Lady had considered moving to Istanbul to help plant a church; we now owned a home in a community with somewhere close to a hundred churches. But refugees were increasingly settling in the area, we were familiar with the home and the sellers as The Lady had been their nanny, the location was amazing, and it made sense financially (given that we could rent out most of the house while traveling). We were married there and it was the only place that felt like home: a concept more foreign to us than cows wandering city streets, but for which we longed more than hamburger.

Upon finally settling into our home over a year later, our next door neighbor Bill asked The Lady, "Do you know why the sidewalk ends at your house?" We had never noticed that it did. Bill, who once served as the Chief Detective of our county and has lived in the neighborhood for decades, carries an air of gravitas born of a life marked by struggle and consistent perseverance. Any African-American man his age has seen more prejudice than most of us can imagine, but he rose above it all and carries not a tinge of bitterness. It's good that we have a black President, but I want my children to look up to Bill.

He went to on explain that our neighborhood was once the only place where non-whites could live in Wheaton. The city saw no point in putting in sidewalks - who would want to walk there? Besides, the neglected drainage system tended to flood the streets.

I confess to being shocked. Probably I am naive. But Wheaton was founded by abolitionists, and Wheaton College produced Illinois' first black college graduate. Apparently, at some point the radical faith of its founders was subsumed by standard suburban attitudes. Perhaps the fire simply dimmed, or perhaps the city's leaders ended up rejecting the social implications of the gospel during the fundamentalist-modernist battles of the 1920s. Regardless, it was not until after the Civil Rights Act of 1968 that the color line ringing our neighborhood was abolished. That line ran right past our property.

I also confess to being proud. We were not yet a multiracial family, but I was glad to know that our home was on inside of this nicer suburban version of a ghetto. It was like buying a share in someone else's rich history. And we felt more comfortable surrounded by those who had always been outsiders, than those who grew up with country club memberships. It also seemed fitting that we were on the border of two worlds, which in some way or another is how we've lived most of our lives as believers.

A year and a half later, as we prepared to adopt our African-American son, we realized it was truly providential that our home was across from the only African-American church in a community that is 84% white.

Sometimes The Lady dreams of buying a second home on Long Island where she was raised. But aside from practical considerations, such as the fact that we can't even afford to put a new lamp in our dining room, and that a pet penguin would be easier to maintain, it's not clear how much time we could even spend there and it's far from the mountains.

Sometimes I wonder if it would be smarter to move to Houston, where as a chemical engineer I could get 10 high-paying job offers within a week, and we could buy a Texas-sized brick house in a diverse neighborhood. We wouldn't even have to pay state income taxes. But The Lady would suffer traumatic culture shock, and apart from her resistance there is more to the good life than money.

If we ever left, I would miss the city of Chicago. I would miss our church even more, which has embraced us and changed us and through which we have encountered God. I would miss the friends who have witnessed our journey and stood by us in our darkest days. I would miss our home, packed full as a U-Haul with memories. But perhaps most of all, I would miss a small square of dirt in our backyard.

It was there, in a barren patch that had once been a garden, that we figuratively buried the 4 children we lost in the womb. If you acknowledge the biological fact that life begins at conception, then the appropriate way to deal with such loss is to hold a funeral. It was a short ceremony with no one else present, but on that day our open wound began to heal and our own insignificant patch of this planet became sacred.

One of our favorite songs is "My Father's Gun" by Elton John, featured on the Elizabethtown soundtrack. It's a strange choice because neither we nor our fathers own guns. And it's almost hilarious to hear a New Yorker singing along with lines such as, "It wouldn't do to bury him / Where any Yankee stands." (Same for a Kansan - we fought for the Union, thank you very much). But it resonates with something deep in our souls: that we have a legacy to carry, and that there is a place where we belong and thus other places - whatever their virtues - simply aren't home.

For us, that's here in Wheaton... where the sidewalk ends.

Losing the Races

With the 113th Congress now in session, and Barack Obama preparing to take the oath of office a second time, the post-election analysis and explanation of the Republican Party's 2012 setbacks continue. The conventional wisdom is that the GOP is too conservative on social issues - such as abortion, marriage, and the rights of religious institutions - to win broadly. This is a gross misrepresentation of the data.

Remember all those speeches Mitt Romney gave about the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage, and the importance of religious freedom? Neither do I.

Mitt Romney did better than any recent Republican candidate among affluent white moderates. He actually won a majority of the white vote in both California and New York! (FYI, neither state is known for their social conservatism). He lost because he lost Asians and Hispanics, who gave in 2004 gave George W. Bush an estimated 43% and 44% of their votes, respectively. Similarly, Romney lost my home county of DuPage (IL) - traditionally a Republican stronghold - because, according to the 2010 census, it is now only 69% white. He would have had to win 70% of the white vote to carry the county. 

On the other hand, as is apparent from the actual number of votes cast by different groups, Romney lost Ohio entirely because working-class whites simply didn't vote: they don't like Obama, but after being saturated in anti-Bain advertising they didn't trust Romney either.

As for the Senate... Everybody knew Todd Akin was pro-life, and yet he was still expected to win handily over Claire McCaskill - until his infamous "legitimate rape" comment. Richard Mourdock's comments were actually far more nuanced, but coming in the wake of Akin's mega-gaffe they sounded too similar. Lost in all the furor was the fact that Democrat Joe Donelly, who defeated Mourdock in the Indiana Senate race, is also pro-life. Similarly, Scott Brown lost the Senate seat in Massachusetts to Elizabeth Warren despite being pro-choice. Losing Ilinois Rep. Joe Walsh had only recently become pro-life, is one of the most loud-mouthed and least likable people in politics, and was running in a redrawn district against a war hero in a wheelchair.

As famed political scientist Larry Sabato noted, the 2012 election most resembled 2004. In terms of education, gender, age, and income, all the trends were unchanged from 8 years before; only the actual numbers were slightly shifted toward the Democrats. The one big change: Republicans total loss of minorities.

Does anyone really believe that embracing abortion and same-sex marriage will win over Latinos and Asians? And for every female voter such positions woo from the Democrats, they will turn off at least two women who already vote Republican. Despite the supposed "war on women," Romney won the votes of 56% of married women - it's single women whom he lost, and they are probably a lost cause for the GOP anyway.

The bottom line is that the GOP lost because they ran a candidate (backed by an immigration-hostile platform) who utterly failed to appeal to anyone other than non-Hispanic Whites (and possibly Cubans). From his privileged childhood, to his education, to his religion, career, and present home, Mitt Romney has spent his entire life around those who are white and mostly upper-class. He was clearly uncomfortable in any other setting. Bush, despite his privileged background, was at home with ordinary Americans. He surrounded himself with advisers such as Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, and assembled what is still the most ethnically-diverse cabinet in history. With the exception of his infamous binders, no one could imagine a Romney cabinet filled with anything other than white men.

Republicans: stop listening to the advice of those who won't support you anyway, and look at the data. Stand for life and marriage - and for the dignity of all Americans, including the unborn, the unemployed, immigrants (regardless of how they got here), minorities and those trapped in dysfunctional neighborhoods. In Illinois, forget Lake Forest - you need someone who can win in Aurora. Let the Democrats have the rich white liberals. Win non-white social conservatives - particularly Hispanics - and you win the future. Ignore them, and your party fades into history.