Anger at Injustice

I'm trying to learn more about injustice. Perhaps a lot of you are too in the wake of continued incidences of hate crimes, confusing events involving police and people of color or other 'otherness'. I've been listening to "Pass the Mic", an excellent podcast from two men who speak on justice and Christian faith...also "Truth's Table" whose podcast episode following the Officer Yanez and Philando Castile verdict was heartbreaking. Both podcasts suggest that followers of Christ should be lamenting when injustice occurs. Anna Marie Cox and Jon Ward had a soul-searching conversation on "With Friends Like These."

Since a trip to Haiti a few years ago where I helped coach some micro-businesses, I've been wondering how the church institution and its members promote injustice--intentionally and unintentionally--as it did when slavery was prevalent for hundreds of years in North America. In what ways are we promoting a new kind of abasement for people made in God's image? Even with court decisions like Brown v Board of Education, we as a society have promoted that African-American children are somehow inferior, that African-American teachers are somehow inferior. (Check out Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast on the topic.)

Recently at our church a pastor preached on James 1.20--"Human anger does not produce the righteousness (justice) that God desires." As I contemplated this verse, I remembered the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. James goes on to say we need to humbly "accept" the Word of God. Through James, God is saying do not fight back with anger, uncontrolled language. Instead fight back by taking care of widows and orphans who have put into that status perhaps by oppression. James warns against favoritism and that it is our own desires that tempt us to overlook our own sins and fight others who are in the wrong. Later he writes that it is those same desires--pride and greed primarily--that cause fights, quarrels, shortchanging workers' wages, hoarding our 'treasure' and relying on that same treasure to give us status, security and power. Treasure has become our god and we are double-minded and not fully listening to God.

He is writing to people under persecution and oppression, facing injustice themselves. Is James advocating 'rolling over and submitting' to the oppressors? I believe God is saying that we should be taking care of people hurt through the governmental and social systems that generate injustice and oppression (i.e keeping people from getting ahead socio-economically). I believe the scripture is also saying we should be taking action to help change those systems--not for our own desires and betterment--but for our brothers and sisters who are struggling. The action is not to confront in anger but to work in acceptance and help change the paradigms. You cannot change what you do not accept to be true. If you live in denial, it won't change. If you confront in anger, it won't change; those supporting a particular position just become defensive and resistant. Don't get stuck in depression; if you really believe God is with you, you can count it all joy when you face trials (James 1.2). And in the same way that I counsel CEO's to make a change if they want their organizations to change, we sometimes have to initiate change in ourselves and our behaviors in order to create change. And that may require a sacrifice to not participate in a profitable/uplifting experience anymore (such is the recommendation to protesters at Princeton University over the use of Woodrow Wilson's name).

I protested a policy I considered bad a few times in my life and career. My protest ended in resignation from positions that were beneficial because I could not condone the policies. Did they change after I resigned? No. But I was no longer part of an oppressive, injust system.

Isolated Pastors?

This is a follow-up to an earlier post about the isolation of leaders and some of the reasons for it. I did a quick survey of pastors. The response was low and probably not very broad in terms of geography, denominations, etc. But here are the results...…there’s good news and bad news.

Dr. Henry Cloud found that 80% of leaders don’t have someone they can confide in, don’t have someone totally committed to their development and struggle with clinical symptoms of anxiety/stress, depression, sleeplessness, inability to concentrate, addictions, etc.

In my sample, pastors are significantly more connected and have someone or a group with whom they can be 100% honest and vulnerable about weaknesses, failures, doubts, etc. More than half strongly agree that they have someone they can confide in. Only a third said they didn’t. This is a statistically significant difference from Dr. Cloud’s results. The actual proportion of isolated pastors, if we surveyed all of them, could be really low (3 out of 100) or close to two-thirds. (The only way to narrow this prediction is to have more respondents to the survey.) It is appears at least in this limited circle of pastors, that the level of isolation is not as high as Dr. Cloud’s group.

However, there wasn’t a significant difference in the survey group on the question of support and mentoring. More than half of the pastors said they didn’t have someone or a group that was totally committed to their development as a leader. With a larger surveyed pool, we might the proportion to be as low as 25% or as high as nearly 9 in 10 pastors don’t have someone in their corner to help.

In the last year, this set of pastors are just like other leaders in that they’ve experienced burnout, loss of energy, difficulty with motivation, concentration/focus loss, anxiety/stress, depression, addiction to damaging behaviors, sleeplessness, etc. More than two-thirds reported some experience of these issues. Almost a quarter of them reported it on a monthly basis. Another quarter reported they’ve suffered on a quarterly basis. (As a business owner, I know sleeplessness was my bugaboo when things weren’t going well.)

Though pastors seem to be connected and can share their struggles, they don’t seem to have a place to turn for help. As Dr. Cloud writes in The Power of the Other, “…the leaders who accomplish the most, thrive the most, overcome the most are not afraid to say they need help.” (author’s emphasis).  

We need to help pastors overcome the inability to ask for help to grow as a leader and deal with the church issues that “drive them to drink” and “keep them up at night” (euphemistically and literally). It’s helpful to tell others their struggles but to overcome the isolation, they need to have a partner to get them through the tough times.